*This blog post was originally posted on my old blog on 26 August 2015*

I am a completely self-taught artist. I felt discouraged during my art lessons at school and so gave the subject up in favour of more traditionally academic subjects. I have a BA in English literature, an MA in Eighteenth-Century Studies, and I am starting a PhD in History next month. During this I have struggled to find time for my artwork, and only really started doing more than one-off random scribbles in October last year. Art has never felt like a priority. It was time I felt guilty about spending, time I *ought* to be using to study or do chores rather than paint.

But art makes me happy; and I am a saner more bearable person when I give time to it. Creating art is my meditation time.

With this in mind I decided it would be beneficial to me, not only as an artist but as a sane human being, to commit a segment of time each day to art practice. Which is how I came up with my newest and grandest project to date: 'Art for 23' (or Beautiful Everyday).

First Piece in the project: my birthday cake

Everyday during my 23rd year I will be creating a new little painting or drawing. The pieces are limited to A5 in size to ensure I can complete them in a couple of hours, as I can normally only spare them an evening or my lunchbreak. So far I have only done watercolour paintings, but I am keeping the medium options open in case I want to branch out later on in the year...

Day 11 - A little impressionistic landscape painting of Goodwood Racecourse

I am allowing myself to be quite open with the style of paintings as well, and using this time as an opportunity to explore the different techniques and styles available to me.

Day 31 - Realistic miniature study of a banana

I was heavily inspired by the Everyday Original project, which I absolutely adore, where a collection of artists contribute a new piece everyday. I thought I could try producing a new finished piece each day too. I was also influenced by the collaborative nature of Neil Gaiman's Calendar of Tales and Lorraine Loots' artistic projects, where they were guided by the suggestions of their audience. I really like collaborative art. Often as a writer or an artist, you are all alone, working on a single vision and struggling to dredge up ideas. But life isn't always such an isolated experience. We influence one another everyday, and the desire to share our work is partly what drives many of us to create. I want to share that experience (and make sure I get a variety of subjects to practice) throughout this project. With that goal in mind, the paintings themselves are all based from prompts off my Facebook and Instagram pages.

I am 39 days into the project so far, and I am really really enjoying it.

I get to make art everyday and not feel guilty about the time I spend doing it, because it is a public project involving other people too.

I get to practice a variety of subjects and improve my technique.

And I get to take myself seriously as an artist, and make whatever tiny steps I can towards working commercially part-time. I love sharing art; it's what it is meant for. So if you haven't already, come and join the art explosion with me all over social media!

Ambitious Projects