SOLO Daily Practice FIN UPDATED
===
[00:00:00] Marijanel: Welcome. Welcome to today's episode of the Bold Artist Podcast. I'm your host, Marijanel, and I'm thrilled to be here with you today on a solo show where I'm going to give you a challenge for your art practice. We know the importance of how daily practice impacts us as artists. We know the importance, we, we know it with our minds, but sometimes we don't put our hands to the skill to practice.
So today I'm here to challenge you with ways that you can practice in your sketchbook. I want you to stick around to the end of the video because I know I'm going to motivate you and challenge you to get inspired in your sketchbook to become a better artist.
So first things first. Let's just take a minute and remember what we've talked about in past episodes where we've learned the importance of how daily practice creates the foundation for us to become better artists. Whatever medium we're putting our hands to, we need to have small, incremental ways of practicing, not only the skills, so not only learning all the visual arts elements and principles of design and not, not only learning those skills, but we need to open our imaginations on a daily basis. This is a huge part of what our practice is all about, is getting our minds to unlock and thinking of possibilities. I believe this is one of the most crucial steps to becoming an artist that really knows your own identity and style, because it's your imagination that's gonna come through your art and create something that's different than everyone else's.
And we can't do that if we aren't doing daily practice that includes our imagination. So my challenge to you today is also to get your mind engaged in the daily practice. And so let's get to it.
What are my challenges for you? First, you're gonna need your sketchbook and your pencil. You don't need a lot of other supplies. Mm, maybe an eraser. Okay, we'll give you that. So sketchbook, pencil, eraser, and I'm gonna challenge you to take what I have here in this podcast and use it over the next week or so. Try not to procrastinate. Don't put it off. Just say, okay, Marijanel, I'm in for the challenge. I want you to dedicate time every day to your sketchbook, to your daily practice.
Even if you're immersed in a huge project, maybe you're making a body of work, maybe you're even opening a gallery, or maybe you're just taking some Bold School classes, which you should be if you're not already. And maybe you're in the middle of something, and you're saying, oh, this is nice to hear. Thanks for coming on here and challenging me.
And I wanna say, no, I really want you to take the challenge and do it. And so it takes some time, every day, even if it's 15 minutes, put your mind in the, in the frame that you are going to set aside this time to practice and take this challenge. So set aside the time, have the tools handy.
And the first thing to do is set a time limit. So that's challenge number one is have a time limit. Ask yourself what can you spare every day to some skill building in your sketchbook and imagination exercises. Okay, so set a time limit and stick to it. If you give yourself 10 minutes a day, I want you to keep 10 minutes a day for a week. That's part of the challenge. If you, if you give yourself 30 minutes a day, keep it.
So maybe don't set your expectation too high. Give yourself something really, you know, a simple starter here. So let's just say you've chosen 10 minutes a day. I want you to keep it, and that's part of the challenge is just to stick to it.
Even if you draw a blank, and you sit down for your 10 minutes and you, you don't produce anything, that's okay. Part of creating a habit is showing up for it. Showing up for the habit. So, Challenge number one, set a time limit, and stick to it for a week where you just, even if you, all you have to do is sit there and be in the mindset that you are going to sketch.
So, here we go. I don't want you to draw blanks. I want you to work from some prompts. So I'm gonna provide some prompts for you below. Just hit the description box or the show notes to see some prompts that will help you with this challenge, and these are prompts that --you don't have to use mine. You can find them anywhere on the internet. You can look for them in prompt books. They're all over the place. They're easy to find, but you wanna work with prompts that inspire you and get you doing something different than you would normally do.
Prompts such as: draw your favorite childhood memory, or sketch your breakfast. How random is that? So these random prompts will inspire your creativity and encourage you to get out of your norm, out of the box. So, prompts are my second challenge to you.
My third challenge is to look around and draw from life. Okay, so in your 10 minutes a day that you're gonna set aside for a week, look around and draw something from your life. If you don't wanna use my prompts, you can use the prompts, you can look for your own or just simply draw from life.
But, really what this does is it enhances your skill of observation. The skill of observation is. So important to the visual artist. I can't stress that enough. You are a visual artist because you have the ability to observe. And if you are not growing the muscle of your observation, then you are doing a disservice to yourself as a visual artist, cuz that's what it's all about, is being able to look, observe, translate and bring that into your own work.
So growing your skill of observation is a big part of your daily practice, which is why I say to draw from life. So look around your home, your garden, your leisurely walks, anything, your workplace, and pick an object. Or something that you feel like challenges you.
Okay, so challenge yourself with something you wouldn't normally gravitate to, and something maybe that's more intricate, or has a different shape than you normally gravitate to, because when you move outside of your typical boxes and boundaries, you begin to grow muscles that help you in what you do wanna do. So, doing something you don't wanna do will help you to do something you do wanna do.
And then number four, I want you to draw from memory. So the last challenge, uh, challenged you to observe and draw in your daily practice, but this time it's a little bit different. Instead of observing, bring out of your mind of how you remember something.
And it's probably not gonna look very good at first. Maybe if you try to draw your pet from memory, it could look a little goofy because you haven't done that before, but that's a place to start.
And what happens is this will teach you and encourage you to seal images in your mind. And rather than always drawing on the, the power of observation where you're looking and you're forming what you know onto your page, what you're seeing, which is a really important skill to be practicing, but this is gonna help you to seal it in here and bring it out.
And that's a really, really big key to being a visual artist is not only observing and bringing into our work, but bringing it out of ourselves into our work. So, these challenges are gonna help you be well-rounded.
Number five is try some different styles. Like I said, doing something a little out of the box helps you with what you do wanna do, and so experiment, experiment.
Try something abstract or impressionistic. Uh, step outside your comfort zone and express yourself a little differently. That's just one way that you can use the 10 minutes a day that I am challenging you to set aside and to do through the week.
And number six is draw something challenging. I might have mentioned this one already, but just draw something that's a little harder than usual.
Stop drawing easy. Stop sketching, easy. Sketch harder. Try to draw something that you would find difficult and complex, and then push yourself in that to, to do it well and to raise the bar.
But here's the thing is you might be a very simplistic painter. You might be a very, uh, simplistic visual artist, but drawing something that's harder and more complex teaches you how to bring those skills into what you do wanna do.
So these are my challenges to you. Be sure to check out the prompts below, and to follow along here on the podcast for more amazing interviews and talks. And as well, every once in a while these challenging solo shows from yours truly. Be sure to check out what's happening inside of Bold School.
We have so many exciting and encouraging things happening within our Bold School community. When you join Bold School, you not only get access to our courses, which have complete learning paths to develop you as a skilled and wholehearted artists, but we also have a community that you have full access to right then and there when you subscribe.
It's a community that's vibrant with mentors who know what they're doing and who take the time to grow you as an artist, develop relationships, and you're also among your peers who are like-minded, who and who are also growing in their bold color art. And so be sure to get involved. If you're not already involved, we'd love to have you within Bold School in our community.
You can find us online at boldschool.com, on Instagram @boldschoolinc, and right here on the Bold School YouTube channel. Until next time, keep creating.
