Category: Creative’s Playbook
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The Biggest Creative Block is Resistance
To create means to take raw materials—canvas, pigment, paint, brushes, pencils, paper, clay, dirt, stones, glass, water, seeds, food, technology, fire, even pressure; and most important of all, our thoughts—and create. We create art and music, tools and technology, community and communities, fun and fitness, first with our thoughts and then with things. In all…
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Why I Create Art and Write about It
I feel an uncomfortable tension when I start a new painting or when I write about my artwork and art practice. There are two main reasons for these feelings. First, the possibility of failure looms large. I’m never sure I can actually do what I want to do. And if I do succeed, then people…
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How We Create All of Our Experiences
We create by giving attention to something. The quality of what we create depends on how we think. I’ll share the story behind the moment captured in the photo as an example of how what we think about comes about. Setting My Intention I play a game with myself once in awhile. It’s a game…
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Stopping a Habit vs. Starting a New One
When I was growing up, it was common to let kids play alone or go for walks by themselves. My parents liked to visit with an older couple who lived in a very rural area and after I’d run out of things to occupy myself in their house, I’d walk down the driveway to the…
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Copy Like an Artist, Don’t Steal
Under copyright law, the artist creator has the exclusive right to: Distribute the work in any form Make copies of the work in any fixed form (digital or print) Display the work in pubic or on a website Make derivatives of the work by modifying or changing an original work, and Publicly perform the work…
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Prosperity for Artists
The myth of the starving artist is a MYTH that got a foothold in society’s consciousness in the 19th Century, when a man named Henri Murger wrote a tragic love story about Bohemian artists Mimi and Rudolfo. Murger lived among a group of uneducated, poor Bohemians in Paris. He knew that readers are entertained by…
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Identify THE Most Important Thing To Do Now
What is your most important creative work? Answering two questions will help you identify the most important thing you can do with your time. If there is only one thing you can work on now, what would it be? If there is only one direction you can take your work in for twelve months, what…
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What Is Your Most Important Creative Work?
Finding time to be creative may seem like a stretch when earning a living, maintaining a home and personal relationships, and sleep take up most of your day. Time to express your creative self may seem like a wishful thought: a pipe dream. And being the creator that you are will continue to feel like…
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Emotions Reveal Your Focus
The moon is full today in the sign of Capricorn and reflecting the light from the sun that has been traveling through the sign of Cancer since the Summer Solstice on June 21. There are lots of stories and legends about the effects of the moon cycle, especially the full moon, on humans. Most of…
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Insist on the Beauty of Form
Insist on the beauty of form and color to be obtained from the composition of the largest masses, the four or five large masses which cover your canvas. Let these things above all things have fine shapes…Let them be as meaningful of your subject as they possibly can be. ..Remember that the greatest beauty can…
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Ready, Set, Go…Well, Maybe
The success of any creative effort depends on your expectations and how ready you are to do what you want to do. What are your expectations for yourself? For the outcome of your effort? How prepared are you to meet your expectations? Playbook strategy There’s often a gap between where you are and where you…
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Be Yourself
I read two articles today about being “authentic.” The author of one article, a psychologist, said people misunderstand what it means to be authentic. She believes we begin life as a blank slate and create, or author, ourselves. She bolsters her argument that we create ourselves by referencing the fact that the words author and authentic…
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Are you being urged to create something new?
A lunar eclipse occurred this morning (January 31) when the sun and moon were on opposite sides of earth. Our earth actually blocked the sun’s light from reaching the moon. For a brief time, the reflective moon was darkened as it passed through the earth’s shadow. A bit of trivia In ancient times, astronomers in…
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Creativity: What is It?
6×6″ oil on wood panel. Ancient Greeks and Romans believed creativity implied freedom of action. Poets were thought to be creative, because they brought to life new worlds. Artists were not considered creative, because they copied what they saw—imitated, in other words—and didn’t create anything new. So it remained, with little real change, until roughly the…
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Begin Again: Let Go of Regret
In the years since I first read Notes to Myself by Hugh Prather, my life has “happened.” It’s easy to look back and feel some regret about what was abandoned or never realized, or to want time back so different decisions can be made. But time isn’t retrievable, and regret is uncomfortable. Like a prickly…
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It’s a New Year
“Hope” 8×6″ oil on linen panel. Updated January 10, 2018. Last year began well, but health problems surfaced in April that caused me to put painting and many other things on the back burner for the rest of the year. I’m just now starting to engage in many things I had to set aside during those…
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Showing Up Matters Most
A blank canvas IS uncertainty. I feel it every time I set up to paint. But the only way to move from uncertainty to less uncertainty is to try (and maybe fail). And that’s the beauty of deliberate practice—it’s intentional practice. There is no expectation to complete work, only to practice. We can work with…
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Doing What Matters
A man I know has spent his entire adult life becoming exceptional. He is a world-renowned astrologer and a couple of years ago he began sharing his knowledge on Facebook for free. Now in his seventies, he wants to give back to those who have supported and sustained him and his work. In one of…
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Peeling Away the Layers with Practice
Red Onion study on 8 x 6 inch linen panel. This little study happened because I needed to get my daily practice done and it was already dark outside. Instead of looking for an interesting tree to paint, I looked through the cupboard and found a lovely red onion and a faded green dish rag.…
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On Finding Personal Style
8 x 6-inch oil on linen panel pochade study. This wet (yes, those are rain drops) pochade study is #2/50 that I’ve committed to doing. My intention and reason for doing 50 out-of-door studies is two-fold. I want to improve my technical skills and I want to better understand my personal style. Austin Kleon wrote,…
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Trees and Sky
When the goal is to get better, deliberate practice is the strategy to use. Deliberate practice works because it makes the difficult familiar and, therefore, easier to do. Deliberate practice involves repetition and having a coach or mentor who can help guide the practice and offer constructive critiques. What I learned about painting a tree…
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Do It Daily, Do It Deliberately and Improve Dramatically
To do better at anything, from painting to shooting hoops, there is no substitute for daily, deliberate practice. K. Andres Ericsson and his team have lead the research on deliberate practice, and they tell us being deliberate about practice can shorten the time—thought to be about ten years under normal conditions—to expertise. It requires four things:…
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Playbook Strategy # 1 for Creatives: Don’t Confuse Can’t with Won’t
I attended a workshop yesterday to learn how to prepare a business plan for my art business. What happened there was very unexpected. I thought of a completely different and exciting way to grow my business. At least, I felt excited about the idea when came to me. This morning, not 24 hours later, I’m…
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