Snapshot from My Studio: March 29, 2018 at 09:22AM

Creative Sandbox Challenge, Day 13: Raven. My goal for this challenge was to expand my visual vocabulary for graphic facilitation. In other words, to find QUICK ways to draw things in order to communicate visually. 🖍
This did not accomplish that goal. I could not figure out how to communicate “raven” in a quick drawing!
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So instead, I decided to simply take ten minutes and learn how to draw a raven, period!
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I did a Google search for “How to draw raven,” and found a lesson. Boom!
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This is not going to be possible in a workshop—I cannot take ten minutes to draw a raven. I cannot even take five minutes to draw a raven. BUT, I figured if I learn to draw a raven the slow way—if I understand RAVEN—then maybe I’ll be able to come up with a quick shorthand for raven that I can draw in twenty seconds or less.
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First, though, I have to understand RAVEN before I can even hope to draw it. Hence this much-more-complex drawing today.
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I am not an illustrator. I have no desire to be an illustrator. My interest lies in art as PROCESS, art as a THINKING tool. I’m not nearly as interested in producing something refined and perfected for show. (Been there, done that—it sucked the life out of me.)
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That’s not to say I don’t want my work to be aesthetically pleasing or as well-produced as possible—I do! But what excites me the most is the potential for what I create to assist with and create TRANSFORMATION in the people who see it. 🖍
If all people say is, “Wow, that’s gorgeous,” then I’ve failed. 🖍
My goal for my work is to shift people’s lives. Help them learn something new. Inspire them to try something they haven’t tried before. Get them to see something differently.
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If my work does THAT, it’s a success, even if nobody says, “Wow, that’s gorgeous!”
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As a recovering perfectionist, this is a real paradigm shift. I like this new perspective, this new art form I’ve recently discovered. And I confess, there’s still tension between my desire to impress and my desire to stay rooted in process and service! It’s a blurry line sometimes, because beauty can help the process and service.
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To be continued…
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#originalart #creativesandboxchallenge