Next Steps and the importance of leaving breadcrumbs

So I've now had a chance to observe myself while being more creatively engaged than I have been for a long time. It's been interesting. And kind of suprising. And kind of unsurprising, too.

The Good Stuff:

My visual/design diary

For the first time in my life I'm actually using a design diary for its intended purpose. This completely amuses me. I was the student in my high school art class who finished their final project on the last day before it was due, then stayed up all night making ficticious (and backdated) alternative designs in my design development diary. (The point was to make it look like I'd followed correct process and actually thought about my work. The irony was that the stuff was often much better that what I had actually ended up doing as a final piece). Anyway, using a visual diary as a way of playing and experimenting is happening naturally these days. Who knew it was actually a useful tool? :D

Enjoying the process

Even though I've just been inching along, i've really enjoyed doing something creative each day. The project I'm working on at the moment is quite lenghthy, but it's been good to see it emerge a little bit at a time.

Stuff looks good

I'm happy that my technical creative aptitude hasn't deserted me. I've been really glad that what I've been working on has been pleasing to my eyes.

Leaving myself breadcrumbs

I've really been enjoying the fact that I've been leaving myself a trail of breadcrumbs to follow with my projects. This makes it easy to fit in small bits of creative work because I know where I"m up to and know what the next step is. And often the next step is just simple execution. So I feel like this is something that's really working for me! Wunderbar!

Seeing things grow

Even if it's happening slowly I"m getting such a kick out of seeing my projects unfold bit by bit. Very satisfying!

The Hard Stuff

Filling in forms

At times it's felt like what I"m doing (particularly with the felt house project) has been a lot like filling in a form. The design element has been quite small compared to the time spent on execution (embroidery). Plus sometimes when I'm doing something at the end of a day just before bed I feel like I'm just ticking a box. I'm glad that the box is getting ticked, because it's a milestone and also moves my project forward, but it still feels forced at times.

Hitting roadblocks

I've realised that certain steps of the creative process act as roadblocks to me. Often they're technical issues that I"m not sure how to resolve. At other times they're choices that need to be made, and I can't decide what to decide. I find this pretty frustrating, though I'm getting better at recognising when I'm standing at a roadblock.

Record keeping

I suck at it. I hate keeping track of what I've done each day. Or rather, I don't mind it (when I remember it!) but I hate reporting on it here! Especially when it's like the last 10 days has been... the same project worked on for small snippets of time each day. There's not much impetus to write about what I've been doing when it's repetitive.

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It's late and I need to hit the hay. I'll be back soon(ish) to post pics of where I"m at and do a proper check-in. Till then, I'll just keep chipping away!

Rehab in action

I've been treading water creatively this last week and a half. I've managed to inch forward on one particular project (the farm house) but progress has been slow.

On one hand this disappoints me, but on the other I feel proud that I've managed to keep going. Some days it's been a real effort! And I've felt a bit sheepish about actually posting here because of it (hence the gap since the last post). But I realise that celebrating - or at least acknowledging - small steps is important in the rehabilition process. ;) So here's my modest record of the last 10 days...

Wednesday - day 34 - writing

Blog post... not overly creative but I'm counting it! ;)

Thursday (day 35) - felt farm house

Friday (day 36) - doodling

I needed a break from stitching and a little doodling was the distraction of choice.

Saturday (day 37) - Writing

Sunday - SICK

Monday (day 38) - felt farm house

Tuesday - SICK

Wednesday (day 40) - felt farm house

Thursday (day 41) - design development -swedish embroidery

Friday (day 42) - shopping for supplies / design development

Is this creative? Wellll... yeah, kind of! I spent well over an hour in Spotlight perusing their wares, comparing and contrasting embellishments for the farm house, deciding on colours and shapes and sizes. So there were a fair few design choices being made there - I'm chalking it up to design development! Plus I fell asleep when putting Z to bed so I didn't get to do any more for the evening. ;)

Rehab in action - down on the farm...

Another week has raced by! And I've been rehabbing away, creating bit by bit. There have been a lot of thoughts on my mind about the process I'm undertaking. Strangely, though, I haven't felt moved to write about them... yet. I will. But this last week was characterised by physical craftiness & creativity.

I had the luxury of a big chunk of time last week and finally got a long term project finished! FINISHED!!! Wahoo!!

Tuesday (day 26) - Finished Matryoshka dolls!!

Ooohh this felt so good! Finally, FINALLY, the matryoshka dolls are done. :D They were polka dotted and had their little faces drawn in on the same day. They look great - just the way I'd drawn them in designs. ;) All that's needed now is a few coats of spray lacquer, but I won't be doing it as I don't want to breathe the stuff in while I"m pregnant. Then... on to the second set (for Z's birthday). I anticipate that it will be much quicker this time because 1) I'll know what I"m doing and 2) I won't have hangups about tackling certain parts because I know they're all pretty easy now. ;)

I"m planning (when I have time) to write a "how to" post on painting your own matryoshkas. One day... ;)

Look at these gorgeous ladies!

Wednesday (day 27) - model felt farmhouse

Many, many moons ago I had a project in mind. After seeing some beautiful felt cottages made by En Gry Sif (and seeing the prices!) I decided to make one for Z. I went and brought all of the materials, carted them to Rottnest, brought them back without having made anything and stuffed them all in the cupboard. This week I decided to drag them out and see what could be done with them. My first step was to make a little model farmhouse to see if the stiff felt that I'd brought was up to the job. I made it all in brown because I had more of that colour. My main aim was to test the stitching and the flip top roof. I've left this model without one of it's sides because it's going to be a dog house.

Had to put her in there cos she's so cute that she deserves a cameo!

Thursday (day 28) - felt farmhouse

Finished off the model, pretty happy to start the real thing!

Friday (day 29) - felt farmhouse - design and cutting

I did a few design sketches of the farm house to get an idea of size and styles of stitching. I also cut out the first shapes to stitch on.

Saturday (day 30) - felt farmhouse

Started stitching features onto the farmhouse. Slowly, slowly...

Sunday (day 31) - felt farmhouse

More stitching...

Pretty vanilla at this stage... will be funkified shortly

Monday (day 32) - felt farmhouse

And yet more stitching....

Tuesday (day 33) - felt farmhouse stitch sampling

I found a few different flower stitching techniques and played with those. I really like a couple of them, particularly the brazilian style leaf stitch (for leafs!) and bullion stitch for creating flowers that have a great 3-d effect. I haven't yet decided whether to go the whole hog and do all of the decoration with embroidery or whether to mix it up a bit and sew on other bits and bobs. I like the idea of pure embroidery and I also enjoy it, but... I know that it's crazy time consuming! And I wonder if little sewn on bits and pieces will create more texture and interest? Will think on it...

Rehab in action

Another week of Creativity Rehabilitation! Here's an overview of the last week's rehab....

Monday (day 18) - Writing

I was moved to write a bit about why I'm in need of creativity rehabilitation. This blog post - Opening the Treasure Chest - was a chance to examine why my creative juices stopped flowing.

Tuesday (day 19) - Z's heart mobile (finished!)

Ahhhh.... finally! A finished project! Everything was ready to go, I just needed to assemble it. A bit of fiddling around with some fishing line, and voila! It's now living in its new home, hanging from Z's crazy circus bed.

Wednesday (day 20) - Crappy Craft - egg carton animals

This was a result of a "get Z involved" moment. We painted the chopped up egg cartons together (I held them, she slathered and dabbed them with paint - very thoroughly, I might add!). I crafted the little heads and legs from pipe cleaners. After a failed attempt to glue them in place, I resorted to sticky tape. She held the bodies while I stuck in assorted legs and heads. (I later saw someone using tiny bulldog clips to hold pipecleaners while waiting for glue to dry - will do that next time!). In the end we wound up with a dinosaur, a dragon, a turtle and a snail. They're now all living together in harmony on top of her pink toy microwave. Of course.

Here's old red-o-saurus

Thursday (day 21) - Felt board stuff

I sat down and drew a sketch for the felt board farm. A house, little pond, trees, animals... you know, farmy stuff! ;) I now have a good idea of how many elements I need, what size, and how much work each one will take.

Friday (day 22) - Writing

I've been getting a bit frustrated when struggling to get some time to myself to create. I wrote a post on Friday to exorcise my frustrated demons and create something at the same time. (It's often easier to write while Z is around than it is to create anything using materials.) It's here: Mornings and Personal Brinkmanship .

Saturday (day 23) - Felt board shapes

More shapes, more animals. Slowly, slowly, the farm is emerging! This has turned out to be a good project to work on when I've only got 20 mins or so to spare. it doesn't take long to sketch a shape, cut the pattern and cut the felt.

Sunday (day 24) - Sailboat picture

Mmmm... yet another project started! (I'm noticing a pattern emerging here - heavy on the starting, light on the finishing - so far!). I felt like doing some embroidery so started sketching a simple sailboat design to embroider on felt. I did a few test samples of various stitches and have a pretty good idea of how to proceed.

Monday (day 25) - Felt board shapes

This was an end of the day effort, sketching and cutting shapes in the ad breaks while watching my fave crap TV show. Just managed to squeak in there!

Here's where the feltboard is at... fair bit to go yet.

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Errrggghhhh!!! I must finish this post by venting a bit about supposed "font choice" on the blog. I always choose Arial, but somehow it only appears sporadically. Times New Roman keeps muscling its way in. Feck off, TNR!!

Oh and now another vent - can't get rid of the centre formatting for one piece of text above. I can see I'll have to make friends with HTML if I"m going to get this formattting stuff under control.

Mornings and Personal Brinkmanship

Early mornings are a mixed blessing for me. Getting up early in the morning - and by early, I mean when the rest of the household is sleeping - is one of the few ways that I can wrangle some time to myself. But - but! - that time is usually characterised by bleary eyes and a slow mind. (Cos that's what I'm like in the morning).

My early mornings also tend to come with the unpleasant side serve of afternoon crash-and-burn. Which wouldn't be so bad, could I nap, cos I love me a good siesta. But my 2.5 year old daughter finds napping a quaint and boring activity, and therefore this lifesaving pleasure is unavailable to me.

Despite this, there's something special about mornings, and working in the morning. I felt it when I used to wake at sparrow-fart to do Mysore Ashtanga yoga at 6am, and I feel it now.

Mornings feel good.

Mornings are fresh. They're full of potential. And there's a latent energy in the air, which is probably a result of the natural world getting ready to do its thing. (I'm pretty sure that birds don't have a snooze button).

When I do stuff in the morning, I feel like I'm aligned with similar energy.

Mornings are hard, though.

I love sleeping in. Profoundly. And I almost always need more sleep (refer to above mention of parenting a 2.5 yo with unlimited energy and no naptime). Some days I need more sleep so desperately that no stretch of alone time - bleary eyed or not - can even vaguely compete.

My mornings represent a personal brinkmanship.

At this point in my life, mornings are about a brinkmanship of self-care. One side is "getting some time alone" (very important to me) and the other side is "getting enough sleep" (also very important to me). And I really, really (really!!) don't want either side to come up short. Because...

Lack of time alone = cranky, resentful me

Lack of sleep = exhausted, impatient, unpleasant mother-&-partner me

I don't like spending time in either of those states.

A diplomatic solution to brinkmanship?

Is there such a thing? Does a solution even exist in this scenario?

One thing I've learned as a parent is that there is no perfect solution. What's needed is a toolbox. (Or better yet, a treasure chest!) A treasure chest filled with lots of mini solutions that all yield helpful, positive results.

I need to break here to have a good think about what I can put in it. I might come back for a second post on this later.

Resistance... Is futile?

I wasn't sure when I woke up, or after breakfast. But it's midday now and I have identified the signs of resistance...resistance towards doing anything creative today. So I'm going to have a chat to Resistant Me and see what comes up.

Me: So... is there anything creative you'd like to do today? Anything that takes your fancy?

Resistant Me: No. Not really.

Me: Are you sure? Sounds like there's something that might be ok?

Resistant Me: Yeah, but I can't do it today, because Z's around and she'll see me painting the dolls.

Me: Ah. You'd like to start painting the polkadots on? Even though you've been putting it off?

Resistant Me: Yes. *frowns*

Me: Is there anything special about painting the polkadots that makes it appealing?

Resistant Me: Well, it's a next step. I already know what I need to do. And it will be absorbing.

Me: OK. So it sounds like it's something that would be relatively effortless for you to do today, unlike creating something new from scratch.

Resistant Me: Yeah... I guess so.

Me: We've got a few other mini-projects on the go... could you take a "next step" on one of those instead?

Resistant Me: *thinks* I don't really want to design anything today.

Me: Ok... That's fine! What about doing some shapes for the felt board? You could do some really basic ones or do some embroidered ones if you felt like it?

Resistant Me: Mmmm. Some embroidery might be good. Might get into the flow a bit with it. I'll see how I feel.

Me: Great! After B leaves this afternoon I'll get out the sketchbook and the felt, and you can see what happens. :)

Opening the treasure chest

I decided a long time ago I wasn't creative.

This was despite possessing considerable skills in several creative disciplines. But seemed a lot easier to forswear creativity than to figure out where it fitted in my life.

I'm starting to believe that part of my decision was to tie up loose ends.

My various creative talents were like loose ends. Loose ends that made me feel like I was letting myself down. Loose ends that asked, “What's the point of having talent if you don't know what to do with it?”.

In order to get rid of these niggling, disconcerting loose ends I stuck them into in a box.

When I didn't get into Performing Arts Academy? I chucked acting into the box. When I withdrew from my Architecture degree? I shoved design skills into the box too. And so I went through my late teens and early adulthood, tossing creative talents and skills into a box never to be opened again.

By my mid-twenties I had labelled the box “I'm Not a Creative Person* ”. (The disclaimer read: “despite the fact that I have considerable skills in several creative disciplines”. In very, very small print, mind you.)

I realise now that I mostly put things in the box because I didn't know what else to do with them.

I never really examined the criteria that made a talent or skill box-worthy. I believed that if the stuff in the box was really worth pursuing it wouldn't have ended up in the box.

I figured that if one of my talents didn't deserve to go in the box that someone else would have stopped me from putting it in there. (Like “Hey! You're a great actor! We want you at the Academy”). Or that the non-box-deserving talent would have come up with its own escape plan. It would have compelled me to paint great pictures, or write a novel... And since that never happened, I figured everything in the box was meant to stay there..

After a while, I didn't really want to look in the box. Or even think about it.

Because what if something was in there by mistake? I'd feel really, really bad about having put it into the box. I'd kick myself over lost opportunity. (Plus, I'd also have to deal with that loose end again. And I hate(d) loose ends!)

This year I'm opening the box!

There are lots of little bits and pieces of bright, sparkling things in there, but the common theme is creativity. The abilities to draw, sculpt, act, direct, sing, write, improvise and design are all in there, along with other “loose ends”.

Basically, the whole box is stuffed full of my creativity!

I still don't know what to do with these loose ends. But I know in my heart that they'll make my life a lot richer if they're not stuck in the damn box.