Do you ever wish that you had a super power that gave you more time in the day? 
My friend and I were having a chat the other night about how busy we both are at the moment.  Between doing homework (we both study), looking after the kids, running a household, family and community commitments and working on our respective small businesses there isn’t much time left over for “me” time or to simply get creative.
I worked out that I need to be more organised with my time. 
It’s not that I don’t have the time – it’s just that I am not very disciplined with the time I do have.  Somehow I always end up staying up really late, and feeling terrible the next morning, because I have set myself some ridiculous deadlines.   And I am the type of person who constantly has more than one project on the go, my mind is always ticking over with other ideas of things I would like to do – if only I had the time…
One of the things that seem to get away from me is the mess in the studio…  before I start any new project I have to tidy my space only to have it be a total jumble the next day…
I am extremely lucky to be able to have one room of our house dedicated to my art.  I started out with a corner of a desk in the home office, and then moved to a desk of my own in the corner of the lounge room and graduated to this…  somehow this room doesn’t seem to be big enough anymore. 
 
Here you can see at least 3 projects that I have started.  And believe it or not this is actually tidy!
Anyone who has ever been invited into my home will tell you that I give the illusion of being organised and have an immaculate house.  I am also extremely lucky that I have a very accepting and helpful husband… without his help I am sure we would be living like those hoarders you sometimes see on telly.  After all, my philosophy really is Art before Housework… well let’s face it the reality is that it’s Anything before Housework… for example here are the 3 baskets of laundry I am ignoring in favour of writing this…
 
They are clean – I just haven’t found the time to put them away – yet!
This week I have to finish a portrait for a competition I have entered.  I fussed and fidgeted with several idea’s and then settled on doing a pointillism piece, which looks fantastic and will be gorgeous when it’s finished BUT it is taking forever because it contains several dark shadows and is naturally humungous!  The size of the piece is approx 38cm x 38cm, which doesn’t sound too bad till you realise that there are NO straight lines and everything is done in thousands of tiny dots created with the tip of a felt pen!  Apparently I enjoy this sort of torture!
If you throw in a couple of sick kids, self imposed pressure to create new work for the markets, and the competition deadline, there really isn’t much room for procrastination – but I have to admit I am guilty of that too!
I really want my art to become a full time occupation for me, so I have decided that I need to start treating it more like a job instead of a crazy hobby.  One of the things that I need to do to make this happen is to be more accountable with my time – sounds easy enough… I went out and bought myself a diary and whiteboard for the studio wall.  I have started a to-do list.
I am also going to have to slow down a little, finish a project (or two) and allow myself to take the time to relax and enjoy the creative side of this adventure.
Hopefully these simple little changes will help give me that super power control over time…
Andrea 🙂