What is Ten Minutes Artist?
Think of it as a page-a-day guide for building a daily art practice that results in one outcome…
Daily Creative Joy
The point of this whole thing is daily creative joy.
And that means taking time out of your day to do something creative just for the fun of it. Yes there are all kinds of tangible, healing, productive and social benefits that come from the creative act. But making any of those outcomes the point of the creative act turns it to t a slog. A job.
Joy comes from the pure act of creating and that is what we are here to do together.
All you need to do is…
Indulge Your Creative Nature
The way we approach this act of creating is one of indulgence.
One of the things that hold people back is this fear that all the effort and passion they put into their creative act will not amount to anything. I struggled with that fear for years, maybe decades. Until I decided, you know what, I’m just going to do it for the joy of it.
Specifically, I decided I would just illustrate daily, for a decade, regardless of outcome. And the outcome so far is illustrating more than a dozen books in less than a handful of year since I turend 40.
But it was the decision not to let the lack of outcome stop me from doing what I love.
So in this newsletter, the focus is the indulgent act of creating daily, and the only outcome we’ll be concerned about is the joy that comes from it. I will occasionally share some ideas about how to turn this joy into a job, but that is more of a bonus then the main thing.
I’ll lead us by sharing my indulgent creations, my process and a creative Action(prompt) each day, as an invitation to indulge your own creative nature. And in doing so you will all so discover…
Freedom From Mindless Conformity
When you start indulging your creative nature your whole life changes.
You start to see that there are more and different ways of doing things. You start to realise that you have more options than you ever thought possible. Your creative nature will start expressing itself at work, in conversation, in your choices.
Big choices and little choices.
You realize that life does not need to conform to limited ‘menu options’, and that you can make requests of the Chef! And the best part is that all you need to get started is…
Ten Minutes a Day
All I’m asking you to do is set aside ten minutes a day.
Each day I’ll send you a creative action, it might by writing, drawing, or scheduling a ten minute artist retreat with yourself.
You might want to indulge these creative actions for more than 10 minutes and you’re always welcome too. But I’ve designed them to be things you can do in 10 minutes. So you can always make time for them. And yes you will have to make time.
But it’s easy to make time for things you enjoy doing, and the other thing these creative actions are designed to be, is fun.
CREATIVE ACTION
Extraordinary Things (part 1)
Today I want you to draw 4 objects, you can use 4 pages or split a page into 4.
Draw something larger than a car
Draw something that fits in your hand
Draw something sharp
Draw a favourite piece of clothing
In Part 2 tomorrow, we’ll play with what we draw today
PS: There is an
about drawing simplified objects.