Productive Creativity, Part 1

Photo Taken by the Lovely Kris Atomic!


My personality is such that I need places with creative, well-designed atmospheres for me and my creativity to really flourish. (AKA, working at Wal-Mart would drive me insane.) I also need to keep being productive in the creativity department, creativity begets creativity sort of thing, and I've felt like I've been stuck in a rut lately with that. I could be cranking stuff out constantly, with my VERY lean work schedule, but I've not spending my free time as wisely as I really should and want to. I want to be more creative, while being more productive as well, and as I'm Miss Plan-Things-to-Death and a crazy list making fiend, I'm going to list ways to be more creative//productive here. Hopefully this will give you ideas as well!

-Start Project 365. The premise behind taking a picture a day for a year is that you'll view things around you with a more creative eye, as well as improving your photography skills.

-Learn one new (creative) skill a month, whether it's quilting, water-color painting, or decorating tiny cupcakes.

-Cook something new for dinner. Indian, Thai, something healthy...(gasp)

-Along that line, grab a random fruit/ethnic spice you've never tried and make a recipe with it! (The Taste of Home website has thousands of recipes on it, and you can search their entire collection by food ingredient!)

-Try doing something new and creative everyday for 30 days. They don't have to be major things, just things like sketching; learning to say something in French; trying a new type of exercise, like ballet; baking cookies and giving them to a neighbor(bonus points); switching up your hairstyle (I have double braids today!); wearing pink lipstick or navy nail polish... and so on.

-When ordering from your favorite local coffee shop or Starbucks, try asking the barista what his favorite drink is, then order it! I've started doing this, and it's pretty sweet. White-chocolate mochas with soy are actually really good.

-Switch up your normal dressing routine...wear something out of the ordinary for you. If you lean towards jeans and pants most of the time, try wearing a skirt or dress. If you tend to wear darker, more somber colors, try wearing a sequined pink dress! (I have one, and love it.)

-Look around to see what your city or town has to offer in the way of creativity. I just found out that my town offers yoga classes downtown, and has just opened an art gallery and a indie coffeehouse (which I have yet to visit!) There's also an art studio I plan to take classes at.

-Grab your camera, and some comfy shoes, and do a color study. Walk around shooting anything you see of a certain color, pink, blue, green...try doing this with different shapes, and make sure to switch up your locations.