The More I Paint — What Happens When You Commit to a Daily Painting Practice

Renoir said: "The more I paint, the more I like everything."

I read this years ago and it stopped me completely. Because I knew exactly what he meant, even before I had the words for it.

Painting changes how you see

When you paint seriously and regularly, something shifts in the way you look at the world.

You start noticing things you walked past before. The specific grey-green of eucalyptus leaves in afternoon light. The way shadows on a white wall are never actually grey — they're blue, or lavender, or a warm purple depending on the time of day and the quality of the light. The particular red of a waratah that's unlike any other red.

Everything becomes potential subject matter. Not in a grasping way — just in a way where the world looks more interesting than it did before you started paying this kind of attention.

That's what Renoir meant, I think. The more you paint, the more you see. And the more you see, the more there is to like.

It compounds over time

This is one of the things I wish I'd known earlier about developing a creative practice: the benefits compound.

Early on, you're learning fundamentals. Building skills. Making a lot of work that doesn't quite get where you want it to go. It can feel slow, even frustrating.

But something else is happening at the same time. Your eye is developing. Your visual memory is expanding. Your ability to notice and retain and connect images is growing, quietly, beneath the surface.

And then one day you look at a painting you made and something in it surprises you. You handled something better than you expected. Or you look at a scene and immediately understand the composition, where before you would have had to work it out slowly.

That's the compounding. It's happening even when you can't see it.

The case for regular practice

I paint as regularly as I can — not every single day, but consistently, across the year. Not always finished work. Sometimes studies, sketches, colour explorations, quick paintings that are just for practice.

All of it builds the eye. All of it adds to the store of visual understanding that informs the paintings that matter.

If you want to get better at what you make, the answer is almost always just to make more of it. Not rushing, not forcing — but showing up regularly and doing the work.

The more you paint, the more you'll like everything. I can promise you that.

Warmly, Kirsten x