outside the lines

Every Wednesday, a group of women artists gather in my living room to talk, laugh and experiment with creativity exercises. I find it fascinating to watch each of these women approach the "task at hand" because it reveals so much about us personally.

Take for example, our Prayer Stick day. Each of us brought a stick and I.L. led us in an exercise to create prayer sticks with yarn, feathers and a hidden prayer. Every artist in that room created something beautiful but we all went about it in completely different ways.

Some of the sticks were CRAZY - they looked like they had been drug out from behind the sofa or just pulled out of the ground. Some of the sticks were meticulous and symmetrical. Some glittered, some were colorful, some were muted and woodsy.

And those were just the finished results.

During the process, each of the women in the room were responding in THEIR OWN UNIQUE WAY to the exercise. Some women were asking lots of questions about the "rules" so they could get it right, do it right. Some women were winging it and making it up as they went along. Some women were working quietly while others were laughing and talking.

Our artistic process reveals us.

TODAY'S CREATIVITY CHALLENGE:

Buy a coloring book or a children's activity book. I recommend "Scribbles: A Really Giant Drawing and Coloring Book" by Taro Gomi. Have it around for days when you feel uninspired and just need a jumpstart.

Watch how you interact with the pages. Do you add background landscapes to the pages? Do you "color outside the lines" and if you do, how does that feel? Do you follow the rules? What are the rules anyway?

Think about your artistic process. Do you have rules in your head about how things are supposed to be done? Are those rules limiting you? Are you a person who hates rules or boundaries and tosses them out the window before you even start? What would happen if you forced yourself to "color in the lines" just once?

Are you an "outside the lines" or an "inside the lines" kind of artist?