Art attack: five habits to help you get (back) into art – Positive News
Struggling to make time for creativity? Here are five simple ways to reconnect with your artistic side and make art a part of your everyday life
Hettie Judah
August 25, 2026
Struggling to make time for creativity? Here are five simple ways to reconnect with your artistic side and make art a part of your everyday life
1. Commit to little and often
Like many skills, art benefits from regular practice. Even if you feel overwhelmed by the demands of work and family, give yourself five, 10 or 15 minutes each day for art. Crochet on your morning commute, make a sketch that captures your mood, or make a tiny clay sculpture. Art is habit-forming, and small gestures add up. Imagine how impressive three months’ worth of tiny, daily, clay sculptures will look.
Image: Kaizen Ngyu
2. Step into a gallery
Once you’ve (re)engaged with making work yourself, you’ll start to see the art displayed in galleries and museums very differently. Through close looking, you might recognise how an artist achieved a specific effect, or what makes a certain composition so powerful. We know artists of the past learnt a great deal from studying and puzzling over works they admired. So can you.
Image: Robin Schreiner
3. Skill up
Even if you’ve been through art school, you will benefit from a refresher or even new skills. Technical advantages aside, it will boost your confidence. Adult education institutions offer great short courses in everything from drawing to film-making to ceramics. And there are a host of alternative art schools offering in-person and online courses that are far less costly than a formal MA.
Image: Sebastien Monroy
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4. Be playful and experiment
If a certain technique or habit is working for you, it can be tempting to stick with it. This is fine if your goal is to achieve predictable results, but if you want to push yourself and develop your work, then it’s important to force yourself into less comfortable territory. Try a new medium and allow yourself to be playful, focusing on the process. The results might surprise you.
Image: Nick B
5. Take yourself seriously even if your art isn’t
If you’re a newcomer, it can feel hard to justify the time and space you need to make art. Give yourself the permission to take yourself seriously and acknowledge that what you are doing is important. In practical terms, this might mean providing yourself with the space you need, applying for open-call exhibitions and signing your work. Your art doesn’t need to be serious, but it’s OK for you to feel serious about it.
Image: Frankie Cordoba
Main image: Caroline Veronez
How to Enter the Art World by Hettie Judah is out now on Hoxton Mini Press
