How to Art - [ Motivation and Consistency ] (Patreon)

A common topic that has cropped up recently in my art sessions with patrons is “How do I find my motivation to draw?” or “How can I be more consistent?” or “How can I procrastinate less?” or “*30 minutes of incoherent screaming*”.

I am particularly guilty of having days/weeks where I just can’t pull my act together and sitting down to work feels like trying to gnaw on granite. The thing is, for me it is work so whether I feel like doing it or not the compulsion to meet my deadlines and expectations is what keeps me going. This can be a lot harder if you do art for yourself or if you’re still learning and the only expectations to meet are your own.

Out of all concerns I ever hear on the subject of being unable to draw consistently, the most common issue at large is that of “starting”. Just starting - either for the first time, or for the first time in a week, or for the first time after a last finished drawing. Starting the process of drawing is the single hardest thing anyone - including myself - ever has to overcome.

I like to call this “The wall”, in that the problem isn’t so much “Starting” as it is “Getting past the wall”. There’s always a wall and it’s always made out of something deep within us- which can be your anxiety over facing your lack of knowledge, or the thought that we might struggle while working on something or the fear of missing out on all the other million things vying for your attention.

The wall is often disguised as a “lack of motivation” or feelings of pressure over immaterial and irrelevant things such as what other people are doing with their time, so before I get on to how to deal with that, I want to touch on two things which I consider to be critical to getting past it:

The first: Motivation is fleeting and unmanageable. It is not something that you can fabricate, generate or find and when you do manage to get some, it is elusive and limited at best. I like to compare motivation to the sun here in England - a rare sight, so when it’s out you have to make the best of it, but otherwise you have no control over whether it comes out or for how long and if you bank on only living your life while it’s out you’ll be able to fit your experiences in a teacup.

The second thing: Distractions. Life has gotten substantially more distracting in the last decade - not just because we have scores of social media channels and sources of entertainment, but because all of these make you think your attention is required at all times. Read receipts, “someone is typing”, little red notifications on the corner of every app, vibrations and sound cues. That, piled on top of algorithms that decrease the value of your presence if you don’t post frequently enough have us all conditioned against focusing on anything for too long.

I’ve often heard people say that these distractions help them suppress their anxiety over other problems and I can absolutely understand that. As someone with chronic anxiety, I thrive in the escapism that having multiple things to click or tap on gives me. But I also realise that this in itself has generated a new form of stress, where I actually feel my attention being yanked like seams snagging on a loose nail if I go too long without getting my notification fix. It’s not hard to see how easily this cyclical feeling compares to other less bening stimulants.

The reason I mention this is because I have thought a lot about the impact this has on my work, as well as on the impact I’ve heard it have on other people. I’ve tried to work out how to overcome it and the answer is that we can’t, not really, as these companies will only keep evolving to recapture us if we grow distant from them; it’s why channels like Instagram are turning towards video now- because they know that the 30 second video format is the most optimal thing to keep us hooked for hours with our thumbs rolling up and down like a windmill.

So the next best thing to attempt is to play the game by those same rules, which is where I tie in my thoughts on how to try to overcome your lack of motivation or focus. A disclaimer before we carry on though: these are my personal thoughts and takes and they might not work for everyone, but they may serve as a trampoline for someone to find their own way instead. So with that, let's bounce away:

If your big issue is getting started (or breaking the wall) on a given day, then always carry a little sketchbook with you- something about the size of your palm - and a pencil. Sketch often, anywhere and anything. Doesn’t have to be anything specific - even circles or eyeballs will do. Drawing often is the best way to ram through the blockade that is sitting down to purposefully spend time drawing and finding that you have no motivation/no idea about what to draw. The one I use is an A6 Moleskin with soft covers.

If you get distracted easily or find that you need to have something else going on while you draw, then try watching something you have already watched. This will appease the part of your brain looking for stimulation in other places. Make it full screen to block out anything else on your computer.

If you lose interest or get distracted often while you’re working on a long or large piece, then draw small and/or break it down into portions and make little achievements for yourself out of the individual aspects you’re drawing- gamefy the process: if you’re drawing a face, make a goal of drawing the eyes and call that a win, give yourself permission to look away for a few minutes. Dividing your process into micro sections will help you feel like you’re finishing parts along the way - making a paper list can help as ticking things off of it will give you a nice serotonin boost.

If you find it hard to know what to draw or to feel inspired, then you probably need to consume a lot of art. I always say that someone who doesn’t read cannot be a good writer. Equally, someone who doesn’t look at art will have a very limited visual library to pull from. Spend time looking at art books, or pages like Creative Uncut, where there’s professional grade art that might inspire you to try something similar; even better If you can do this away from a PC or your phone. Important to note though, the purpose of consuming art should be to feel a part of it - not below it. Always avoid comparing yourself to art in a destructive way (“they’re better than me”, “I could never do that”) and focus on trying to mirror or try what others are doing- get excited about trying something new.

If you are generally anxious and this causes your mind to drift or shut down, try meditation! For years I rejected the idea of doing this because I am exceptionally bad at staying still and doing nothing. Except meditation isn’t about staying still and doing nothing, but about learning how to identify when your mind/attention is drifting and how to gently pull it back to the task at hand. It can also be a safe place to realign yourself with your thoughts, as a lot of the time procrastination is borne out of underlying anxieties over unrelated things that we’re not dealing with. Meditation won’t teach you how to deal with things, but it will help you turn unhealthy procrastination into a kinder form of compartmentalisation. There are hundreds of videos for free on Youtube, but I personally use the Calm app which I found is organised in a way that is easy and straightforward to use and prevents me from getting suckered into watching unrelated videos.

If you’re tense, stiff or uncomfortable then stretch. Like meditation, it might seem like it has no relation to actually drawing, but as I said above a lot of the time the reason we get distracted is because we’re anxious, and with anxiety comes tension and tension makes everything a lot less pleasant - especially the experience of sitting still feeling like a pretzel while you’re trying to focus. I am intensely averse to exercise in a way that would make you think I’m allergic to it, so I will always default to making as little an effort as possible. With that, I have found that 15 minutes within the first hour or two of waking up (or even later if I couldn’t get off my ass early enough in the morning) can totally change my outlook with very little effort. Here is the video I use most days, as well as a Yoga channel that I really like as I find the creator to be really chill and genuine.

Finally, there are other more restrictive options you can try to prevent distractions, such as placing your phone elsewhere in the house while you draw, turning off the computer if you’re at your desk or even installing social media blockers to stop you from perusing twitter every ten minutes. Personally, I have never found these things to work long-term for me, as for one I need these things for work, but for another they don’t stem from me - they’re not an effort I have to adapt and learn to make, so it builds no consistency.

And ultimately, it is consistency that is at the heart of all of these things. Consistency to place a line or write a sentence down on a napkin or a post-it the minute you feel it building up, to talk yourself back when you feel your mind and attention drifting, to be kind to yourself when you start feeling the inadequacies creeping in or to simply acknowledge that you couldn’t do something today, but you might be tomorrow. The biggest enemy of any creative endeavour is letting undiscovered or unaddressed feelings lie to us about our capacity to keep trying, in a way that we rarely lie to ourselves about the many other things that we do.

If you got this far, congratulations! I’m proud of you and I hope this has helped you a little. I’d love to hear your thoughts or if you have any other things that work for you.

If nobody comments then I guess that’s me figuring out I should have narrated this in 30 second Tik Toks.