Final Day

31 Day Watercolor + Poetry Challenge in March

What I Learned: Art Is A Work Filled With Grace

And Humility

Any work I’m wholeheartedly committed to is a sort of purifying fire because while working I forget about myself. I deeply enjoy the effort whenever I’m in the thick of it. When I finish though, I feel a little shy.

Art is a worthy effort; it’s not easy to discuss.

It’s much easier to “learn” quietly in your mind than it is to narrate or share or formulate your own stumbling knowledge near others. It’s much easier to conceal your timid first strokes than it is to paint a picture for your family at the dinner table.

But how will my family learn to notice Beauty if I don’t usher it in? They won’t make the time for Stepan Kolesnikoff. They love me, not him.

I shouldn’t feel ashamed by that, but I do. If I don’t show my love how will they ever see someone (verb) loving?

It’s so much easier to give up than it is to persevere when mistakes are made or when excellent art seems beyond my current capability. Publicly committing to a practice here, whether that practice is prayer, exercise, debate, or art, is actually easier in many ways than sharing intellectual pursuits with my family.

And Sacrifice

A poem tenderly pins down a sound to a page in an attempt to keep it forever; a painter tries to entice and trap light for the same reason. Attempting poetry and watercolor simultaneously was too much for me.

Halfway into the month I forgot my own rule about “one stroke of color” and just sketched in pencil or wrote a few words. Even that tiny effort sometimes stretched my limit.

Intellectually, I understand that reaching 500 hours in any pursuit is the bare minimum one must accomplish before finding direction, receiving criticism, or feeling confident. Emotionally, however, pursuing 500 hours feels like I’m an amoeba trying to become a star.

There are only so many creative pursuits I can maintain with my current constraints but even those are too many, that is if I want to reach the 500 hour goal before 2030. I only have one hour a day during three months of the year to dedicate to art: one hour a day in March, July, and November. At the end of the year, if I stay on track, I will have worked at creating -something- for around 100 hours. My impatience and pride are on the altar.

Little drops of water
Little grains of sand
Make the mighty ocean
And the beauteous land

~JA Carney

There are other creative pursuits I did not focus on this month mostly because I wanted a reason to focus on nature, specifically the flowers blooming in my yard. But if I want to knit Christmas sweaters this year or crochet cute little amigurumi animals or ever successfully bake a banoffee pie I can’t allocate all of my creative time to watercolor.

I wonder if the truest test for discovering the art you are meant to do is by asking yourself whether or not you enjoy the humblest, tiniest progression. The stroke. The spin. The note. The rhyme. Every drop of effort must be touched, every grain of sand.

And Repetition

So which art should I pursue when I repeat this experiment in July? I don’t know yet. I decided that this year will be a poem of challenges in three quatrains. Everything we do in January, February, March, and April will be repeated twice more, in the same order.

You have time to ponder before Calm Creativity comes round again in July. That is, if you want to participate. We still have to get through April, but don’t worry about that just yet.

Art Can Be Holy Leisure

This month as I sat on the steps outside with my 3€ paint set, my 20$ brushes, and my 14£ watercolor paper I endeavored to keep the habits of an artist rather than keep the habits of a mindless consumer. Regardless of where I live in or how old I am, I want to be someone who pauses to worship in color, in the shadow of the Most High.

It wasn’t until I moved to Spain, got remarried, and began homeschooling full time that I began to have my beliefs about Work reordered; the idea that I ought to be just as diligent about Art as I had always been about making money confused me.

I had no experiential understanding of sacrificial leisure.

It felt sinful to have time and not use it well, but all the ways of “well” that I was familiar with involved the god of utilitarian productivity.

Is it any wonder that I continued to practice the same work ethic I had already practiced for twenty years? I tackled sweeping and scheduling with the same habits that served me when I was running a business. I was happy, but God wanted more.

I did not feel comfortable creating. It seemed a little trifling, too frivolous.

I often fail to keep my heart and mind, soul and body aimed in holy directions. The “things of below” tend to distract me with daily concerns or doubts about a future I cannot control, things that suck my courage away and leave me quaking. Living here, in Spain, is the first time I have ever had the freedom to learn or create at my leisure.

But I didn’t really earn it so for those first few years I felt like I couldn’t actually enjoy it.

It took easy challenges and simple strokes to break some habits. It took an effort of will to dismiss those rational condemnations and cruel accusations that swam like sharks in my own mind every time I sat down to rest. Thank God I have a husband who delights in my art, who encourages art, who praises and loves me no matter how small my watercolor square.

He encouraged me and watched, with every tiny stroke of color, as my idea of homeschooling clashed in tumultuous waves against the shores of real life. If you want to classically educate you must BE a classicist, but what is that for me, exactly?

If you want your children to love Tennyson and Homer your love must be able to withstand a thousand, thousand daily shocks and ebbings that drag away at your integrity. You must become little and beauteous in your own unique way, committed to seeing yourself, your work, your life as reverent.

Are we practicing who we say we want them to be?

It’s so much easier to scroll than it is to gather supplies and make time for drawing. It is so much easier to read than to live the life of a dedicated artist in front of my babies and use my leisure time in holy ways.

Aesop’s The Lion and the Mouse

Was it courage or audacity that opened the mouse’s mouth that day, oh so long ago, when he shouted in his shrill voice and argued for his life? (Who will argue for your heart, O Best Beloved?) When Aesop’s lion heard the tiny voice of the mouse saying that some way, somehow, someday a mouse could save the King of the Jungle it was an ostentatious stroke of genius. It was a bit of art.

The boldness of the mouse made the lion laugh and open his paw.

Today we tell the story of Aesop’s Lion and the Mouse with fondness, but not because the lion laughed. We love the story because the mouse kept his word. His courage began the story; his faithfulness finished it. That wee fragile timorous beastie heard the echoing roar reverberating across the jungle when the lion was in mortal peril and the mouse returned! He came back to chew through the ropes. He saved the lion! He kept his promise.

A sketch is a tiny wee thing you could crush in your fist. But it can rescue your moments. Art can chew through ropes.

Why are people so afraid to open their hand and let art run free? Too afraid to create a conversation, write a story, draw a landscape, make a day?

Maybe we all need to make more promises?

This month I did something I promised to do. It was all all all humbling sacrificial multifaceted repetitious shadowed holy; work that made me thankful to be alive.

Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you’ll come hang out tomorrow for the very first day of the next challenge. (Don’t worry. It involves books!)

This one is for you,
~Katie