Taking time to play

I find myself getting in patterns where I feel like I’m just barely keeping up with alllll of the things…getting ready for my next season of art shows, prepping for workshops, creating for my inspiring art collective, planning for my France retreat, helping out with the Rittenhouse Square Fine Art Show marketing now that I’m on their board of directors, reading, learning, not to mention TCG Design, my marketing and design business…it’s a lot and I can let myself feel overwhelmed sometimes.

I find when that uncomfortable feeling of overwhelm shows up, it helps me to stop and take time to play.

Creating art is one of the few times that my “squirrel brain” quiets and I feel calm and peaceful. All the outside noises stop. But when painting for a show, sometimes that quiet isn’t quite as quiet. So I take time to play, with no pressure, and no thought of outcome, or cares of what anyone else will think of it.

I’ve been having many late night thoughts of lemons. Something the visual of lemons just pops into my mind in the middle of the night. Yes, I may be crazy, but I could certainly be thinking of worse things, right?

When thoughts come back to me repeatedly I try to listen. I photographed whole lemons and painted them in my sketchbook. It was fun, but the lemons thoughts were still coming. So last week at market I bought more lemons and came home and sliced them in half and did a photoshoot on my back porch.

This week I painted three sliced lemon paintings with no thought of outcome, just pushing the “fun” quota.

Guess what? I think I may be on to something…I enjoyed this so, so much that I can’t wait to paint this one large.

My point is, follow your muse wherever it leads you. It won’t steer you wrong…it may take a while, but if you listen really hard, something magic just might happen…