Practicing The Life Creative

So Many Steps to Get There

One of my struggles with not only my creative projects but with lots of things in my life is the process. The process of learning new skills, understanding new concepts. I am a little impatient. You see there are things I can absorb quickly. When it comes to learning lines, for a play or a speech, I can commit those words to memory quickly. That’s the “easy stuff” for me. And because I can do some of those things with minimal effort, there’s a part of my brain that expects that everything will be the same way.

And it isn’t. Not even close sometimes.

For folks who are the beginning of a new creative process, it can seem daunting. The primary reason is that we usually only see the finished versions of other’s work. We don’t get to see the learning process, the experimenting, the failed attempts. It appears to simply appear. There’s a cliche that says no one wants to see how the sausage is made. Some things, it claims, should be left behind the scenes.

I’m not sure I agree.

We don’t need to see every step for everything we see or hear. There’s a reason why those efforts weren’t chosen. The song where the notes are wrong or the lyrics lack rhythm. The pictures where the colors are wrong or the brush strokes are uneven. Let alone the ones that are just a mess. That goes for any kind of creative effort. But, I think it’s important for us to share our mileposts along the way. The woodcarving that is better than the last time, the song that shows the musician is improving on the instrument or the form. The dance, painting, the photo, the sculpture, whatever it is for you.

So, below you find my latest effort. Is it a great painting?

Nope.

But it was more of an exercise than an attempt to create something to hang on a wall. I am fascinated by textures. Wood bark gives you all kinds of room to play with texture and shading. I saw this fir tree in the parking lot at my church. Grabbed a picture for future reference. About six weeks ago, I taped down a piece of paper and started working. As always for me, watercolor painting is a stop and start process. At three times, I came close to tossing it. I didn’t see any positive outcome, the colors were messed up, how was I going to save it? At this point, I’ve learned that this is part of my process. Walk away. Let it sit there. Look at it. Think about what the next layer might add.

And after weeks of start and stop work, I got to the place I’m trying to find. The one where I can say “Huh, that doesn’t suck.”

The background is a mess. The light swatch is supposed to be sunshine across the trunk. Or it’s a fungus patch. I don’t know any more, LOL! You can see me experimenting with different colors, strokes, amounts of water. Some parts are better than others. But the texture isn’t bad. The shading is ok.

For me.

For where I am in the process.

That’s all that matters.

How’s your process going?

Peace.