Creative block diaries #2: letting go of expectations, keeping it simple, and staying open
It’s been a month since I last wrote to you about the creative block I’ve been going through and I’m happy to report that things are looking up! I’ve been gentle but intentional about nurturing my creativity in whatever ways it chooses to show up and finding inspiration in museums, art books, and everyday life. As promised, I want to share about some of the practices that have been helping me in hopes that they might be useful for you if you ever find yourself in a similar period of doubt and uncertainty.
What’s been working for me
Making marks without judgment
The critical part of my brain has been a huge hurdle in getting back into making art, but playing with shapes and colors with no pressure for it to look like anything in particular helps me turn off that judgmental voice. I love the squiggly, organic shapes in a lot of Matisse’s work, especially his cut-outs, so I’ve been making little Posca pen drawings incorporating some of those elements. It’s been a really fun and super quick exercise that allows me to play with color combos and get comfortable with the feeling of putting pen to paper again.
Keeping it small
I find big white pages very intimidating, especially when I’m feeling less confident than usual, so this teeny tiny sketchbook has been my go-to lately as the pages are neither large nor white. It’s incredibly portable and I can fill a page in 10 minutes, so it doesn’t feel like too much of a time or energy commitment.
Letting go of expectations
I’m trying to let go of the idealized vision I have in my head for everything I make from blog posts to reels to my art practice. Actively releasing some of those expectations has helped me create more in the past few weeks than I had in the four months before. After months of silence on the blog, I was able to post every week this month because I decided it’s okay for some posts to be short and sweet. It’s okay to just provide one fun artist date idea instead of a list of 100. It’s okay if I only spend 10 minutes of the day in my sketchbook instead of an hour. Giving myself grace to do things imperfectly has allowed me to actually do more of those things!
Eliminating distractions (temporarily)
I’ve started reading The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp, which is a sort of guide to cultivating a – you guessed it – creative habit. One of the exercises from the first chapter was eliminating your top distractions for one week. I chose to go without:
Obsessively checking my personal email (just checked once a day and only answered emails that were urgent, which turned out to be none of them haha)
Social media (IG, YouTube, and Pinterest) other than for work
Planning (this may not make sense to someone who doesn’t know me but this includes obsessively checking and rearranging my Google calendar, coming up with plans or lists to get things done later, etc.)
Without these big distractions to fall back on, I found that I had so many more ideas throughout the week and I felt a lot more in tune with my creativity. There were suddenly more opportunities for ideas to present themselves and I was paying attention enough to notice them and play around with them in the moment. Instead of just writing ideas down to come back to later, I was able to act on some of them right away. This is partly how I ended up writing a blog post each week, a feat that seemed impossible to me before.
Being open to different ways of expressing my creativity
I’ve been trying to tune in to the different ways my creativity wants to show up. For example, I’ve found myself feeling really drawn towards cooking and baking, so I’ve been spending time flipping through my cookbooks, trying new recipes, spontaneously making brunch on the weekends, and being more thoughtful and present when I’m in the kitchen. I’ve been putting together new outfits, going to dance classes, diving into redecorating projects, and writing a lot. I may still not be drawing and painting as much as I was last summer, but I’m nurturing my creativity all the same. I’m finding that as I follow its curiosities, more and more of my spark starts to come back. The more I create, the more I want to create.
What’s next?
This time of ease and openness has been so important for rekindling my creative practice, but I find myself craving structure or at least some direction going forward. Luckily, I think I may have found it! Sid and I are traveling to Italy in a few months and I really want to keep a travel sketchbook throughout the trip. To get ready, I want to take a few online classes to practice certain techniques that might be helpful as well as get some more practice with plein air sketching now that the weather is warming up! The challenge will be to introduce a little structure back in without allowing my overeager planner side to completely take over and impose a rigid, excessively ambitious schedule on myself. I’m really happy with the progress I’ve made this past month, so I want to proceed with caution as I take the next steps.
My homework for April
Keep working through The Creative Habit
Complete at least one online class (just started Modern Urban Sketchingon Domestika)
Complete one master study in my sketchbook
Set up a newsletter
Stay tuned to hear how everything goes, and hopefully the next creative block diary entry will be the last for a while!
Posted March 30, 2023
