Becoming Your Own Art Coach: 5 Tips for Setting Yourself up for Success, Part 2

As I mentioned in my last post, making the decision to become your own art coach announces to yourself and to the world that you are ready to passionately step up to the plate and take responsibility for if, when, how, and how much you create. It means setting goals, setting up an action plan to achieve those goals, and it means becoming your own art teacher, strategist, problem solver, therapist, manager, critique guru, rah rah cheerleader, mom, and best friend. Here are 3 more tips for becoming your own art coach:  

3. Use an agenda book and a daily planner.  I don’t do multi-tasking very well. I’m the kind of person who likes to put 100% of me into the project at hand.  For instance, when I’m painting, I like to have large periods of unbroken time to paint and I like to have nothing else to focus on except my painting – I’m talking days and weeks. When I’m writing, I like to have long periods of unbroken time to write where I don’t have to think about anything else except my writing. If I’m working on a house organizing or decorating project, I don’t want to have to think about anything else until the project is completed. You get the picture. This approach worked well for me in the past, when my life was less busy. However, although it’s my preferred method, it doesn’t work very well for me these days, because I find myself continously involved with multiple projects and/or priorities. So, I’ve had to create new habits, routines, and most especially – attitudes that allow me to juggle a number of important projects at one time. My goal is to avoid overwhelm and overload as much as possible. I rely on two things to keep me organized and focused: an agenda book and a daily planner. My agenda book keeps track of all of my projects; everything that I need to do and that I would like to do. It also has a tabbed section called “hot”, and this is where I keep track of the important things that need to be done right now. Each week (preferably on a Sunday), I title a page in my agenda book, ”this week”, and I list what needs to be done during the up-coming week, drawing from my project and “hot” pages. The second tool I use is a Day-Runner planner notebook that contains yearly, monthly, and dated daily planning pages. I keep track of all my appointments and workshop dates on the tabbed monthly calendar, and each day I write out that day’s priorities, both in my “real” life, and in my art life on the daily pages. I also schedule my painting days and times on my weekly and daily pages. Sometimes life gets so hectic that I can’t even find my agenda book and calendars, but I find that when I slow down and plan and follow my plans, life runs a lot more smoothly and peacefully.    

I’ve also been training myself to think of time in new and more creative ways. For example, I’ve been working with the idea of “chunks of time” rather than long stretches of time. As I said, I don’t seem to have the luxury of long periods of time as much as I would like, so I’ve had to re-think my approach. I’ve found that I can take advandage of 1 or 2 hour segments of painting time by making sure I’m there 100% (no multi-tasking). Since I’ve started experimenting with this idea, I’m also finding it easier to switch gears and bring 100% of myself to my next chore or project as well. 

4. Use deadlines to your advantage. One of the reasons I love doing juried shows is that they give me a deadline and a motivation to stretch and grow. I’ve always felt that a “good enough” painting is not good enough for a national juried show, so I often challenge myself to do a “show” painting. This works well for me and sometimes I even end up with a painting that goes way beyond my expectations. That’s what keeps me coming back, because I know that had I not given myself the “juried show” challenge, many of my favorite paintings wouldn’t have been born. 

Another example of using deadlines to your advantage is to commit to a project that forces you to put together a fresh new series or body of work. This year, because I wanted to produce more paintings, and also because I was so excited about my new Out and About series, I began to look for a place to show my new work (before I even started it!). I didn’t want a gallery show because I didn’t want to worry about whether my new work was commercial enough, especially with the economy being what it is. I chose an alternative space instead, and I am looking forward to painting for a one-person show that I have scheduled for next year at our library. Between being committed to talking about my new series on this blog, and being committed to showing my new series in a brick and mortar gallery, I feel like I’ve set myself up with motivations and deadlines that will work to my advantage because they will help me achieve my goals.     

 5.  Always have something “percolating” – something to look forward to each day that will entice you into the studio. The ideas I talked about in #4 are strategies that will also allow me to have something “percolating” – they will give me something to look forward to for a whole year. My plans were well thought out and purposeful. I remember seeing an ad somewhere that said, “Making wine – that’s what get’s me up in the morning!”. When I heard those words, I realized how important it is to embrace that kind of passion, that kind of thinking, and that kind of attitude in both our art making and in our lives.   

What get’s you up in the morning? 

Happy Painting!