Practice Makes Me...What Are You Practicing?
Plus more screenprint works in progress!
Hi Folks! How was your Labor Day? I hope you are continuing to enjoy these last days of summer and the cooler mornings. Last month, I went back to EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop to finish up my studio hours and got to work refining my ‘Blue Jays & Red Cardinals’ print. When I realized how much I loved how the colors picked up on newsprint, I ordered some nice paper on TALAS and printed 10 great editions!
Here’s a peak at one of the editions! (I will be selling soon I promise!!)
I used my time in the studio to work on another piece related to birds and nature. (Clearly I’m in a bird kick right now.) Here’s a peak at my work in progress:
I won’t go into too much of the details with the second print until it’s complete, but what I will share is how much I learned from getting this base layer down. My first day working on the new print, it was one mistake after another. I underexposed my screen which led to me having to re-wash, re-emulsify, re-expose, and the ‘re-’ list goes on and on. So my goal of finishing the print in one day resulted into me just getting only one layer done… and that’s okay! Practicing (especially something new!) sometimes means slowing down to really taking your time and understand what you’re doing, learn from any mistakes, and give it another try. It’s been really teaching me the importance of patience in a society that continues to feed off of instant gratification. Practicing is what’s making me a better printmaker. Practicing is what’s making me a more confident artist and experimenter. So I actually have some prompt questions for you.
What are you currently practicing or want to practice?
What are you struggling with or navigating through this practice?
What are you learning about yourself from this practice?
I was journaling a bit about this recently…and I began to jot down the ways that practicing is making a better [whatever!] So here’s a bit of what I wrote and an activity you can do whenever you have a moment to write down on a piece of paper or in your own journal.
Practicing [fill in] makes me [fill in].
Here’s some of what I wrote:
Practicing printmaking makes me proud. Practicing printmaking makes me see my potential. Practicing printmaking makes me more confident. Practicing printmaking makes me happy! This is what’s helping me to continue to show up for myself even when I’m struggling and getting over the learning curve.
To close out, I want to leave you with a quote that I have on my desktop in front of me. It helps me when I get clouded by my own perfectionism, embrace process and understand that practice is what ultimately makes us better.
“Continuous improvements are better that delayed perfections.” I heard this on a podcast once, and it stuck with me since. So…What are you practicing?