My Journey: Making time to Have Fun!

Making Time to Have Fun!

Being a successful artist is a wonderful balancing act. Amidst all the work, it is important to make time to have fun. Similar to daily practice the benefits are:

• Increased creativity

• Improved quality of jobs or assignments I have taken on

• Generates better ideas

• Decreased stress

Having fun can take the form of many things. It can be daily drawing that is not connected to assignments. It can be doing other creative projects or doing something that is not related to your art. 

I see great benefit in participating in projects like Inktober, Mermay, Dinovember, Dueling Banjo Pigs, and similar drawing challenges. They are great opportunities to play while still practicing your art. You can even create your own. I have participated in Dueling Banjo Pigs and hope to participate in some of the others in the future. The key with these is to not let them dominate your time. They are to have fun and increase creativity, not to stress over.

I also enjoy the 100 something challenge which pushes your ideas beyond the obvious solution. In the past I have drawn 100 bow tie guys in 100 days, created 100 elephant characters, designed 100 logos of one word, created 100 different grilled cheese sandwiches and taken 100 different photos of my bowler hat. (I am trying to figure out my next 100 somethings challenge.)

Having fun does not always need to be art related. Here are some examples of what I have been doing over the past few weeks.

I recently completed the SixFanArts challenge as a drawing and creativity exercise. I had a wonderful time taking it in a completely different direction than others. 

Here is an example of the progress of my most recent lego creation, The Gump 3.0. I am still working on it here and there. I will post the completed one when I am finished. 

Julia and hikes around Franconia Notch a few weeks ago. It was beautiful. 

On Monday, My daughter and I biked around Joe's Pond. It was so peaceful and relaxing.

I also find great satisfaction in reading. I am currently working on reading all the Shakespeare plays and reading a few other books. I love gardening and playing games with my family. Last night I lost another game of Bogle.

In every instance I have been able to come back to my art refreshed with less stress and better able to solve the art problems I have been facing.

Sketching You're a Good Man Charlie Brown

This Saturday we took time as a family to see the local high school's production of You're a Good man Charlie Brown. Surprisingly, I had never seen it before. A good friend of the family was playing Schroeder. It was a fun production and a wonderful musical. Very uplifting. I found a few moments to sketch. Something I have wanted to do at shows but never done before. The challenge is drawing while people are moving and also drawing in the dark. I did well for my first attempt.

The musical was made even better by listening to the joy form my children while watching it. There is nothing like hearing a child laugh.
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Weekend Sketching

This weekend I spent time with my youngest son at his soccer practice. He was full of pure joy! He wants to be like Scott Sterling (you can see what I am talking about here.). As can be seen, I took the opportunity to draw a bit while watching him practice and play. I am working on capturing action more. It has been one of the more challenging aspects of sketching.