Practice Runs

For the past few days, I’ve been doing practice runs to see how my thirty-day “Find Your Flow” plan will work for me. My goal was to spend at least thirty minutes sketching boys every morning in order to develop a character for a series of children’s books I’ve written that I want to illustrate.

During the practice runs, the most important thing I’ve learned is that I take the fun out of creativity by trying to control every aspect of the process. I make a plan, and if it doesn’t go like I want, I get frustrated and irritated, feel like a failure, and then quit. This practice period has been no different.

When I sat down to draw different sketches of boys for the practice runs here’s what came out.

I started to get really frustrated thinking maybe this isn’t such a good idea. But since I’ve committed to this thirty-day program, I am having to readjust my goals rather than going through my usual “I’m not good enough, forget about it, blah! blah! blah!” routine and running away from it.

I’ve decided that instead of dictating to my creative muse what we will be doing for the next thirty days, I am going to provide the pencil and paper, and let my intuition provide the rest. Instead of having a specific goal of what I want to have created by the end of the thirty days, I’m now excited that I have no idea what will emerge.

For today’s practice run, I just let my intuition show me, and this is what came forth.

This is interesting because I have been struggling with the idea of thinking for myself lately. This is especially true with the chronic dis-ease I’ve been experiencing. I have chased every lead in order to heal only to find out that what has worked for others does not work for me. Then I go through the process of wondering what is wrong with me, even going as far as trying something that didn’t work again, thinking it’s something I’ve done wrong and this time it will work. I know I have to find a way to interrupt this cycle. So, I’ve been contemplating who I would be without all I’ve been taught to believe and all the influence and opinion of others. What would I believe? What would I know intuitively? Where would it lead me if I got quiet enough to hear my own voice? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard my own voice. What does she sound like? My goal, then, for this thirty days, is to show up, listen, and allow what wants to come out to come out. Maybe, just maybe, I will find myself in there somewhere.

*The watercolor photo above is a piece I completed last night in my handmade watercolor journal. I miss the ocean so much, so I decided to create it.