Still drowned in work at the office, so I don’t manage to draw every day… because I’m tired in the evening and I get caught by “screen-sucking” activities… (Facebook, email, instagram,…)

So I crawled up again from work two weeks ago seeing a video from Marie Forleo saying on her great MarieTV “Don’t be one of the most regretful people on earth” and asking me: “What creative work is stashed away in your heart deserving more time and power ?”

and

“What’s one action you can take right now to bring it to life?”

You can watch the episode here.

In January I wrote this long post about “time”: (http://barbaraluel.com/lets-take-time/)

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.” [Mary Oliver in “The central commitment of creative life”]

and

I want to find myself more time to draw and paint! As I read a text by poet Mary Oliver which said that “self-criticism is the most merciless kind of criticism and self-compassion the most elusive kind of compassion, self-distraction is the most hazardous kind of distraction, and the most difficult to protect creative work against. [Mary Oliver , “Of Power and Time,” in Upstream: Selected Essays.”]

so I ask myself, and I ask you as well : “What’s one action you can take right now to bring your creative work to life?”

I could have enough time, if I don’t waste it away. I think the reply to this for me is that I sabotage myself and my time: I get “screensucked” by my ipad or iphone and waste time on Facebook and Instagram looking at what others do and think… Which ruins my creativity_ So I don’t get to drawing and painting. Or I start drawing, but exhausted from the screen I draw something “ugly” and get depressed about it… 🙁

Creativity is not something “magical” : it’s just part of YOU. It’s who I am, who you are. You Are Creative. We are just bumping into creative blocks everywhere. The biggest one is self-consciousness: we overthink the way we do things. We’re afraid to screw up and we get to hate what we make, we’re terrified others will hate it to and we hide away… We think others will find us a talentless amateur.

There’s a great course going on in Sketchbookskool for the moment where Danny Gregory talks about this :“Exploring”  .

So let’s stop sabotaging ourselves. And STOP worrying about what others might think of you and your art. Make stuff because YOU like it, for yourself, and have fun!

I did some more drawings with twigs. They’re great because they give myself the permission to draw with less precision, so I stop being obsessed about making a “correct” drawing!

In the video below I show how I made a drawing with a twig, Chinese ink and watercolor in Ine, Kyoto, Japan.

I dip the twig in a small container with gauze and Chinese ink and draw straight on the watercolor paper (Saunders Waterford rough paper, 300 grams). After finishing the drawing I make some shades with a dry rough brush and ink, and I finish by adding the watercolor in the background and the water. I chose to leave the houses blank. I don’t know yet if this was a right choice. Maybe I should paint them as well? What do you think?

Try it out: grab a twig and ink and draw something around you and please don’t be afraid to screw up. It’s just a piece of paper 🙂

And tell me: “What’s one action you can take right now to bring your creative work to life?”

And please share this with your friends if you think it can help them to live their creative life!

Love,

Barbara