Drizzle, traffic jams, dark evenings and keeping creative.
As I write this, I'm sitting on a crowded bus, it's dark, the traffic is heavy and it's drizzling. A typical autumn evening, commuting home through the rush hour. The combination of longer journey and cold weather means I won't get out to the workshopshed this evening. I won't be making stuff which is what I love.
It would be easy to be as gloomy as the weather but I'm not.
Earlier in the year, I started writing a book about handsaws, the words are now written but there's a key component still to be done. Each of my chapters starts with a hand drawn illustration. There's 10 chapters, and some additional illustrations for the introduction. So being free from the distraction of making, I can focus on these drawings instead. My evening will be spent sketching on a pad and later I'll digitise these on the computer so they look good in the book.
I did plan my project in this way as I knew the writing would determine exactly what illustrations were needed. I also knew that this would be a good time of year for this part of the book.
You might think that planning would stifle the creative processes but I find the opposite. If you work out skills, tools, materials are needed for a project then this unlocks the creative part. You can just get on with creating without having to worry about running out of paint or knowing if you can complete a tricky part of your project. The precious moments you have creating are not interrupted with wasted time looking for the right parts or tools. By maximising what you can do in a creative session you can maximise the enjoyment.
And in this way you can look forward to even the most miserable of days.
Written by Andy
