161. Going off piste

Making other plans for my plans.

In which Rebecca considers the effect on her creativity of stepping sideways and how making art gives her writing time to breathe.

Dear Reader,

I have to-do lists, I synch my iCal with Jim’s, I plan plans.

Yet I’m not a slave to any of this. Thanks to my habit of daily logging I don’t feel the need to accomplish everything on my list every day, as I am happy to migrate any outstanding tasks either to the next day, or schedule them for further in advance. I have a system, and golly, it works.

If you’re interested in learning more about the technique I use to give me confidence that life things, work things and all kinds of everythings aren’t going to fall through the net, have a look at this less-than-five-minute video.

Plans change, though.

Last week I had my regular date with Julie B. Hughes and the gang at Julie’s Write Together Monday, my weekly highlight of an hour during which I’m either brainstorming my next post or writing my latest draft. I didn’t want to miss out on this treat of time to be creative, but although I had a writing to-do to get to-done, on Monday I didn’t feel like to-doing it.

So Reader, I to-didn’t.

In my Art & treasures 🖼️ post last month¹ I had explored the idea of making art without making art – simply having some fun with my new sketchbook and some strawberries – and thoroughly enjoyed getting sticky with juice and playing some crazy arty games with myself.

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One of the results of my experimental art-free arting was a collage spread I’d created with paint prints of strawberries and strawberry shapes cut from painted newspaper: something I had been pleased with so far, but which I knew I wanted to come back to another day.

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Collage of painted and paint-printed paper in progress. You can read more about this project here.

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‘Come back to another day’. Reader, that day was Write Together Monday.

Normally I have pens, notebook and computer braced and ready for Write Together action, but this time I had my sketchbook, a tiny box of watercolour half-pans (two reds, two blues, two yellows, two browns), a water brush, a white gel pen and a ten-strong tin of Neocolor II watersoluble crayons.

For the whole hour of the Write Together – stopping for a moment at half-time to join Julie and the other participants for a stretch and a wave – I painted, scribbled, dotted, dabbed, smudged and wiped, adding puddles of paint first to one strawberry then another, each papery fruit waiting its turn for a visit from each medium. I used cotton buds – both damp and dry – to wipe up spilled-over edges, and my fingers to blur the sharp white of the gel-pen lines and dots. I laid down layer upon layer of crayon in scarlet, orange and white, again rubbing the surface with my fingers to soften and spread the colour.

Having hit ‘pause’ on this collage when I was writing this post about it I was now living these strawberries again. In my last arting session I’d known exactly when to stop, but this time I threw everything at it for an hour, adopting my tried-and-trusted mixed media approach of ‘more is more’.

I wasn’t careful. I didn’t stop to step back from the page, or walk away and come back again to take the project by surprise. I kept going until it was time to stop.

If I’d thought about the art I might have – would have – stopped before the hour was up. Perhaps I’d’ve used acrylic paint or coloured pencil instead of watercolour; not used the white gel pen at all, not gone in quite so heavy with those bold, bold crayons, paused to consider my next move, taken periodic photographs of the page-in-progress to look at it with a fresh set of eyes, held it up to the mirror, even.

I did none of that.

That wasn’t what it was about. This was about a measured hour to do what I wanted to do, to feel what I wanted to feel, to have fun with creativity.

At the Write Together Monday I generally feel my way with words, not with splashy paint and crayons. But as long as my creative buttons are being pushed and I get to feel what I need to feel, it doesn’t much matter what I’m doing in that hour.

My hour gave me this:

I put down my brush and my crayons, wiped up the inevitable mess (I call this my ‘art-ermath’), and knew exactly what I was going to do next.

Reader, I wrote this post. Having given my writing plans a chance to breathe by not engaging with them, and by throwing colour at paper in my writing time instead, I found I was ready to tackle them.

I’m looking forward to writing together with Julie next Monday, but I’m going to be making an appointment right now for my next hour of crazy creativity. I can certainly plan for that.

Love,

Rebecca

📚 Check out Julie’s newsletter Run to Write and make a date with Write Together Monday! It’s free: simply turn up to the Zoom room to write for an hour. Julie provides a writing prompt at the beginning, although participants are welcome to work on their own projects instead. You don’t have to put your camera on if you don’t want to.

Or if you can’t make it to that, why not schedule an hour (half an hour, a quarter, even) some other time for yourself to spend on a creative project?

📚 I publish my Art & Treasures 🖼️ posts on the last Saturday of every month. Next weekend I shall be taking you with me to the beach, where I’ll be making my own pet rock from scratch using paper and sea-water, and showing you swimsuits made with strawberries. Don’t miss it!

📚 Regular readers of ‘Dear Reader, I’m Lost' will be no strangers to my ongoing light-hearted correspondence with fellow Brit Terry Freedman of Eclecticism: Reflections on literature, writing and life. It’s my turn to reply to him next Wednesday!

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1. I publish my Art & Treasures 🖼️ posts on the last Saturday of every month. Next weekend I shall be taking you with me to the beach, where I’ll be making my own pet rock from scratch using paper and sea-water, and showing you swimsuits made with strawberries. Don’t miss it!