This is part of my blog series sharing a bit about what’s going at at my monthly online art learning and community site: My Art Practice.
For context, My Art Practice operates on a 3-month cycle, rather like a semester. Each cycle is themed around an idea or concept. The cycle 10 theme is “Place Shapes Practice.”
Art Techniques and Materials
The “Creativity Spark” video was all about how to find inspiration around you. I used my backyard as inspiration for these small studies in my Art Practice Planner:
Professional Skill
Each cycle there is a professional skill that is taught and then put into practice. Past topics have included photographing your artwork, writing an artist bio, and making short form videos for social media. This cycle we are focused on framing. I shared four lessons this month on the topic…
…and next month we will have a live Zoom discussion on the topic as well. Framing is a really important part of the artistic process, but most people overlook it as an afterthought.
Art Practice
For the “Studio Notebook” lesson, I taught members how to conduct a “habit field study” in order to better understand how their current environment and/or habits may be shaping their art practice.
Being aware of this helps you to understand how even a very small change to your art making space or habits can vastly improve your experience!
This month we also:
- Had our “Process and Practice Discussion” on the message board. This is when I prompt members to think about and share some thought on a particular aspect of their art process and practice.
- Every month we begin with a small step that keeps your art practice moving forward: Goals & Tiny Wins. On the message board, I invite MAP members to share both their monthly goals and tiny wins.
- Monthly goals give your practice a gentle direction. When you name one small goal for the month, you give your practice something to return to.
- Tiny wins build consistency through self-trust. Most of us underestimate how much “little progress” matters. Tiny wins are the building blocks of a long-term practice!
- “The Re-Do” challenge encourages members to visit older work and move it forward. This cycle I shared some ideas on how changing one condition around the making of the work can substantially change the work itself.
- Finally, I shared a collection of three videos for the “YouTube Video Inspo” about different artists and how their practices are shaped by place.
- As a side note, I watch hours of videos before choosing what goes into the YouTube Video Inspo. It’s highly curated with no junk, but high quality videos that are useful and thoughtful and helpful to your practice.
Art History
I hope you’ll read my blog post about why all artists – hobby artists and professional artists – should know a bit of art history. This month there were two art history lessons at My Art Practice:
(1) For our “Artwork Deep Dive” this cycle, we looked at Richard Diebenkorn’s painting, Ocean Park #54.
Diebenkorn is one of my favorite artists (though I prefer his Berkley Series to his Orchard Park Series) and I’ve mentioned him several times on this blog if you take a peek through the archives. “Artwork Deep Dive” is a two-part lesson in which I share a bit about a famous artwork and then issue a challenge to members based in that artwork. The challenge is always designed to fuel your understanding of the artwork. Then we meet on Zoom and go over the artwork in depth, take a peek at what people made, and I share what I think the big take aways are from the artwork. It’s a very practical and useful way to learn a bit of art history!
(2) For this cycle’s “Book Club” we read and discussed Artists at Home by Susie Hodge…
…which was filled with short biographies and gorgeous photos of lots of important European artists.
Coaching and Mentoring and Community
Community is at the heart of My Art Practice. We use a very robust platform with lots of opportunities for message board chatter and private messaging. In August there were two live community-focused events:
- At the beginning of the month, I hosted Group Coaching over Zoom.
- The way it works is that anyone in the community can submit work to be discussed during the session. We use a relaxed but formal methodology where the person who submitted the work should have a question in mind. Ex. “Does this feel cohesive?” “Do you think the stripes on the left are helping or hurting?” “Any ideas on how I can push this to be less realistic?” Etc. Then participants give feedback that is thoughtful, non-prescriptive, and focused on helping solve the problem. I also chime in!
- Each month at My Art Practice there is a community-led Art Jam! Art Jams are an opportunity to hang out on Zoom for a few hours and make art, chat, share, laugh, and enjoy the company of other creatives.
And of course, I don’t want to forget about all the chatter on the message boards, and weekly accountability group meetings. Lots of opportunities to be social if you want to be! (Lurkers welcome too!)
Membership Info
There are two kinds of MAP membership.
- Full membership grants you access to everything on the site – all lessons and message boards and everything that has come before.
- Technique Vault membership grants you access to a more limited selection, focused on art techniques and materials. But again, you get access to both new and archived lessons. (You can take a peek at the kinds of things that are available in this post.)
You can check out all the options HERE and you can take a quiz to see if membership is right for you and if so, which membership is right for you!
Let me know if you have questions!
