Welcome to the last rendition of The Practise: The Artist’s Way! Thank you to all of you who have read so far. This week we’ll be going through the last couple weeks and my official verdict on if you should go through the book yourself.
If this is your first article of mine you’re reading then, hello and welcome to The Practise, a series where I work through different programs designed to improve creativity. This article is episode four of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.
To see how we got to this point make sure to check out the rest of the series:
Check out the rest of the series:
Episode 1: The Artist’s Way: Week 1
Episode 2: The Artist’s Way: Week 4
Episode 3: The Artist’s Way: Week 8
Week Nine: Recovering a Sense of Compassion:
Tasks: Completed
Overview:
Straight off the bat Cameron says that this is one of points in the book where its many users are wanting to jump ship, me included - I just felt like I had my fill of internal introspection, but regardless week nine is complete.
This week established the relationship between your inner artist and the trifecta of guilt, fear and anger. Cameron urges us to just let go of the idea of being a great artist “The need to produce a great work of art makes it hard to produce any art at all” - which of course, is just perfectionism again. I think this week, I’m just going to focus on painting for painting’s sake. Just picking whatever art I think looks good on Pinterest, or any other inspiration and attempting to copy it or make it my own - just to put in my own little creative space.
Favourite Quote:
“Use love for your artist to cure its fear”
Painting:
That big canvas I bought a couple weeks ago? Haven’t touched it since. I also haven’t made any paintings this week either. I don’t know if my inner artist is on sabbatical or taking a nap, but this week, I just did not end up picking up a paintbrush.
In other news - the winners for the tiny art show have been announced and it is not me. But I did go and pick up my canvas from the library and now it’s sitting proudly next to my T.V.
Blueberries, anyone?
Writing: 56,000k
Quite disappointed with my word count this week, but this week again, just wasn’t it. Hopefully things change next week, but I’m hoping to get to at least 60k soon.
Morning Pages: 7/7
Artist Date: Movie night! Coraline.
Bought Coraline, a film I hadn’t seen since I was a little kid and had a solo movie night in my house. This is the first artist date that’s technically been inside my house, so I’m not sure if that counts or not, but since technically I’m in charge, I’m saying it does count.
Coraline, is of course a very very good film. It’s a bit saddening to watch now, with the Niel Gaiman controversy, but the artists and stop motion animators behind the scenes still deserve some love and praise.
Week Ten: Recovering a Sense of Protection:
Tasks: Completed
Overview:
Monday: In other news, I experienced some synchronicity today! It’s Monday - during my Morning Pages I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do as a second job. With my current WFH job, I spent most of my time indoors and I found that that’s not good for my creativity. For a few weeks I was tossing and turning between a Barista job and something in production management. Today I decided that I would get a Barista job for the rest of this year just to see if it works out. After I finished my morning pages I went on Indeed and found a job opening for a cafe near my house that had just been posted a couple days before. I decided to go into the cafe to check out the environment and ended up talking to one of the workers there, and her name was Grace - as in my DnD character! I’m deciding that’s a good sign. I’m going to put in my resume today.
Tuesday Update: Got a call, interview scheduled tomorrow!
Wednesday Update: Got the job!
Thursday Update: Got my schedule, I start on Monday!
Favourite Quote:
“When asked to name our poison, most of us can”
Painting:
Started and finished a painting this week! A huge difference from last week. A couple of years ago I took this photo of my car after I had finished tutoring a student at the library and really loved the composition. I had painted it last year but suddenly this week I thought that I could give it another go and see how my painting has progressed. And I’m really happy with the final result.
I think this painting is the one I’m most proud of, because it’s completely original. I took that photo and I painted it - and I think my blending and proportions have gotten a lot better too.
Passenger Seat
Writing: 58,000k
Got some writing done before I could start my new job, still not at a place that I wanted to be, but at least things are getting written, so perhaps the 100k word count isn’t feasible by the end of Week 12, but we gave it a shot, and maybe I just need a couple more weeks to settle into my new timetable.
Morning Pages: 7/7
Morning Pages have really been interesting this week, on Monday I had the sudden clarity of what I wanted to do, and during my Tuesday morning pages I got the call for an interview.
Artist Date: Boba Tea and a walk.
Not much to update on, this Artist Date wasn’t as good as the others, I left it too late and had a limited amount of options before things were closed, so I did try a new flavour of boba, but just did a short walk.
Week Eleven: Recovering a Sense of Autonomy
Tasks: Completed
Overview:
This week focused on acceptance of our identity as an artist. Cameron makes the distinction between fame and success, which I think is vital to our perception of ourselves as an artist. From an onlooker, especially a non-creative onlooker, the success of an artist is synonymous with the fame of the artist and putting that perspective on ourselves can be damaging to our inner child and our ego. “Success comes to us, we must be vigilant”
Cameron makes a note to “be very careful to surround (yourself) with people who nurture (your) artist”. I’d like to add that this doesn’t work if you don’t nurture yourself first.
Favourite Quote:
“I must learn that as an artist my credibility lies with me…In other words, if I have a poem to write, I need to write that poem - whether it will sell or not”
Painting:
A great painting week again! This time I painted Lorde’s Melodrama album, the time it took from buying the canvas to finishing painting was 2 days, which is probably my quickest painting ever. I’m really happy with the way it turned out. This was my first attempt at painting faces and I’m quite happy about it. I think I’ve improved my colour mixing skills - that used to be a sore point for me. But after going down a rabbit hole on Youtube, I’m a lot better. I’ve linked some of the videos I learnt from below. I think for next week, I’ll focus more on drawing than painting.
Writing: 60,000k
Writing took a hit this week too. I’m happy I still visited my manuscript this week, but the 100k by the end of week twelve ship has definitely sailed. Again disappointing, but I will say, I’m finding it easier to get into the rhythm of writing and I’m a lot less judgemental of my work.
Morning Pages: 3/7
I’m going to be honest, of the days I did do my morning pages, I don’t think I finished them. I’m a bit disappointed that I couldn’t commit to more this week, especially being one week away from finishing The Artist’s Way, but it is what it is and I think this week sleep won out.
Artist Date: :/ got sick.
Unfortunately I got super sick this week. I did put on a movie this week - not sure if this really counts as an Artist Date, but I think the point of them is to do what your inner child needs and this week, I just needed to stay home and watch a new movie. I ended up watching The Departed, which is actually my first Scorsese movie, (who coincidentally was married to Cameron for a while). I quite enjoyed it, I think I gave it a 3.5 /5 on my Letterboxed. I quite liked the dual timelines and how action packed it was. I will say that I never realised how much Dicapiro and a blonde Matt Damon look alike.
Week Twelve: Recovering a Sense of Faith
Tasks: Completed
Overview:
Last week of The Artist’s Way, the majority of this last week was reassurance that my creativity journey isn’t over when I finish the pages of this book and to trust myself to continue the journey. I do like that this book ends with a ‘creativity is a never ending journey’ and I think I still have gotten a sense of closure from it.
One point that Cameron makes is to establish that when you’re being creative = you’re being productive. She also says to be very protective of our art, our vision, what we see ourselves doing with our career - to “zip the lip. Button up. Keep a lid on it. Don’t give away the gold…only then will you be able to manifest what you desire”
Favourite Quote:
“Once we trigger an internal yes by affirming our truest goals and desires, the universe mirrors that yes and expands it”
Painting:
No paintings this week, but a few sketches of faces and I think I’m getting better at them! I’ve decided that I want to get really really good at sketching/ painting portraits.
Writing: 60,346 / 100,000k
And officially the last word count of the Artist Way. I started with 31,000k, which means that over the course of the twelve weeks I have written 29,346 which averages out to 2,445 words per week, which is a lot smaller than I would of liked, but work i work and considering my schedule got jam packed the last 3-4 couple of weeks and I’m editing a manuscript too, I’d say that all in all, I’m happy with the result.
Morning Pages: 5/7
In a poetic ending, I finished my notebook! It was like I was meant to use this book for my Morning Pages. There was no dramatic, eureka moment, but it was so nice to get to know me every morning and see what where my mind took me.
Artist Date: : Almond Croissant at a small Cafe.
A calm and soft ending to the Artist Dates. Will I continue to do them - absolutely. Even if it’s just a - I’m taking time out of my day today to go and sketch in the park, it’s going in the schedule. I had a lot of the fun these Artist Dates, I remember at the start of the weeks I was very nervous to do them, but because of the Artist Dates I’ve done a Dnd game, I’ve gone rollerskating, seen good movies and met so many cute dogs alone the way.
So, would I recommend this book?
Yes, but with some notes.
Firstly, the main reason I was able to complete the tasks in the book was because my schedule is quite flexible. Most of my days have a late morning start, so I have time to get my Morning Pages done. I also have flexibility on the weekends to complete an Artist Date. Basically - I have some time on my hands to experiment and play with my creativity which is not something that everyone has. For a 9-5’er or parents, it’ll be quite hard to complete. The tasks at the end of each week can be done in a quick free one hour, but I think that morning pages will be the crux of the working parent.
I would say though that even a half-page of morning scribbles are still beneficial in a way that it’s calming to the mind to just take a minute to do one singular motion -writing, which requires all of your attention.
Secondly, in some parts of the book, the financial difference between artists is quite vast. All the content on trusting and loving your inner artists is accurate but the ability to follow up on that inner work and experimentation relies on taking the time to be in that frame in mind and then doing the work and that’s much more easily gained with the privilege of not having to worry about rent.
Despite this, I would recommend this book to others. Even if you don’t actually do the twelve week course and just read through the book, you’d still get value from it. The joy, pain and endless cycle of tweaking and tinkering with your art is something that Cameron understands very well and a lot of the chapters act like a hug towards that inner critic we all have. It’s worth grabbing a highlighter or just writing out some quotes to put on your wall if you’re particularly negative about your art.
In turns of if it improved my own art, I think it did, but very slightly. Over the 12 weeks, I painted more than I was doing before, but I think the real change was how much less judgemental of my work I now am and how much more curious I was about things I didn’t know. Basically, my internal environment became more habitable for artistic play. I really do think the real results will occur after 3-4 months of completing this book, so I’ll check in after that.
I will say that there has been a shift in my mindset of prioritising my art. For the first time I’m actively putting my writing and creativity as a top priority in my life and I’m much happier about it - again, I can do this, because my schedule allows. Usually, I’d sideline my writing time if something came up, but this time around there’s deliberate allocation of time during the day or week. And deadlines! I’ve found that deadlines are very helpful to actually get stuff done. Shocker.
So yes, I will check back in after 3 months to see where I go. I’ll give updates on my writing and my painting but I’m excited to see what’s coming next.
And thank you for reading this series, if you enjoyed it, let me know! It was super fun experimenting with my creativity and seeing what I was curious about. I learnt so many new things on my Artist Dates, my morning pages and I’m very happy I went through this.
Till next time,
Kaye.
Ready for more?
Read the last issue of The Practise: The Artist’s Way: Week Eight
If you enjoyed this article, you might like to explore the last issue of The Practise, where Kaye goes through Week 5-8.
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