Starting is Better Than Not

Today marks the end of an amazing workshop that I’ve been part of for the past 150 days, The Creative’s Workshop. Creatives of all types and persuasions, from so many different areas of interest and parts of the world gathered daily to share parts of their process and gave us windows into their worlds. There were poets, writers, podcasters, photographers, film makers, musicians, cartoonists, and visual artists to mention a few broad groups. It was so interesting and inspiring and a bit mentally exhausting - but in a good way.

Progress made on a couple of chocolate bar wrappers

The workshop encouraged us to contribute something, anything, daily for 100 days. Many made it daily to the end. To ship something was better than not. Another way of saying that is to start before you’re ready.

I was inspired at the very end, this morning in fact, to start writing a blog and to add something here daily. I’m hoping that by doing this I will move closer to being me rather than who I think I’m supposed to be.

So here I am, starting before I’m ready. The blog page doesn’t look the way I want. I don’t have a well thought out plan for what I want to do or a specific goal by a specific time. I know, however, that saying things out loud even if no one reads this blog allows me to work off my ideas and be able to then change and edit and nudge new ideas out.

Pressing the “Save & Publish” button now!

100 Days of Being Creative

For the past 100 days, since February 9th, I have been part of The Creative's Workshop on Akimbo where all participates were challenged to show up daily with something they've worked on, created or thought about. There were days when I didn’t really want to do anything but I showed up so I wouldn’t break my streak.

The Creative’s Workshop has been a great course. Like many things, the more you put in, the more you’ll get out. Creating a creative practice is good, but doing this along side a community of hundreds of like minded people was really the highlight of the workshop for me. Showing up with what I did and then reading about what other people were doing was where it made a difference. People commented on my posts and asked questions to get me to dig deeper. I read about their thought process and what inspired them and what was holding them back. It has been an amazing experience and I highly recommend this workshop.

All that said, here's a record of my hundred days of my creative practice.

I finished 42 drawings and 2 sketchbooks, and made 30 videos during these 100 days. Wow!

Enjoy!

The music is Saturday Coffee by William Claeson

Let me know what workshops you have taken that you were really impressed by and that made a difference for you. I’m always on the look out to learn more.

Pencil drawing of a Moluccan Cockatoo and Video

Continuing with my series of drawing videos for my practice and your entertainment, this is from day 40/100 of showing up and shipping something as encouraged by The Creative's Workshop that I've been taking.

I did a pencil drawing here of a Moluccan cockatoo from my self-created animals from "Life of Pi" list (photo courtesy of wikipedia, book by Yann Martel). In the video you may notice that my pencil lines are lighter and sketchier at the beginning as I get started than later after the shape of the bird has emerged. That's totally normal as you get more comfortable with what you're drawing.

Also, this sketchbook is small and square. For this animal series, I've often needed to add additional paper to get all of the animal in. I knew I was going to need some for this bird so I started off with an extra piece already prepared. 😁

The music in the video is the Happy Farmer. The video link to YouTube is: Moluccan Cockatoo in Pencil

Are you working on any animal drawings now? What kind?

A Video of Work on my Glass, Mirrors and Reflections from the MFA Drawing

I am still participating in The Creative’s Workshop. Today was Day 17/100 to show up and do something. A couple of my friends from the course asked if I could make a video of me drawing since they were not artists and don’t know the process.

I filmed a portion of my glass, mirrors and reflections drawing from the MFA three times. Two of them had technically difficulties. My camera seems too heavy for the arm of the stand and the screw to tighten the arm is very stiff. Two of my videos had slow motion movement of the camera moving its focus from the drawing to just the photo I’m working from. Not so informative!!

I hope you find it interesting as a small glimpse into the process of drawing a complicated picture using a photo as a reference.

Glass, Mirrors and Reflections from the MFA

Procrastination - Starting's really not so bad!

My botanical watercolor of a tulip is all done! I’m very pleased with both how it turned out and also for getting it done. I have so many unfinished drawings in my sketchbooks that part of what I’m doing with my dailies* is to work on some of them and get them finished before starting new drawings on empty pages. I’m hoping that will clear some of the clutter and distraction in my head.

What I found interesting about working on this tulip from a creativity point of view is how long I resisted and procrastinated working on it - 2 years. I was very good at coming up with excuses to avoid it. Many of my reasons had to do with color matching and blending colors. There was a lot of internal whining.

The funny thing was once I started, it was surprisingly simple and straightforward. Once I mixed a color and put it down, I could leave it or change it by adding another layer of color. It was that easy. And if I really messed up by spilling water across the page or big blobs of color got on the picture somehow, I could chose to continue or I could turn the page and draw it again and start over or not. The choices weren’t difficult but my mind before starting did a great job in over-complicating things.

Procrastination is all about fear but if somehow you can take a first step or action, then you have something to react to and make a decision on. It’s no longer the unknown. Progress is made.

What are you procrastinating on? How can you take a step forward with it? What will you do?

(* I am currently taking the online class, The Creative’s Workshop, and they encourage the participants to show up daily with something they’ve been working on. Rough and incomplete is fine. Just show up. I posted in the class for 4 days running with progress on this tulip.)

100 Days of Creating! Ready, Set, Go!

I signed up for Seth Godin’s The Creative’s Workshop yesterday. I am both excited and wondering what exactly I have gotten myself in for.

“This is a workshop for writers, painters, playwrights, sculptors, musicians, stand up comics, designers, coaches and anyone else who has a craft and a point of view. It’s for people who have a job doing this work for an organization, or for indies who want to do it on their own.

“In this workshop, you’ll learn to find your voice, to do work that a professional can stand behind, to make a living while making a difference.” Seth Godin on The Creative’s Workshop

The students are creatives from all walks of life, from all over the world. I’ve just been on the class site for over 24 hours and already the range of topics is astounding! In addition to responding to fellow classmates and what inspires you from their stories and comments, the course encourages you to do the Dailies and the Prompts.

Dailies are everyday posts about what you’ve been creating and working on. They can be rough, they can be incomplete, but the challenge is to show up and do them daily for 100 days. More if you want to. The Prompts get sent out three times a week. Since those are external, it can be a challenge to respond, but new ideas can be generated form getting out of your comfort zone.

I signed up because I want to push myself creatively to see what I can do next and because I wanted to meet creatives across disciplines, see what holds them back, what inspires them and what do they do in this workshop. The last day to sign up is February 18th. Join in on the challenge to take your creativity to new places!

My first Daily for the Creative’s Workshop Day 1/100. Chocolate Wrappers, ink and watercolor in my sketchbook.