an artist’s blog

Free Time

12/23/2019

3:25 pm ET

As a person, I love free time, and I especially love wasting my free time. As a working artist, I’m trying knock that out. I can successfully spend an entire day in front of the TV (I’m a sucker for shows like “100% Hotter” and “The Dog Whisperer”). Normally I’ll knock out a sketch or two and chalk it up to a successful day. I mean, I created something, what else could I ask for?

Unfortunately, this mindset and contentedness with one “finished” piece, or maybe even no finished pieces, but a finished season, hasn’t helped me succeed so we’re going to try something else. I’ve compiled a few different tasks that can be completed during your freetime. This list is aimed at struggling artists and working artist alike.

The first thing I’ll do with freetime is organize my finances. It doesn’t sound like a ton of fun but it’s more of a mindset. What’s more exciting than knowing where all your money is going? I like to add my expenses and income to my monthly 2020 budget, and shame myself for spending so much money at Brassica (what can I say, it’s my all time fav). I like to comb through my cards and accounts and remind myself of which bills are due when, and figure out if the month brings additional expenses. I’m still learning how to budget so having a little extra time to get familiar with my balances has been really nice.

One suggestion comes from a friend of mine. If you’re like me, your biggest platform is Instagram. Instagram is a fantastic, free way to share your work with the world. Apparently. Instagram is pretty serious about their algorithms, luckily they can be cracked. If you want views you have to post and it has to be consistent. Hashtags help, and liking other people’s posts bring in traffic as well. If you have a lot of inventory and pictures, plan out your Instagram! A beautiful Instagram is much more likely to bring in followers, so take some time and organize your photos before actually posting them. This lets you see your page from a bird's eye view, and makes it so easy to post consistently. Just pull from your set photos and you’re good to go! There are even apps that post for you at a certain time of the day, these are a little out of my league but totally helpful in maintaining an Instagram presence when life gets busy.

Blog! ~idk man~ I’m enjoying it so far. Writing is good for the brain, and helps your communication skills. If you’re awkward or struggle with communicating, practicing with words can help tremendously. I haven’t seen much improvement in my communication skills yet, luckily I’ve got plenty of time to feel comfortable talking (even if it’s in type on a website with little traffic). You can use your blog to share ideas or as a journal. Writing is another way to be creative when you’re not feeling your regular craft and you can absolutely grow as a creative just by using that wonderful brain.

Another fun thing to do when you’re just hanging out is managing your photos. This could mean lots of things, cropping, watermarking, actual editing. I’d like to add organizing photos to this category as well. Normally my pictures are spewn between multiple folders and emails and phones and computers and flash drives…you get the point. I recently started organizing photos to put similar concepts/materials/years in folders for easier access. This has been a huge help now that I’m looking for places to show my work.

Plan things! All things! I bought a cute little notebook labeled “Make It Happen” (cute, right?) and I use it to plan whatever I can. I’ve been writing down ideas for paintings and prints, keeping track of commissions and income. The sections in my personal notebook are as follows: inspirational quotes from famous artists, ideas, showings and things needed for the shows, local businesses I admire, sold pieces and commission work, an expense and income sheet, current projects, and finally a breakdown of my current debt. I often forget I’ve got something to do all the time, you can never stop planning.

You can research things, like other artists, upcoming shows and opportunities, art types, and material types. There are so many things about our craft that can be googled, there is so much knowledge out there that you haven’t yet been exposed to. Watch videos or people creating or talking about their process. You never know what will stick.

Daydream/Brainstorm. You can’t fool me, I know now that all of my day dreaming as a child was really just my mind preparing me to handle all this creativity. Exercise your brain and think of all the amazing things you can and will do. As an adult it’s so easy to lose track of that sense of adventure and hope, take some time and imagine yourself 5 weeks, months, or years from now. The more you visualize yourself there the more likely it is to happen (that’s science y’all)!

Finally, work your craft. Create and recreate and create again if you’ve got it in you. It can be exhausting to start a new piece but it is so important to continue practicing so you can improve. Whether in detail or pace or whatever, we all have room to improve. This is going to be the only way to get better. If I don’t have commissions I’ll scroll through Pinterest until I’m inspired enough to draw/sketch/or paint. I normally have a large pool of saved inspirational photos to visit when I’ve got time and no ideas. I’ll admit that sometimes I feel like I’m just not going to produce anything worthy of posting, and it allows me to pass up incredibly valuable practice time. I’ve been forcing myself to make anything at all when I’m in this mood and it’s been so beneficial (I’ve even gotten a few post worthy pieces from it ;) ).

There are so many ways to use your freetime, especially if you’re chasing a dream and completing a goal. It’s so nice to sink into the couch and get lost in the endless and amazing world of streaming, just make sure you grab your laptop/sketchbook/notebook before your butt hits the couch. And yes, I do believe you can have a successful day without ever standing up. Happy Holidays, let’s utilize our time off and succeeeeeed.