May Spark
A Month of Play.

31 ways to play in paint.

I thought this month we could play. I don’t know about you but I’m surrounded by the world of self improvement, coaching and doing, doing, doing. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE it! I’m a doer and I am obsessed with all things self-improvement. Everything from coaching modalities, intentional creating to Law of Attraction and spiritual growth, but it involves being aware of our thoughts our feelings to the point where it feels like a full time job.

I’m a do-it-yourselfer through and through, however, there comes a point where we hit a wall of resistance and everything we once loved about self-improvement and creating has become a chore. The idea of sitting down to paint had become a process of thinking about what is wrong with me, what I want to heal, what isn’t right. A process of trying to figure out what I want and where I want to be.

I don’t want the thing that I love (art, in case I lost you) to become just another thing on my to-do list so I can “be a better version”. I’m a better version of me after splattering paint because I just splattered paint and now I feel good.

I want to enjoy the process just for the splotches of color and the crazy lines and the imagery I can make on purpose. I like the feeling of just sitting back and looking at what I’ve made and admiring what came out. 

This idea of play and of just being is not even that far outside the box of self-improvement. It is just another version of mindfulness, meditation, letting go or being in flow! I just seem to lose sight of that and get mired in healing, fixing, doing and purpose.

It all comes back to balance. If I don’t balance my doing with my being I get overwhelmed, burnt out and start questioning everything. All that does is take me a step away from where I’m always trying to go which is living a joyful life of purpose.

So lets take a break from the doing and the striving and just be! Let’s be creators. Let’s be artists. Let’s be the kind of person that just does joyful things because they are joyful.

Your creative challenge this month is to joyfully create something, just because. Forget about the rules, the meanings or the healing taking place. Splash, splatter, smear and smush some paint around until you remember why creating feels so good.

I’ve included another PDF download with a sampling of my inspiration cards (31 cards). They are creative challenges for painting that will get you back into the mode of play, experimenting and discovery. Print them, cut them out and pull them randomly out of a hat to challenge yourself to play in a new way while you get back to creating for the joy of it.

I’d love to see what you make. Send me an email and let me know what you tried and how you got back into enjoying what you do and how you do it!

Below you will find some of the ways that I played with my creative practice.