I got a late start as an artist.

Sure, I grew up drawing and painting, being creative and making things. But I didn’t declare to the world “I am an artist!” until my mid-30s, and then I proceeded to have an imposter crisis for the next decade.

As a teen I’d doodled in the margins of my notes in school, took high school art class and one drawing class at Baylor University, but my passion then was music. I played clarinet, was the drum major in marching band. I planned to go to the Julliard School of Music and play in a symphony. I stuck with this goal through my freshman year at Baylor, until my clarinet professor, in an attempt to motivate me to practice more said, “At this rate, you’ll never be great.”

I bailed and signed up for Journalism.

After getting my Bachelors from Baylor, I eventually became a mom as a career, by choice, because it was what I wanted to do more than anything. Marry, have kids, be a mom. It was great!

In the middle of the journey, a friend begged me to go with her to a watercolor workshop in town. An Australian artist was coming, the workshop would be amazing, but my friend didn’t want to go alone. I was heavily pregnant with our third and last child, and my loving husband decided I needed a break. He encouraged me to go.

It changed the course of my life.

Fast forward a few years and the creative bug was still biting. I felt intensely about making art, even more determined than I had felt about music. THIS was something I wanted to do forever. I wanted to become an accomplished artist.

“What would a painter look like? Act like? Talk like?” I thought.

I bought a French tam and somehow wrangled a trip to Paris. That’s what a real artist would do, right? People would ask me what I did all day, and I’d take a deep breath and say, “I’m an artist.”

(insert photo of me in tam with passport)

It would be decades before I worked as an artist full-time. Like you, I had kids to raise, aging parents to care for, 9-to-5 jobs to work, etc. Life was maxed out. Still, I found a few minutes here and there to practice…

…and practice and practice.

I quit looking for blocks of time to do art, and instead set up my life to grab creative minutes.

• I put a watercolor palette and some postcards of watercolor paper in a drawer in the kitchen. When the kids were snacking, I’d paint for 10 minutes.
• I came up with dozens of art projects for the kids to do, while I worked on larger paintings. They could paint like Mom.
• I carried a sketchbook to every doctor appointment when I accompanied my elderly parents, and drew anything in sight—the waiting room, the saline drip, the tray of doctor’s tools.
• When working as a School Secretary, I persuaded my Principal to let me discreetly eat lunch at my desk in small bites so that I could use my lunch half-hour to paint in the back of the Art Room.
• Whenever a family member asked what I wanted for my birthday, Christmas, Mother’s Day present, the answer was always, “Art supplies”.

You can see where the idea for 27 Minute Artist came from.

I want to inspire you to do art whenever you can in your packed schedule. These little projects are simple and short, designed to fit into a calendar that looks crammed full.

You CAN do this. Speed isn’t the important part so much as actually DOING some art. Any of it. If you just keep squeezing it in—sketching, drawing, painting, collecting inspiration for future paintings—you’ll improve. You’ll thrive. You’ll be an artist.

Now—go get ‘em, Tiger!

You can do this.