1 Easy Essential for making Captivating Creations like a Boss
A simple solution to colour a lacklustre project.
Do you have a project right now that you have shelved? Are all the elements there but it’s missing something? You want to get it finished but don’t know the next step to take?
Worse than all that, it’s something you believed in. Something you thought you could share with the world to let them know what you’re all about.
I had just such a project. It sat in my studio, or rather various studios as I moved from place to place, for 20 years.
Yep, that’s right, 20 years.
And why?
Because I was so caught up in the detail of making it that I had forgotten the reason for making it. Actually no, not forgotten, lost touch with the passionate emotion that literally impelled me to start creating it in the first place.
This particular piece dreamed itself into my head. I woke up with certain clarity knowing exactly how that vision would be realized on canvas. After a few weeks, the bare bones were there. I just needed time to complete.
But I never did. There was no life in the creation and I couldn’t see how to fix it. I hunted through processes, sketched different compositions, studied works of a similar ilk. All to no avail.
There was just one missing ingredient.
Emotion. There was no passion in the project for me anymore, just a blind following by rote of the process of putting paint on canvas. I had no connection with the work and nor would anybody else if I couldn’t communicate the feelings I felt.
Ansel Adams once said
“in every picture there are two people, the viewer and the artist”
We need to put all of our true selves in the work we make. We need to feel passionate, engaged, emotionally invested. Only then will we really be able to communicate and make sure both we and the viewer are part of the picture.
How do we communicate that?
Good question. One that took me 20 years to eventually work out.
You need to reconnect with the feeling you had when the idea took shape.
For me, I was on the brink of post-natal depression. I was in turmoil. I needed to feel that desperate again. I got there by writing about an extremely painful episode in my life. Each time I worked on that 20 year old project I accessed that same feeling.
Most of my work is completely different. I look at the world and marvel at the wonders of it all and try to communicate my love for the natural world by thinking how something looks to someone who has never seen it before. That’s easier than it sounds. I remember after starting on this creative journey how different the world was when I really looked. Looked with the eyes of an artist.
The key is to find your trigger
We have all been exposed to the full gamut of emotions at some time or another. Something will trigger a particular emotion in you that is relevant to your work. Maybe it’s a musical piece, a poem or story, an image, a smell or even a touch.
Find your trigger and use that to help you create with passion, emotion and honesty. The result will be a piece that shines with truth and integrity. Without passion what you create is hollow and worthless, barren and cold.
You were emotionally invested enough to start, you can reconnect and finish.
Your unfinished objects or works in progress may not be as long in the tooth as mine, but if you feel their weight, you can set yourself free, passionately.
If you find value in this piece, I’d be grateful if you could clap and share as much as you can, so many more people can see it.
You can see more of my thoughts on my blog HERE