The #CreativeLife - Keeping up the practice

How do we get better at being creative?

There is a saying that I am sure that you have heard about at least once: practice makes perfect. And then I am sure you will agree that perfection is not attainable, so why should you bother?

If you think back to when you learned something for the first time, was it easy to do it? Of course not. You practised it over and over again, and with every practice session, you became more skilled and improved your understanding of it.

And creativity in any shape or form works exactly the same way. People often tell me that they can barely draw a stick figure, so they cannot draw. I have given up trying to explain to those people that anyone can learn to draw. Instead, I focus my energy on rather helping people who want to learn, because they inherently understand that the skill is developed with practice. Practice learning, practice to improve their skills, and practice to deepen their understanding of the nature of their own creativity.

In my art group, everyone likes to paint exciting subjects and we enjoy playing with new materials. As the teacher, I am more aware of continuing to learn to improve my own skills on top of the fun of new projects. I, therefore, make a point of it to always reiterate that practice improves our skills, and not the new materials or spending 15 minutes to paint the pretty flowers we see in a photograph.

Practice takes time like everything else we have to do in our daily lives. Next time I will share more about how I plan time to practice my artistic skills.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and live creatively until Monday!

︙ Linzé  🇿🇦💚

The #CreativeLife 2021 - review of week 9

  April is blog challenge month, and today the participants are revealing their themes for their 26 days of blogging. I am taking part as well, and my posts will following my blog theme for 2021: aspects of the #CreativeLife. But instead of boring you with 26 posts of my daily life, I will be sharing some of my artwork, as well as a few bits and pieces of info about the things influencing the creation of art projects.

For more info and seeing what other bloggers will be up to >> Twitter #AtoZChallenge or @AprilA2Z

Now back to the usual week-in-review news for week 9 of 2021

On Wednesday I took my car in for its annual service. I found a dealership close to the lab and decided to take my car to them since my husband, who usually takes my car to a dealer close to his place of work, working from home for two days. Not an unusual thing to do, I grant you, but that it was not a usual service day for me.

One hour after I fetched the car again, thanks to one of my colleagues who took me to collect it after the service, I got a call from the service manager from the dealership with an offer to purchase my car. I turned him down. Not because the offer was not good enough, but the one model of vehicle that would tempt me right now to sell is not available in South Africa. And it is apparently unlikely to be made available. Welcome to my world.

The challenge for our art group last week was to draw dead leaves lying on concrete blocks. I took the picture at one of the local malls and challenged the group to take the almost monotone photograph and turn it into an abstract/impressionistic project. And here was the true challenge: we had to do it using watercolour pencils.

I think all of us had a learning experience, ranging from colour combinations that don't work, applying the pencils on paper not suited to the media, and practising freehand drawing using the grid method. Was it worth the effort?

Learning about a medium or a technique only happens when you sit down and experiment with it. So I would say it was definitely worth the effort (or aggravation?) to learn more about the mediums we own.

Sleep deprivation due to a Netflix story happened again, but at least this time I waited for the weekend so I could catch up a bit on Sunday.

So here is to a new week, new work challenges, and a whole lot of trying to avoid procrastination (aka Netflix) until I finished my todo list for the week.

Stay healthy, and live creatively until Thursday!

︙ Linzé  🇿🇦💚

The #CreativeLife - the journey is the motivation

 What keeps you motivated?

People often say that you need to follow your passion and that will make you happy. In the context of this post, I am not going down the road of happiness, but rather discuss a few thoughts about passion and motivation. I don’t believe that following your passion will contribute to your creativity long term. Passions burn high, and like anything with a hot fire, it does not last very long. Of course, passion is not a bad thing, but it can be tragically short living. Kind of reminds me of being inspired by the muse.

She pops along, and you cannot help yourself so you create, create, create. But then you get tired and stop. Then you have to wait for the muse to strike again and the destructive cycle starts all over again. The problem is a lack of consistency and frustration. So if passion is not the answer, what is the alternative? I wish the answer was easy, because you need to clarify this for yourself, but here are a few pointers to help you out.

What motivates you to create?

1.     Creativity is not given to a selective few. It is something that we all use almost every day, even if you are not aware of it. If you think for a moment, you will realize that even solving a small problem, often uses your creative skills even if it only involves thinking about the best way to do it.
2.    Creativity cannot be used up. One of the reasons where the muse theory often lets you down. Because if you need to rely on the inspiration that is inconsistent and fickle, how are you ever going create anything for someone else? Let’s say you show this awesome painting to a friend and they want one too because her mother is having a birthday soon and she would just love this style of landscape. If you need to wait for the muse to rock up and do her thing, you are never going to produce a single mark on the canvas. That means that you need to find the inspiration within yourself to do the work because that friend is not going to be impressed if you tell her a day before her mother’s birthday that you couldn’t paint.
3.    Finding motivation needs a habit update. You are creative, and you are drawing, and the muse does visit once in a blue moon, but that is not good enough. To make it good enough, you will have to take charge of your creative practice. And there is the keyword to this whole post: practice. Creativity needs fuel, and the fuel is practice. Now you’re wondering about that fire again, right? Let’s get into that again.
4.    A habit update will keep the fire burning. What will last longer: a slow fire fed regularly, or a bonfire where you dump all the fuel on it in one go? Of course, the slow fire, there is no argument. For a sustained creative life, feeding the fire requires a regular effort. Daily if you can. Habits are those things that we do without thinking and adding a habit of creative practice to your life will not only keep the fire burning (without a fickle muse messing it up) but it will also produce the work that you can promise to others. And regular practise has the additional benefit of improving your skills too. Win-win, right?

You might wonder when I got so smart about all this? When I started writing 22 years ago, I knew nothing about writing books. I have read hundreds of books in my lifetime, and subconsciously understood what makes a good read, but I had to learn how to write that book that captured my attention. The same thing happened when I started drawing and painting. I read books, I took classes, and I practised. A lot. Now I teach art (and engineers), but I still learn and still practice, because it motivates me to keep adding fuel to my creative fire.

And that is both the journey and the motivation. Learn. Practice. Learn some more. Practice some more. And over time you will find the voice that makes you the author, the artist, the poet, the engineer that creates new solutions, new art, or new words every time you sit down to produce and deliver.

Stay healthy, and live creatively until Monday!

︙ Linzé 🇿🇦💚

The #CreativeLife 2021 - review of week 8

 Pain, procrastination, and Netflix - welcome to a week gone wrong

I spent the week on my own with hubs away to take photographs at a safari park in KwaZulu Natal (or KZN as we locals call it). I don't mind the solitude and usually spend my non-working time catching up on art projects that are behind schedule.

Calendar week 8 highlighted

Yeah right. This time I spent more time procrastinating by watching my latest addiction on Netflix: Korean and Chinese series. Since I don't speak either language this was not an opportunity to do something else while the series played in the background. Nope, I had to watch the subtitles to follow the story.

So yeah, very little sleep (3 hours on Tuesday, and 4 hours on Friday) and not much else accomplished. In the past, I would have hated myself for this waste of time, when I have so many other enjoyable things to do, but no longer. I accept that somewhere, perhaps subconsciously, I needed the time away from other things. So I file the experience in my memory, enjoyed the Korean screenwriting and some excellent acting, and am ready for a new week.

The flip side of all this butt to chair hours of Netflix is severe back pain. I know better, but I don't seem to learn so well as I think I do. Five days of back pain was not fun, but I am getting better since I made a point of moving more often.

April is going to be a hectic month for bloggers around the world, so stay tuned for the reveal next Monday.

In the week ahead, there are so many things happening again, but I will save the stories for next week, because, you know ... life.

Stay healthy, and live creatively until Thursday!

︙ Linzé  📚💚

Exploring the creativity of the #CreativeLife (Part 4 of 4)

Creativity is Community

The post today might seem counter-intuitive to you because painting a canvas or writing a novel is usually a solo event. How does a community come into play in a creative life?

I think most people could appreciate the fact that the author needs the services of an editor and cover designer, but these are professional services usually paid for. If your concept of a community follows the same interpretation as mine, you are thinking of people on a creative path sharing the experience of creating, if not together, then in togetherness.

No one can create for someone else, but being there in a supportive role can provide the necessary structure for both the new artist and the experienced creator.

How the community forms and supports its members

Linzé's February 2021 tag
for the rose prompt

When I first started writing I had no clue what I was doing and I had no one else to turn to ask any questions, so I learned from books. But even the best books on creative writing, cannot tell me what is wrong with my story or how I could improve it. That changed when I did a creative writing course that included peer feedback. While it started as a nerve-wracking experience, it ended as the best thing I could have done. The feedback was useful and I learned a lot, but I also met like-minded people.

Other writers with the same need for support often required nothing more than an encouraging word or helpful suggestion. It is here that the Pretoria Writers' Group was formed.

Artist communities work on the same principle and I love watching the new artists grow as they develop their skills. I have been there too. I now belong to both writers and artists groups and was recently invited to join a Facebook group where its members are both writers and artists in their own right. Are their creative lives special in some secret way?

If I look at all the creativity happening in the daily lives around me, including my own, having more than one creative outlet is not that unusual at all. It is being part of a community of similar minds, that provides the support for its members to spread their wings irrespective of their skill levels, that makes all the difference in the success of the members in enjoying a creative life.

In March we are going to explore some of the challenges of the creative life and how to deal with them.

Until Monday, stay safe and live creatively!

●︙● Linzé  🇿🇦💜

The #CreativeLife 2021 - review of week 7

Frustrating week. I have several jobs ready for testing or finishing, but waiting for my clients to either fix something or submit the correct documents. Then there is one job where we have to get the batteries discharged. Since these are not your average phone battery, it will take time and some serious safety measures to get it done this week.

Week 7 of 2021 (calendar)

Our art group is working on a junk journal, and we decided to start with pages dedicated to a colour per page. I have done a few examples (not only with a colour theme) to get everyone inspired. Everyone is just having fun with collaging and mixed media without the pressures of producing perfection. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

The junk journal is a project that will take a few months, so I have added a fine art challenge too: abstract work in watercolour pencil. It is going to be a challenge for both the experienced artists and the newbies alike. But how else do we improve our skills, right?

With the commission also due soon, I have to confess to procrastinating a bit. I made a serious effort on Saturday, but this coming week I will have to put in the work otherwise that will be a very bad way to treat a client. Not something I want on my list of accomplishments.

I need a break, but it will not be possible this week. However, a more focused approach will help to get things done sooner, then I can take a few hours off later in the week. Now that is what I call motivation! LOL!

Stay healthy, and live creatively until Thursday!

●︙● Linzé 🇿🇦💜

Exploring the creativity of the #CreativeLife (Part 3 of 4)

5 ways to start owning up to your creative side

Do you find it easy to own up to being a teacher, or doctor, or engineer? Then find it near impossible to tell people that you are a writer, an artist, or sculptor. Why is having a creative life such a difficult thing to put out there?

Here are 5 ways to rethink your creative life

Keyring with a tiny
illuminated letter L

1. We grow up being told that a creative life is not good enough, we have to study or do something real. Since I only started my creative life as an adult, I was thankfully spared this problem, but studying engineering was definitely not something that most people of my parent's generation considered for a woman. So perhaps I was pushing back already in preparation for the life I am now living.

2. We live in a society of instant gratification. A creative outlet requires dedication, learning, time, and practice. Lots and lots and lots of practice. Which makes the instant “getting it right” not an option, no matter how many hacks, or short cuts, or secret tricks you look for. Skill comes with time, there is nothing instant about it. Without the hacks, people often give up quickly to move on to the next big thing.

3. We compare ourselves to others, thank you social media! There are hundreds (probably thousands) of YouTube, IGTV, Pinterest, and who knows how many other channels of people sharing their own creative projects. Whether it be art or other projects, what you see online is the result of other people's sweat and suffering to gain the skills they can now rightly share with the world. 

Then we pop along and compare our efforts with them, only to decide that we are worthless at watercolour painting, and go try something else, or worse give up entirely. But the internet is also useful, you might say. You would be right, but comparing yourself as a beginner to someone who has been painting for years is simply a waste of energy. If you want to use the internet as a resource to learn, then choose to follow people who are good teachers. Practice what you learn. Every day. And then step up to learn something new. Practice some more. Before you know it your skills have improved.

4. Don't throw away your “failures”. There is a channel I follow where the host says that the medium is just paper and if you don't like the result you can just throw it away. I don't agree.

Keyring with "live inspired"
words and dragonflies
stamped image

I had the first pastel drawing I made framed. It is still hanging in my workshop. The reason I keep it is to see how far I have come in my journey as an artist. If you want to compare yourself to someone, compare your present skills with your past skills, and then appreciate how much you have grown.

I am not saying you have to keep every single drawing, but to have the “failures” on hand can be a huge motivation to keep practising.

5. I am an artist! It took years before I was ready to own up to being a writer. Even after my first book was published, it was difficult to get those words out. After seven years of learning and practising drawing and painting, I am now teaching others to draw and paint as well. They asked, and I decided to say yes because to teach means that I continue to learn and improve my own skills.

Saying the words out loud, even to yourself in the mirror, makes a difference to the way you can live your life. I live a creative life because I choose to do the work. I choose to practice. I choose to teach. And I choose to accept commissions because I am an artist.

Take that step today, because you have a story to write, a story to paint, a story to sculpt, a story to collage. Take the leap, because you are an artist, you deserve to live the creative life you want.

This video is a good place to help you get started.

Stay healthy, and live creatively until Monday!

●︙● Linzé 🇿🇦💜