Creativity Reawakened

Before we left on our trip, several people had said (something to the effect of) "wow, three weeks, that's a true vacation, by the end you'll be ready to be home and sleeping in your own bed".

They lied. We were not ready to come back. 

In many ways we felt more at home during our trip that we actually do on Seattle soil. Don't get me wrong, we love Seattle and our life, but there was something about this trip that felt deeper than our daily routine.  The sense of creativity, community, and adventure, were at the heart of the trip and all will have a lasting impact beyond the three weeks.

I embarked on this trip wanting to reignite my visual and written creativity that has been dormant for a couple years. Since we were packing light, bag real estate was precious. I knew that if I packed something I had to use it, otherwise I'd be mad it took up space that could have been used for a full sized hairbrush. So with that threat in mind I carefully picked out art supplies I knew I could use  and that I was also somewhat intimidated by (namely watercolors).

I've always loved the travel journals with the sketches and watercolor. However because I'm not a strong drawer, and haven't used watercolors since 2nd grade, I've lacked the confidence to even try. Not this trip. At some point in my packing in my head I said "screw it, now's my chance to try, I can always collage over it and not tell anyone". Collage has been my typical medium of choice so I included some collage essentials: 1 glue stick, washi tape, 5 pens, and a few colored pencils.  I packed two journals: one Moleskin for the collaging, and one blank book I found at a thrift store for writing and water coloring. Visuals are helpful;I made sure to take pictures of places I could sketch and I sought out my mom for inspiration in travel journaling (see her fabulous work at http://visualblessings.blogspot.com/ )

I didn't put any pressure on myself to have it look a certain way, the only goal was to use all that I packed, and to have something to look back on that I could remember our trip by. 

Here is the process I stumbled into that worked well for me:

1. Keep the odds and ends as you go (ticket stubs, magazine pages, sugar packets, etc.), have one ziplock you put it in

2. Collage and watercolor when you're in transit to your next destination. The extra bumps of the train, or airplane turbulence help you to loosen up and not get hung up on the details. It also makes the time fly by.

3. Discard of previous unused odds and ends upon arrival of next destination. This way you aren't lugging around business cards or ticket stubs that have "oh so much collage potential" but you won't actually use. Plus it takes off the pressure to create a lot of stuff. Keep the creating simple, with tokens of a few memorable places or events. 

4. Add in watercolor to liven up your collage or pen sketch 

*On the pen sketches don't worry about your lines or making it look really real, it always looks good when you view it from far away, swirly lines and seat-of-your-pant shading gets the point across

It is amazing what getting in touch with your various life passions will do to your soul. I hadn't let myself freely create without any pressure for a long time (another reason why it was so hard to come back) At home I find that my creativity gets channeled toward intense problem solving at work. However the past in the past three weeks I have found my artistic creativity to be reawakened...