Know Your Creative Motivations

Learning just what makes us tick when it comes to our creative practice is essential to keeping our motivation level high. As I’ve discovered, however, it’s important to differentiate between the idealised version in our head and what we really do on a day to day basis.

I’ve been beavering away on my ideas for my ‘Grow Wings and Soar’ series. Aside from the sketches shown here, I have been trying to work out how I could use a drawing medium (pencil, charcoal, Conté) on canvas as well with painting papers to include in my collages.

I had the idea that I would prepare lots of papers in readiness and then just dip into them for each collage. It’s been a rude shock to my self-image to realise that this kind of process is just not going to work for me. Or, only if I prepare those papers in a period when I don’t have a clue about the collages I want to make. Why? Because it turns out I’m far too impatient to start putting those collages onto the canvas to enjoy the process of painting the papers. 

Sketches for collage in the 
Grow Wings and Soar series
Pencil on Canson Canson sketching paper
© CherryJeffs 2013

Increased self-knowledge is always a good thing, so armed with mine, I’ve decided to jump right in and paint the different collaged areas once they are adhered to the surface. This might lead you to ask why I’m collaging at all but the answer again comes down to knowing how I like to work: I just love to cut and stick; it really motivates me to get going on a piece. It doesn’t matter to me if I use white pieces of paper. It’s the shapes that are important to me at this stage.

With that in mind, I’m off to continue making an enlarged drawing of the first figure I’ll be using.

Ask: What aspect of your creative process is crucial to getting you motivated? 

Read: The importance of rote activities in the creative process

Comment: Share how you use the idiosyncrasies of your own process to kick-start your motivation.

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