25 Day Creative Challenge - Extended!

Hello You!

In February I took part in a 25 day sketchbook challenge and it was a fun, rewarding, enlightening and fulfilling experience. I found it online through Art2Life and since I've always enjoyed creating in my journal, I gifted myself 25 days of dedicated time, 20 minutes a day. It turned out to be well worth it.

Our teacher, Nicholas Wilton, at Art2Life led us with 4 weekly themes to consider as we created each day. He called these themes Essential Truth's and they were great for getting my mind to relax and my hands to create! Here are the 4 essential truth's in his words;

1. Movement Creates Flow. Getting in motion and doing the thing is what creates the opportunities and the confidence.

2. Aliveness is Found Within. Vibrant, authentic art follows aliveness. Your aliveness is how you make your art. It's how you source your art. Making your art comes from a way of being alive.

3. Play Restores Presence. When you're present, making your art and playing, you're using your intuition. And when you do this, it makes the most personal, authentic marks and expression.

4. Continuity Creates Momentum. Your past art is how you figure out your future art. Now that you have pages you can look back at, you need to start understanding what you're seeing in those pages. What brings you alive. What you like. What you want to bring forward. This is how you find your style and this is how you create amazing art.

Isn't that great?! I really enjoyed having these thoughts with me as I created, something to lean on when I might have lost my way, you know? I would encourage anyone who wants to begin (or continue) a dedicated practice to follow this simple 25 day outline and create something every day. I'm excited to continue with the figurative paintings I created using mixed media and letting go of what's expected.

Here are my 25 days in order:

Somewhere around day 10 I took the limit of 20 minutes off the table and just created. Some days it was 25 minutes and other days it was an hour (or more). Once I was in the flow, I enjoyed continuing.

And...I took his advice from truth #4, Your past art is how you figure out your future art. On day 26 I began to create on this 24"x 24" canvas. I wanted it to be an abstracted figure with some mixed media as that was what I noticed the most from my sketchbook pieces. When I was at my easel working on this piece, I made a point of noticing if anthing I was doing or feeling was different from the pieces in my sketchbook. At first, I noticed my mind dropped into "perfectionist" mode as I critiqued (or maybe criticzed my marks!) I wasn't as relaxed about the outcome as I had been in my sketchbook. I made an obvious effort to change my mindset a number of times. Feeling that difference in my mind and body was a good "aha" moment for me. I will be watching and listening for that to come up when I'm working on my next painting.

All this talk about letting go of expectations and stepping into your aliveness certainly rings true for me in my life. I've been actively engaged in creating a fullfilling, purpose-driven life for close to two decades now. Of course there have been speed bumps and forks in the road, but I wouldn't trade my path or my journey for anything. It's what has made me the wife, mother, sister and friend I am today and every day!

Always in gratitude,

Susie