If you want to start a new habit successfully, make it easy

Garden doodles created in Joanne Sharpe's Doodle Arts and Letters online class

If there is a new habit to be started, then one thing I have learned is that it will never happen unless you make it as easy as possible. I don't think it is laziness, I think we are just busy. Once I bought one of those bits of fitness equipment from a TV infomercial (call it the folly of youth, or perhaps just plain hope). It said it would be easily collapsed and slid under the bed. Well, sort of. But in fact it was still way too hard to have to go scrabbling under the bed and erecting exercise equipment for that to have ever become a habit. Same with eating healthily. Unless the fridge and cupboards are stacked with readily available (no preparation required) healthy snacks, forget the sensible eating. The same seems to apply if you are wanting to draw and paint every day. My bustling family home doesn't accommodate a designated studio space. Nor would I want it to, to tell the truth, because I want to be with the rest of family rather than closeted away somewhere. And of course, were I to have such an art haven, there is a good chance I might never return from it...

My new art supplies trolley

So my art, and most importantly all its supplies, must be well organised. The key though, is that they are readily accessible. I found the solution on Gina Lee Kim's blog (thanks, Gina!), in the form of an Ikea kitchen trolley. Best of all I went online and discovered its exact aisle location in the store. This meant I was able to go directly to the trolley without the marital assault and parenting skill test that is the full scale tour of Ikea. Hurrah! Now all my essential art supplies are on this robust trolley, able to be wheeled about. Importantly, none of my pencils, pens or markers are still in their original packaging. This, I learned from Lovely Jane. Art supplies should be out and proud, not hiding in their packaging. Mine are able to glint flirtatiously at me for most of the day, and this alone helps me to find or make the time to use them. Its easy. That's the way to do it.