“ I T I S O F T E N T H E S I M P L E D A I LY P R A C T I C E S T H AT
Creating a
Daily Practice
By Lucy M. Pritchett
S
ome women thrive on keeping a loose and spontaneous schedule. I am not one of them. My idea of a good day is a well-kept calendar/planner, a To Do List with all items checked off, and my daily art practice.
My routines and rituals support and sustain me. When I began life as a freelance writer, I knew better than to wait for inspiration to strike before I sat down at the keyboard. Persistence is the key. Just write. Every day. When I started to paint with watercolors, I knew I could apply the same principle — make art every day.
Filling a small sketchbook (4”x3”) with illustrations created with Tombow watercolor brush pens every day quickly results in a portfolio of work. Day by day the pages accumulate, leaving a record of my practice.
Then, along with painting, I started keeping a sketchbook. Later, I discovered collage. Eventually, more crafty paper items showed up — handmade little books, notecards, junk journals, and the creation of all sorts of vintage embellishments to enjoy. (Thank you, YouTube.) On these pages you will see a few results of this daily practice. None of these projects will find their way to an art museum or gallery, but that is not the point. As a writer, I am used to watching my words bloom on the page or computer screen. As a daily artist, I still get a thrill of seeing and touching something that I created with my own hands.
Photos by Melissa Donald
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April 2020 / TodaysWomanNow.com
My daily mantra: Step away from the screen and step into the studio.
