Wednesday Museday?

So I didn't make a Tuesday Museday post yesterday... but I'm completely happy about that, because I was actually Doing Stuff instead. Creative stuff.

I finally started painting the matryoshkas.

And you know what? It was lovely. Gorgeous. I remember thinking to myself, "Wow! How ironic that I was putting this off?"

Turns out that painting on the dolls themselves is umpteen times easier and more enjoyable than painting the designs on the damn paper. The wood is so deliciously smooth, the colours are delectable. Yum!

It also turns out that the brush has an intelligence of its own. Seriously, I was worried about how to stick to my wobbly little pencil lines. Screw the pencil lines! The loaded brush has a flow and a smoothness to it that my shaky pencil lines just can't compete with.

So. I"m feeling pretty happy about yesterday's session. I was in a state of flow (bliss!) And the dolls are looking so, so pretty. I could be disappointed that I'm not able to pull a repeat today. But I won't be. Despite an inauspicious morning I've managed to post here. ;)

Oh - an update is called for, I guess! A couple of posts ago I listed my efforts up until Saturday, so here's the rest....

Sunday - Creativity Rehab post (day 10)

Despite the fact that it was Christmas, I managed to post here. I was contemplating giving myself a pass instead, but stuff needed to be said.

So I said it. And it felt good.

Monday - writing (day 11)

I wrote a never-to-be-published blog post. It wasn't terrible, and it didn't say terrible things. It just turned out that by the time I'd finished writing it I didn't need to hit the Publish button. That's all.

Tuesday - Painting matryoshkas (day 12)

That's right, baby. Yeah!

Wednesday - Belated Tuesday Museday post (day 13)

Self explanatory. ;)

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Wow! Almost 2 weeks in! :D

Perfectionism and the stealthy art of Avoiding-What-Comes-Next

So... I've got all my artist quality paints ready.... I've bought brushes that don't shed like mangy dogs... I've got a design all worked out it my "design diary"... I'm pretty much ready to paint these matryoshkas. Gulp! There's probably one more thing (two more things?) I can legitimately do before I reach the point of ok-now-I'm-avoiding-what-comes-next. (That's test the paints and finalise my colourways, btw).

Ok-now-I'm-avoiding-what-comes-next. It's so unpleasant to acknowledge Avoiding-What-Comes-Next that we've created a special word for it - Procrastinating. A sort of placeholder word that makes act of Avoiding-What-Comes-Next seem legitimate. And benign. And sort of understandable.

Avoiding-What-Comes-Next is strange place to be in... because part of the way that it works is that you can't really acknowledge that you're there. And to do that successfully, there has to be a really good and defensible reason for not doing what you need to do next.

Like:

"I can't do it while my 2.5 year old daughter is around and wants to mess with my painting shit".

Or...

"There's no one else about at the moment but I'm still sleepy cos I just woke up so I'd better not start now".

Or...

"The table where I need to set up and do my work is too messy right now" (cos clearly cleaning is out of the question!).

Any of those "reasons" are potentially great distractions from what's really happening when I'm Avoiding-What-Comes-Next.

Sometimes they're not. Sometimes they're legitimate reasons. I know they're legit when I feel like I've got an itch that I can't scratch (frustrated). But I know they're probably suspect when I realise that sitting just behind them is a cold-hearted dread. Of doing-what-comes-next.

In these scenarios, what comes "next" is usually something hard. For me, Hard is a special place where my perfectionism feels free to come out and play.

My perfectionism seems to love anything that resembles a finishing process. Because things that are finished are things that are ready to be judged. (Even as I write that I realise that it sounds creepy).

My perfectionism also loves to visit when I'm doing something that can't be done over. It could be a conversation, or a physical process that can't be repeated. (ahem, yes, like painting a pristine wooden matryoshka doll.) Even if the act itself is relatively easy, actually getting to the point of doing the act is hard. Because perfectionism is already whispering in my ear that it's safer not to do it at all. Can't fuck it up if you don't do it, right?

I've been spending a bit of time over at FluentSelf.com, a place which is both intriguing and inspiring. And I'm pretty sure that based on Havi Brooks' approach, I'd say something like this to my perfectionism:

"Hi Perfectionism! I'm going to do something that's probably going to make you very anxious and nervous soon. You're welcome to stay and watch if you can be supportive (or at least quiet). If you can't, I completely understand... but in that case you'd better head off somewhere else for a while and come back when I'm done. I know you want to keep me safe, but I need to do this. And if it isn't perfect, that's ok - it's the doing that's most important."

Week two - snippets

Since my last post I've realised it's pretty easy to forget what I've done each day! So this is a sort of a placeholder post, to refresh my memory.

I have managed (just!) to create every day since last posting. Some days it's been with desire and intent, other days it's been an effort to fit something in to meet the challenge. Yesterday, interestingly, combined both desire, intent and challenge. It's simply not as easy to create while Z is around. Which is a real shame, and something that I hope will change as she gets older. The issue at the moment is mainly that she wants to do whatever I'm doing - and that usually means exactly what I"m doing! She wants to draw with the same colour on the same drawing, or cut the same piece of fabric... *sigh*. Yesterday I managed to set her up with a copy of what I was doing that kept her happy, but not without a fair bit of frustration first. So yesterday was about meeting a parenting challenge too... which I did, successfully, but it took some effort to shift myself from a resentful "this is My Thing - don't bug me" to a more open attitude. Huh.

I feel a bit of a tentative rhythm developing in my creative efforts, but I"ll dwell a bit more on it and share my thoughts in my Tuesday post. As I prepare to record my efforts, I realise that a fair amount of this is either project work or work that is not destined to stand alone. I'm ok with this for now, but may shift things up a notch in the future. (When I first envisioned this project I had notions of lots of small things being crafted on a basically daily basis... not so far, we'll see!)

Wednesday - Z's name mobile (day 6)

This was a mini burst of creating - just enough to pull this project out of the craft cupboard and take the next step. Crossed the line - just!

Thursday - Z's name mobile (day 7)

Got a fair amount done on the mobile, which is now basically finished barring final assembly. The end was in sight, but Z needed to be picked up from hanging out with Dad. Which I was ok with , because I needed to think a bit longer on how I want the final assembly to look. This was actually a bit of a power session, because it was done in 40 minutes after cleaning like a maniac and mopping the floor. Yeehah!

Friday - Writing (day 8)

I've got a private writing project going on which definitely fulfills my definition of creative self expression (in parts). Friday morning was spent on one of these parts. It was great to get a big chunk of this done as it's something that's very close to my heart.

Saturday - Matrioshka design development (day 9)

Another "just" here. I actually spent a lot of time first thing in the morning researching for another project that's been in the back of my mind for at least a year. This particular project is a velvet silk patchwork doona cover. I found some sources for silk velvet (devilishly hard to do) and did a few back of the envelope sums to work out material needs and costs. Ouch! It's looking expensive. :-/ Anyway, part of me wanted to class this work as creative - but strictly speaking, although necessary, it's definitely not. So, come late afternoon after a full day I still had to meet my challenge.

I was really feeling like getting into some lovely rich colour and using some enjoyable materials, so I pulled out the oil pastels (Z's kids set) and created a large scale matryoska in the design I'm using for O's set. It wasn't groundbreaking (because I'd already had the design worked out) but it was pleasurable working with the oil pastels - they're so rich and fun to create colour blocks with. Plus at this stage I'm happy to go for mass repetition of the designs, because I want to be as familar with them as possible when I create them on the blank dolls set. There's nothing I can do if I make any mistakes, so I'm happy to be drawing little doll faces repetitively till it becomes very comfortable. ;)

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Oh... the first of the family is up! So I'll leave it here. Today is Christmas, so this post is likely to be my creative act for the day. Much eating, drinking and being merry awaits!

PS - photos. I haven't forgotten, I'm just trying to work out how to get over the hump and publish them.

Tuesday Museday

It's been a few days since I started the challenge of rehabilitating my dormant creativity. I've decided to do something creative every day for the next year, in the hope of waking it from its hibernation. It sounds simple. It also sounds hard. Because I have a couple of crippling tendencies that kill creative efforts before they even get started. So far, though, I've managed to stay below the radar, and have met my goal every day for the last 5 days.

Day One - Friday

OK, this gives a real indication of place where I"m starting this challenge from. This is what is truly meant by the term "baby step"....

I made a potato stamp. Just one. And I felt pretty good about it, too! Because I've been meaning to make some of these most basic of kids art tools for so long, and the execution has always eluded me. No longer!!

Day Two - Saturday

I finally made a start on a farm scene feltboard for Z. I made the felt-covered board, and made the first piece to go on it. A sun, embroidered with a little face and rays. (I didn't know that there were going to be any embroidered pieces on the set. I do now!) This was actually a really lovely meditative process, blending the technical and creative into a very engaging combination. I feel great that I've made a start on it. It's also an ongoing project in bite-sized components, so it's a perfect thing to return to for some daily creation.

Day Three - Sunday

I started a blog some time ago. A long time ago, actually. And on Sunday I felt the need to write - creatively, honestly, personally. So Day Three's act of creation was to spend some time writing a blog post. It was about the process I've embarked on, and it was great to write about it. It helped to get a few things clear for me about the process. It also helped to really clearly identify the risks to it, because it's important to know your enemies. ;)

Day Four - Monday

Ugh. Monday started at 3.45am for me, when Z woke up. Long story short - she went blissfully back to sleep; I didn't. So by 6am I was working on the day's act of creation - decorating Babushka dolls. It was goooood to work on this project! It's been hanging over my head since (dare I say it?) April.... which would kind of be ok except that the unpainted dolls were originally purchased for presents to celebrate birthdays in April and May. Mmmm. A few sketches were done early on, then the two sets of dolls have skulked blankly in the back of my "craft" cupboard since then. The mere sight of them depressed me - they looked like tiny, reproachful, insurmountable failures waiting to be acknowledged. Hah! No longer! These ladies will be painted... I know it now.

Yesterday the design for the first set was all but finalised (there's one tiny detail that's waiting for divine inspiration. The colour scheme was decided. The next steps were recorded, as well as the shopping list*. (It turns out that half of the paints in the set I bought are texturally unsuitable for the dolls). I spent almost two hours painting before the rest of the household woke, and it was lovely. I now have a design diary that has a real project in it. It makes me laugh when I think of all of the design diaries I fabricated in high school art... starting with a final piece at the last minute and then working backwards after the piece was made to give the illusion of a design process.

*I'd love to get the paints and supplies bought before Christmas, so that I have a chance to work on them while M's around a bit more. I need some decent acrylic paints in the right colours (and they're gorgeous colours too!!). I need proper brushes also, because shedding hairs trapped in paint aren't a good look. We'll see, maybe a trip to Jacksons will eventuate before the weeks end.

Day Five - Tuesday

That's today! Although details on the format of this new blog remain (intentionally) sketchy I've decided that a day of reflection each week is a good thing. The post (Tuesday Museday at this point) will be an opportunity to dwell on anything that may have unfolded during the past week; any observations, feelings, musings on the creative process. It will also be the act of creation for that day. So, that said, this post is its own creative act.

* * *

So, 5 days in things are feeling good. I've made some headway on long delayed projects, and have one tiny finished creation in the form of a smiley felt sun. (He's rather sweet, I'll post a photo later). I"m not sure where to from here with this blog, in terms of updating, photos, etc, but I'll dwell on it. Things will be forthcoming. I don't have much more to say right now. I'd rather focus on what's coming than what's been, especially when what's been is so modest. But it's still a satisfying start.