Lockdown lethargy is a real thing; how to use it to improve your skills.

Anyone else feeling lockdown lethargy? It is a real thing I have finally discovered. Prior I couldn’t understand why people were losing their interest in their art when they had to me what seemed like the perfect opportunity - more time at home, and in some cases less commitments (unless of course you are helping children with remote learning and trying to work from home).

I have realised, while I have loved the extra time at home, I actually do much better and am more productive with deadlines and commitments.

You might have seen from my social media that I have pivoted sightly in my art practice and have been learning new skills to digitise my artwork for the purpose of fabric design and homewares. I hope that you have found some of this process interesting and are not too frustrated with the change in content. I am trying to find a balance, but I have been doing less physical painting than I would like to be doing. So this month I set myself a 30 day challenge to get back my mojo.

If you ask me the secret of success for any artist or creative person it is about simply showing up each and every day and doing something. Whether it be 15 mins, or 3 hours, the regularity to creating is what improves your skills. 15 mins 7 days a week is more valuable than 1 x 3 hour session per week.

Over the next month and a half (giving myself a little leeway as I am still working on the fabric design daily) I am going to continue my 30 day challenge with a focus on beach scenes. These will be small paintings - 6x4” or 7x5” as this size is manageable to paint on my lap at night while I watch tv.

I’ll try to share more process videos and snippets along the way on social media, and I would love for you to follow along. Feel free to let me know what parts of the process you find interesting so that I can target my video snippets.