WAIT A MINUTE

IT'S ONLY A MINUTE

One minute.......not long when you think about it all by its lonesome, but added up they become a long time, an hour a day.....a year.

Now I am going to back track for a minute.

Earlier today I walked with my wife while she went to work. We live on 8th street and she works on 1st. I had some dealings to do with the post office and since it is on the way.....3rd street, I decided to walk with her......it was only a few minutes of my time, but it was extra time with her and that is always a good thing. We had a nice talk while we walked and it was fun. On my way back home I stopped at the library, since it would only take a minute, and I wanted something to read....I checked oout Jules Vernes 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. All in all my few minutes added up to 48 minutes.

Now a bit further back.

There was a statement made by one of our kids friends which basically said " How did you get to be so good(not my thoughts or words), I wish I could do that " I really didn't think about it much and said I have been doing it for awhile.....I am about 30 years older than the you are.

Now, on my walk home for some reason I began to think about time and all this sort of thing. There are billions of people younger than I am who draw and paint MUCH better than I do....so it is not the years they spent doing it. It is the MINUTES........and that thing called talent, but how many minutes DID they spend working on their craft to get to where they are now?

How many minutes a day do we spend working on our craft to improve what we do, or for that matter doing what we do?

Now, math is not my forte`, but the way I have figured it there are apoximately 1,440 minutes in a day, so if we take out roughly 480 minutes , 8 hours for sleeping ( I know that is a joke...who gets a full 8 hours ) that leaves us with 960 minutes. Now if we take out 180 minutes ( breakfast, lunch and dinner ) that leaves us with 780 minutes or 13 hours. I am going to take 2 hours out or 120 minutes for the other little things that happen throughout the day. Now that is 660 minutes ( 11 hours). As an artist...........how many of those 660 minutes do we spend working? .

Now I know that I am not full-time in this, I have 2 jobs that I do work so that I can spend my minutes on the art, but even when I am at one of my jobs, I get 2, 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch......that is roughly 60 minutes that I get to draw. I sit in my car during those breaks and work on my craft. In the evening time after work, I like to spend time with the family as we all do, but in the roughly 240 minutes ( 4 hours ) of family time.......usually with the tv on, I will sit and draw while we watch tv and talk and visit with each other. So that is 300 minutes of drawing in a day.......still need another 330 to make it to 660.

I wish I could say that this was an everyday thing, but it is not. There are some days that I am just not into it, or I am just too tired from the days work that I don't feel like it, or my favourite one.....I want to devote all my after work minutes to my wife and family.

I do make up for some of those minutes by drawing when I am not supposed to....in church during the sermon ( I do portraits of the preachers ), I tell my wife that I can listen while I draw, or at one of the school functions, or some other thing that we go to. So the time is there if you want to make use of it. I will draw on anything if I get an idea, I worked inpackage stores for a while and that is where my whole "bag art" stuff came into play.








I guess my basic point is that if you want to get better at something you have to put the time in to do it. There is no secret in that. You have to work at what you want to achieve it. Today is sort of my day off from the other jobs, but I still have work that needs to be done....cut the grass and do dishes, cook dinner, and a few other things, but it is still early and I am shooting for at least a minimum of 360 minutes ( 6 hours )of drawing....even with taking the time to write this down.

Just thought I would take a minute to say all this.......I do think it is important.

It is not the years spent doing sometihng but the minutes you actually INVEST in doing it. Of course this is true in most cases but there is still a little something like ability that does have to come in as well. No matter how much I try to sing.......it doesn't work and the dogs bark way too much, which leaves me hoping I am not waisting my minutes in the art department ( sorry IG )