In my last post, I gave you several good reasons why being creative nourishes your soul.  Here is a list of 7 creative acts you can take today!

1.  Invite God into the process! Recognize that your creative spirit has its source in the divine creative spirit and begin each experience with a blessing over the sacredness of your exploration, your tools, your inspiration.  Call on the divine creative spirit to direct the way you express your inspiration in your creative work.  You can write your own blessing or use the one that I wrote:

Open my eyes so that I can see your presence here,

Open my heart so that I am filled with your love and wisdom,

Open my soul so that I can find the truth that resides there,

Allow the energy to flow from you, through me, onto the canvas waiting before me.

Bless the flow of energy, inspiration and openness,

Bless the hands that channel them,Bless the canvas that receives them,

Bless the eyes that behold them,  

May this artwork reflect you, your creation, and your love.

2.  Start small.  I mean tiny!  Google “inchies art” for pieces of art that measure one inch by one inch.  I have included a few of my inchies above.

3.  Start with backgrounds.  A blank canvas or art journal page can be intimidating. If you are blanking on what to create, splash some paint around on several backgrounds in one session. Stay loose by using your largest brush and paint in “X” strokes, blending with light pressure. Try blending two primary colors on the canvas to make a secondary color or try adding a bit of black to one color and paint the bottom third, gradually moving up the canvas while adding white to lighten the color, creating a gradient shift.

4.  Show up for just 15 minutes a day and take a baby step or two.  Set the timer, play some music, and enjoy the process. When the timer sounds, you get to decide if you want to continue creating or close it down for the day.

5.  Make your own art journal.  Grab an old hardcover book from a garage sale or the library’s used book sale and paint over every page with gesso (a base coat for any substrate that gives paint a good surface to cling to). After all the pages are covered and dry, your new, up-cycled art journal is ready to go! You will have to wait for the gesso to dry on each two-page spread or the pages will stick together. So, while you wait perhaps you could…

6.  Tear out interesting images from magazines and catalogs that you might want to collage onto your artwork one day. It is good to have a stash of images, words, cancelled stamps, maps, sheet music at the ready.

7.  Look for inspiration everywhere. Take your camera or phone for a walk and take pictures of things that resonate with you.  Far-away clouds lit by the setting sun, or close-ups of flowers or seed pods or even bugs. Of course, there is infinite inspiration on Pinterest and YouTube. Two of my YouTube favs are drawing tips by Alfonso Dunn and Rob Blasts by Robert Burridge.  Be careful not to use all your creative time endlessly scrolling on the internet instead of showing up to your canvas. Speaking from experience, here!

Let me know which steps you want to start with!  

What is your favorite creative act?