Consistency ended up looking different than I expected

Last month I finished another chunky sketchbook full of collages. When I looked back I realised I had started this sketchbook two years ago. At first I was totally shocked that it had been that long, and it forced me to have a little think about what being consistent can really look like.

I started to collage when my kids were really little. I had such a huge desire to do something creative, just for me, but whenever I sat down to draw I felt stuck. I just didn’t know what to draw and it didn’t bring me much pleasure. Once I tried to collage, something changed. I no longer had that problem because all I needed to do was choose a paper or colour that I liked, cut it up and stick it on the page. After that it was just a process of responding to what I had previously stuck down. I ended up creating small abstract studies, that didn’t have the job to represent anything in particular.

This formula worked for me! It was easy to start, quick to pack away, playful, intuitive and so much fun. It became my meditation, a quiet space just for me. And slowly the pages of my sketchbook began to fill up without much effort at all and then I realised - wait a minute…I’m being consistent!

However when I think of having a consistent practice, shouldn’t it be more like every day? Shouldn’t there be scheduled times, a strict discipline, a get it done no matter what attitude, late nights, guilt if you missed a day….that sort of thing? Ok this might be a slight exaggeration but actually the pressure to perform every day can just become a huge drag and totally take the joy out of the process, right? And lets be honest, life is busy and always gets in the way.

So when I calculated how many pages I filled up in my sketchbook over the two years, it comes to around one page per 4-5 days. That doesn’t seem so much but the fact that I did it regularly for two years makes all the difference. It has totally transformed my work, my process, my style and my sense of colour and design. My sketchbooks have become such an integral part of my work, in a sense they are the starting point of every piece I create, and all I did was fill one page of a sketchbook every 4 days.

So basically all I want to say is that it's not so important how often or when you do your practice, its more important how long you keep it going. It's the regular repetition, when you keep on coming back to something, that helps you grow and develop over time. So this is a reminder to just keep on going.