I started this blog late this week for a variety of reasons. One of which was that I wasn’t sure what to write about this week and how to connect that theme to last week’s theme. In the meantime, I have been taking my own advice from last week and doing what I love to do most, which for me is to draw and paint portraits. This week I have been working on a mixed media portrait of Emily Dickinson, to illustrate her poem, Hope is the Thing with Feathers. Here are a few lines to give you an idea of what this poem is about:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm – (Source: Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/42889.
The two main themes of this poem are the personification of hope ( as a bird), which lives in the soul and a metaphor for life challenges, which is the storm (Source:http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/dickinson/section2.rhtml . In my portrait, I painted a stormy sky with a rainbow shining through the break in the clouds. The former symbolized hardships, while the later symbolizes hope. Other symbols of hope I included in this portrait are the soaring doves in the upper left clouds, and the author herself, Emily Dickinson, who has written about what it means to hope. I am planning to submit this painting to a juried art show at the Crestwood Women’s Center this April. If all turns out well, I will post about the opening night and art exhibition details.
Okay, so back to my main statement of Do What you Love…It sounds good, right? Kind of like the phrase, Follow Your Bliss. Let’s say you really enjoy, cooking every day, but want to get better, or you enjoy painting, but find it difficult to make time to finish your artwork. And lastly, how do you maintain the motivation to do that thing you love most in the world to do? I got curious and started doing some research about how to be a better artist, and that led me to an article by artist, Noah Bradley. The article is called: 21 Days to be a Better Artist (even if you’re terrible), by Noah Bradley and is available on https://medium.com/@noahbradley/21-days-to-be-a-better-artist-48087576f0dd#.fj77c5nel.
According to the artist, Noah Bradley (2015), if you want to get better at something you have to practice it on a daily basis (Source:https://medium.com/@noahbradley/21-days-to-be-a-better-artist-48087576f0dd#.fj77c5nel.) Bradley (2015) recommends that if you want to get better at drawing that you should draw 1 hour for 21 days with no excuses, (ibid). And finally, he references a Ted Talks youtube video that explains the power of habit, which is based on “cue, behavior, and reward” (ibid) and (The Power of Habit: Charles Duhigg at TEDx Teachers College, http://www.youtube.com). Charles Duhigg, an author and Pulitzer prize winner, states that a cue is anything that makes you ready to start the behavior, while the behavior is the habit you engage in, and the reward is any action that you take after you complete the behavior which reinforces the habit (Source: ibid). For me, to start off my day of painting or drawing, I will play my favorite music by Coldplay or listen to a book on cd on youtube, set up my art supplies and set up the coffee maker to brew. Then I set my timer for 30 minutes and get to work setting up my supplies, photo references and start painting. When the timer goes off, I do something relaxing like reading a book to reward myself and reinforce the habit. Most important, I pencil in studio days on my calendar and try to do artwork before all the other to-dos on my list compete for my attention. So here’s my challenge, I want to start working in my sketchbook on a daily basis for 20 minutes, 5 days a week to get better at drawing. I will be posting the results on my Instagram account and on Facebook if you want to view them, and of course, here on the website. If you want to learn more about Duhigg’s Power of Habit speech 
, you may watch his presentation on youtube by conducting a search on the power of habit, or you may look up the book, The Power of Habit your local public library or on Amazon. For this week, I am posting my progress photos of the mixed media portrait, Hope is the Thing with Feathers, featuring Emily Dickinson.
Art of Schmidt 