Last week I decided to start an art project of creating 100 mixed media paintings over the course of about 100 days. I was putting off starting the project thinking that I needed to buy new paper or supplies.
What I was really doing was procrastinating.
Yesterday, thinking about the project again, I began looking at online art catalogs for new paper, acrylic paint and other supplies. After a glorious hour of procrastination I looked at all of the art materials I already have. And I realized that I didn’t need to buy any new art supplies for this project.
So I told myself to just
Begin
and I did, imperfectly, joyfully, and playfully.
“I’ve never seen any life transformation that didn’t begin with the person in question finally getting tired of their own bullshit.”
― Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
I started with the prompt, “Four words that I live by,” and began doodling with my pencil. Before long I had outlines to fill in on the paper. I used a combination of watercolor crayons, watercolor paint, and acrylic paint. Soon I began embellishing with gel pens and bits of scrap paper, and finally I made a photo of the painting, brought it into Adobe Photoshop and added a couple of layers of texture with white typed words showing up on top of the painting.
“What you produce is not necessarily always sacred, I realized, just because you think it’s sacred. What is sacred is the time that you spend working on the project, and what that time does to expand your imagination, and what that expanded imagination does to transform your life.”
― Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Looking with clear eyes today, I am happy with what I created. Is it a masterpiece? No. Is it something I want to hang up on the wall? No.
It’s a beginning
That’s all — the start of something which may or not become a stack of 100 mixed media paintings.
“Do what you love to do, and do it with both seriousness and lightness. At least then you will know that you have tried and that—whatever the outcome—you have traveled a noble path.”
― Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Why did I procrastinate?
That’s a simple question to answer — FEAR.
Fear of failing to finish the project, fear of making ugly paintings, and even fear of not being able to think of what to paint. You cannot imagine all of the fearful dialogs running through my brain. What if people think it’s stupid? And what if I get tired of making paintings and I quit? On and on my monkey mind spiraled. But finally I stopped and said, “I’m doing this. I might not finish the project. The paintings may be trite and ugly. I may do the same thing over and over again, ad nauseam. It doesn’t matter so long as I enjoy the process.”
How about you?
What is it that you want to begin in your creative life?
Is it time? What is causing you to procrastinate? If not now, when?
“Embrace the creativity and don’t care about the result. It’s better to be a beginner till the end of the life than waiting forever to be perfect.”
― Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
May you walk in beauty.
Note: The images below are ones I created last year but I brought photos of them into Photoshop today and added layers of texture and played with different display modes to create something new today.
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