Practicing with intention

No one has ever become successful by doing something sporadically. In order to be good at something, to excel at it you need practice.

This premise takes me back to my childhood days .. the days when you come back from school and complete your homework, before dinner. Math was never a strong subject for me and I avoided it at all costs. But, the constant thing that I heard from my teachers’, parents was that keep practicing and it will become easier. It did… and for my High School finals I practiced Math every..single..day so I could get good grades. And it worked.

That was an important lesson I never forgot. I apply the same theory even now. I paint or draw something everyday. It isn’t always a complete painting, it might as well be a thumbnail sketch but, I make it a point to go to my studio and practice my art for 20 to 30 minutes. The old adage ‘practice makes perfect’ is true in every sense.

For this past month, I have been painting and sketching every single day, with intention. I realized that intentionality in my practice gave me clarity. I had been mulling over topics I wanted to focus on at the beginning of the year, in an attempt to plan out 2022. I had been thinking about my goals for the year and the need to grow my small business.

One of the topics I wanted to explore are florals and so I started practicing florals researching various kinds, colors etc. And in the course of this exploration, the need to explore decayed, wilted, dehydrated florals and plants came up. So, I started to looking at the shapes, textures, change in colors of flowers and plants everywhere. I bought bunches of flowers from our local Garden center and observed as they went through the change, and captured them in my everyday art practice.

Practicing helps me define an idea, explore colors and color palettes, surfaces and mediums I want to use in my next set of paintings. It is refreshing when you go through this process with intention and mindfulness. I don’t think of the outcomes- just pure play. Repetition brings back muscle memory and helps me fine tune thoughts and directions that I would otherwise never attempt.

If you are ever in a state of inaction, give this a try.-

Pick a topic and devote 15-20 minutes practicing it preferably at the same time everyday. This does not have to apply only to Art. You can do the same with Music, Reading, Writing, Exercising etc. The idea is to get into a habit, so you can ultimately benefit from it.