Thoughts on Slow Creation

In January I embarked on a goal to build a habit of art journaling everyday. I wanted this art form to be a part of my daily life and found the best way to do so was to do a 365 project to give me guidance, parameters and a way to track progress. I shared all about my plan in an earlier newsletter this year, you can read it here to catch up if you are interested in how to set up a project/habit/goal like this.I have learned many things about myself over the years through different avenues such as getting married, getting my first full time job, writing out my creative story, moving overseas, my 52 Portraits project, running Get Messy and more. One thing that has always been glaringly obvious is my tendency to procrastinate and run late. It causes me stress, trouble and is quite rude to others, but mostly produces a lot of anxiety and the feeling of never being good enough because honestly the thing I threw together in 20 minutes will never be as good as the thing I worked on for hours, days or weeks.The same, and possibly worse, thing was happening in my art, blogging and creation process. I would wait until the night before a blog post was scheduled to go up and then think about beginning the very involved, tedious project all while the light was gone and my photos would be impossible to take.I set out on my goal of art journaling everyday with a few hopes in mind:1. That I would fall in love with art journaling again and make it truly a part of my daily life and not just something to do for a blog post. 2. That I would produce a large body of work after working every single day at it.One of the parameters I set was that I just needed to touch my art journal, in some way, each day. Some days it is just browsing for inspiration, jotting down page ideas, cutting pages out of magazines, etc. But the goal is to just get myself into my creating physical space and head space each day to make it a habit. At first I was whipping out pages quickly and finishing them all in one sitting because I was inspired, excited and working in a very small journal. But then, I started adding in more medium like gesso that needed to dry overnight. Thus, forcing me to stop. Twyla Tharp in The Creative Habit talks about her process of continuing momentum: you do not finish. You leave a task that you are really working well on unfinished, because the next day when you show back up you can pick back up that work without having to restart from scratch.As my creating progressed throughout the month of January I began realizing a few things: I had time. I would be back tomorrow. And today's ideas marinating until tomorrow always come out better and with a lot more flavor. So I began slowing down, that was the whole point of this experiment anyway. I began just putting together the pieces, but not gluing them down or just painting the background and leaving myself a note with what I *thought* should go in next. This took less time out of my day, cut out my anxiety and allowed me breathing room in my art and process.A TIMELINE OF SLOW CREATIONThis is all illustrated perfectly in the photos above. They are a timeline of sorts. It shows that it took me 5 days to complete those 2 pages, those rather simple pages.Day 1: At midnight I realized I hadn't worked in my journal, so I forced myself out of bed, did not sit but grabbed my paint brush and water (which is always set up and ready to go) and started painting those black squiggles on the background. I had seen that shape somewhere and wanted to mimic it. I also wanted to do something quick that didn't take a lot of brain power. I simply laid the foundation for a future page and did not worry about what would come next for the page, because I knew I would be back tomorrow.Day 2: Then I spent the whole next day meticulously cutting out the flower.Day 3: The next day I smeared paint all over those leftover strips of paper, with the idea that they could be cut into shapes when dry.Day 4: The next day I cut the circles and put together the black and white page, on what happened to be MLK day.Day 5: The last day I showed up to find a lot of beautiful circles. I had been noticing the trend of moon phases everywhere lately, so I decided to add my own spin with my gorgeous water colors. A few scissor snips later and page #2 is done.PROCESS > OUTCOMEThrough the past 60 days or so I have seen the effects of slow creation on myself and my artwork. When I value the process over the outcome, the outcome always turns out infinitely better. Nothing is more deterring than incredibly high expectations, pressure and a rushed effort. But by focusing on the slow build, releasing tension and pressure, I have come away from my desk inspired to continue making, feeling accomplished and excited to see what the next step will be.Everyday I'm reminding myself to slow down, don't rush, let the ideas linger a bit. Saturating my thoughts and my work in time and space has left my work more inspired and true to myself. Cheers to slow creating.