How to assemble an emotional toolkit for your art making.
A NOTE ON THE PRACTICE
Ten Minute Artist is your daily companion in building a sustainable creative practice - one reflection, one prompt, one ten-minute session at a time.
Whether it leads to a fulfilling creative career, a thriving side practice, a vibrant community of artists, or simply the joy of creating again – it all begins with these daily moments of making.
“This is heavy”
— Marty Myfly
Yesterday I asked you to make a list of fifty things to draw.
I made my own lists, but instead of making a list of 50 items, I made 5 lists of 10 and only filled the first one.
Skateboard
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It looked like that.
The idea was to let the first item on the list trigger the surrounding ideas. I picked ‘skateboard’ because my hands were fighting with this miniature ‘tech deck’ skateboard in my hand. It’s like a skateboard for your fingers.
I think they call it a fingerboard
I play with it when I come and do my 10 minute practice everyday, while waiting for the coffee to brew.
Little did I know that hiding behind this simple object, there was a lot of shadow stuff from my childhood, lurking.
I remember asking my dad for a skateboard when I was 11, and getting one.
Years later, I would ask for guitar and got that too.
I don’t skate, and I don’t play the guitar.
There was not internet.
And I was kept inside the house for the most part.
I didn’t know how to direct my own learning, and there was no one to teach me.
Skateboard.
That first word on that list, open a door that I much rather keep shut…
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Fast forward 30 years I’m trying to learn tricks with my little fingerboard, while I wait for my coffee each day…
TEN MINUTE ARTIST PROMPT
Emotionally Charged
I don’t know how much you want to examine the words on your list.
But I will say that the subjects you chose to explore have the potential to be emotionally charged. I will also say that it might be a good idea to charge your session with this kind of emotional energy.
And the art you make is better if you put emotion into it.
Your list, could be the ingredients of your at making recipe.
Now I know if I want to make a dish bitter, or salty, all I need to do is think of a skateboard.
But for more positive notes, I could instead think of a fingerboard.
More notes on the practice:
All the prompts are repeatable, and customisable, use them as they are or adjust for inspiration and save them up for future use.
The main tool we use for our practice is an artist book that we will sit with for 10 minutes daily. ( but any sketchbook or journal works too)
You can connect to the community of Ten Minute Artists in the chat
I feel this. When I was 8, I told my mom I wanted to learn French. She bought me a French workbook (there was no Duolingo and no internet, and our little city didn't offer classes). I speak French now, after taking it in middle and high school and living in Montreal, but my 8 year old self was incapable of teaching herself.
It was the same with piano. I asked for piano lessons when I was 7. My mom bought me a keyboard and piano books but I lacked the discipline to teach myself at that age. It wasn't until she finally started taking me to lessons when I was 9 that I started to play.
Even though I can do these things today, and even knowing my mom was trying her best within her limits and the limits of the time, these are still emotionally charged subjects for me...
There was a typo, I had meant to say: “that it might be a good idea to charge your session with this kind of emotional energy.”
It used to say might ‘not’ be a good idea, which is wrong…