Sunshine and progress

We all know that the winter will pass, that difficult times pass, that sunshine returns but the wait can be long and cold.

This week saw a whoosh of sunshine and progress. Some booked in studio time gave me a chance to play and my studio wall is filling up with the new. First steps towards some finished pieces have been tentative but it feels good to be on the trajectory to a new body of work. As the days get longer and the light returns, as the fields begin to show off the shades of green, I can feel new palettes dancing around my head.

I am trying to build in regular time in the hills, walking, looking, breathing and drawing. The last few weeks have seen marks go from tentative to exploratory to bold. I am seeing new things in the landscape that I want to explore, a new strength in shape. Going further north into Derbyshire’s hills has allowed me to be up high, looking down on the landscape giving an entirely different structure and new ideas for composition.

I sat up a hill yesterday and wondered what the meditation was in this week’s creative pursuits. It is to claim the moment. To live in its present. Being creative needs you to be in the now. It needs you to leave behind to-do lists. It needs you to forget that you were brilliant at drawing your aunt when you were 25. It needs you to disentangle from overthinking and dreaming big. Creativity needs you to show up without assumption. Creativity needs you to draw with abandon, without judgement and perhaps allowing yourself a little joy. Cut yourself some slack. Remember to use your favourite colour to draw with. Remember to play.

I have been using a vivid green pastel that has moved me out of the black and white. The light yesterday was so clear, so revealing. The world was painted and I wanted to record each hue and colour that sang to me. The greens, greys, rusts, brown, earths but also the highlights of manmade plastic orange, blue, red that my eye sought out in the view.

Give yourself the time to be in the moment, to sit in the view, to look and lust after all the colours. Let spring awaken your creative soul and the sloughing off of hibernation be delightful.