After decades of teaching art and creativity classes the many disguises of the internal critic never surprise me.
But one aspect of the internal critic makes me the most sad—the way he pretends to be your buddy and fills you full of ungrounded expectations (for skill level and time to execute); and jollies you along saying it’s OK to stop a project…
Yes, there are some days when it is not only OK to stop your creative project, it’s also the most healthy thing to do. (That’s a topic for another day.)
But I’ve had students come into my classes who have never completed a project. Time after time they have simply given up and stopped a project. They allow their internal critic to rule in their minds. They allow the defeat of incompletion they feel to soak into their creative bones.
Those are the types of students you see more of the longer you teach. You also see this if you teach older students who are just returning to art after a life of self-stifling their creative dreams.
International Fake Journal Month
Recently someone asked me about International Fake Journal Month (IFJM)—you will remember that April is International Fake Journal Month. The Official International Fake Journal Blog is here.
Regular readers—don’t get excited—there is not going to be a public celebration in 2026. I haven’t got the physical stamina to wrangle participants. For every self-starter who hits the ground running after reading the info posts on how to participate in IFJM, there are always 20 other first-timers who have never kept a regular journal, much less a fake one, who need hand-holding. You can read more about my ceasing the public celebration of IFJM here.
And while I’ve spent my entire life hand-holding journal newbies, and I love it, it’s not a fun thing to do when I’m in my happiest month working on the project I love the most (or love equally with my Minnesota State Fair journaling efforts). I have physical and energy limitations at this time in my life. I need to be using my energy for my projects.
All of us can only have so many things on our plates.
But many of us still keep our fake journals privately and derive growth and creative satisfaction from them. (In fact I’d argue that private fake journals, free from the eyes of others, teach us the most about ourselves and our fake journal characters, which in turn teach us about ourselves.)
I’m writing this post today because I still believe deeply, that a fake journal, made within the confines of the fake journal celebration (read this very important link if you want to follow parameters that will lead you to a successful finish of a fake journal) can be a great project for visual journal keepers. Also, I’m writing today because in the past weeks so many people have written to me about IFJM and other types of projects. I’m concerned that they FINISH a project that is realistic.
How do you create such a project? How do you finish? What’s it take?
Creating a Project That You Can Finish
What do I always remind you? Think about a daily project realistically. If you already find it impossible in your life to find 15 minutes to do a simple sketch in your journal, creating a project which will take several hours of effort each day is unrealistic.
I’ve seen students and IFJM participants set up thousands of projects like that and shut them down at week two.
Of course this is exactly what the internal critic wants. If you start a project and can’t complete it, the mind can easily be turned inward to self-blame and self-doubt.
Failing at a project causes some people to abandon their creative practice completely.
And then the internal critic has won.
Breaking the Cycle of Failed or Aborted Projects
The best way to break the cycle of failed or aborted projects is to finish a project.
The surest way to finish a project is to create FOR YOURSELF time and skill constraints that you can currently meet, and thus complete your project.
What does that actually mean?
Everyone, no matter who, has a specific set of obligations in life. You might work for 10 hours a day to earn money to support your family, you might care for elderly or infirm relatives. There are a million things that each of us might have to do everyday. You know what those things are for you.
Once those items or tasks or obligations are finished you have the time left in the day that can be used for you and your project.
I’ve written before about talking with family members and negotiating—asking a spouse to pick up the kids during the month of your project; or clean, or make meals, or do the eldercare, or whatever.
Some things can’t be negotiated. Sometimes we don’t have others to help us. We need to be realistic about this.
That means we need to find time during the day that we can squeeze in our creative efforts.
That means we have to be realistic about how much time we can devote to a project.
If your life is jammed packed with obligations and help of others, and you only have lunch or 20 minutes when you get home from work, then you may find you need to be creative to find time in the day. That might mean you get up 30 minutes earlier, or stay up 30 minutes later than your household.
For others it might be as “simple” as not watching any TV in the evening. Or, gasp, not reading every morning with a cup of coffee, for the duration of the project.
Here’s the first thing you need to do to ensure you have a successful and completed project: Find out what time you have in your day REALISTICALLY. If it is 15 minutes in the morning or evening, then that’s it. If your circumstances allow you to have 30 minutes after dinner, or a hour before breakfast, great. But know what time you can realistically find.
Your project is now going to be formed by that time limit.
You will not be painting a 20 x 30 inch, photo realistic oil portrait every day in 15 minutes.
Your project’s dimensions and scope will be dictated in part by your time limitations.
Next you must realistically assess your skill level. Can you draw at all? Are you still learning to draw? Can you currently use the materials you want to use in your project?
If you’ve never painted a portrait before than you cannot expect to paint a photo realistic portrait in oils every day. (Keeping with the above example.)
Having a chat with yourself about what your current skills actually are is the best way not only to create projects for yourself that you can finish successfully, but also create projects that grow your skills.
We all get to be aspirational—in fact there probably isn’t a population group more aspirational than artists.
But we have to understand the steps we need to take to reach our goals.
If you’ve never finished a creative project pay attention to your time and skill level constraints and plan your project according, taking those realities into account.
Regardless of your skill level, think of projects as providing stepping stones which allow us to flex our creative muscles and strengthen them.
Design your project around current skill levels and with an idea of growing your skills.
If you aren’t proficient in watercolor but would like to be more proficient, a possible project is to spend 30 minutes (or 15 if that’s all you have) a day going through watercolor exercises in one of the many “how-to” books on that subject. Daily practice in that manner for 4 to 6 weeks is a great project for any watercolorist.
It isn’t about finishing a large painting every day, it’s about every day understanding the medium better. That’s something that the internal critic can’t take away from you if you show up every day!
What book will I look at for instruction? How large will I work? These and many other questions are things you need to consider. Years ago, an artist whose work I admire wrote a book on watercolor: Learning to Paint in Watercolor with 50 Paintings: Pick Up the Skills, Put on the Paint, Hang Up Your Art.
Wil Freeborn’s book is something a watercolorist of any skill level could work through and learn something from. A small painting is a place to experiment and learn technique.
And his is just one book like this with a basic built in project.
Other books, like Nita Leland’s “Exploring Color,” would allow you to do daily color theory exercises and finally understand color theory. (That’s a skill you’ll find useful on all future projects.)
Yuko Nagayama’s “You Can Paint Vibrant Watercolors in Twelve Easy Lessons,” is another book that is tailor-made for a self-organized project. Nagayama’s watercolor technique is exquisite and delicate. It will not be easy to master—in fact you need to begin with the expectation that you’ll be learning not mastering.
Believing you’re going to start a project and master a skill is often a prelude to the arrival of the internal critic, a shut down of the project (when mastery doesn’t develop literally overnight), and the continuation of a cycle of failure.
Instead if you begin, and continue, with the idea that you are building your skills you’ll be able to cope with glitches that happen as you work on those skills.
Your job, during a project, is to set realistic goals and expectations, based on your current skill level and available time daily.
When things happen—and they will—to disrupt your schedule, or the progression of your skill set, having those realistic expectations will enable you to weather the bad day or two or three (or more)…and stay on course and finish the project.
A finished project which includes work you aren’t happy with is still a finished project. If you show up every day with intention and put in the effort that effort and intention will get you to the end of the project.
Setting Up a Project That Matters to You
Creative projects are personal—they are created by you as an individual. Because of that they need to be related to something you care about. This can be subject matter, art materials you want to learn, topics that you want to address in your art, and so on.
If a subject comes out of a need that you have it is more likely that you’ll complete the project.
Therefore, design your own project.
I know half of the people reading this just groaned and said “I want to participant in ‘Fill-in-the-Blank’ prompt project because everyone is doing that and it will involve me in community and blah, blah, blah.”
Sure, and everyone in the last 30 years who has said that to me has groaned and complained throughout their project while comparing themselves disparagingly to the work of others in the project who have 20 or more years of experience on them.
Sigh (see why it’s so hard to shepherd people through public art projects?).
Here’s what happens when you work on a project designed by someone else—the topic isn’t yours so you might get bored, or use your limited art time on research. (Research can lead to good things, but with limited time research takes away from art making.)
Or maybe the art materials involved suggested by the project aren’t familiar to you so you’re constantly comparing your beginning efforts to work from people familiar with the media.
What happens next is inevitable. Your internal critic shows up and tells you that “You just need to take a break right now, go ahead and skip a day, have a vacation day…” Whatever.
He wants you to stop.
He wants to stop the flow.
The internal critic wants to stop your creative momentum. (And yes, even when you’re having a struggle in your creative work, the fact that you’re still working is maintaining that momentum!)
On the other hand your EDITING EYE who is your friend, and who always is telling you SPECIFIC things about your art that you can change or work on, will tell you, “Hey, you know what, this approach isn’t working for you. Instead of 9 x 12 inch paintings each day, let’s pivot and work smaller so you finish each painting in the day allotted by the project—5 x 7 inches is great.”
Or the Editing Eye might remind you that you’ve never drawn birds before so how could you expect to have your birds look like Lars Johansson’s birds—that is silly. The goal instead is to get something down on paper and learn how to work with the materials better. And to understand birds better over time.
Sometimes your Editing Eye, or some internal sense of what matters to you as a person and an artist might also speak up and say, “I really want to work on watercolor, but I don’t want to work on buildings,” so you pivot and work on fruits and vegetables instead of buildings. You’re still getting the skill building with the art materials, but you’re working with a subject matter that you’re more interested in, or more familiar with.
When we throw a lot of balls into the air to juggle while we work it’s increasing the difficulty factor of our project. Fewer balls, easier to finish. Keep that in mind.
This will not be the last project you ever work on. Keep that in mind.
Comparing Your Work to Others
Comparing your work to the work of others is the elephant in the room of public projects. If anything this has escalated in a negative way with the arrival of social media, specifically Instagram.
Your internal critic will enjoy telling you that so-and-so is doing a better job than your are.
Let’s stop for a moment and think about this. An art project is for your creativity and because of that it has to come from you and where you are realistically in your artistic skills. So comparing your public output project to someone else is meaningless.
You don’t know what skills they may have started with, the time they have to work on the project, and so on.
You need to keep you mind on your work. When you finish a public project then you can assess it and evaluate your work and see it in a broader context.
If you don’t finish the project none of the real learning that comes from self-evaluation is available to you.
Your internal critic, who wants you to compare your work to others, wins again.
So if you find yourself comparing your work to someone else’s and you’re saying negative things about your work, tell yourself to STOP IT.
Look for things you can enjoy about the other artist’s work. Celebrate any brilliance you see. Then look realistically at your work in the context of your life and work. Celebrate even the sometimes small improvements you can see in your own work. This is how you will improve.
Back to International Fake Journal Month
While there is no public celebration of IFJM this year, I know that many people, myself included, will participate privately.
I also know that some of you might want a little guidance. The Official International Fake Journal blog has a ton of information about how to prep and set up for a successful month-long project. There are posts on selecting art materials, selecting a journal to work in, defining and limiting your project parameters so you can finish and be successful.
These are project steps you can use for any project you want to organize for yourself. It will help you participate more successfully in other public projects. I encourage you to look at that blog’s keywords for subjects like “preparations,” “media selection,” “process,” “tips” and “Self-evaluation” like this post, and this post about post-project continuation.
A project is not over until you assess it and make evaluations about where to go next in your creative life.
This is why it is so vital that you finish the project you started.
Resources and Prompts
Because some people have told me that they want to do IFJM this year and that they also like prompts I’m adding my 2018 IFJM Prompts list here. (The original RozWoundUp post it is attached to is archived so this was the only way for me to get it to you.)
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As a reader of this blog you’ll know I don’t like prompts much.
I spent my entire life teaching people how to create prompts for themselves, to be aware of what the universe was prompting them.
This is the way I believe authenticity makes its home in our journals. No over thinking, no striving to be topical or meaningful, nothing precious except what is in the present moment.
I still believe that, but I also believe that it can be a fun game to take prompts and twist and manipulate them to find another side of the authenticity that resides in our personal lives from our personal perspectives.
Sometimes new journal keepers and also those who are beginning to feel burnout find prompts useful nudges. I hope those lists will encourage you in that way.
And because some people like to understand their characters better before they start a fake journal (if you decide to do one this year), I’m including my Character Checklist, also from the 2018 celebration.
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This list will help you avoid some of the pitfalls of keeping a fake journal—it will help you understand your character so you can inhabit your character for those few minutes every day that you work on your fake journal.
Some Final Thoughts on Projects
Projects small in scope (even a daily grid of small sketches for instance), when completed return more to you than what their smallness disguises.
It’s up to you as an artist to use every moment of your life to see the world, capture the world, understand the world, and in the process of all that—improve your skills so you can communicate.
Simple, small scope equals big results when finished, completed.
Big joy. Big thrills. Sweet satisfaction. Creative momentum you can put back into new projects.
Break the cycle now, through whatever projects you choose to create, so that you can feel some of that creative success.
It’s the building block for what comes next, because it’s built on realistic goals and expectations.
And your internal critic just can’t cope with that authenticity.
Onward.
It’s good to see you back with IFJM again Roz. I have enjoyed participating in the past – maybe next year. I’m in the middle of a bookmark project right now. But I really came here to say What about #MarchisSketchAlunArmstrongmonth? Another very enjoyable project.
Susan, You know it’s probably time for another run of #MarchisSketchAlunArmstrongmonth, I’ve sketched him a few times in the past months. I’ve watched pretty much everything he’s been in so it would mean rewatching a lot of stuff but I think that wouldn’t be too painful. Thanks for playing along! And I hope the bookmark project is going great!