Friday 17 June 2011

Just Show Up

I'm reading a rather wonderful book at the moment. It's called the Confident Creative by Cat Bennett and is a mixture of practical ideas to get drawing, together with insight into the creative process. A quote I love from the book so far is:

"Art, like life, develops organically. We can't rush it or force it; we just need to show up and do the work, pay attention to what's there, and respond to inspiration."

And in that spirit, I've just been showing up to do my index card each day, for the Daisy Yellow Index-Card-a-Day Challenge. Some days I've had a definite idea of what I want to achieve before I start; other days I feel totally uninspired but do it anyway. Making art is about practice; it's about just showing up.

I won't deny that there have been occasions when I've looked at the other index cards in the Daisy Yellow flickr pool and felt awe-inspired and totally outclassed and thought to myself "who do I think I'm kidding?" but I've tried to replace these thoughts with positive thoughts and just showed up to carve out my own 5 minutes of creativity.

So far, I haven't missed a day of the ICAD Challenge, and here I share with you my latest cards - the good, the bad and the darn-right ugly:

icad 12 june
icad 11 june1
icad 14 june
icad 15 june
icad 17 june

5 comments:

  1. I love that quote, and how true is that - the times I've been forced to sit, pencil in hand, [say, waiting at the Y for a kid to stop swimming] have been my most creative. I love your cards, I thought the sailboat was my favorite until I saw the one under it, and the last one made me laugh out loud! You're rockin' this challenge, hon!

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  2. Beautiful Viv!! I love your cards!! They are all so different, so creative!!

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  3. Good for you "showing up" for the index card challenge! I really like the first two cards, and "a noun is just a slow moving verb" make me laugh, though I think there's something profound in there!!

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  4. Hi Viv...I like that quote...so true! Don't feel outclassed whatsoever! I think the point of this is to get us creating. The last one made me smile...all of them are great!
    Mary

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  5. very fun index cards...and the quote is inspiring too!

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