Over the last two months, I've begun exploring some creativity exercises to jog my Muse. I always wanted to learn artistic techniques and dabbled on and off years, but now that my writing is back on a regular schedule, I'm finding that sketching or playing with pastels before writing helps me to feel more relaxed when I approach the page. Artist Lisa Congdon's lessons on Creativebug have been very helpful in that regard. I'm working on her class "Creative Boot Camp: Reinventing the Basics with Lines and Circles" and have had so much fun playing with colors. As Lisa says, "You're allowing yourself to loose up like a kid and free up and not worry about being super accurate or perfect." We should think about "creating a balance"- good advice for the sketch pad and also good for life/writing in general. At the end of the process, "go back and add any detail that might need to be added." This is also a great revision tips for writers. We should check for scenes that could be more developed and for the little details that can make a scene more true to life.
I didn't spend a lot of money on materials. I found some good sketch pads at the Dollar Store and bought a few inexpensive oil pastel sticks at Michaels and some watercolors at Michaels. Doing these exercises has helped not only with the creative process but also with alleviating stress- just allow yourself to play and have fun! As you can see from my exercise below, based on Lisa's instructional module on creating a sketched oil stick village, I just had fun and played with color and overall the process and the results made me smile.
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