Creative explorations Vol #18: Lists

We're doing something different this month!

Photo by Joshua Rodriguez on Unsplash

Creative Explorations are themed around a prompt that you can explore in your own art/creative practice over the coming weeks. Prompts will be sent out on the first Friday of every month. I hope this month’s prompt sparks your creativity!

Since this prompt is coming out at the end of the year, I’m switching things up slightly. Instead of a single prompt to explore through the month, I’m giving you four prompts — one for each week, though you can space them out in any way that works for you. With each of these prompts, I invite you to make a list, and include them in your sketchbook.

Some ideas:

• Make an illustrated list — draw or collage images based on your lists

• Draw or paint one or two of the subjects that make it to your list

• Make a pretty background, add a focal image, and write down your list

• Let your list serve as inspiration for an expressive abstract

• Stick down some scrapbook paper in your sketchbook, write your list on a piece of paper, and stick it in with washi tape.

• Hand letter your list into your sketchbooks. Get creative with the lettering style. Alternatively, you can paste your lists using found words or stamped words.

These prompts are designed as creative reflection prompts, a way to look back over the year gone by and to look ahead to 2025, all while flinging some paint and glitter, or spilling ink across the page, or in any other creative way you can dream up!

Let’s get started!

Week 1: Highlight reel

As the days start to shorten and the nights become colder, I start to cocoon, to sink into the softness of this one wild and precious life. There’s something about December that prompts this desire to examine the days that have gone by, to remember the small moments and the big ones, the goals that I aced and the ones that I dropped, the things I learnt and am learning still, the joys, the sorrows, the good, the bad, the unnecessary…

This week, make a list of your very own highlight reel of this year. List out all the positives, the wins, the delights. Don’t forget to add your list into your sketchbook!

Week 2: Glimmers

When I was a little girl, my father often used well-known proverbs and inspirational quotes to encourage me. One of his favorites was a reminder for me to look for the silver lining around every grey cloud. So ingrained is his teaching that I can look for the blessing in almost every adversity — even though it may sometimes take me days, weeks, or even months to find it.

I think of this as my gratitude practice — a word that has become over-used and trite in recent years. I prefer to use the word glimmers. No matter how bad my day is, I always manage to find the glimmers — the sunlight glinting through the leaves, pressing my cheek to my cat Simaba’s warm furry belly, seeing a sparrow on the window ledge {it never fails to cheer me up, the sight of this tiny, ordinary looking brown bird}.

This week, look for the glimmers in the year that has gone by. The tiny miracles, the small moments, and the large ones too. Make a list, and don’t forget to add it to your sketchbook!

Week 3: Attention

Attention is a finite resource; every choice we make, all of our actions {no matter whether they are intentional or not} stem from our attention. It’s the very reason why social media is designed to suck our attention and to keep us on their platforms for as long as possible. The longer we spend on social media platforms, the more advertisements we can be subjected to, which directly line the pockets of BigTech companies and lead to the depletion of our wallets.

But more than that, the more we fritter our attention away, the less time we have to do what matters us.

This week, take a social media break — for a day if you are brave, or a few hours at the very least — and make a list: where do you want to place your attention? What do you want to create or learn, what skills do you want to grow? Remember, energy flows where attention goes: be mindful about where you’re placing your attention and see how your garden grows! Don’t forget to add your list to your sketchbook.

Week 4: Wishes

When I was younger, one of my favorite ways to make a wish was to cross my fingers whenever I saw a red mail van. Then, I would think of something to wish for, and uncross my fingers when I spotted an animal, as a way to release my wish to the Universe. As I type this up, I suddenly realize: this is magicks! And I’ve been doing it since I was a young one. In fact, most of my friends have! I don’t know where we picked up the idea from, but the thrill at seeing a red mail van would seize all of us!

As I grew older, though, these little wishing magicks fell to the wayside as being too childish. But now, as I approach my mid-life, I’m pulled back to the innocence and trust of my younger years. To the wonder and delight of coming up with funny little ways to wish for things and trust that somehow they would come true.

This week, make some wishes for 2025! They can be big or small, personal or collective; just tap into the wonder of childhood and make your list. And don’t forget to add it to your sketchbook!

Bonus prompt: Ritual

One of my favorite rituals of this season is to sit down with my year-end Visioning workbook and reflect on the year gone by + plan for the year to come. I print off my workbook, put a candle, light some incense, play some soft music, get a mug of steaming hot coffee, and start filling it in.

As part of this ritual, I also bring out a couple of tarot and oracle card decks and do a big, juicy year-ahead tarot reading for myself. Making note of the themes and ideas that come up with that reading, reflecting on the wins and misses of the year gone by, and dreaming into the year to come are my touchstones for December.

For this prompt, make a list of your favorite end-of-the-year rituals. Take it a step further by making lists of your daily, weekly, monthly, seasonal, and annual rituals. Add your rituals to your sketchbook!

Oh, and that Visioning workbook I mentioned? It’s something I share with my peeps every year, for freesies! I’ll send out an email once the workbook is ready. Look out for that email around mid-month. I can imagine all of us sitting together, apart, and filling our Visioning workbooks with all our dreams and plans for the new year!

I’d love to see your lists, and any art you make in response to these list prompts! If you share them publicly, send me the links or tag me on Instagram @moderngypsy.in or on Substack notes. You can also share your lists privately with me over email on shinjinim@substack.com. I can’t wait to see your responses to these prompts!

Why not share these prompts with your friends and invite them into our virtual studio? If you’re on the Substack app, restack this post!