Here I: End the Color-a-Week Project, and Start Examining Creativity

Besides being my birthday month, September is a great time for new beginnings. I'm ok with the fact that I didn't reach last year's goal of 47 Color-a-Week posts in my 47th trip around the sun. It was a good challenge. I trained my eye to see in a different way, and posted 35 times on the topic, ending with "Go Out and Play," which is a great lead-in to my next blog-ject. (Like my new word?)

I've been reading voraciously this past month about CREATIVITY. It's a word that's over-used, and misunderstood. I've learned so many cool things about creative thinking, that I can't wait to share them with you in this new series of blog posts!

Why do I care about all this?

Short answer: I get tired of hearing people criticize themselves, saying they're not creative.

Nowadays I make a living by putting art out into the world, by showing others how to make art, and by helping people creatively re-think their living or work spaces. I've become a go-to person for art lessons, mural projects, crafting advice, repurposing, design questions, home decorating ideas, and generally bringing people's creative concepts to life.

I love my new role! But it wasn't always this way. Working as a "creative" I overhear lots of self-judging comments by those around me—especially adults, but also older children. And I get it: Not long ago I was one of them, making the same negative comments about my (perceived) lack of creativity.

I posted an online survey this summer called Taking Your Creative Temperature, in which I poked and prodded folks a bit, trying to draw out attitudes about their own creativity. I was pretty impressed by this (self-selected, true) group's confidence level when I asked the annoying question Are you creative? Several answered Not really, but there were many who gave a definite YES, or even, Gosh, yes!

My goal is to give you delicious little nuggets of insight into the creative process this fall, so that you'll ALL answer, Gosh, yes! Stay tuned, and you'll learn about how:

1. You're already creative... at something.

2. Identifying your own creative thinking sparks more creativity.

3. If you're not feeling creative in some area, it might be because you... don't really care that much about it to begin with. (And that's ok.)

On a related note, if you want to improve your visual art skills through a series of 15-minute virtual micro-lessons, I'll be starting up a "class" soon. Stay tuned for more on that!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on CREATIVITY. What do you already know or think? What do you want to learn?