Today is not Tuesday. You may have already noticed this.  I noticed it, too.  This morning.  Right after realizing that yesterday was Tuesday, and I forgot to post a new theme for the week!  It’s been hectic like that inside my brain.  That’s why I decided on this topic for the week instead of the one I had been looking at (we’ll get to that one another time).

I’ve been aware, off and on, that I need to make room for more regular downtime.  I sometimes have periods where I don’t have anything pressing to do, but I tend to fill that time with busy work or fretting over the fact that I feel like I should be doing something.  I don’t take that time, or any other time, to recharge my batteries, fill my well and re-energize myself.  And I need to!  We all do.

This week, lets all take some time to figure out how to get in some good relaxation time more often.  First, let’s start with ways to relax and recharge.  Our task here will be to come up with at least five ways to relax and recharge (more is even better!)  Try to come up with some things you can do to relax that you don’t normally do.

Next, look at why you don’t give yourself all the downtime you might need.  What are some factors that keep you from relaxing and recharging regularly?  Is there anything you can do about them?  Make a list of things that tend to get in the way of your R&R time, and try to come up with at least one thing to do about each item.

If you’d like some company on your relaxation exploration, leave a note here about what your challenges are.  Maybe together we can come up with some creative solutions to get more lounge time in our lives!

On Tuesday, I started us off by asking several questions about fear and creativity. As I moved through my week and started my project, I decided to concentrate on two of those questions:

• What in your creative life causes you fear or anxiety?
• Can you still create when you’re feeling very fearful and anxious?

These seemed like the most important ones to me at the moment. I do want to address the other questions at some point. I’ll probably also revisit these, but for now these are the insights I have about them.

I used supplies and techniques and even colors I haven’t tried before.

As far as what causes me fear and anxiety, the major issue I face is a great fear of not doing it right, whatever “it” is. Of getting it wrong, messing up, being laughed at because I was so far away from right. I get so worried that I’m not going to get it right or not even know how to begin getting it right that I put off starting projects until the very last minute. Of course, this ensures that whatever I do isn’t going to be as good as it could be, so on some level this fear turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I’m not completely sure on the answer to the second question, but I’m leaning toward “yes.” I do think you can still create even when you’re feeling anxious, at least most of the time. You just might need to experiment to find out how to make it happen for yourself.

I’ve found that, for me, starting is the hardest part. I found that I was falling back into my normal procrastination routine, bogged down by the worry that my page wasn’t going to be “good,” so I really had to coax myself to work on it this week. Here are a few of the things I did to get going:

• I laid out my materials including my journal which I left open to the page I wanted to work on. I kept this where I would see it a few times during the day so that it would stay in my consciousness. In a way, it was as if my mind was working on it even when I wasn’t touching it, so once I did sit down with it I think it was a little easier to just dive in.
• I used a lot of conscious self-talk to calm my fears. I mostly returned to two arguments in favor of working on my page. “It doesn’t matter if it’s bad. If you really hate it, you can rip this page out of the journal and start over, and no one will ever know.” “This is an experiment using things you’ve never tried before. It’s supposed to be a bit awkward and feel strange. The main point is to do something even in the face of your fears.”
• I acknowledged that I was anxious and uncomfortable, and I told myself over and over that this was okay.

What did I learn this week? There’s nothing wrong with being nervous. We’re creatives. We are constantly pushing the edges of our comfort zones and our knowledge zones. That’s going to bring on some nervousness, especially during those times when we’re making particularly big pushes outside our boundaries. This nervousness is okay; it means we’re doing really creative work!

I’m coming to believe that the important thing is not necessarily to get rid of all nervousness and anxiety. I’m not even sure that’s possible. Yes, it’s great to work on believing in yourself and your talents and believing you can and will do the things you set out to do. But for actually getting the work done, building up a body of work to help us build that confidence, I believe the important thing for us to do is find ways to create even when we’re nervous about it. So work on finding some good self-talk for yourself when you’re caught in the anxiety. Bribe yourself with treats or music downloads or something small that you like—I work very well for an M&M reward! Work in small bursts, 10-20 minutes (followed by that reward!).

Keep pushing forward, past those boundaries and your fears, and I think it will all start smoothing out and become more rewarding and fun. Just keep trying and remind yourself of this: if you want to get to your dream destination, you have to to keep moving no matter what.

I suppose I should have called this “New Directions and Fears,” but the words didn’t have quite the same flow that way.  But I’m going to talk about the new directions first.

I don’t have all the details hammered out, but I do know that I’d like to take this blog in some new directions.  For the past several months, we’ve looked at how we can fit creativity into our weeks in small bursts by trying out different art experiments.

I don’t want to do away with the experiments at all, but I do think that I want to mix in some other things.  I’d like to spend some time delving into creative issues that we all face.

So, this week I’d like to have a look at fear and how it affects creativity and productivity.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, too, so I’ll start us off with a few questions to get the conversation rolling.

• What in your creative life causes you fear or anxiety?
• What one thing would you especially like to get over your fears about?
• How does fear or anxiety affect your productivity?
• Can you still create when you’re feeling very fearful and anxious?
• What are some things you do (or could you do) to get past your fears or work around them?

I’ll be working on these questions this week, too.  On Sunday, I’ll post my thoughts so far on the subject.  I hope you’ll spend a little time contemplating this and maybe writing your own posts on the subject.  If you do, post the links here or after Sunday’s post so we can get the conversation rolling.

See you Sunday!

Connie at Dirty Footprints Studio did an awesome series of interviews during July.  And then, for the final day, she invited anyone who wants to join in to post their own interview!  I did mine over at my WordColors blog.  You can follow the link here or hop over to the WordColors page from the menu off to the right.  Enjoy!

I’m starting my examination of R.E.A.L. G.O.A.L.S.™ (Reasonable, Expectations, Authentic, Living, Good, Orderly, Actions, Leading to, Success) with an overview.  I think before you can use a system, you need to have a good understanding of what each part of the system means for you.   Because my vision of “reasonable” or “success” won’t look the same as yours, and if you’re going to create and achieve goals, you need to make sure that they’re really your own.

Here’s what I’m starting with to create my R.E.A.L. G.O.A.L.S.™:

To get yourself started with your own list, ask yourself , “What does this mean to me?”  In my journal page, I wrote down a few things that I’m going to want to keep in mind about each category as I form my goals.  Use my lists to help get your thoughts flowing, but remember to make sure what you are writing down works for you and feels right for you.

On Tuesday, I’ll write a bit about Reasonable, Expectations and Authentic and give you my breakdown of what I think those categories should be about for me.  Meanwhile, if you start working with this, leave me a comment and let me know.

I was going to use a more neutral color on this since it’s intended to be a background for a collage, but orange kept calling my name.  I’m so glad I listened!  I just love how this came out, especially the streaky bits.  I let the brush get a bit dry to get some of the streaks.  I also went back over a couple of spots with a damp paper towel to pull off some paint and get a more streaky effect.

Now, although this isn’t actually part of the experiment, I have to mention the brush I used for this.  I have been wanting to switch to synthetic brushes, so I’ve been trying out a few of the less expensive ones.  So far, I hadn’t found any I was thrilled with.  Then I read about RealValue™ brushes from the Princeton Art & Brush Company.  I bought two sets this weekend.  (They have non-synthetic brushes as well.)  They are awesome!  Seriously.  Smooth, the bristles stay together, they hold paint wonderfully, they don’t leave bristles behind when you paint.  And the bristles stay together beautifully after you clean them. I have only used a couple of them one time so far, but I love how they handle.  It doesn’t hurt that one of the sets has raspberry pink colored wooden handles.  So, if you’re looking for good but inexpensive brushes, give these a try–I found them in my local art supply store, and you can find them several places online.

That’s it for last week’s experiment. See you tomorrow for the launch of a slightly different sort of experiment.

This week I found a project to try that I think will be fun and also useful for a lot of us.  I love being able to combine making art with doing something useful, so I can hardly wait to get going on this one!

I’ve noticed that many creatives–myself included–lean in the pack rat direction.  And one of the things many of us love to collect is magazines.  It makes sense, really.  They’re fabulous!  Craft magazines have projects to try, most magazines have lots of full color pictures that are great for collages, there’s plenty of reading material mixed in, and all for a price that’s usually less than a paperback book.  The one problem with magazines is the way they pile up.  I’m pretty sure some of mine are breeding in my closet when I’m not looking.  A couple of times a year, I have to go through and clear out the magazine piles around the house.  I try to pull out the best images, and I save my favorite magazines.  But I hate just getting rid of them even when I’m recycling them.  Enter this week’s project.

Alma Stoller wrote an article for Cloth Paper Scissors in 2007 about recycling magazines, and she reposted the info on her blog.  This looks like a fantastic way to use up the piles of magazines lying about while getting cool backgrounds for collages and journal pages. I’m thinking that these might even make good covers for pamphlet style books, so I might give that a try after I create a few of these.

So how do you recycle or reuse things in your art?  I’d love to hear more ideas if you have them.

See you Sunday with my cool, recycled magazine pages!

At first I thought the hardest part of this week’s experiment was going to be choosing what colors to use.  Then I started playing with color combinations, and I found that I really tend to drift back to matching colors.  So I went and got myself a color wheel to help me pick a color scheme:

I was going to go the easy route and choose complementary colors to play with.  And then I saw something too fun to pass up–split complementary colors.  Of course, this didn’t actually make the process easier because now I had three colors to play with rather than just two, but I was quite enamored of this idea so I had to go with it.

I finally chose a wonderful citron green as my main color.  The split tertiaries ended up being a violet and a pink.  Here’s what I ended up with:

And another view of it so you can get a better look at the green-on-green flower shape:

I really like the color scheme I chose, even though the green-on-green turned a tiny bit muddy.  I did notice that working with three colors means there’s more fiddling involved to get a good balance.  At first, I didn’t have any of the pink tones off around the text box.  Something was definitely off, and I had to add a bit at a time until I got enough of the pink in to make the piece look balanced.  Then I noticed that the left edge still didn’t look quite right, and I realized that I didn’t have any of the purple tones there, so I added the purple dots.

One other thing I learned is that starting out with just a color scheme and no design in mind leads to an entirely different thought process while I’m creating.  Usually I have some sort of design in mind, and I get started creating it, and I just move along until it’s finished.  This process was much slower.  I had to stop and just look at the piece several times while considering my next move.  It’s not quite as meditative as putting beads on an embroidery, but it was a pleasant, relaxing way to work.

This week’s experiment was really good–I’m feeling really happy with what I’ve discovered.  I had no idea the color wheel could be a decision making device, for one thing.  That’s going to be quite useful for me, because I tend to be a little indecisive.  But I’m also pleased with what I learned from jumping into a project without an outcome in mind.  I will definitely work this way again when I want some relaxation and play time.

I hope you give yourselves the chance to play a bit this way.  Feel free to share what you’ve come up with.

See you Tuesday for the next round.

Just a quick note…the flags are going to be a day or two late due to catastrophic failure on another project that is supposed to be sent out tomorrow.  Sigh… experiments don’t always go as planned, I know, but when they go wrong it’s never easy.  I always find myself upset and frustrated.  I guess that’s all part of the process.

Anyhow, I’ll be posting my flags very soon.  See you then!

I’m very excited about this week’s experiment. It’s something I’ve been wanting to jump in on for several month’s, but I keep putting it off. But I know now is the perfect time for this.

This week, I’m going to participate in Jamie Ridler’s Full Moon Dreamboard project. I have to!  This month is Full Pink Moon. And I love pink. So clearly it’s meant to be.

This month we’re supposed to be focusing on what we want to have bloom in our lives–sort of a spring garden theme, but for dreams.

I’m going to start my dreamboard tomorrow, on the full moon, but I will probably take a couple of days to finish it.  I want to get it done fairly close to the full moon, though, so I’ll probably have a results post earlier than usual this week.

Meanwhile, I’m going to go gather my materials so I’ll be ready to create when I get home tomorrow night.  See you in a few days!