20 Sep 7 Art Tips for Establishing a Practice

 Today I’m sharing 7 art tips that helped me establish an art practice. 
Why? Because I love a good list and a powerful formula for momentum. 
Here they are in no particular order...

1. Listen to Art Podcasts
   Like a studio mate chatting beside you as you work it helps to keep your finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the art world, gives you motivation to create and makes you feel less alone. Favorites include Creative Pep Talk with @andyjpizza , Art Juice with @alicesheridanstudio & @louisefletcher_art  and The Saavy Painter Podcast with Antrese Wood,@savvypainterpodcast.
2. Read psychology/self help books & memoirs. Learning through others’ stories and about the human condition, self awareness and deepening your relationship with empathy will make your creative practice richer and your art better.
3. Follow your curiosity. If the color combo rust & ochre is lighting you up…go hunting for it, collect pictures. Consume stuff around your interests relentlessly. This is the holy grail of inspiration. Never stop digging and learning more about the things that inspire you!
4. Take care of yourself. Exercise and sunlight give you energy & strength. Breathe. Practice yoga. Drink more water. Move your body. I’ve talked about how giving up alcohol helped me level up my art practice. It was a game changer. It gave me more energy, more clarity and less anxiety which led to….found time!
5. Create a Sunday Planning Ritual. I have learned so much from adopting this practice through Kate Northrup and her book, Do Less. Plan your week on Sunday evening. Set aside 15/20 minutes, light a candle, make some tea and write stuff down! Carve out sketching/painting time throughout your week…if you write it down you are more likely to keep the appointment.
6. Reverse engineer your goals. Want to be an artist who creates in collections? Pick a date 4 months in the future and start painting NOW. Prioritize small steps to reach your long term goal. Want to sell said collection? Start talking about it NOW. Long term goals get achieved by prioritizing the next small thing to push the needle forward.
7. Set aside 15 minutes a day to create something, even if it’s just lines on paper. 😉

Try to do at least one of these this week and I promise you will start to see momentum in your art practice.

Have another tip to add? Let me know and comment below.

Have a beautiful day!

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13 Sep On Art Challenges

“Action is the foundational key to all success.”

-Pablo Picasso

I’ve written about how I began painting in my living room when my kids were babies.

So I thought I’d talk about another aspect of how I started…sharing my work and doing art challenges through social media.⠀
⠀I never went to art school, so I’m not sure, but even 15 years ago i’m guessing the idea of sharing your work via computer networking was pretty out there. A LOT has changed. When I started painting again, after a decade long hiatus, it was 2010. I began sharing what I created on Facebook, which was only a few years old at that point.

At the time, talking about your work on social seemed braggy at best, but I knew I had to share in order to be seen.

And well,  it was working. I started selling pieces.

I could easily communicate to many people in one post that I had opened an Etsy shop. I remember thinking how lucky I am to be a visual artist at this time in history (I still say this daily by the way). How amazing was it that a housebound mother with young children in the dead-of-winter-Chicago could sell her artwork to a customer in New Zealand with a click of a button?

Crazy, right?⠀
⠀I didn’t join Instagram until 2013….but when I did I think a shift happened.

Introduce… the Art Challenge.

I started following artists I admired and fell in with a group of creative people who ran regular instagram challenges…Foliophoto, Creative Unblock, Wes Anderson inspired.

I saw Instagram as a tool for creativity and connection.⠀
⠀
The drawing above of my daughter, Maeve, is from my own personal #365project where I sketched for every day of 2014. I still go back to these drawings for inspiration…the seeds of my abstracts are born here. Doing challenges gives the structure (hello wonderful prompts from @joannehawker) and community to create movement in your art practice.

I’ve met so many wonderful artists and makers that I count as my friends to this day. ⠀

I recently participated in the 2021 #100daychallenge this past April and created 100 mini abstract paintings in acrylic and watercolor on paper.

I’ve incorporated doing challenges into my art practice for life. It’s incredibly rewarding. You become prolific.

You get better…you get closer to, if not exceed, your 10,000 hours, as Malcolm Gladwell would say.

And it’s fun!

Do you participate in art challenges? The course I am currently working on is like one big one…a month of daily showing up for your art practice. Find out more about that course here.

And have an inspired week!

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06 Sep It Comes and Goes

An excerpt from my journal to keep it real here and not pretend that everything is perfectly perfect. Sometimes when I’m in it, I can’t post anything. It feels fake…so I’m sharing it now.

If you struggle with anxiety, I’m with you.

……………………….

Anxiety is a liar. It really is. And when it comes at me, it comes hard. It’s like a switch goes on and it’s full negative voices filling my brain. It’s relentless. I know that’s why escapism is part of my dna.

How do we change this about ourselves? When we know that self care is essential to our well being, but we nonetheless push it to the bottom of our priorities. And why? To put others first. To achieve goals that we’re not sure why we’re pursuing anyways. (See that, right there was the anxiety talking).

I’m not sure when the bubble will pop but it feels like it’s simultaneously starting to ease up and bubble up til it overflows.

I’m creating a lot right now. It’s a priority and I’ve made promises but it’s not always easy to work through negative thoughts. And sometimes it’s the only way. There’s the old duality again. Maybe life is just a constant seesaw of anticipation and relief? But do I ever feel relieved? Do you?

Recipe for Anxiety Relief:
-Exercise
-Sleep
-Eat clean, no dairy, no bread no alcohol
-Be in nature
-Make something…bake, cook a meal, garden, take photographs, write, paint
-Talk to someone about how you’re feeling
-Looking at data I’ve tracked marking my cycle, knowing this is cyclical and shall too pass. .

This last part about tracking my cycle has been sooo helpful…Just remembering that it comes, but then it goes.

It will pass and there will be moments of great joy just ahead.

……………..

I recently just celebrated 4 years alcohol free and was interviewed by Jennifer Magazine.

If you’d like you can read about my story here.

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30 Aug look for signs of life

“Look for signs of life.”

I’ve heard Mariam Naficy, the founder of Minted, say this a few times. It’s a lesson I am learning over and over.

When something you’re creating is resonating with your audience, go deeper.

Those signs of life can come in external confirmation…people literally telling you they are connecting with what you’re creating.

Sometimes the signs of life are that what you’re creating currently syncs with your lifestyle.

My lifestyle is being a busy mom of three kids so part of why I work with watercolor is that it’s practical. Clean up is minimal, the list of supplies to create is short and I can leave it to dry (and get a kid a snack) and come back to a different (and better) painting…cause watercolor is magic like that.

When I found watercolor I knew instinctively that this would be my medium.

And when my abstract sales were growing, I put my attention there.
.
Practice looking for the signs of life, and nourishing those things and they will grow.

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23 Aug Hello!

For those of you that are new…

Hello, I’m Mary!

I am a self taught artist living on the north shore of Chicago, Il.

I work from my home studio while raising my 3 daughters with my restaurant owner hubby.

We also have a border collie, Abigail.

Home is everything to me. And working from my home studio has been a gift at this stage in our family life.

I painted through highschool and then took a giant break (all of my 20s) to pursue theatre and acting.

At 30 I started painting again and have steadily built my art practice and business from home. 

My art practice began with oils (highschool), then acrylic (when I returned to it), then went like this…

Acrylic to pen & ink to watercolor to gouache to acrylic to multimedia.

My work has grown increasingly abstract through the years and now that’s my primary focus. 

My career has grown through consistent sharing on social media (thanks Instagram)

and collaborating with licensing partners like Minted who have exposed my work to a vast audience.

Through Minted I have brand collaborations with @bhldn and Michaels.

I also license my work with @alphaainc and @level57.art. And am represented by the lovely ladies of Sorelle Gallery.

Currently, I’m developing a digital course for artists on how to create an art habit and build an art practice from home. 

Things/People/Places I love (and that inspire me!):

 Music… @thisispattismith, David Bowie 

@arcadefire @tobenwigwe @siamusic 

@brandicarlile  @jonimitchell @petitbiscuit 

Travel…France, California, Portugal, road trips! Bucket list includes Ireland, Japan and Costa Rica.

Unique color combos and Indigo Blue.

Artists…Frankenthaler, Rothko, Mitchell, af Klint, Toulouse-Lautrec, Klimt, and Twombly.

Nature…the mountains, the beach, forest walks, flowers, flowers, flowers.

Poetry…Mary Oliver and currently obsessed with @katejbaer 

Books, podcasts…I made a resource guide with recommendations on these which you can access here.

Interior Design…so integral to my work.

Thank you so much for being here!

If you’d like to follow along more on a day to day basis, check out my instagram below.

I post to my stories on the regular. Have a fantastic and inspired week!

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16 Aug Following my Curiosity

Technically, I’m “self taught”. I got my Bachelor of Fine Arts in ACTING.

But the truth is I was always an artist and started painting at a very young age.

I was really torn in high school which path to pursue in college…theatre or art.

I even compiled an art portfolio my junior and senior years of high school.

It’s funny the non linear paths our lives take. I learned through A LOT of trial and error, through showing up every day and consistently sharing the stuff I was making in my living room at night.

I learned by paying attention to what my peers and art heroes were doing, and by what was resonating with people on social media (aka brilliant and free market research).

In the early days of insta I followed the interior design skills of Emily Henderson (@em_henderson) and through her found Danielle Krysa (@thejealouscurator). Danielle introduced everyone to SO much good, weird art. It was like a master class in contemporary art. I devoured Art Inc. by Lisa Congdon ( @lisacongdon), books by Austin Kleon (@austinkleon), Elle Luna (@elleluna), Jen Sincero ( @jensincero) and Amanda Palmer (@amandapalmer).

Everyday I learn from these incredible artists and business pros through their podcasts, stories and their walking the talk:

 @emily_jeffords, @jennakutcher, @cathy.heller,

 @bonniechristine, @shuntagrant, @debbiemillman,

 @amyporterfield @elizabeth_gilbert_writer

and @andyjpizza.

I learned (and am still learning!) through following my curiosity.

I think Michael J. Fox says it best, “I think I benefited from being equal parts ambitious and curious.

And of the two, curiosity has served me best.”

p.s. I included all these links for you to check out these amazing people on instagram, so you can fall down the art rabbit hole. Maybe one of the above people will lead you to find someone that speaks specifically to YOU!

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09 Aug Believer

The blank canvas can terrify you or thrill you.

The variable in the situation is what you literally and figuratively bring to the table.

Some days painting an idea feels like a slog…trudging through thick tar.

Every mark is questioned. Every possible direction feels dangerous.

Other days, painting feels like freedom. Like releasing a pressure valve. Ideas tumbling onto the canvas, surprising, elating.

I vacillate between these two extremes. Some days I can feel where I’m at in terms of mindset before I hit the studio.

If I’m feeling closed off, I move my body. It’s the fastest way to get things going. To ground myself. To wake up my brain to possibility.

But Mindset is haaaaard. It’s learned. It’s practice. In some of us, it’s maybe innate.

To those people, I say how?

What are some things you do to access the “believer”, that carefree dreamer, that knows everything will turn out ok?

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02 Aug Limitations Stoke Creativity

Imposing constraints on your artwork might seem like the antithesis of creativity, but it’s an extremely useful tool in making good work.

One simple limitation is only working with a chosen color scheme. I do this often…only using 3-5 colors in a given palette. It serves to keep my pieces cohesive and the viewer’s eye moving.

Other examples of common constraints are:

•limiting the tools you use (i.e. only painting with a palette knife)

•Your subject matter (i.e. portraits of historic women)

•The time in which you create (i.e. allotting 1 fast and furious hour)

• The materials you use (i.e. Sumi ink on 8 x 10 pieces of paper)

The constraints you set as the “ground rules” give your pieces direction and serve as a foundation for creating a larger body of work…the ultimate goal for expanding your practice!

My constraints with my recent 100 day project were…

-all were created on 5 x 7 inch pieces of paper
-100 pieces in 100 days
-creating abstract work
-only using my current palettes and paint colors in my studio

What constraints do you impose on your creative work? And if you currently don’t…what’s something you’d like to try?

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26 Jul This

And this is why art is so subjective.

This is why you can see a piece of art or listen to a song and immediately feel a sense of familiarity.

You just “get” it and it gets you. Sometimes you just can’t explain the attraction…It simply speaks to something deep inside you.

Sounds familiar right?

Art…the great mirror.

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19 Jul What dream?

I didn’t give visual art power or time for over 10 years. And when I finally did, it turned out there was a whole lotta good stuff waiting for me…A source of joy, an outlet for stress, an incredible community of women, many like me…mothers and lapsed artists needing to get back to their creative roots. And finally a career that gives me freedom, that I can steer from my home, while I raise my kids.

I finally gave it time. I made making art for 15 minutes a day a priority. That’s how it started.

What dream can you give 15 minutes today?