Have you ever felt like you lack ideas or creativity when it comes to your art? Would you like to develop your signature style, but somehow you always feel like you lack skill or coherence?
There's one solution that will work wonders for you:
daily art journaling practice
Back in 2011, when I was starting my daily art journaling practice, I knew that it was going to be extremely beneficial for developing my skills and learning about painting, composition, colour and techniques. It's true, after years of consistency, these things come naturally and intuitively to me now.
But there's one thing I didn't expect. I didn't realise that daily art journaling practice will also teach me something about life.
Here are the 3 most important things that daily art journaling taught me:
1. True happiness is hidden in appreciating the details. Art journaling practice is my source of hundreds of little joys daily. The feeling of silky paint when I spread it with my fingertips. The smoothness of a creamy acrylic underneath my palette knife. The sound the ink makes when it drips down the page. The excitement and surprise of an image transfer result. The smell of old book pages and the butteriness of oil pastels.
Art journaling taught me that if I'm more attentive and mindful, my daily life is full of tiny hidden pleasures. All I need is to slow down, switch the distractions off and pay attention. This can make every moment special, this can make my happiness a daily experience rather than an unreachable goal.
2. There's a way out of every situation. I love art journaling for how forgiving it is. It's all about the process so there's no space for worrying about the result. And so when a "mistake" happens, when colours start turning muddy or the layering hasn't gone as I expected, I don't try to fix it. Instead I look for the next step. I acknowledge what happened without judging, without labeling it as "good" or "bad" and then I accept it. I respond and see where it takes me. This feels much better and makes me happier than a constant struggle to mend, fix and push things so they go the way I planned.
3. Taking action is the key. We often spend hours on dreaming, planning, making resolutions, talking and thinking about the things we could be or could have "as soon as... we get a new house/we buy a new set of paints/the sunshine comes out/we learn how to do something" and so on...
The thing is we don't have to wait to start taking action. Even if all you can do is a small first step, this already counts far more than gathering neverending images on Pinterest. If I wouldn't do my daily art journaling I would never develop any techniques for my online courses. All it takes is a few minutes at my desk, daily, without expectations, without judgment and that's when the magic starts to happen. You don't need to wait until 1st of January or the first day of the month, to start taking action. Start before you’re ready and let it take you on a journey.
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