Kicking Pressure to the Curb

the space between the start of an idea and the finish line

Issue 8/ Welcome to Creative Possibilities, a midweek issue of my Good and Beautiful Things newsletter. This newsletter offers a glimpse of what’s on my art desk as well as stories from my creative life that I hope will encourage or inspire your own.

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Earlier this week I wrote about my noisy head. In the same newsletter, I shared this poem that came out of my attempt to make peace with my busy brain.

A Tangled Mess

My mind 
is a magpie’s nest:
bits collected and stuck on 
with saliva and sweat
a quote here, a memory
there, the vine from
around my mailbox.

One might think
it’s a tangled mess 
of trinkets and trash,
not worth a second glance.
In truth it’s a home,
where art and ideas 
are born.

Since I finished the poem a few days ago my fingers have been itching to create illustrations to go with the imagery in the poem. Perhaps another ‘zine?

Usually when I get excited about a project it’s not long before the pressure and fear start their annoying chatter. And that’s how it went today. How will you choose the style and the colors? Should you use collage or not? Posca markers or pens?

What the voices were really asking:

How can you be sure you’ll get it right?

Not just right, but ready in time to share it for my midweek post!

Whew! That kind of pressure doesn’t foster my best creative energy.

To quiet the voices I decided I would simply open my sketchbook and do a little research. I collected some photos of Magpies and their nests and took visual notes on their world.

The idea of spending a few hours making art actually sounded enjoyable again after I kicked pressure to the curb. With space to explore and play, my ideas for the illustrations naturally began to take shape.

Line work
As far as choosing a style, I decided I liked the loose pen work with a little water added to soften the lines and create shadows. From one of the research photos, I was inspired by a wonderful web of branches that filled the entire frame of the photo, an idea I wouldn’t have thought of on my own.

Color
I also learned that some Magpie’s have blue on their wings. As I added the teal to one of the birds, I decided that shade would make a great accent color overall. Once I landed on blue, I naturally headed toward orange because those are my two favorite colors (perfect since I’m illustrating MY brain).

Images
With some quick reading, I discovered that some Magpies make a dome-shaped nest and some leave the nest open. I found out what their eggs look like and tried out different options for how the Magpie might stand or even fly.

Words
As I’ve thought about my noisy brain this past week, I’ve pictured the document in my Notes app where I track ideas for writing and quotes I want to remember. It’s very disorganized and many of the sentences end up accidentally bold and in a large font and I don’t bother to correct it. It feels like a snapshot of my brain.

I printed the pages and cut out some of the sentences. As they sat beside me on my desk, I saw the words in different configurations than how I had originally typed them. Some of the new configurations were actually more interesting.

“My mind is a Magpie’s nest” + “Fear can be a compass” became:

My mind is a compass.

“Fear can be a compass” + “Good Trouble” became:

Fear can be good trouble.

In the shifted sentences I saw a spark of truth crafted in a more interesting way than the originals. So I incorporated the new phrases into my sketchbook page.

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By adding this stage of research and exploration, I gained a much clearer vision for my illustration project. And I had a lot of fun at the same time.

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In Case You Missed It

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If you’d like to support the writing and art that I create for this newsletter, you can now contribute to my art supply fund through “Buy me a Coffee”!

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Blessings from the Guest Nest,

-Aimee

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