On embracing change

In art and in life.

Have you ever felt the need to shake up your art practice? To do something different from your usual? To go big, if you tend to paint small? To try a new technique or a new supply? To start with a bold color that you rarely use?

And if you’ve done any of those things, have you felt excited to explore new possibilities or have you second guessed yourself every step of the way?

I’ve spent the last few days in the “second guessing myself and hating most of what I am doing” camp, until towards the end, it all just came together and I quite like what I ended up creating.

But let’s start at the beginning, so I can share some insights from the painty table that can easily be transferred to our daily lives.

It started with wanting to paint big and loose and free. To make some messy papers, without any end result in mind, just for the pleasure of the process.

To make things even more interesting for myself, I decided to start with big, bold marks in black paint. This isn’t how I usually start my paintings. The boldness of black intimidates me, even though I do love the contrast and the graphic element that it can sometimes create.

I also planned to cut these big painted papers down to bind them into a journal. So I knew that I would need a nice, big mess — not my usual process of starting with a messy background only to tame it, to find images in the marks and layers. This is something that is, again, way out of my comfort zone. To create a mess on the page and just leave it there.

But I know that the messier the page, the more delightful it looks once it’s cut up into smaller pieces. That didn’t make things any easier, though.

So I found myself struggling with these papers. For two days. Trying to get them nicely marked up and grungy, and hating everything that I was doing.

Until I realized I was approaching this project the wrong way.

I wanted to control what was happening on these big pieces of paper. I wanted them to make sense. To have some order. To be able to find some calm. All while I knew that would be the fastest way to kill the initial impulse behind this project: to simply play, experiment, and make a nice big glorious mess. Knowing that it would be cut up into smaller pieces and made into a journal, and that I would work some more on each individual page.

It was never about these large pieces of paper being a finished painting, but that is how I was thinking about them, and that wasn’t helping.

Once I realized that, it was much easier for me to get the papers to a place where I was happy with them.

And once I cut them down to size for my journal, I was pretty stoked with how it turned out! The pages look absolutely delicious. Some of them need just a little bit of mark making or knocking things back slightly to be done. Others are waiting to be taken forward a bit more. In other words, despite all my second guessing, despite wanting to control the process, it all turned out fine once I was able to give up control and be open to the process.

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Transferring these insights from the painty table to life

I think this entire experience can easily be a life lesson. And while there are a many small lessons in here, I think the main one is to be committed to your vision — to show up with the dedication it takes to see your projects all the way through to completion — while remaining open to change.

We are bound to encounter some unpredictable twists, bends, and changes in almost any project, painting or relationship that we undertake. It’s also natural for us to have a very fixed idea of what we want the outcome to look like. But when we do that, we can lose sight of our original goal or our deeper desire or values when we embarked on a project. We forget that we can change direction, improvise, try new things, fail and try again.

I could have easily turned this big piece of paper into a finished piece of art instead of being open to change, embracing the process and the mess. But I wouldn’t have met my objective of loosening up, trying new things, and finding fresh new ideas that I could take into my journals. And I wouldn’t have learnt a new-to-me book binding technique or ended up with an absolute beauty of a journal.

Any time you’re feeling stuck, are ready for a change, or need some clarity, remember to step back from the situation for a moment. To reconnect with your deeper vision or purpose in pursuing this particular project, job, or relationship. And then see if you can look at your situation from a fresh new perspective.

Here are a few questions you could consider — both in your art practice and in life:

• Is there anything that I can do to alleviate the stress in the moment?

• What feels exciting? What is working?

• What do I want to change?

• What am I ready to let go of?

• What can I add in?

The Unbound Journal: A journal making workshop

If you want to learn how to bind your own unique journals, join me in The Unbound Journal course. Using simple materials, I will show you how to bind a gorgeous, one-of-a-kind journal. You can make a journal of any size, using any papers that work for you — recycled papers, sketchbook paper, watercolor paper, handmade paper, writing paper.

If you have any questions at all, leave me a comment or simply reply to this e-mail and I will get back to you as soon as I can!

Join the community — let’s chat in the comments!

Or simply hit reply on this e-mail. Here are a few questions to help us get the conversation rolling:

• What do you do to shake up your art or creative practice?

• What are you ready to let go of at this time in your life or in your creative practice?

• Tell us about the latest new-to-you project that you’ve recently finished — or are still working on?

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