Weaving Mindfulness into your Art Practice

Before practicing mindfulness, drawing felt a bit like using someone else’s hand to make marks.

My mindfulness practice has taught me to let judgmental thoughts pass like clouds in the sky.

Inspired by my pup Vigo, who met a friend on a walk outside. *

The cloud visualization helps me acknowledge and filter thoughts. This gives me more space to focus when I'm drawing, painting, or writing.

Instead of ignoring inner criticism, I acknowledge it and sometimes reply to it. I'll even thank it. It's trying to protect me from some kind of make-believe outcome my brain created.

Thought: "When people see this drawing, you will be shamed for life and never get work again."

Me: "You're right. This is bad. Now I'll make it even uglier and pretend it's your face. Then maybe I'll rip it up!"

I also like to tell myself I’ll feed my ugly drawings to my pretend studio mate, who is a fictitious goat.

My poor studio mate can’t get their art career going because they keep eating their own drawings!

Humor keeps me playful in my practice, but a gentler approach can be just as helpful.

Thought: "This isn't going well. You may as well give up."

Me: "Okay, I know you mean well and don't want me to fail, but I'm going to make this work."

I like to practice being present when I’m warming up to draw. Treating the warmup as a mindfulness exercise has been a game changer. It helps me feel connected to my practice and reminds me that I’m there to cultivate joy. I’m not just there to draw a picture to generate likes.

The mindful awareness warmup has allowed me the freedom to enjoy the process, not the product, of my creativity.

If you’d like to learn more about ways I loosen up my art, start a free Substack trial! You’ll have access to all the replays and content I’ve created over the last year. If you don’t find it useful, simply cancel before you’re charged.

Here are the two cuties who inspired my stop-motion movie above.

Vigo and a friend who found him on a walk around the block.