Making Time To Paint On Weekends When You Have A Full-Time Job

Obstacles to Painting

The life of a professional artist is fraught with potholes and obstacles. It is even trickier if that artist is a woman, wife, mother and grandmother. The state of your studio is key to finding time to paint. Keep it orderly if you can because the first thing you will want to do is clean it up and then you will never paint a lick!

P C F

First, go to your computer and bring up a word document. Set the font on Ariel Bold and point size of 48. Then type these three letters: "P C F" and under them smaller, Painting Comes First".

Take that piece of paper to your studio and tape it on the wall over your art table. Then, if you haven't painted for a while, check you pallet and see if it is clean.(It should be). Take off your coat, set down you purse and close the door for just 15 minutes. Squeeze out a little paint in three basic colors....red, blue, yellow. Wet a small piece of 140 lb. Arches cold press paper and just let each of those colors drip off your brush onto the paper. Stand back and watch the magic. Rinse out your brush and cover your pallet and get on with the thousand things you are faced with.

You are invited by that piece of paper to peek in after dinner.

At that moment, plan for the first 15 minutes when you come home tomorrow, to take that little piece of paper in a direction with a silhouette shape. You are developing a color study that by the weekend will be ready to be interepreted on a full sheet of paper!