Do you ever want to start something and you feel like you have too many choices so you end up doing nothing? Like...even if you start, you feel like there is something better you could have done/better tools to use/better ideas to focus on? I find it hard to give myself limits for creativity because...who wants to limit that???
BUT. The limits are needed for me to focus my attention and energy. Even if it flops, I have to start somewhere. And if I have limits and directions to follow, I'm way better at getting to the end...
This month I'm focusing on just getting my rough ideas on paper and making tiny sketches of every possible thing that comes into my head. Next week I will go through all of my ideas and group them by theme and then plow through a bunch of pieces that will (hopefully) form a series or work. Or maybe a few series. And maybe this will take a few months or years, but I'm kinda sorta excited about it.
For example: I was at a baseball game a couple weeks ago and the ball park has a rule about bringing in bags. You can bring in a small purse, a hip bag, or one of those draw string backpacks. I dug around my closet for one of the draw string bags because I was sure I had a million of them - they always give them away at running events and stuff. But I only found one. And it was yellow. And had a bunch of Minions on it?? (The yellow worked out because the team colors were brown and yellow) I got it from the Universal Studios running series I did pre-covid. Anyway, my mind immediately went to "I could make some awesome artwork for a draw string bag." Now I have to figure out WHAT artwork. So here we are. My limits for this project are: it has to be colorful (something I would use/wear), it has to be floral or something I could make into a pattern. Draw string bags don't show artwork very well when the string is pulled. I went through my sketchbook and found some color pencil tests I did that I really liked:
So those are my two goals/limits for the rest of this month. Brain-dump uncensored series ideas, make a colorful pattern for a drawstring bag.
Books I'm reading:
Atomic Habits by James Clear
The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger