In July, I took an intentional break from painting. We had family visiting, my son was going through a transition from preschool to public school, there were swim lessons, and you know…all the life things. Great, joy-filled, first-priority type of life-things. Things that make putting painting on hold totally worth it.

However, I found it more difficult than I thought it would be to come back from this creative break. I was more aware this time that I had to do a few things to get back to the actual act of creating. Coming back from a creative break isn’t as easy or straightforward as forcing yourself to make marks. In fact, breaking down the blocks starts way before the putting anything down on paper.

Here are a few of the things I did (and have had to do before but never acknowledged as part of my process):

• Mentally thought about what I might make. Just passing thoughts, not plans.

• Journaled about nothing in particular. Dumping all the junk out of my brain.

• Watched YouTube, scrolled social media, etc. until I had enough and got tired of consuming content.

• Grabbed onto the first real whisper of “inspiration” and took action.

• And even though I immediately disliked what I was doing after taking action and decided it was no work of art, I followed it through (albeit impatiently and quickly).

Here’s a photo of the work mentioned above - an automatic “pattern” that I drew with pen:

I’m glad I did this drawing, even if I didn’t really enjoy the process, because as soon as I finished, I felt the gears slip and begin shifting.

It was this not-very-enjoyable mark-making session that paved the way for an enjoyable next one and brought me back from my creative break

And just in time, too. Because our second annual Artful August was beginning and I wanted to participate.

In the video below, I share what I created in the first 4 days of August after coming back from a month-long break. I’ll show you what I made and what I learned from these seemingly random doodles. And of course, I explain what Artful August is:

As always, thanks so much for reading and watching!
Susan