A Backward’s Glance (2)

Some more things I learned this year:

If you don’t book them, they won’t happen – a 2016 retrospective, and a 2017 wish list.

But a year is full of surprises – lessons through logo design: series round-up.

…especially when it comes to drawing – habitual change.

If you don’t know where you’re heading, draw yourself a map – how would you learn to draw?

I’m waiting for 2018 to reveal itself before I make any major commitments.  However, I know who to ask if I get stuck.

Wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year.

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A Backward’s Glance (1)

Some things I learned this year:

The smallest activity can make the biggest impact – the life-changing magic of tidying your smalls.

There’s more than one way to draw a drawing – one viewpoint, two outcomes.

The hardest challenges can turn out to be the most rewarding – learning through logo design (lesson 1 of 5).

Wishing you all a peaceful Christmas.

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Sparks Don’t Fly

What do you do when you’re stuck on something?  Do you sit through it until you work your way to the other side?  Or, do you walk away and allow yourself to be distracted by something else?

Tasked with developing an inspiring 20-minute careers’ presentation for primary school children, I got a spark of an idea while brushing my teeth one morning before work.  Four days’ later my reluctant colleague and I delivered my idea seven times in one day, and it was a hit with both the children and their teachers.  Even my colleague was buzzing with energy by the time we returned to work at the end of the day.

I’m trying the same approach with a dormant creative project, but I’m lacking sparks.  I have some character ideas I’ve been working on and (mostly) off for a few years.  But I’m struggling to ‘see’ them.  I know them well enough to be able to describe them in words, but the images are harder to get down on paper.  I’m also struggling with story ideas, for them, and keep looking for distractions.  Not a great start for my first picture book project!

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Looking Back

Looking back, I’ve learned a lot about my own creative habits since committing to entering this logo design competition.  Here’s a convenient summary of my thoughts so far…

Creative Freeze: Acknowledge your fear, and coax it forward, or it will hold you back.

Breathing Space: Give yourself and your creative project space to breathe from beginning to end.  You’ll learn to trust your own judgement rather than relying on the opinions of others.

Doodles Do: Dilute creative block by brainstorming your thoughts on paper, and nurturing them.  They’ll suffocate if they’re kept hidden away inside your head.

Pathfinder: Hesitate on a path of stepping stones and you risk losing your balance.  Keep a smooth, steady pace until you reach the other side, and only then pause for breath, reflect back and prepare for the next one

Fire-Walking: It takes courage to blaze a new trail, so it’s okay to hesitate a little (and you won’t burn your feet).  Enjoy the journey or you’ll miss part of the fun, and you’ll discover your destination when you finally get there.

If there’s one key thing I’ve taken away from this project, it’s the benefits of creative inertia.  It’s sooooo much easier to keep going when you’re already in motion, especially if you plan your next step before your current one is complete.  Although my drawing is faltering on a path of stepping stones, my sewing task list is shrinking nicely.

I’ve repaired and adjusted seven (yes, SEVEN!) garments in the past month (ready to wear after a year or two in limbo).  My target is no outstanding repairs or adjustments by the end of this year.  As I see them waiting in my wardrobe, I’m not afraid of them; I subconsciously ponder each task, and when one is finished I choose the next one.

Drawing is different.  I hesitate after each sketch, as though I’m drained of energy and I need to recharge before I think about what happens next.  There’s got to be another lesson in here somewhere…

While I think about that, I’m switching to fortnightly posts so I can spend some quality time with my sketchbook.  Have you found this series useful?  Please leave me a comment.

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Logo Logic: Fire Walking

When I embark on an art or design project, I always fluster.  Some of my ideas aren’t what you’d call mainstream and often have to be explained.  And that concerns me.

Take, for example, my diversity and inclusion logo design.  My first idea was a Venn diagram.  A bit boring, but no explanation needed.  Yet it just didn’t sit right with me.  I wanted to go with something a little less obvious.  And I did.

But with creative projects I feel I have to keep justifying my idea to myself, or explaining them to others.  At the moment I have limited faith (that comes from experience) but some of my ideas are just so far off the mark I end up on a completely different path to the one I should have been on (again, from experience).

Could I be a trailblazer, a brave pioneer of fresh new territory?  Or am I just lost?

A trailblazer is literally someone who makes marks along their trail so that others may follow behind.  They may not find the destination they were expecting, but if they hadn’t started their journey they would never have known.  I’ve begun to tell myself I’m blazing my own trail.  In time I hope someone feels curious enough to follow, find what I found, and discover where I’m headed next.

Lesson 5: It takes courage to blaze a new trail, so it’s okay to hesitate a little (and you won’t burn your feet).  Enjoy the journey or you’ll miss part of the fun, and take time to discover your destination when you finally get there.

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