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One morning recently I was making coffee and watching a "day in the life" art video from an artist I admire: Katie Bryant @ktscanvases. Just her moving through her day, in and out of her studio.

And something sparked for me that I need more artists to know.

We talk here a lot about why to record your art: to document your art for yourself, to share your art, to attract the right people to your work and cultivate connection with them.

But there's a subtle benefit I don't think we name enough:

#1 — Recording yourself making art can be a way of being accountable to yourself to show up.

You might have heard of "body doubling," where you can focus better simply because someone else is there working alongside you. Your phone camera does a gentle version of this, sitting there and helping us start doing the thing.

But then here's the part that struck me even more deeply:

I know a lot of artists, myself included, struggle with this: going through periods of time, some longer than others, of not believing in ourselves.

I've been in the middle of one for a while.

And right now it feels like I'm on the tail end of it, returning to myself and being someone in motion. Maybe that's why I even noticed this and it struck me the way it did:

#2 — Recording your art like this is like evidence of belief in ourselves.

It’s proof to ourselves that we believe in ourselves. That we're in motion, showing up, and doing the work.

Here's what I've noticed after recording myself: if I let myself not think too much about it afterwards, days or weeks later when I watch the footage back, I'll remember what I was doing but I won't remember what it felt like for me to record it. And this lets me observe myself and in a way just witness what I was working on. And if I'm in a harder stretch not believing in myself, I can clearly see that I'm in motion and showing up.

It's not about feeling confident enough to do this. Seems to me that's kind of the whole point.

Pressing record isn't the result of believing in yourself. Sometimes just recording something of yourself making art is the proof that you already believe — and it's right there in your camera roll, ready for you to notice.

→ How might you apply this to your own art videos?

Keep making your art and press record anyway. Just for you, not anyone else. Then when self-doubt knocks on the door, and you can take a step back to see that you were there in your studio, showing up for yourself and your art. Doing the work. ☀️

And here's Katie Bryant's "day in the life" art video that led to this spark for me, if you want to watch it.

Keep creating,
-Zach

P.S. Has there been some benefit to recording yourself making art that surprised you? Please reply, I'd love to hear what's working for you too.