Write it Down!
Recently added projects to my want to-do list
Have you ever had a great idea and thought it was so wonderful that there was no way you’d forget it? Do you have projects you know you want to do but somehow never actually get to them?
Write those ideas down and put them in a place you will look at later. I know it’s often given advice. I recently had a moment of being inordinately pleased with myself for having taken this very advice.
I have an organizational system that involves writing long-term projects and to-do’s on slips of paper and folding them up and putting them into a gelato jar. Everyday I select one or two from my jar as projects to try to spend a bit of time with that day. I don’t get to select a new one until I finish what I’ve already pulled out.
The system is great and works for me to make progress on a variety of different projects. I have over 50 things currently in process. I don’t need to remember them because I know they’re all written down and kept in one place.
I realized a month ago that I hadn’t gotten around to some of the things that I’ve wanted to do. I decided the only way I was going to get them done was to be reminded of them. I wrote the ideas down along with several others as new projects and added them to my jar.
Today I pulled out a couple of those items I added last month and was reminded how glad I am I finally wrote them down as projects. I’m so pleased to see them and be reminded about these things I wanted to do but had never found the time for.
Whatever your system is for keeping track of the things you want to do, write them down and put them in a place that you look at regularly. Our lives are often so busy and full of distractions that it’s easy to forget those great ideas when something else new and shiny appears.
How do you keep track of your ideas and thoughts? Leave your strategy in the comments.
The Process of Drawing a Picture
I’ve been making a lot of sourdough bread recently and learning a little bit each time which goes towards making the next loaf a little bit better too. One of my loaves came out of the oven last week and was so pretty that I had to draw it.
A recent loaf of sesame topped sourdough bread that I made.
I’ve been wanting to do some more pen and ink drawing work and the details in this loaf of bread were calling to me. I roughly sketched the placement of the bread on my sketchbook page and then started inking with a favorite fine tipped pen, a Platinum Carbon fountain pen.
It’s always interesting seeing paintings and drawings in process because there’s always a stage of not really being sure that the thing is going in the direction one was hoping for. Then steps are taken to work out the issues and usually it turns out well in the end. It’s a bit like life, isn’t it?
Drawing my dish rack
There was a recent article in the New York Times (May 1st) about drawing and how helpful for one’s mental health it is. I agree 100%. The author, John Donohue, said he draws his dish rack as one of his strategies, so I thought I’d give it a try. Here’s my first attempt. I set up a stool in the middle of my kitchen and drew my dish rack the best I could within a time limit of 25 minutes.
Give it a try and share.
1st attempt drawing my dish rack.
A Collection of Animal Figurines
My sketchbook collection of animal figurine drawings
I made another video today as I added a couple more animal drawings to my collection in my sketchbook. I have a lot of very detailed and fairly realistic animal figurines that I like to pull out every now and then to practice drawing. They move much less than their real counterparts!
Keeping a regular creative habit is something I’ve been doing for the past several years, if not longer. I’m always working on something. I recently started making videos of my drawing process because of prompting from classmates in The Creative’s Workshop. There we are encouraged to post something daily and in a rough form is fine. That has helped me to get over the hurdle of making videos. I used to think they needed to be “perfect” before I would be ready to post or publish them. But with the class, I have been getting better little by little by setting my goals a little bit higher each time as I learn how to do something. Because of that practice I now even have some video lessons ready for live online workshops.
The video is up on YouTube here. You can find my other videos on my YouTube channel under my name.
Do you have any collections you like to draw?
Procrastination - Starting's really not so bad!
Botanical watercolor of a tulip.
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.)
Creativity and Fear
Color Mixing Chart of Sennelier Indian Yellow watercolor with some greens
Day 6/100 of Creating and Showing Up
Today’s daily for The Creative's Workshop brings a page of color mixing. This particular sketchbook (Stillman & Birn Zeta) is primarily full of these kind of color mixes. I took one color of watercolor and mixed it with all the other colors I had, individually, to see what kind of mixes would be made. The left side of the chart is straight from the tube as is the right side with three mixes of the two colors in between.
Above each of the charts is a wet-into-wet combination of the two. That kind of thing which can be a beautiful characteristic of watercolor doesn’t work well on this type of paper. It’s also possible I’ve never quite learned how to do it very well. But I am one page away from finishing this sketchbook and will not continue this series. Sometimes it’s good to know when enough is enough and move on. I will keep on with color charts though!
I wasn’t spending a lot of time thinking about my paints while I did this exercise today. I was considering the concept of fear and what holds me back from creating in other areas of my life. I do want to do more with my art somehow, but I think that exploring how to be more creative with my words and business will help push me to do more with my art too. Showing what I make with my art is safe because it’s easy for me. Putting words together to describe me and what I have to offer is really my creative challenge. Playing with words is what I will try for in my future dailies. I’ll do a picture too just because I like the visuals.
What does being creative mean to you? Do you follow your creative urge or does something hold you back? How do think you'd feel if you went through with it anyway?
My Gelato Jar: A Creative Solution to My To-Do List
Are you a person who has a lot of creative interests and projects? Do you have a variety of non-critical short-term and long-term projects you want to work on? I do. I love exploring new ideas and topics as well as having long-term interests with no real definable end, like gardening and genealogy. I like having a variety of projects going on at any one time so I can work on a complicated piece one day and have something fairly simple to work on when I only have ten minutes the next. I also like to eventually finish most of what I start. The question is how to keep track of all these projects and keep them all moving forward? What do you do?
My solution is an empty gelato jar and slips of paper. I write my to-dos and projects onto these bits of paper, fold up them up and put them into my jar. Every morning the fun then begins. I pull out up to six pieces of paper and those random drawings become the extra projects that I can focus on that day. I like the randomness but also like the specific to-dos spelled out for me. Every day is different. Every day there is progress.
Why six slips and not two or seven? I have found that six is the most I can do on a good day. Typically, I’ll get three or four done. I like having the choice of deciding what will be my top three for the day and I’ll do more if I can. I also like having the freedom to put off a project if I want to. Your mileage may vary.
I don’t have to do a lot on any particular to-do but I do feel I need to do something tangible before I can put it away. When I’m done, after I date and refold it, I then have two choices with the slip of paper. If it’s something I’d like to work on more frequently, I put it back in my gelato jar. Otherwise I put it in a holding tin with other recently worked-on slips of paper. When the gelato jar is empty, I put all the folded slips from the tin back into the jar and start the process over to select again from all possibilities.
Occasionally I do actually finish a project and it gives me a great deal of satisfaction to throw away that small slip of paper!
Why do I date my slips? Besides it showing that I’m slightly obsessive about keeping notes, writing down the date I worked on a project gives me accountability and shows my progress.
I currently have 49 projects rotating through my gelato jar. I could have more but I’m going to work on these for a while. I’m really pleased with this strategy. I’ve been using it for 4-5 months. It’s fun because every day is a surprise. I enjoy the excitement of pulling items out of the jar wondering, “What will it be?” It’s a good way for keeping me accountable to myself. It also helps me avoid procrastinating. Every item I’ve written down is something I’ve chosen to have as a project. That piece of paper is a reminder for me to work on that thing. I don’t get to put it away until I’ve done something to move my project forward.
This is my strategy for working on my to-dos, projects and interests. How do you keep track of yours? Let me know how this works for you. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, comments or suggestions. Any type of wide mouth container would work to hold slips of paper, but having an excuse to eat gelato first is rather nice too!