Welcome Back

Hello and welcome back to another conversation. As always, I’m thrilled to be speaking with you. I hope these discussions are helping you whilst also making you question your own ideas about the creative process.

The Fragile Beginning

Have you ever been sitting at your workspace with an idea which has potential but is not fully conceptualized yet? At the beginning of every project, the feeling of creative paralysis can trouble our minds and cause self doubt. Having the desire to start something new but at the same time being scared to mess it all up. There is a possibility for greatness but there also is a nagging feeling that you can’t execute it to a certain standard.

Productivity vs. Experimentation

In my weekly art class, there are days I walk in with a clear idea of what I want to create and I can translate that into a finished piece by the end of the session. Other times, I am uncertain and I rely on the teacher’s guidance to kickstart my work and I end up with one unfinished sketch or drawing. Often I convince myself that the time spent sketching or experimenting is time wasted and that productivity is solely based on the amount of finished ideas that were created. But this mindset actually hinders the creative process because unfinished sketches, notes, and drafts are evidence of growth, not failure.

Staying in the Conversation

This friction is a part of the creative process and most ideas don’t arrive complete but they encourage us to push deeper for clarity. If we wait for the idea to be perfectly clear before starting then we will miss out on what the process is trying to teach us. Creativity isn’t about finishing every idea, it is about staying in conversation with an idea and being open to learn something new. Instead of hiding our messy sketches, we should celebrate the process. There is a certain confidence and life to artists’ sketches because they draw fearlessly without any doubt or grand expectations. Music producer Rick Rubin said “All art is a work in progress. It’s helpful to see the piece we’re working on as an experiment. One in which we can’t predict the outcome. Whatever the result, we will receive useful information that will benefit the next experiment.”

An Exercise to Try

One concrete way I’ve learned to let go of control is blind contour drawings. This exercise involves drawing a picture without lifting your pen off the page. You also can’t look at what your drawing looks like until it’s finished. You are fully immersed in what you see and you have no ability to erase or overthink your art. Doing this makes me feel less precious about the creative process. Below are images of one of my blind contour drawings and the ideas that it inspired later on.

Normalize Messiness

Start before you’re ready. Document the mess instead of hiding it. Don’t idolize the final product but be consistent and create a rhythm of exploring new ideas without expectation. So experiment with the possibilities, see what fails, see what succeeds, normalize messiness, and be free to figure it out as you go. There are no rules to how you can express yourself and what you think is a mistake may be the best part. That’s my encouragement for you this week and try to implement this into whatever projects you’re currently working on.