A good way to look at your long-term art creation process. ͏ ‌     ­ ͏ ‌     ­ ͏ ‌     ­ ͏ ‌     ­ ͏ ‌     ­ ͏ ‌     ­ ͏ ‌     ­ ͏ ‌     ­ This newsletter is about drawing. It goes out every Friday. Want to draw? Then check out my free workbook!

#79 - They Say Becoming Better At Art Is A Marathon, Not A Sprint, But Not Even That Is True

A good way to look at your long-term art creation process.

The thing with marathons is that they are exhausting! Your art creation process should involve daily sessions of joy, relaxation, meditation, reflection.

Creating art should not be a marathon as much as it needs to be like a skiing holiday where you have fun going down the slopes each day. You have a sense of satisfaction at the end of each day, and you are sad when the holiday ends.

Real marathons can be about stumbling on for the last ten kilometers, completely dehydrated, your muscles completely shot, no energy left in your body but you keep on chugging.

Your art creation process shouldn’t be that.

You do need breaks occasionally. Skiing all day every day for the rest of your life would become weary too.

But you would be more than happy to live this life style for months! It is not exhausting like a marathon. And you become really good at it in the process.

Your drawing habit should be like that. It should be something you do for fun and leisure. It should be pleasant. It should be like a skiing holiday.

Try not to do challenges where you have to create art on a schedule. You will be exhausted and not feel like creating art afterwards, and that is not what you want, right?

For that same reason, don’t go on the grind of posting on a fixed social media schedule, either. You will burn out.

Design a life style that incorporates your drawing sessions. Remove distractions that steal time from you. Form healthy habits instead.

Focus on the activity itself and don’t pin yourself to a fixed quantity of output. That way lies burn-out.

This is important: art is not a battle, it is not a contest. Just like skiing down a slope isn’t either.

Or rather, doesn’t have to be.

I am well aware it is an Olympic thing also. But you don’t have to be Olympic material to enjoy sliding down a snowy slope. Being an Olympic contender does not make it a better experience.

You will get better at it as you keep doing the pleasant activity. You will burn out if you force yourself onto a murderous schedule.

Design a pleasant life style that you can maintain for years to come instead.

It’s not a marathon. It’s an endless skiing holiday.

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