![\"Trowzers](\"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/tAkimbo01.jpg\")
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Artist friends are always\u00a0complementing me on the volume\u00a0of paintings\u00a0I produce. Interesting, because in my mind I’m not getting into the studio to paint enough. And I’m a slow painter. I work slow to be sure I’m paying attention to the details of every painting as it develops in front of me. I study as much as I paint. I never know when a “happy accident” will occur, leading me in a totally new direction.<\/p>\n
My art school illustration professor, Harold Kramer, used to quote another painter or teacher he knew (terrible, but I can’t remember who that\u00a0was) in saying, “Work slow, finish fast.” In other words, work too quickly and you make mistakes, travel down roads that dead-end,\u00a0need to backtrack and start over. Work slowly, but meticulously, thoughtfully and you’re more likely to determine what is working and not working at the start, avoiding the dead-ends, keeping the painting moving in a fruitful direction to the finish.<\/p>\n
Anyway, on the off chance that my friends are right and I do produce a lot, I’ll share\u00a0how I work. First,\u00a0I aim to paint\u00a0everyday of the working week: Monday – Friday. Why not work Saturday and Sunday? I’d love to, but I have chores to complete, like everyone else, a home and cars to maintain, errands to run, etc. And parties or get-togethers are generally planned for the weekends.\u00a0The rest of world runs on a Monday – Friday working week, with\u00a0Saturday and Sunday off. Buck the system and you’ll find your painting time interrupted\u00a0by personal commitments\u00a0and\u00a0unexpected visitors.<\/p>\n
Next, I set aside a dedicated\u00a0time to paint each of those working days, the same time each day. I try to get into the studio every day as early as I can, but if all else fails, when my dedicated painting start time arrives, I stop whatever else I’m doing and head into the studio.\u00a0My family knows and respects this as my painting time and truth be told, probably enjoy the fact that they have a given time each day, when they don’t have to deal with me.<\/p>\n
How much time you set aside, depends on your personal schedule, how much time you realistically have to paint. In my case it’s 4 hours a day. Why not 8? The experts say running your own business is 50% production and 50%\u00a0infrastructure\u00a0and marketing. The other 4 hours in my day are spent running and marketing my business.<\/p>\n
From time to time things do occur, which prevent me from getting into the studio on time (I’m on the road returning from picking up art supplies or I\u00a0set up everything to\u00a0shoot my work and it’s taking longer than I planned, etc.), but just because I’m starting late, is no excuse to skip working that day. I get in there as close to my designated start time as\u00a0possible and use whatever time is left,\u00a0no matter how little, to paint.<\/p>\n
If you’re not working to a dedicated schedule already, try it; I think you’ll discover a significant increase in your production!<\/p>\n
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Artist friends are always\u00a0complementing me on the volume\u00a0of paintings\u00a0I produce. Interesting, because in my mind I’m not getting into the studio to paint enough. And I’m a slow painter. I work slow to be sure I’m paying attention to the details of every painting as it develops in front of me. I study as much … Continue reading “Getting it Done!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":467,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions\/467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}