#institchescreative2020 - daily practice

Musicians do it; mindfulness practitioners do it; we all do it in so many aspects of our lives (our morning routine, walking the dog, taking the kids to school) – so a daily art or stitch practice is not such an odd concept.
Many people find that at times of high stress or extremely busy periods their creative juices dry up – usually just at the time when we need them most! Daily practice is a simple, non-threatening way of getting back into creativity again.

The idea was popularised by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way and has been adapted by so many people since. Essentially it involves a commitment on your part to ‘show up’ each day and do something creative. That something doesn’t have to be huge (although it can be if inspiration strikes) and it doesn’t have to be complicated.

Julia Cameron’s original idea was aimed at writers with writers’ block but is applicable to everyone: Morning Pages encourages people to make a daily ‘brain dump’ of hand-written words on a page, not thinking, not editing, just writing whatever comes to mind. She describes them as a clearing exercise, removing the negative thoughts from your consciousness for the rest of the day. There is much more depth and spirituality to her teaching, which might not be for everyone, but if you want to discover more visit her website. ​

Key messages/ what’s important?
One of the key messages is that whatever our creative passion, we can all commit to doing something creative each day, and we will grow creatively through this.
​
Another is that the thing you do doesn’t have to be perfect, and you don’t have to like it; it just has to be. This daily practice thing is much more about learning to have the courage to fail than making great art every time you get your materials out or making perfect stitches every time you thread a needle. 

WHAT?? Learning to fail? That doesn’t sound very positive …
But actually it’s the most positive thing in the world; if you can learn to experiment and try things out, without the need for the results to be perfect (or even good) or for you to like them, then your confidence will grow as you learn what you can do, how your materials work, what you like and don’t like and how to do things deliberately.

One of the things you’ll often hear at our studio is that it’s not a mistake, it’s a design opportunity. Many apparent failures have become scientific successes: for example, the synthetic dye mauve was discovered by William Perkin while he was trying to synthesise quinine, and there are loads more examples. It’s true that failure helps learning take place; this idea has been embraced by Elizabeth Day in her book and podcast – How to Fail with Elizabeth Day.  In the podcast she is in conversation with guests who are asked to bring three examples of the times in their life where they consider themselves to have failed. During the programme they explore what they learned about how to succeed better and effect this has had in their lives. A fascinating listen!

There are so many ways we can embrace the idea of regular practice. Here are some we have tried:

• take a photo of something joyful each day. Then maybe post it to Instagram or publish them in a book as Hazel did in 2017 – #thelivinglifeonedayatatimeproject.

• make a quick sketch each day – you’ll be amazed how much your observation skills and therefore your drawing improves. In 2018 we launched the #10minutedrawingproject on the blog and Instagram, which was a daily challenge to draw for just 10 minutes each day. Some people stayed for longer than others – I managed about a month of nearly every day, Hazel managed three, but one of our friends (@BecHandyside) did it for the whole year and hasn’t stopped drawing since. From basic beginnings her drawing is now amazing!

​And (very) occasionally I do manage to actually use the sketchbook that always accompanies me on holiday! The pictures below come from my Iceland book. Filling it daily was definitely helped by the fact that this was a small group coach tour, so I had ample opportunity to sketch the amazing scenery we passed and visited, and again in the evenings from photos and walks.

• Do some kind of stitching each day – this would link really well with our stitch blog and you’ll find plenty of ideas from Hazel to keep you going for a long time. This is such a versatile project and is really easy to fit into your daily routine – stitch just a line a day; or one length of thread; or one pattern. Hazel loves stitching on old linen and started this piece in January 2017 as a #1yearofstitches2017 project and worked on it with one piece of thread daily until it was full. 

​Then she went on holiday to Vietnam and Myanmar and continued stitching daily with the travel diary she told you about last week.

• I love book making (have I told you that before?) so I started a book-a-week challenge in 2017. I lasted about two months before life took over again, but I did have a whole series of books to show for the experience… and I learnt several new techniques.

If you do a quick Google search, you’ll find loads of regular art or stitch challenges to take part in. Many of them are 100 day challenges,  the theory being that it takes 100 days to successfully change your habits. Most of them involve some kind of extra commitment (eg to post images of your work, or maybe even a payment to take part) but really the commitment is to you. You’re saying ‘I’m worth it’! 

Artists to inspire you
And you’ll find many stitchers and artists use this way of working. Here are just a few of our favourites: 

David Hockney at home in Normandy

• David Hockney has worked this way for years, often using an iPad – you may remember seeing some of the resulting images at the Tate exhibition of his work in 2017?  Recently he has been recording the spring trees daily from his Normandy home, both on his iPad and in paint, and sent them to the BBC as a respite from the news. You can read the article here.  (images: ©David Hockney from BBC)

David Hockney - spring painting

Inspired by Hockney, your daily practice could be technology based – why not embrace the wonderful tool that is the iPad (other brands of tablet are available!), download one of the free drawing apps (eg Autodesk Sketchbook, Adobe Fresco (or Adobe Sketch or Adobe Draw if you have an older tablet), Paper by WeTransfer (only the basic version of this is free) – there are so many out there, but these are ones we’ve tried) and have a go with digital drawing?

• Sarah Hibbert, a quilter, (@quiltcornerstone on Instagram) had a 100 day stitch project – hand quilting daily (sometimes using InStitches hand-dyed threads) on her beautiful pieced quilts. (image: ©Sarah Hibbert)

Sarah Hibbert

​She also challenges herself to make a small paper collage in 15 minutes each day. A selection of these become the starting point for larger quilted pieces. She is due to have a gallery at this year’s Festival of Quilts – let’s hope it is still able to go ahead so everyone can see her work.

• The Free Motion Quilting project – set up by Leah Day in 2009, she stitched and posted a new free motion quilting pattern every day for at least a year . It has now been published as a book and is a great reference if you’re going to use the idea of regular practice to improve your FMQ. If you search her archives back to 2009 you’ll find the patterns. 

​So you too could commit to practising a new free motion quilting pattern for 20 minutes each day – and, as we tell our FMQ students, don’t forget to doodle the pattern first. This helps to get your brain in gear and develop muscle memory for the pattern. By doodling you will also be able to  solve problems like how to move elegantly from one place to the next, how to get out of a corner creatively or how you would like to stop and start, before you get to the fabric.  Visit our FMQ board on Pinterest for more ideas.

• If, like me, you need a deadline to help that commitment, The Sketch Book Project from The Brooklyn Art Library   might be for you. It is a huge crowdfunded library of stories in the form of sketchbooks. It’s a non-profit organisation, and to take part you purchase a sketchbook from them, fill it over the allotted time, and then submit it to be included in the physical and digital (now at extra cost) library. I did it way back in 2012 (it was started in 2006 and has grown hugely since then) and my book is still available to view here  which I think is amazing. And even if you are not wanting to take part, it’s a great resource, with over 41,000 sketchbooks in the physical library, over half of which are available to view online.

I’m really telling you about them because they have just released a free (or pay what you wish) 28 day project where they send a daily prompt via email to get you started – great if you’d like to try drawing but can’t decide where to start. 

Other ideas – some art, some stitch, some not:

• fill a page with marks each day
• tidy one drawer or shelf of your creative space each day (yes, that counts!)
• write down ten ideas each day
• explore one art item you bought at a show and have never used each day or week
• go for a walk each day and really observe your surroundings. Maybe have a theme so you can focus – birds, spring leaves, city sounds, graffiti; make notes
• stitch a line each day
• write something each day – maybe a poem or paragraph, or a traditional diary
• fold an origami crane each day
• Stitch a new block for a quilt each day (or probably more realistically each week) – there are so many Block of the Month projects out there, nearly every quilt shop runs one. But you could make your own up; why not theme it to a type of design eg stars, or a technique eg appliqué, or a style eg modern quilts?
• any of our creative warmup paper blog exercises

– the list is endless and limited only by your imagination. 

Guidelines
Of course, there need to be some guidelines, or we would be completely overwhelmed with choice. I would suggest that the main guideline [no … RULE!] should be that whatever you choose to do should be enjoyable – this is not supposed to be a chore! 

It is also important that you don’t beat yourself up about this. If a daily practice seems too daunting, then substitute the word regular for the daily part. Try to commit to a regular practice that you can achieve – maybe every other day or even once a week. And if you miss one for a very good reason then be kind to yourself – sometimes life gets in the way. But remember, the secret to success is the commitment to yourself, so try not to make too many excuses not to. And it doesn’t have to go on for ever … but wouldn’t it be great if it did!

Then it would be sensible to limit your choices – if you are going to make marks, don’t allow yourself your whole art supplies to choose from, maybe have a selection of three or four, and change them after a week or two. If you are going to stitch, limit the threads you choose or the stitch as Hazel did last week. If you are going for a daily walk, focus on one particular thing to observe.

​Make an appointment with yourself for the same time each day (or week etc) – a time when you are likely to be able to do it – and initially set a time limit of around 15 minutes (or the length of time it takes to stitch a line, or fill a page) so it feels achievable. You might find it helpful to set a reminder on your phone like Hazel does. 

​Before long, you will find that as you work ideas will start to flow, and you’ll be thinking ‘what if’. Either work on and explore, if you have the time, or jot the ideas down as a starting point for tomorrow’s practice.

We’d love to hear your experience…let us know what regular practice you're going to commit to with a quick snap over on Instagram and use the hash tags:  #institchescreative2020 and #institches2013.  Don't forget to follow both us and the hashtags to see what everyone else is creating too! 

On Facebook reply to the relevant week's post with your comments and images. And don't forget to actually follow InStitches on Facebook to see what everyone else is up to.
Until next time - keep the creativity flowing...

Terry & Hazel