“It’s Creative Playtime!”
Do you want to create artwork that is uniquely yours and truly original? Well the further you get into your art practice the more likely it is that the answer to this question will be a resounding YES! Art is much more enjoyable and satisfying when you reawaken and connect with your inner creativity.
This is not to say that doing a painting directly from a photo is not enjoyable. Making a finished painting that looks just like a photo requires a lot of skill and some artists would give their right arm to be able to do just that.
But what I’m saying here is that the level of satisfaction and enjoyment we derive from art is much higher when our own creativity is brought into the artwork. To do this we first have to give ourselves permission to play again, just like we did as a child. Pablo Picasso wrote “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child”.
Creative playtime is where you switch over to ‘playful’ mode to get your creative juices flowing. It simply involves playing around in your sketchbook with ideas, shapes, colours, materials, techniques, compositions, layouts, and experimenting with new ways of doing things, coming up with ideas and trying out any possibility. No need for any plan and it’s OK to be messy!
The reason why play is needed for activating creativity is that during playtime you have no expectations and there’s no pressure for it to be good. You’ll try anything and everything because you have no fear of stuffing up! What if I did this? What if I did that? Let yourself go! Push it outside your comfort zone to the edge of chaos and beyond! No-one is watching and no-one ever needs to see it! Here’s where your creativity really kicks in! In our adult life we rarely do this, so it’s important to set aside time as often as we can, daily if possible and start each session by confirming “This is my creative playtime!”
I recommend you buy two sketchbooks (A4 and A5) for this purpose. Keep them open and ready, close to your art supplies. Soon you’ll grow to love them! and remember they’re not for painting finished paintings, they’re your playground, your sandpit! There are many inexpensive sketchbooks with reasonable quality paper. Try a ‘Visual Art Diary’ with ‘Mixed Media’ paper at least 125 gsm thickness.
The two biggest killers of creativity are the fear of making mistakes and the expectation that you will complete a good ‘finished’ artwork. Paradoxically, all artists do of course want to complete finished artworks and to do so requires the opposite strategy, the opposite of play! It requires planning, structure and deliberation, and due to the larger amount of time and effort involved, the artist is determined to get a good result. They will be much more cautious and take fewer risks to avoid stuff ups.
The answer to this dilemma is perfectly clear! We need to make time for creative play on a regular basis to reactivate our creativity. All the great new stuff we come up with during playtime can then be brought over and included when painting finished artworks.
So, whenever you start any art activity, first ask yourself this all-important question: “Is this creative playtime or am I painting a finished painting”? These require two completely opposite mindsets! By practicing creative playtime very regularly you will gradually develop the ability to easily switch back and forth between the two.
Happy creating!
Ron Clark
Visit You Tube for a short video on creative playtime: https://youtu.be/X0EE0ustRXs?si=5O0-d6FaWkGUnqtb
