Dear Wonderful Creative You,

One of the most important questions you can ask yourself is why you’re making art. What’s your purpose? What goal are you trying to meet?

Most of my students enjoy the practice of slow drawing and slow painting in my workshops each week. It provides a rhythm of creating that is predictable, sustainable, and happens in supportive community. Very often, students will ask, “I’m doing this this prompt this way.… Is that right?” The answer to that question depends on what brings you to this practice.

Some students attend simply because they need a way to find grounding and calm. Other folks are here because they love art and want to improve their skills and find their own creativity. (This in turn, brings a feeling of both joy and grounding.)

So I would ask you right now – Why do you attend slow drawing and painting? (And by the way, there’s no wrong answer.) Do you want to copy what I’ve done and sink into the moment mindfully? In this case, I would say if you feel grounded and calm, then no matter the outcome on the paper, you’re doing it right. People in this category will find it important to be more and less precise, and there’s no right or wrong about that. Or do you want to find calm through drawing and painting slowly, allowing your work to morph from my prompt into your creative vision? If your goal is to carve out your own creative path, then over time, I hope that you go from asking, “Is this right?” to asking, “Is this right for me?”

In the Gather tier of my membership, The Gathering, we’ve focused this quarter on what it means to find your voice as an artist. In addition to our workshops and journaling prompts, I’ve been infusing the slow drawing lessons with some extra nudges to help students experiment with changing my prompts using what-if questions.

One of my goals with slow drawing and painting has been to provide a flexible structure within which you can explore your own ideas. In my experience, we feel the most joy when we tap into our own creative font. The joy you feel in the process of trial and error, frustration, and discovery is what drives you to continue creating – you don’t need inspiration to get started because you’re curious and keep pushing and experimenting with new iterations of your ideas. Given that, I hope you go off script, so to speak, when we create together in slow drawing and slow painting workshops.

So as you ask yourself “what if” questions with each week’s drawing or painting, don’t dismiss the ideas that you believe are too different, weird, or off-topic. If you’re interested in developing your own voice as an artist, you have to start to trust your ideas, even the ones that seem bad.

Being an artist is about opening up the faucet of creative flow. It’s important to let everything through. Don’t edit or try to filter the ideas, let them out. You’ll see that the more ideas you welcome, the more you’ll get. When you try to filter them as they’re coming through, they get scared and stop coming. This is the inner critic at work, and it makes people think they don’t even have ideas, but I know that that’s not the case.

I’ve worked with enough students to know that some people are so quick to filter and edit their ideas that it seems as though they don’t have any ideas because their inner critic cuts them off before they can even have a fully formed thought. Those inner critics are not terrible, they’re just scared. They need your reassurance that it’s okay for them to sit back and relax a bit. Stop editing your ideas. Even if the art is “bad,” nothing bad is going to happen. The art police are not going to come knocking down your door. This is about having time for yourself to create as a self-care practice.

Let’s look at how this might translate. I want to give you an example from last week’s slow drawing. We began with the Crush pattern, which is beautifully simple and invites tons of modifications. You could easily begin by making the “Crush” pattern once, twice, or even several times as you warm up. (Yes, warming up is important, just like in sports and music.) After a while, little ideas might start to emerge as you draw. That’s when you pull out your what-if list and start noting down ideas. As you’re ready to move on to new slow drawing cards, you can experiment with these ideas and iterations. Little by little, it’ll start to take you further and further away so that your starting piece and your end point have one or two elements in common, but are quite different.

How does that kind of experimentation sound to you? Does it excite and invigorate you, or seem intimidating?

What’s your experience with trusting your voice?

I’d love to hear about your experience trusting your voice. I’d also love to know what brings you to the slow drawing practice. Tell us about it in the comments.

Creatively Yours,
Amy

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Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

I’m excited to offer you this guided watercolor meditation for beginners. I think you are going to love it, and I can’t wait to see what you create!

Meditating Through Art

Have you ever slowed down enough while you are creating to notice the feel of the paper in your hands, or to notice the rhythmic sound of your breathing? Mindfulness is all about tuning into the moment without judgment – just a practice of noticing what is – with curiosity.

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Curiosity is a super power. When we are curious we have to engage parts of our brain that don’t operate well if we are flooded with emotion. The more I practice going slow and being curious while I make art, the more natural it is, and the more I find myself tuning into the moment at other times too – noticing the way the bubbles of air form under a frying egg, or the teensy triangles of skin folds on my hands. There are opportunities to slow down and get curious in every moment. We don’t need to be mindful all the time – but having an art meditation practice to turn to can help us feel more creative and more grounded.

Comment

I would love to hear in the comments about the difference you experience meditating with eyes open and eyes closed. What was that like for you? What do you find easy or hard about each approach?

Creatively Yours,

Amy

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Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

It happens so often with the “simplest” slow drawing patterns – folks initially dismiss them, but once they do the workshop, they say how surprised they were because they loved the simplicity and found a lot of room to innovate and make it their own.

I get it. Last week’s pattern, Cross, was a set of long horizontal lines with short vertical lines intersecting them.

You might ask yourself, “This is so easy, what’s the point?”

The simplicity is the point.

The places simplicity leads you are the point. The beauty of simplicity and all the space it leaves for each viewer’s imagination is the point. I create all my patterns so that they are simple enough that anyone can do it, but interesting enough that you would want to explore it many times, many ways, and make it your own.

+ Drawing a simple pattern is relaxing

+ Relaxing opens your mind to your own creative ideas

+ Drawing simple patterns can lead to beautiful destinations.

With these pieces, I feel like the pop of yellow color in the circle, along with the black and white of ink on watercolor paper creates a beautiful, simple palette. It’s relaxing to the eye. In this collection, I also enjoy the variety in the density of marks, and textures. Presenting simple patterns and swaths of color in relationship to each other can create a big impact.

This is my secret for making art:

I draw.

I paint.

I make marks.

I create patterns.

And then when the mood strikes, I put them together in interesting ways in a journal or a stand alone piece, or I take what I discovered on a small scale and make it big.

In the page above, I’ve layered watercolor and a simple pattern in the top three layers. In the bottom two layers, I’ve also added a piece with rice marks and watercolor dots. I think the effect is quite interesting because there’s a sense of repetition and variation in the marks, the colors, and the shapes of the cut outs. What do you think?

If this speaks to you, I want to tell you about and invite you to our Watercolor Wonder retreat on November 10th and 11th, live on Zoom. (Update October 5th, 2022 – this retreat is now full, you can check the Live events page in the shop for more live online retreats.)

We will explore watercolor mark making, and layering with patterns in pen.

I will show you how to make beautiful watercolor clouds and swaths of color that will highlight and showcase your drawings.

You’ll find your ways of layering simple techniques with spectacular results.

Early bird pricing ends October 13th, but we are already more than halfway full, so if it’s speaking to your heart, join us now! You can learn more here:

What are your thoughts on simplicity in art? Do you ever create playing with this concept?

Journaling Prompt:

1. Create a wash of color on several small pieces of watercolor paper.
2. Draw a simple, repetitive pattern on each card, exploring what feels relaxing or fun to draw.
3. Write about what you noticed and learned here.

Creatively Yours,

Amy

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Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

Last week I had the great pleasure of returning to Maine to camp for the week with my family.

It’s always a time of incredible views, hikes, bikes, and far too many sticky buns and ice cream cones. It’s also a time that I always bring my portable art kit, and try to squeeze in art time whenever I can. I capture lots of inspiration with my camera as part of this practice as well.

We got up close and personal with this bull frog.

I carry around my portable art kit so that I’m ready for those small pockets of time – like this piece of twisted weed that caught my eye as I watched the boys swim and make seaweed constructions.

I had time to draw it twice from life, which was a treat.

Other times though, like waiting for water to boil at the campsite, I’m never sure when I’ll get interrupted, and drawing can feel hard when you aren’t sure how deep you can dive in.

In one of those moments last week, I decided to take my own advice. I found a leaf that inspired me, and challenged myself to draw it and to enjoy whatever was able to emerge in that time. I did this repeatedly on watercolor wash cards, both while making dinner, and the next day at the picnic table with the snippet of leaves at my side. It was very satisfying to see a series of drawings come together in this way, and surprising how calming it was to dive deep, even for short bursts.

I try to be less picky and perfect about when I have the “right” conditions for drawing and exploring. I draw in the long car ride too. See the little moth like creatures in the circle below? We saw moth and insect samples at a museum, I pulled out my journal and drew their simple shapes and marveled at how similar they were. Then that night in the tent, I was struggling to fall asleep, and I shooed a bug from my cheek. She landed on the tent wall next to me. It was a tiny moth, just the shape I’d been drawing earlier. She came to visit and teach me to look at her beautiful antennae waving this way and that in the beam of my headlamp. I had great fun on the car ride home exploring those moth shapes.

If you look at the collection of drawings I did in a week, it’s not that much art work.

On the other hand, because I worked this way, I developed several ideas that I can take much further when I have longer chunks of time, and that’s worth a lot.

I hope this inspires you to find ways to make art in the time you have in ways that are enjoyable and drive your practice forward.

You can learn more about slow drawing, follow my patterns, and create your own with my book, Draw Yourself Calm – order here.

I’d love to hear about how you fit art into your life.

Creatively Yours,

Amy

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Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

I’ve been hosting Slow Drawing Parties since the beginning of the pandemic, and so many folks have told me how important the practice is to their lives. But when folks first start, especially if they are new to art, it can be hard to understand why we are slowly drawing tiny patterns and what to do with them. For me, it’s about finding a sense of wonder.

Drawing slowly, my breathing gets deeper, my mind slows down, and I’m drawn into the marks on the page, the sound of the pen, the feeling of my legs against the chair. It’s grounding, calming, and joyful.

And then something miraculous happens…

I start to notice little ideas bubbling up in my imagination – “Oh, that part reminds me of a turtle shell, that feels like a cozy cave with a fire,” and when I listen to these creative percolations, it influences the direction of my work.

Slowing down grounds us so we can travel to new heights in our creative life. I let go of trying to control the art, and watch where the lines and the ideas flow when I follow my impulses. I am a creative adventurer, hanging on for the ride.

And once I have a collection of small drawings, I have tons and tons of pieces that are just begging to be used in playful collages. I have permission to enjoy, to savor, to be present to what brings me delight without judgment. I can make a Little Book of Wonder.

From my new class: Little Book of Wonder

For me, part of what is most amazing about art is its ability to take us places without us ever physically going anywhere. Just like when we were kids, we are transported by our imagination to someplace full of magic and surprise. There’s no reason to let go as an adult. Let’s have a creative adventure together.

I hope you enjoyed that quiet little tour through my book and that it inspired some ideas for your creative, adventurous art practice.

Creatively Yours,

Amy

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Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

What is sparking your creativity these days? For me, it’s been the tiny, itty bitty interior spaces of natural objects. I’m fascinated by the abstract shapes made by the gills of a fungus, or the holes and crevices in a piece of algae. I love the way they repeat across habitats and organisms too.

I just keep getting more and more fascinated by natural patterns. When I went for a hike with my family this weekend, I was astounded at the explosion of green around me in the mosses, lichens, and fungi, and the patterns of growth, clustering, and patterning on each individual organism. (My curiosity about natural patterns also helps me create the patterns we use in my free Slow Drawing Workshops.)

I let this curiosity feed my art practice. The more patterns I draw, the more I look for them in nature. The more I look for, the more I find, and so on. This positive feedback loop is powerful. And it all starts with indulging just the smallest little curiosity.

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Here’s the thing: curiosity and mindfulness feed each other. The more you indulge little curiosities, the more present you will be to the world around you, the more grounded and curious you’ll feel. The same is true in art. The more you explore those little curiosities, the more curious you become, the more fun you have, and the more art you make. And of course, the more you indulge curiosities generally, the more ideas you have for your art practice.

I’d love to hear about what’s driving your curiosity and creativity these days.

Creatively Yours,

Amy

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Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

Recently I’ve been feeling really tired. It’s nothing serious, just a short-term adjustment happening in my body, but really trying, nonetheless. This week, when it was time for me to do my Wednesday Art Chat where I share tips and tutorials on art and overcoming the inner critic, I knew I needed to offer something, but also to nourish myself. I want to share with you the insights about how I make art when I feel uninspired.

This is a simple, fun exercise that helps get my creative juices flowing, and makes me feel more grounded and light. It leads to lots of new ideas for my sketchbooks and art journals too. I’d love to hear what your experience is with it in the comments, and be sure to grab the free workshop at the bottom of the post too!

Make Marks in Your Journal

Let the lines and marks wander across the page and explore the space like the line is on an adventure.

• Practice making thinner and thicker lines,
• Drag the pencil or pen lightly
• Make it thicker or thinner

Vary Your Pen Grip

• Hold the pen super loosely, like you might drop it
• Use a death grip
• Hold it in your non-dominant hand
• Hold it from the top or close to the bottom

Use a Variety of Mark Making Tools

• Drawing pens – I like Micron
• Pencils
• Brushes – I like bamboo brushes like these and India ink
• Homemade brushes using sticks and pine needles, thread, or other ideas I share in this Pinterest board on mark making

Give Yourself Permission to Make a Mess in Your Sketchbook

Lately I’ve been writing in my journal: I’m tired. That’s the whole page. That’s it. And you know what? That’s enough.

Not every sketchbook page should be beautiful. In this age of social media and constant comparison, I think we get a false idea about what an art journal or sketchbook should be. A sketchbook can help you improve your art skills, but it can also be your friend. Your art journal can be an excellent listener. Give it a chance.

Using the mark making method, I can make a mess of the page, and at the same time, make order of my feelings. Funny how that works, right? I think the trick is giving yourself permission to make a mess in your journal.

Making a mess can be good for my feelings, but it’s also good for my art, because in this loose, anything goes state, lots of interesting marks and patterns can pop up.

Make Different Types of Marks in Your Sketchbook

• Continuous lines: Let the line explore the space of the page
• Short lines, long lines, skipping lines, jagged lines, fat and thin lines
• Circles, openings, pods, leaves
• Write whatever comes to mind in your non-dominant hand
• Write in giant looping, overlapping handwriting so it’s more of mark making than text

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Mindful Art Tips

• Slow down – Pay attention to the gift of the materials and time to make marks
• Notice what appears on the page – see when the lines start to skip, get darker or lighter, overlap, and create shapes
• Notice what your body feels like, where it feels warm, loose, tense, straight

I’d love to hear how you do with your mark making, be sure to drop into the comments!

Creatively Yours,

Amy

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Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

When was the last time you felt completely engrossed in your creative process? Lately I’ve been incredibly engrossed in my art, making art with simple materials. I’d like to help you imagine the same for yourself. In your mind’s eye, imagine yourself doing the following, and see what it feels like:

You carry a small sketchbook and drawing pen with you everywhere, making little notes and sketches as something catches your eye, or an idea strikes. When you open your sketchbook, you see patterns, shapes, and notes for your art pieces. It’s a jumble of scribbles, sketches, notes, and little drawings. It’s not neat and perfect, it’s an inspiring place where ideas are free to co-mingle and marinate. Art making is not just something you do when you sit down at your art table, it’s something you weave into your life.

When you sit down to create, you flip through your journal for inspiration, and pull out some paper to play with one of the ideas. You sit for hours, making slow, steady progress, noticing the shapes emerging, the sounds of art making, and your breathing. You finish tired and happy.

It sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?  

This could be your story. Playing with simple art materials has offered me incredible creative license, and I want to show you that it can for you too.

Making art with simple materials – just paper and a blade, is incredibly satisfying.

Limitation is the fuel of my creative fire.

But really, I am working with so much more than paper. Once you cut into a page, you begin dancing with light and shadow. All your focus is on shape, form, rhythm, and the way you let the light in.

Wouldn’t you like to let some more light into your life?

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When you give yourself limited materials and permission to create intuitively, without a plan, magic can happen.

I’ve got a brand new class, Layers of Light, that focuses on this kind of intuitive approach to paper cutting. Paper cutting is an old craft and art form, but it’s usually practiced in a very planned, exacting way. I want to open the door for you to create in a way that fills your soul, and brings you delight.

You can learn to paper cut from a pattern. But when you learn to create intuitively, building your own mark making “vocabulary” you open up to your unique expressive voice. You can do more than you think with your art.

Creatively Yours,

Amy

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Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

Here’s what I most want you to know about how to develop your artistic style: you can’t force it. When coaching clients and students tell me they want to develop a style, I suggest that what they need is not a style, but a consistent art practice.

When you make art consistently, and with permission to experiment and indulge your curiosities, over time you accrue a body of work around some common themes. These themes are what help make an artist’s work recognizable. I can see my themes across mediums, which is pretty exciting. Art lets us dive deeply into the things we feel passionate about. I want to help you get there too, so here’s a few secrets to get you started.

Secrets of How to Develop Your Artistic Style

How to Develop Your Artistic Style, Secret #1: Make a Lot of Junk

There are a few things many people don’t realize about being an artist. First, even incredibly talented artists make terrible art. A lot of what artists make is total junk. You never see it, but it’s there in the studio. Of course, few artists will exhibit their test pieces, or works that went to the cutting room floor. All this junk is necessary though. You have to make a ton of junky art in order to open space for the magic. So experiment freely, and give yourself permission to make a bunch of mistakes.

Just before an important rehearsal, an acting coach once told me to make as many mistakes as I possibly could. It was the most freeing advice ever. With permission to make mistakes, I was able to focus purely on feeling the part, because I wasn’t nervous. I take his advice often. So please, make as many mistakes as you can, right now. If you really struggle with this, you might love my class, Freeing the Muse.

How to Develop Your Artistic Style, Secret #2: Push the Boundaries

The second secret to developing your artistic style is that you need to produce a lot of art in order to find your own way. Whatever your art form – writing, singing, dancing, or paper cutting, you begin acquiring skills by copying, imitating, and testing. When you only make 1 or 2 of something, there’s too much pressure to get it “right.” Also, over time, as you gain mastery, you put your own twist on things, and the art process becomes more adventurous, and your work reflects the freshness of your unique expression. Your work evolves from imitation, to something new that pulls influences from various resources. This post about working small can help.

How to Develop Your Artistic Style, Secret #3: Let Your Interests Evolve

The third “secret” about developing your own style is that it changes over time. Think about some of the great artists – Picasso worked in drawings, watercolors, prints, sculpture, and oil paintings. He allowed his interests and curiosities to lead the way. Even within his works on canvas, he shifted from realism, to the blue period, to Cubism, and of course there were other phases as well. Picasso allowed himself to explore life through art as it presented itself to him and to dive deeply into it. He was willing to go in new directions that weren’t easily recognizable as his “style.” Good art demands that you create a lot, and take a lot of risks. Why not give yourself this permission to play? This is a fun art journaling technique.

How to Develop YOUR Artistic Style:

Here’s my question to you: What would happen if you pretended that you had permission to dive deeply into your art process? To dedicate time to it? To work in a series, hone your skills, and push boundaries? What if you pretended that you had as much “permission” as Picasso to experiment, and indulge in your art process? What would that feel like? Visualize this: when you wake up tomorrow morning, a miracle has happened, and you are dedicated to open play and experimentation in your art process – what does your morning look like? Your day? Your evening? What changes have miraculously taken place?

So that’s my advice: Stop trying to develop your “style” and start making more art. You can do it. You are an artist like any other, and if you are waiting for permission to indulge in your art process, here it is: Dig deeper. Make more. Let a bunch of it really suck.

Helping You Take Your Art Further

Learning to push your artistic techniques is one of the best parts of the process for me, and one I love sharing with students. It’s also a cornerstone of my upcoming class, Layers of Light. It’s a mindful and intuitive approach to paper cutting. I’ll help you build up the foundational skills and make YOUR way through paper cutting. I’m tickled just thinking about all the amazing work you’ll create and the unexpected places you’ll take it. I’ll be putting the class on pre-sale soon, very soon, so stay tuned and let me know in the comments if you are excited to learn more.

In the meantime, answer those questions for yourself, and get ready to get really messy, tired, happy, and feeling accomplished because you’ve learned a lot, produced a lot, and you have one or two pieces you feel really good about this week.

Creatively Yours,

Amy

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Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

One of the most common issues that folks run into when they first start trying to keep an art journal is how to begin an art journal page. Some people have too many ideas, some have none at all, and lots doubt their artistic ability. Art journaling is a beautiful practice because it welcomes us ALL – artists and non-artists alike, to record thoughts and feelings, explore, and play, in visual-written form. So how do you begin (and finish) an art journal page? I want to share 5 simple and fun ideas that will help you create expressive, beautiful pages.

ART JOURNALING IDEA ONE: Your Words in the Stars

1. Write all over the page. Let it all hang out. Write the deepest, silliest, craziest, boringest stuff down that is swimming around your heart and mind. Give it over to the page. It can take it, because it’s your art journal! But if you are worried about someone finding the deepest secrets of your heart, worry not! We are going to cover it up for safe keeping.
2. Paint your page black. Grab some black paint, high flow acrylic, or ink and paint over the entire page. Use a dryer to speed up this stage if you wish.
3. Make your personal galaxy of stars. Use a white gel pen or a paint pen to create your own personal galaxy with what I call “dot clouds.” Let your dots (stars) cluster together as feels good, or look up some photos of the galaxy for a point of reference.
4. More ideas with dots and doodles: You may also like the idea of creating with a buddy. Check out this collaboration I did with another artist for inspiration.

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ART JOURNALING IDEA TWO: Adult Finger Painting.

1. Use 2 – 3 similar colors – like a couple of blues and a green, or yellows and a red or you might end up with mud.
2. Give yourself permission to play and tune into your senses as you paint. Notice the feeling and the smell of the paint as you push it around the page. Focus more on what feels good than what looks good.
3. The one word. When it’s dry, use a brush or paint pen to write one word that summarizes what your experience felt like.
4. More playful art: You might also check out this post on making watercolor and string prints in your art journal.

ART JOURNALING IDEA THREE: Natural Object Tracing

1. Trace a natural object that is meaningful to you. I’ve used shells and rocks mostly, but you could also do interesting shapes with acorns, dried flowers, or fruit. Imagine the fun of a banana page! Use a permanent drawing pen like a Micron so that it doesn’t bleed when you add other elements to the page.
2. Trace the object multiple times on the page, or in multiple sizes. You might overlap them, or make it neat, or chaotic.
3. Paint around the objects with a color that makes you feel peaceful.
4. Paint in the objects with a color that matches and makes you feel happy. You’ve just created a cool pattern page in your art journal!
5. You can find more ideas on making art journal pages with natural object inspiration here and one on making natural object sculptures here. I also have a whole Pinterest board on patterns where I save tons of inspiring ideas.

ART JOURNALING IDEA FOUR: Recycled Art

1. Cut up one of your own art pieces. You might use circles, stripes, or squares.
2. Glue the pieces on the page in a way that pleases you.
3. Pull the page together with paint. Use watercolor, acrylic, or Neocolor crayons to create unity on the page. Pick one of the colors in your cut up art piece and keep the number of colors you use limited so that you bring the whole piece together.
4. There’s a bunch of fun and easy ideas for art journal pages right here.

ART JOURNALING IDEA FIVE: Meditative Art Journal Painting

1. Choose your favorite color in acrylic or watercolor and a small, round brush.
2. Keep a loose grip and paint circles. Hold the brush LOOSELY, and paint loopy circles (or another shape) all over the page. It helps me to pretend I’m a small child when I do this in order to keep my marks looking relaxed and almost primitive.
3. Keep painting and overlapping your circles until you feel loose and the page is getting covered. While the page is still wet, mix a lighter version of the color using a bit of white, and layer a few lighter circles on top of the darker ones.
4. Make your pattern consistent. Keep your circle placement feeling either very chaotic and unplanned, or very orderly and graphic, otherwise it might feel stiff. Be sure to run your pattern off the edge if it’s meant to feel chaotic.

Still Overwhelmed About How to Start? I made a class just for you, The Guide to Creative Self-Care, and it’s FREE:

I hope this helps getting you creating today! Let me know your other good ideas for starting your art journal pages.

Creatively Yours,

Amy

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