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I met my friend Greg one Saturday
morning for a paint-out. We painted
together several times last summer. |
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This past Saturday was a beauty. The weather was warm enough to be outside comfortably, the light was sparkling, and it would have been a fine day to paint en plein air. Would have... if I had painted. But I didn’t. Instead, I went to a meeting and then spent the afternoon on the computer, completing a project I had volunteered for.
Like many of you, I’m not a full-time artist and I find it challenging to make time to paint. I have a day job, and it seems I’ve made a million commitments to do other things as well. I’m sure some of you reading this have other time constraints, too, like spouses and kids who want and deserve your attention.
The weird thing is that instead of savoring the free moments and rushing out to paint when I can, I often find myself letting those few golden opportunities slip by. It’s also easy to take a pass on creating opportunities by simply not planning for them. And then I lament the fact that my skills are just not progressing. Does this happen to you?
If so, I have two ideas that may help. (Truthfully, I’m writing this to remind myself of good practices that I need to re-engage!) The first is the institution of at least one Sacred Day--a day or evening every week that is reserved exclusively for painting (painting in the studio or painting outside--but definitely, solely painting!). Saturdays have always worked well with my schedule, but I’m thinking of claiming Thursday evenings, too. I simply let my family and friends know that I’m not available on my Sacred Day, and an amazing thing happens: They respect it and plan around it. And so do I!
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| A piece I painted during a paint-out. |
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My other idea is to set up your own series of plein-air paint-outs and invite fellow plein air painters who live nearby to join you. I’ve done this for the past two summers in a row. Each April, I created a calendar that listed where I planned to paint every Saturday morning from May to September, and then I sent it to all the local plein-air artists I knew, asking them to forward it on to more artists. And for extra security, I specifically asked them not to RSVP. That way, when my alarm went off on Saturday mornings, I had to get up and go no matter what because I knew someone might be waiting for me out there. There were some days I ended up painting alone... but I was painting! It was a surefire way to hold myself accountable, not to mention a great way to have fun with like-minded artists in my community.
So what do you think of these ideas? They’ve really worked to keep me steady in my commitment to paint regularly and improve my craft. So how do you handle your time conflicts? Got any great time management ideas of your own that you can share?
--Jennifer