Seeing your progress will keep you going!
Transcript
This is episode 13 of the Art Fit Podcast. Hello, I’m Anna Battle, Shiny Happy Artist and your host of the Art Fit Podcast. Now, just as physical fitness is good for your body, Art Fitness is good for your mind. And you don’t need to be an Olympics level professional artist to benefit from Art Fitness. But what is the point? How do you actually do it? How do you fit it all in? Well, I’m on a mission to help you get Art Fit.
This podcast is brought to you by my Shiny Happy Art Club. I send you a brand new high quality guided Paint Along each month, in acrylic and watercolour, as part of a lovely group of art friends from around the world. So, you can become a Shiny Happy Artist and get Art Fit.
Lucky 13. Here we are. Episode 13 of this series in the Art Fit Podcast. Thank you so much for joining me. Now, it’s a pretty little important, pretty little important. It’s a pretty important tip that I want to share with you, today. And that is, it’s a simple one, always date your sketchbook pages. I cannot overestimate how important this is, I think, because this is the way you’ll see your improvement, you can gauge your improvement, as you’re learning more about art and making more art, and doing more drawings, whether it’s 3 times a week or 3 times a day, it really doesn’t matter because if you’re dating it, you’ll be able to see the progress.
I don’t know if you remember, as a kid, if your parents or family members measured you against a wall, we always sort of planned to do it, I don’t know that we did it very often but I had some rallies who did it really beautifully. And you know, you line up against the wall and the child gets measured. And then they can come back tomorrow and they’re still the same size, okay? So you’re not seeing any growth there. That’s the same thing as in your sketchbook. So, you can do a drawing today, and a drawing tomorrow. And there might not be a huge improvement. It’s the same with exercise. You might be able to do 10 sit-ups today, and only 11 tomorrow. But still, there’s not a huge gap there. But if you do keep up the practice and that fitness journey, give it a month and you’ll definitely see an improvement; and that’s exactly what happens with your art as well. But if you don’t date your pages, you are not able to see your progress as clearly. And it is so rewarding, seeing your progress.
Now, I’m not great at filling my sketchbooks chronologically. And part of that is because I have a number of sketchbooks on the go, because I use different sizes for different activities. So, if I’m out and about, I’ll just have a smaller sketchbook with me. But if I want to sketch at home or I’m going to a coffee shop or a beach or something, and I know I will take the time to do a bigger picture, I’ll take a bigger sketchbook. So, I do chop and change between them. And I’m also used to be quite scared of that front page, so I’d sort of leave it and start in the middle of the book. These days, I’m not quite as scared. I recommend that you either write your “why?” on the front page, or sketch your art supplies; that is my way of sort of breaking the ice on a new sketchbook; it’s figuring what art supplies you’re using today, and that’s a really good subject to get you started.
But it’s really important to date your sketchbook, so that you can see the improvement. And it also works as a bit of a journal because when you look at a painting or a sketch of an event, there is so much more memory tied up in there, than just the pigment on the page. I can look back at sketches from years ago. And look, my memory isn’t great in so many other things, but I can look back at a sketch that I did, when I was having coffee with girlfriends, perhaps years and years ago. So, say, 7 years ago, when I was not painting regularly, but I did know, and I wasn’t sketching regularly but I did know that I needed to date the pages. And when you look at that sketch, and certainly when I look at that sketch, I can remember the music that was playing, the subjects we spoke about, the weather that was, sort of the feeling of the day. There are so many extra memories tied up in that drawing. So, please, please, please, date your drawings. It’s also a great opportunity, just to take a quick photo on your phone because then they pop up as memories; and you not only get to enjoy the memory as a photo, but you get to enjoy the memory as a drawing. And I love when those memories pop up, and you can remember all those other things that happened and you can see the progress. So, if that’s what you were drawing, like 3 years ago, and you can compare it with what you’re drawing, like now, your Art Fitness journey is well on its way, if you’ve been drawing everyday-ish, from those early days and you have a record there, of how you have improved.
I have seen my style develop, probably. Most of all, I’ve sort of decided, how I like to draw. More than other ways, I know that I like drawing watercolour first, and then pencil on top. Whereas, in my earlier sketchbooks, I had felt pens and different pencils and paint, you know, I did acrylic in my sketchbooks as well. and look, I still do that from time to time, but it really was very experimental in the early days, and I love going back and seeing those extra experiments because they’ve led me to where I am today. So, do get experimental in your sketchbooks but mark that date on, so that you too can see your progress; just like a child up against the wall, as they’re growing, you’ll see the difference eventually. And with your physical fitness, hard to see the results between one day and the next, but easier to see when you’ve had a bit of time elapsed, and you can really enjoy the difference. Okay. So on that note, remember, with you getting Art Fit, document it, put the dates on your sketchbook pages. And if you haven’t done that already, maybe go back and put some approximate dates; that will do the job too. It close enough is good enough, when you have to be. But other than that, date them from now on. I think that’s a fantastic way of managing your Art Fitness.
So, you want to get Art Fit? We’ll find out when the doors to the Shiny Happy Art Club open next. There are 24 online Paint Alongs to choose from when you join, so you’ll definitely find something you love. And now, there are also $15 and $25 subscription options. So, go to www.shinyhappyart.com to pop your name on the waiting list. I look forward to painting with you in the Shiny Happy Art Club. And until then, I’ll be back in your ears with the next episode of the Art Fit Podcast.
