Have you ever made plans to practice drawing, but when you sit down to do it… you kind of zone out, don’t know where to start, don’t feel inspired, and end up doing something else instead?
Sitting down to “practice art”, without a plan can feel a bit like going to the gym without a program and just hapazardly moving between machines, hoping you’ll get stronger somehow. Might it work? Sure. Any time spent drawing or painting will do something for your progression. But in order to feel motivated and actually stick to our practice, we need that extra bit of structure and clarity.
And we get it by designing an actual practice routine.
The 3 components of a practice routine:
A library of references we’ve collected ourselves. (I highly recommend using Pinterest for this. Create boards for all of your favorite subjects and build your own reference library.)
A library of learning material we’ve gathered beforehand. (Nothing beats YouTube here. And maybe a course platform like Skillshare.)
A pre-designed routine to follow when we practice, similar to a list of exercises you might bring to the gym.
Having a bunch of references and tutorials saved up beforehand is critical, because otherwise you’ll spend your precious practice time browsing the web, trying to find a good photo to draw from. Or feeling confused about how to practice something.
And having a routine makes it much easier to get started, and have a bit of structure to your practice.
Scheduling time for your practice is also critical, because otherwise… we all know what happens. 🙄 Some artists swear by a daily practice. I have never really managed to pull that off for more than a few weeks or months here and there. I tend to practice very intensely for shorter “sprints”, for example a month, followed by a period of rest. Other artists might prefer practicing a little bit every day or every week, and keep that up year after year.
Don’t feel forced into a routine just because someone else swears by it. You’re different, and have different needs and prerequisites. If you live a crazy busy life, maybe a daily routine wouldn’t work for you, but maybe a weekly one would. Or one weekend of intense practice each month. Any time you can set aside for your practice is better than none.
Designing your routine
Let’s say I’ve scheduled one hour each weekday evening + two hours every saturday morning for my art practice. Here’s how I would structure that time: