Day 1

Today begins my 100-day challenge. I’ve read so much about how practice is a key indicator for success.  According to Malcolm Gladwell in “Outliers” it takes 10,000 hours of practice to reach extraordinary success. Talent isn’t enough. I’m a great dreamer and following through and finishing are not my strong suits. I want to explore my artistic abilities and making art doesn’t make its way to the top of the to-do list as frequently as I’d like. So, I’m challenging myself to spend 5 minutes a day creating art, for the next 100 days. I can draw, paint, collage, zentangle – anything I want as long as I spend 5 minutes doing it. If I spend more time that’s fine, but 5 minutes is the minimum.

What do I hope to achieve with this challenge? I hope to jump-start my practice of creating art. I want to prove to myself that I can dream and I can finish. Over the next 100 days, I am traveling twice for work and going away for Thanksgiving. Christmas and New Year’s are thrown in there for good measure.  I figure if I can create art for 5 minutes a day during such busy times, I will be able to create art any time.

So this morning I got up early and the first thing I did was paint for 5 minutes.  Here’s a picture of what I did.

Practicing capturing light

I didn’t paint both pictures but painted a bit on the right hand picture. I was just trying out capturing light. Parts of what I painted were successful, other parts weren’t. It’s okay. I’m trying to let go of perfectionism and embrace process. The point is, I made Day 1!