Routine, momentum and art practice interruptions

urban sketching in Santa Barbara — Polychromos Colored pencils

I do love a vacation—I do—but I can’t quite resolve the pain of breaking away from my art practice. It doesn’t matter for how long I go away, it might be a quick four day weekend like last week to southern California or several weeks to a destination further away, there’s this huge disruption not just to my time, but to my attention.

I lose my focus and momentum stalls. Both on the road—where I struggle to take time for art—and when I get back and forget what I was working on before I left.

Every vacation.

If you have an art practice, do you struggle with this? It’s really frustrating!

I’ve been working on solutions.

Today I will focus on the problem of taking time for art while on the road. I enjoy traveling and breaks from life routines are good for the soul. But breaks from the routines of an art practice are not at all good for the soul, at least for me.

I know I need to do a better job of scheduling sketching time into the travel itinerary.

This past weekend, I took a half day to go off to Santa Barbara by myself to do some urban sketching in my sketchbook while Dennis and our friends did something else. I really enjoying taking the time I needed to sketch these two drawings—one before and the other during lunch. I have very little urban sketching experience and I’m kind of slow, so I didn’t feel rushed and I had so much fun drawing!

I had lunch at Chase Restaurant, which opened when I was a student in Santa Barbara (long time ago!) — Polychromos colored pencils and ink.

Usually, though, I can’t seem to get away by myself and/or get enough uninterrupted time to draw while traveling. I can’t seem to relax enough to take advantage of small in-between moments, and it’s also difficult to take larger chunks of time for myself.

This is about me worrying too much about others and not enough about what I need. I know that. It’s my heart’s strong desire to take time every day to create. I can’t quite explain why, even to myself, but all I know is that no matter what else I do in a day, whether I’m traveling or not, I do not feel complete if I don’t spend at least a little time creating.

So I need to acknowledge and honor what I need and then I must schedule in and take the time to draw. Fortunately, I’ll have plenty of opportunity as we have a fair amount of travel ahead, and in fact I’m going away again next week.

Finally and by the way, I’m pleased with both sketches above for the most part. I’m aiming for less realistic rendering, which I think I achieved, and I enjoyed using colored pencils. However. There’s so much to improve! I just need much more practice…

So much of art practice is life practice. Repeat after me: I will honor what I need.