5 reasons why creativity is important in my life

Creativity according to me is "doing the same thing differently" to break away from the daily mundaness and regularity and apply a fresh perspective. It helps me grow, see the bigger picture, express myself, and relieve stress.

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.
— Joseph Chilton Pearce

I apply creativity in my life every single day (I try to), in various things I do, create, and arrange around me. For example, quite often, I revisit my old work and illustrations and try doing them in a different way. I also tend to arrange, rearrange things around me including my workspace, every now and then. This keeps the newness going and is fun to do at the same time.

To sum it up in points

  • Creativity helps me grow and be curious: It leads me to re-look at something in a different way. It helps me challenge myself inwardly and also leads me to push boundaries beyond my comfort zone. Like Paul Arden said ‘Don’t be afraid of silly ideas’. You just do not know what you may land up creating if you never experiment and create.

  • Creativity helps me see the bigger picture: It helps me step back and see the complete picture, rather than focusing on just one aspect or corner of it. This is especially important when I am working on complex projects that require me to look at a single idea from multiple perspectives.

  • I express myself with creativity: It allows me to express myself in places where words fall short. It’s a joyful activity for me to ‘say what I want to say with the help of shapes, colors and forms’. Storytelling is a huge aspect of things that I draw and that is where I find myself expressing freely and openly with the help of my skills and creativity.

  • Creativity feeds the inner rebel: Unless you are working to a brief, you can go absolutely wild and free with your talent and put it to use un multiple ways. In my years of working as an illustrator I have have discovered the joys of creating sans boundaries and without the fear of going wrong.

  • Creativity helps relieve stress: Creativity is a therapeutic outlet and help me relax and de-stress. Very often people ask what my hobbies are and almost always my reply is ‘to draw some more’. It remains a fact that I love what I do and therefore my drawing board is my happy space that I am naturally drawn towards. Be it at my desk or when I’m travelling, my iPad and pencil are my best friends!

Overall, creativity is an important part of my life because it helps me to grow, learn, and express myself. It helps me to find joy and fulfillment in my work and personal life. The best part of it being, creativity is a kind of superpower that never gets over and the more you charge it, the stronger it gets.

Your mind is a cup of infinite possibilities and the next best thing is waiting to be created!

Do we really fail in art?

I often hear my kid say ‘Oh but I am not a good artist, I cannot draw.’ And then it’s me saying ‘You don’t need to be an artist to draw. Everybody can draw!’. Though this doesn’t convince him a great deal, but sometimes he does get it. This reluctance to get his pencil on paper comes from a large extent from all the ‘perfect art’ we see around us. Be it on Instagram, YouTube and everywhere.

I am a self taught illustrator, when one fine day I discovered the joys of drawing digitally. I’ve been into graphic design and layout design for several years before that (I still continue to be). Illustrations is fairly new for me but I happen to love it more as the days are going by.

I find myself entering some really creative drawing challenges on Instagram every once in a while. Initially it did upset me that no work of mine was ever getting selected to be added onto popular stories but now I’ve learnt to look past that. My perspective - atleast it’s building my drawing portfolio and there are some works I’m fairly proud of!

So coming back to why I started this post - do we really fail in art? What happens when our ‘masterpiece’ does not get selected? Do we stop and rethink what went wrong? Do we pull ourselves down for not being ‘good enough’?

The answer is NO. We carry on with our art. We make it better. We try and understand it better. We proudly display it on our own pages. So what if it did not make it to MoMA (lol!) I’m still inspired and motivated to go ahead and draw some more.

There is a lot of ‘perfect art’ around us, but there are also a lot of artists who share their real journey stories and draw what’s closest to them. Some look like kiddy scribbles, yet so relatable! One of my favourites is Jemma Corell. She is ofcourse a celebrated and highly accomplished Illustrator but her simple, meaningful and highly relatable drawings are a joy to view.

Finally in the end it’s how you tell your story via any medium you choose. Staying authentic is the key.

Do you draw? Do you face self doubts? How do you overcome them? I hope you do :)

A glorious mess - Why I love water colors

The digital medium for creating art is my first love! So is watercolor (we are allowed two first loves, right?!) Sometimes during a busy work day, I find myself taking little breaks and heading towards brushes and colors. The feel of the textured watercolor paper makes me so happy!

Here are a couple of reasons why these easy-flowing colors bring me so much joy and hit the refresh key in my mind.

For their vibrancy and playfulness - Pans, tubes, liquids - I try my hand with all of these. Check out Pebeos' Colorex range, they happens to be my favourite!

Unpredictability - I love to watch colors blend into each other. Sometimes they take their own shape and something absolutely new shows up on paper than what I originally planned. Wild and free, that’s what I like to call them.

Learn to let go. Not everyone in your life is meant to stay.
— Unknown

Transparency - I secretly envy those who achieve it! So dreamy and a pleasure to watch. Instagram is full of talented artists who show you how they do it. Go check them out.

Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.
— A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

More than one way to do it - Dry on wet, wet on wet, wet on dry - the possibilities are endless. I like to try the salt sprinkle technique and dab with tissue for a rough texture.

Here, patience is a virtue. Thanks to going digital all the way (and loving it too!) I completely turn impatient when I draw on paper. Also the inability to instantly 'undo' drives me nuts. Lol! But I have learnt a great deal on how to wait (for the paint to dry) before I add another layer. I therefore sit with a large mug of coffee when I do watercolors.

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end…

— Gilda Radner

If you like these colors, share it with me too. I’d love to know how you interact with various colors and mediums.

Love,
Suchi