I’ve been listening to The Magnolia Story audiobook lately, and Chip freaks me out. Not even kidding. Most recently, I listened to a chapter where Chip describes how he would avoid getting “too comfortable”, and keep looking for ways to shake things up in his life. Personally, I’ve grown up with a different attitude: my approach is… Read More Writing My Own Magnolia Story
Whenever I tell people I’m an artist, there is one very common response I (almost) always hear: “Oh that’s so cool! I could never do that, I’m not really the creative type.” In the words of Dorothy Sayers, there’s nothing for me to do except “laugh deprecatingly”, so I do so and move on. At best, I… Read More How to Become the “Creative Type”
As an artist, there are a lot of things that I say to myself (sometimes without noticing) that make it really hard to work. It’s a habit of psychological “nagging” that cuts down on my productivity, but also my confidence. While I’ve gotten a little bit better at it over the years (as I get… Read More The 5 Worst Excuses I Give Myself
“It wouldn’t be so hard if you did it more often.” My mom has said this about laundry, cleaning my room, doing dishes, dusting and sweeping, mowing and raking, and exercise. Do it more often, and it gets easier. After writing about habit in a previous post, this bit of Mom Advice occurred to me,… Read More Best Mom Advice Ever
I’m taking part in a challenge to try and improve my writing skills but also (and more importantly) my discipline. Please enjoy (or at least tolerate!) In an art history class I took a couple years ago, we discussed whether or not paintings could make people cry. Certainly movies could, and some music. Books (OMG… Read More The First Time a Drawing Made Me Cry
Everybody loves lists! And I’m still working, so don’t think that this is entirely retrospective or anything. Because it isn’t. A lot of people treat work like some kind of inevitable hurdle that we have to get past in order to be happy. Work is treated like an unfortunate by-product of being human, something that… Read More 3 Things I Learned from Working
These first 5 are day-to-day practices that I want to implement/get better at. Warm ups – I typically don’t do warm-up sketches or writing, but over the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to do better… and it really works. My brain starts working, my hands start moving, and everything falls into an effective flow.… Read More 10 Good Habits for Artists and Writers
