In recent years, the practice of mindfulness has become extremely popular, and with very good reason. After all, there’s plenty that it does for you, and many ways in which it leads to a much better quality of life.

In general, a mindfulness practice can make you considerably more attentive to your daily life, more likely to be kind and generous to yourself and other people, and can encourage in you more peace than you might have thought was possible. The key is to attend to a mindful practice of one kind or another. That can be a meditative practice, or it can be anything that you can sit and do in peace and quiet, which of course includes creating art. Let’s look at this in more detail.

Loving your art

In order for this to work out well, try to make sure that you are practising some kind of art that you genuinely enjoy as much as possible.

If you don’t truly love it, then you will find it much harder to get into in a way which is going to make it that much more of a mindful act. Simply put, it’s hard to be mindful of something you’re not really enjoying, and besides, you wouldn’t want to put yourself through that. So whatever it is that you are thinking of doing – whether you want to just paint and relax or get drawing – make sure that it is something that you really enjoy doing.

Being attentive

The goal is to make your art in the way you normally might, but start to pay a little more attention to what you are doing in the process.

That means specifically coming to see what your actions actually are in each moment, what goes through your mind as you do them, and so on. Everything that arises is worthy of your attention, and your only goal is to bring the light of awareness to each phenomenon in a way which shows them as they are, without trying to alter them. You will be amazed at the kind of joy this simple practice can bring, and it’s certainly something that is worth trying out.

Keeping at it

If you want to get the most out of this, you’ll want to make sure that you are doing it regularly. Mindfulness is always best with a regular practice in place. You can set aside time each day and make a point of sticking to it, or you can simply ensure that you are going to work at being mindful whenever you are engaging in your artistic passions. All in all, you’ll find it’s a great way to become more at peace with yourself.