Sometimes the best kind of art emerges when you stop trying to make something impressive.
Today I’m sharing about the how letting go of perfection in sketching or writing is a vital part of growing your own confidence as a creative.
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Who has time for creativity?
I don’t know about you, but the past week seems to fill up with so many things to do. It is so easy to collapse on the couch after a long work day and completely ignore any creativity that has been building up in you. I’ve been there! However, being intentional about carving out creative time is not only refreshing to your soul, it can also help balance out your work and family life as well. Let me explain:
Many times, the tendency is to only attempt something because it is easier:
- I’ll try plein air sketching! Is quickly squashed by, no, I guess I can use a reference photo instead. And still, we are not happy with our half-hearted attempt and don’t try again.
- I really want to try submitting this painting to that competition! But then we talk ourselves out of it because everyone else’s is going to be so much better. They all have more experience.
- Maybe I could try my hand at short stories (or poems/sci-fi/mystery)! Can I just read short stories instead? I’m still getting inspiration, and all of my own short stories sound trite and unoriginal.
Do you see yourself yet? I’ve experienced all three of these imposter moments, and even through these examples you can tell that it does take a certain amount of courage to let a piece of your creative self go. This is true, especially if you want to make leaps and bounds toward finding more creativity in your life.
Let’s try it!
Why don’t you just grab a blank piece of paper and sketch an image from memory? Same thing goes with your creative ideas. Open up a word document or grab a pen and just start writing. This might be something you’ve had in your head for a while or a fun thing that you’ve just never tried. Put something down on your paper. It could be a single squiggle or half of a sentence. Then add a little bit more detail.
At this point, you might not know quite what you’re doing, but let yourself be bad at this. Let your brain just do what it wants for a moment. Then it’s time to step back (don’t crumble up your paper!) and either adjust something, add something, or bullet point more ideas. No erasing yet! You can even look at a reference or read a short story, but I recommend at this point immediately closing it afterwards so that you’re not tempted to copy from it as you continue to work. Once you’ve worked for 15-30 minutes, leave it for the next day and repeat the process. You might have more ideas that you add.
Keep coming back to your attempt daily until you have something that is a small part of what you envisioned. Even if it’s not quite what you planned, what is the result after a week? Does it spark other ideas? Did you learn a couple tricks on how you work best? What is something about the finished result that you really love? Try it again on your next painting or piece of writing.
The aha moment
There is always “that moment” when you’re creating something. You know, the “I don’t think I’m ever going to come back from this monstrosity!” moment. Usually this happens around the first couple layers of my painting, when I’ve layered just enough paint to make it look extremely ugly. If you’ve seen my artwork, you’ll know that for the last couple of years, most of my acrylic painting has been done with palette knives. These essentially look like different-shaped butter knives that I scoop paint with before slipping it on a canvas. On a personal note, I also love using my palette knives to mix my paints. There is such a thing, though, of too much paint!
And yet…
I’m learning to enjoy the slow, embrace the process, and understand that a painting doesn’t always follow the predicted outcome. As I’ve worked on the techniques and practiced my skills, I’ve gotten better at creating the idea that I’ve envisioned in my head. But there are still moments that I realize that I will either have to fix what has occurred on the canvas or I will have to go in another direction. When it comes to creativity, I’ve learned the second is usually the better way to go. It’s not abandoning a project. Rather it’s learning how to make better mistakes so that I grow in my knowledge of how to handle artistic experiences. Mistakes have taught me to think outside the box, develop my creative eye, and to be okay with the messiness that comes with creating!
Creative Prompt:
I want to explain to my readers that I am learning right alongside you because, though I am very consistent at journaling and novel writing, I’m a novice when it comes to short stories. I love the ability with a novel to rainbow, and have all of the time in space to work out mini drafts before publication. With my idea of weekly short stories this year, I don’t quite have that luxury. Of course, I hope to sift each story through a couple of drafts, but with my business and a job running concurrently most weeks, I will be happy to get 500 words down. Maybe some weeks I’ll end up sharing this part of a story or even a poem, but, if you’ll take on the challenge to spread your wings with me, I would love to accept this exercise. I am hoping to improve my. “thinking-outside-the-box” mindset with so many topics covered and embrace my favorite part of writing: that it doesn’t have to be perfect to be shared. I hope in this year of short stories to find a couple gems, or even ideas for future novels, but really, I will use it to open up new pathways into how I see the world. It might not always be pretty, or easy to write, but it will be beneficial, fun and eye-opening for us. Most to read my blog will not (yet!) attempt to this, but I hope someday to hear back from a couple of brave riders and courageous beginners who decided just to start putting down words— merely to see where it takes them! Join me?
Write about a place where someone goes to hide and unexpectedly meets a friend.
Next week I’ll share the short story that came from this!
Last week’s prompt:
Write about a character who collects small beautiful things.
This prompt is still very rusty, but bear with me. It is very close to the original, though I glossed over it to adjust a few tenses. I wanted to mainly show you what some of my journal jots look like (about 30 minutes of free write over the prompt):
An old man absolutely loves digging in the dirt. His previous job of working behind a computer hadn’t afforded him such light outside of fluorescents, but he had always kept his office stacked with booming amaryllises, daffodils, ivy, or even pecan tree clippings, depending on the season. He takes out his newest find, a dirt covered key, and places it in a box, right next to where he always places his house keys. He ponders the juxtaposition for a moment, and then grabs his key ring. He struggles for a few moments, but then slides his car keys (now useless) into the box alongside the fancy, gold-imitation one. Before closing the box, he takes another moment to stare at the ornate piece. What kind of life had it lived, hands had it touched, before it became buried in the dirt like this?
In the afternoon, as he is visiting his neighbor, they begin the conversation as normal: grandkids, a crash on the street earlier in the week, and a cruise that his neighbor and wife are looking forward to. “It’s a chance to relax and still get out of the house,” his neighbor admits, and the old man nods, not sure how he feels about this sentiment. Doesn’t he see new things every day?
He squats next to his garden in the evening twilight, loving the cold breeze as he fingers a newly emerged snapdragon and looks around at the stunted height of another newly planted ivy. These plants are as good as kids, and they change nearly as quickly. But in contrast, each morning, he finds them waving at him from the dew-covered ground, and his own kids are long gone. The next morning, he is three quarters done with his coffee and considering another when he hears a rapid knocking. Is his doorbell not working again?
“Francis, good morning.” It’s his neighbor. “I kept thinking yesterday of our chat about your little treasure box of keys? I’d like to add one to it.” His neighbor holds out a hand, and in it lays a beautiful, silver key, about half the size of the one the old man discovered, but just as ornamental. When it clinks in the box, it reminds him of the chime his late wife used to hang out of their bedroom window. While she was sick, he moved the chimes to her hospital room, and now he can’t bear the sound, so he has locked them up in his wife’s hope chest, which he is reluctant to get rid of, too. His kids joke that he will be buried with it, and he is sure that they are not far off.
What about you? How did your writing go this week?
Keep exploring,
Hannah Marie.