Your Artist Knows the Way offers you a place to get to know your artist in ways that will allow creating to be much more enjoyable. Your artist will receive invitations to inventory their likes, ideas, preferences, and needs. Getting your wisdom out of your head can spark more insight than just pondering things.
The overall intention is that this year-long process will set you up for happier creating for the rest of your life. At the end of the program, you will have a manual for making whatever you want on your own terms.
I’ve designed this so that each week, you can have a 15-30 minute rendez-vous with your artist. These weekly invitations should be fun, revealing, and illuminating, helping you know, love, and trust your artist so you can make things that mean something to you and the world.
Care and feeding of your artist
When I say write your own artist manual, I mean write it down. Give yourself a wee bit of time to write your own creativity manual. Write whatever comes to you and add more as ideas emerge.
Write your manual as if you are giving instructions to someone for how to best take care of your artist. You are. These instructions are for you to remember and return to when you fall away from your commitment to your artist.
Put these ‘care and feeding of the artist instructions’ in one document or a notebook. This could be digital or paper. Don’t make it too precious. This is a repository you will want to keep nearby for when your artist has insights they want to communicate to you.
Embellish it, collage it, paint it, make a song of it…your manual will be unique to you, your gifts, and your focus.
Reflective Writing
Reflective Writing is a process I use with my clients and in my coaching groups. It's a kind of free writing.
Free writing is a way to get our ideas out easily and freely on the page without self-censorship. Free writing can be used for lots of things: to draft your work, for personal journaling or expressive journaling, and to clear your thoughts and transition from regular life into creative mode.
Reflective writing is a way to articulate the thoughts and emotions that you're processing or contemplating in your artistic and personal life. It can be beneficial before meetings or creative sessions. It can be helpful to get answers on things you’re struggling with or unclear about.
For Your Artist Knows The Way, we're using reflective writing to deepen our understanding of our artist and also put it on paper so we can. You’ll use Reflective Writing to respond to the invitations I share with you. Much of your artist manual will be reflective writing.
Some guidelines:
Set a timer for 10 minutes or more.
Respond to the prompt without stopping or overthinking.
It’s okay to go ‘all over the place.’This writing is for you, not to share. Write whatever wants to emerge.
You can do this by hand - I do it in my artist manual. Or you can type your Reflective Writing. Whatever works for you - do it your way.
Please, please, please, for the love of all things good and holy:
Let go of doing this right, thoroughly, or accurately. Part of getting to know your artist is learning to trust what emerges without judging or second-guessing yourself. I love drawing and painting because my intuitive self gets to be in charge. Chill, super brain!
Let your responses to my invitations become a manual that defines your creative life. Write them in one place—the book of your artist. Your artist notebook becomes your manual for treating and honoring your artist.
The invitations will help you define your creative life so your artist resides in the center of it. Even with your other obligations, you ‘indulge’ in your creativity because it matters. Without your artist on the scene, you aren’t you. A wholeness returns when your commitment to your creativity is alive and aligned with who you are.
My artist’s manual
Throughout this program I will share wee peeks into my process and also how my clients thrive creatively. Please take this as a way to bounce your own ideas, not as prescriptions or treats for your inner critic to feed on.
I’m a notebook fiend. I use a notebook dedicated specifically for my art and also one for my writing.
The notebook also acts as a place to connect with my artist. It’s a manual for how I operate. In my artist notebook, I:
make lists, mindmaps and timelines to get real about my commitments
have lots of space to hash out ideas
take notes from classes and meetings with my art buddies
make drawings and doodles
sketch out my dreams, plans, practice runs, project plans and deadlines, inspiration, etc.
I date the pages because it’s important for me to know when things happen. This may or may not be important to you.
I embellish the cover with decorative papers and washi tape.
Your notebook may not be a paper notebook at all. You could gather your artist self in a digital notebook. There are apps that allow you to use text and images in order to capture all the things that relate to your art and your projects.
The main thing is that your notebook is usable, practical for your needs, and accessible. Don’t get anything that’s too fancy to use.
Here are a few pages from my artist notebooks over the years.
Completing a notebook
When you fill a notebook, make a plan to revisit its pages. In your new notebook, jot notes about what you did, what you learned, and ideas and to-dos for the near and far future.
When I do this, I am always astonished at what I have accomplished. I also feel like my notebooks are my best guide to what I want to make and do - they are filled with my thoughts, ideas, support notes, and more. The notebooks are better for me than any book written by someone else.
Your artist notebook is an ally in your process. It’s a chronicle of your artist life. It’s a companion and the place where you meet and honor and enjoy your artist. Your notebook becomes your manual for designing your creative life.
Invitation
Get a notebook. You probably already have one in a drawer or cupboard. I doubt you need to go buy one. In this program, you likely don’t need to buy anything!
Make the notebook your own. Embellish the cover, make a title, and write down anything that comes to mind that helps this process feel like you and your artist having fun.
In this notebook you will set up your process for the entirety of this program. So right away, make it feel like you.
Where can I see the video?
I know I said you don't need to buy a new notebook....and...I just treated myself to a new one! I am almost at the end of my work notebook. I love the ZenArt Dotted Journal. I thought, I've worked hard to get this program ready for you, I can treat myself to new notebooks!
SQUEEE! I got three new ones, which should last a couple of years. Guess which colors I got!
https://www.zenartsupplies.co/collections/dotted-journals