Taexalia

wild.life

Creative Play

I made a conscious effort today to have a newsfast. It's just too easy to get sucked into the negativity *out there* and I always try to be aware of my own tendency to get hold of a bone and chew on it until I reach emotional exhaustion. I could drown in information overload about depleted uranium for instance, but I've done some info-trawling and I've put my thoughts about the use of the Solway in writing in all the directions I can think of. For now I have to let go and accept the boundaries of my circle of influence.

I made a conscious choice to post something colourful and not related to politics or dark subjects today.

I've been thinking about the sea and other deep and mysterious bodies of water. I feel the pull of Loch Ness as I prepare my packing list for my trip this weekend, and I'm still musing about the free-writing post I wrote the other day and the energy I was connecting to.

I had a fleeting thought that it would be nice to get out some pastels and paper and try to express that energy, and for once I didn't let the fleeting thought pass without acting on it.

I filled a page with blues and greens and sweeping strokes and tried to switch off the inner critic telling me I wasn't translating the "right" image. I allowed the inner diatribe to continue, but I also allowed myself to play with the colours and the energy. Occasionally I answered the critic back with thoughts like "this is the first pastel thing I've started in years I'm not looking for a finished polished piece of art"...

The energy of the colours assimilated in my head and then I saw the snake spiral and I drew two and it felt so freeing to flick a piece of paper off the easel and put a fresh piece up in quick succession. The second snake I drew with oil pastels - which I had pooh-poohed when I was spreading all the boxes out.

I'm not sure where the snakes came from, or the pattern, or the colours but as I drew the second diamond I thought about trying to translate the snake into a polymer clay cane. With that idea in mind I grabbed my sharpies and started trying out different colour ways.

I really enjoyed observing the process and the magical surge as one idea spilled into another idea and soon a bunch of ideas were jumping up and down saying "pick me! pick me!" I think I am the type of creative who needs to let go of any pre-conceived idea of what I'm going to create, or even what medium I'm going to create it in and today was a good lesson in just trusting the process and letting things just flow.

Perhaps just having written this post will spur me to dig the clays out tomorrow, mix the colours and start building the cane...

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Posted on March 12, 2008 in Uncategorized.

3 Responses to “Creative Play”

  1. seventh sister says:
    March 13, 2008 at 3:18 am

    I so wish that I had some artistic tendencies, but that is not my talent this go ’round.

  2. Sue Bailey says:
    March 13, 2008 at 12:07 pm

    I like the snake particularly, not least because it reminds me of the spirals on neolithic monuments: it seems to come from somewhere very deep.

  3. Karen says:
    March 13, 2008 at 3:48 pm

    Thank you so much for visiting my blog and leaving a link to your blog–I really like what I’ve read so far! (It’s nice to know there are so many other book sluts out there!)I’ll be back for another visit, soon!

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