Maximize Your Minutes with Art

Tweny Minute Post Card

I’m always looking for ways to make more time for creating art in my daily life. I came up with this list to help you maximize your art-making minutes. I found that there are two benefits to these activities;

1. Once you start making art in minutes, your creative energy becomes ignited. And before you know it, those minutes may turn into a couple of hours of art making.
2. The exercises will give you ideas for larger art projects.

Five Minutes

• Do a five minute doodle. Designate a small notebook to record these daily, five minute doodles.
• Cover a two-page spread of your Art Journal with gesso or acrylic paints. Now, these pages are ready for your next Art Journaling session.
• Grab an old magazine and choose three images for your next collage.

Ten Minutes

• Get your camera and wander through the rooms of your home taking photographs of unique items. Later, use some of these photos for your blog posts.
• Go into your stash and randomly pick up paper scraps for your next mixed-media art piece.
• Sort through your art tools (markers, colored pencils, oil pastels) and choose a color theme for a future art project.

Twenty Minutes

• Choose some random art supplies and set up a still life that you complete in twenty minutes.
• Look at the comics section of your newspaper or a cartoon book for inspiration. Then create your own cartoon character.
• Dig into your stash and pick out those special ephemera pieces that you haven’t used because you don’t want to mess them up or waste them. Or choose an art supply that you haven’t used yet (that may still be in its original store bag). Alternately, hunt for an art supply, or tool, that you completely forgot that you owned. Now, take twenty minutes to create art with that item.
• Create a mixed-media art postcard in twenty minutes. Challenge yourself to create a postcard every day.

Thirty Minutes

• Create six Artist Trading Cards (ATC) in thirty minutes. Take only five minutes to create each card. Beforehand, set up your cards, supplies and kitchen timer – And Go!
• Want to try a new art technique, or learn a new artistic skill the easy way. Google the technique/skill + children’s art. You’re sure to find simple instructions for tackling that new project – and probably less expensive supplies too.
• Take a pack of Model Magic, or paper clay, and sculpt a tea cup. Make your cup elegant or a fanciful Alice in Wonderland cup.
• Paint a monotone painting in various tones of raw umber and white.
• Set the timer and create a thirty minute Art Journal page.

©Darlene Maciuba-Koppel