Amy's Pastel Portrait

Thank you, Alyson!

You always are there to remind me of what I need to hear!

For those of you who don’t know, Alyson B Stanfield is a coach for artists like me who want to succeed in this world. That is a tall order in this age of tight budgets and debt-filled households.

It is certainly not the easiest field to be in if you want to make a good living, but it is the right one for me. I sometimes feel that, like a religious person who is called to vocation, we artists have a “calling” to make art. When I consider the idea that I might spend my life not making art, the whole idea seems very foreign to me. I HAVE to create art. It’s in my blood! It’s what I was born to do!

Alyson’s message in her recent podcast on artbizcoach.com was: Put your art first!

She went on to say that the business side of art would always be there (kind of like housework!) And she’s right! If I don’t watch it I can easily spend all day on the computer doing things related to art, but not art itself! There comes a time when one must leave the computer and pick up the pencil, brush, whatever,... and make the time to DO IT!

Today I was doing a lot of necessary computer work for most of the day. I’m in the process of setting up a new website, requiring a lot of new downloading, etc... Then, around the time I thought I’d better quit to start dinner prep for the family, I remembered that I had promised myself on New Years Day that I’d try to do Art Every Day this year. Today I hadn’t done squat!

So I got right up, took out my pastels and some nice paper, and set myself up at the end of the dining room table. From there I had a nice view of my daughter who had slipped right into that computer chair once I’d gotten off. She said she didn’t mind being a model again (I’d just drawn her just recently) and I got to work. The plan was a fifteen minute drawing. Well, it turned out to be more like an hour, (so dinner was late tonight) but I was pleased with the result. I put my art first and stuck with my Art Every Day plan! Thanks for the reminder, Alyson!

What have you done today to reach your goals?!