The Power of Practice, and a New Goal

When I was little, I remember my sister taking an art class. I remember it, because she tried to sketch me for one of her assignments. I must have been around seven at the time, and as excited as we both were about the project at the beginning, I'm pretty sure she regretted her choice of such a wiggly and talkative model as soon as she began to draw.

Fast forward to a few years ago, when my sister and I took a trip to Idaho. She had begun this challenge of drawing something every day. It didn't have to be something big or important, just something. It was fun to watch her, and I learned a lot from her comments about her own drawings, as well as from the tips she gave me as I tried my hand at drawing in a little travel journal I had brought with me to record the trip.

Since then, she has continued to draw daily, but now she is a skilled and successful artist! Although my undiscriminating eye had already thought her art was very good when she first began the drawing challenge, even I can tell the difference between those early drawings and the drawings she produces now.

These are a few of my favorites:

     

 

(You can find these at her website by clicking here. --Ok, advertisement's over: carry on.) 

 The two of us are about as different as two sisters can be, and I won't pretend I always enjoy the subject matter she chooses to portray, but I have so enjoyed watching her success as she has improved her skill by daily practicing something she loved.

So when I found this notebook in a store a couple years ago, I not only admired it, I remembered my sister and her daily drawing challenge and bought the notebook for the sole purpose of writing regularly (although it was pretty intermittent at first) just for the delight of it. I had no intention of making anything of what I wrote, I just liked the idea of having a journal in which I could write without feeling it needed to be a big project, or anything official.

And now, here I am, blogging, writing, unable to go anywhere comfortably without pen and paper... and, --I am pleased to announce-- looking forward to publishing a children's picture book by the end of the year, Lord willing! (With illustrations by my sister, of course!) -More on that to come!

But I need to improve, and at the beginning of this new year at the start of a new decade, I dare to put into writing a goal I have wanted to accomplish, but have been to terrified to attempt: I am going to write something every day this year, whether it's a blog post, (January second... check!)  a journal entry, a note from my time in the Bible, a paragraph added to a lengthier project, or just a few short lines scrawled in my "emergency" notebook I keep in my car while stopped at a traffic light... it doesn't have to be perfect or even particularly important -just as long as it's words carefully pieced together and recorded, it counts as practice.

Now, the point to all this for you, dear reader, is that whether it's drawing, writing, music, or any other skill God has given you a love for, practice is a powerful thing. It is, in fact, the only way to improve that skill so you can then share it with others.