Things…
- I promised a sister I wouldn’t read any self-help books for a month (I like reading self-help books, be they motivational, business, life hacks, Buddhism etc!)
- When you give up these books, you start working stuff out for yourself.
- I want to make more art.
- So I’ll make a picture #everyday and post it here and on Instagram.
The idea is that if you want to improve a skill, you do it every single day. Obvious! I kind of knew this but I came back to the idea again by one of those funny circuitous routes.
Many months ago I saw a YouTube video diary by a monk saying he and his fellow monks and nuns had been to the cinema to watch “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”. Finally we watched it 2 nights ago. It’s great. It’s based on an article about children’s TV presenter Fred Rogers in Esquire magazine, which led me to another extraordinary article in Esquire about digital artist Beeple and nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. Which led me to deep-dive into the work and practices of Beeple, and to discover that he’s made and published a piece of art every day for over 10 years, and never missed a day – Simply because he wants to get better (publishing each work gives a much higher incentive to do it as well as possible, and hence improve more).
I thought I’d try the same. With no expectations of doing it every day at all and certainly not for ten years. But you never know… I’ll start with the rest of the month of March. Drawing, painting, iPad art, whatever. One a day. The first is at the top of this post 🙂
Notes from Ben 