August #creativesandboxchallenge day 3: beanstalk. Inside the #creativesandboxcommunity we are doing Creative Sandbox 101 this week — the eCourse that was the precursor to my book, The Creative Sandbox Way™. Today is all about Guidepost #6: Ask, “What if…?”, so today’s prompt, with its connotations of fairytales, is so appropriate! 🖍
Member @carla.la.la.olson designed this month’s challenge, so thoughtfully and beautifully. And yesterday on our first Rally Call of the month, another member who designs and hosts a lot of the monthly challenges, @doc_angi, and I were brainstorming ideas for the September challenge. 🖍
Members take the initiative inside the Creative Sandbox Community. If they have an idea, they get to run with it, because it is everyone’s community! 😊 I love the spirit of collaboration inside the Sandbox, and I’m always so excited to see what we’ll create next!
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#doodle #dailydoodle #doodleart #imperfectaugust #dailycreative #tinyart #originalart #visualthinking #visualcommunication #beanstalk #neulandmarker #pigmamicron

Today’s prompt in the August #creativesandboxchallenge inside the #creativesandboxcommunity is “cloud,” so here is a sketchbook page of different clouds. 🖍
I love the daily prompts in our monthly challenges! They give me a fun way to practice building my visual vocabulary, one day at a time. Other members use them to hone their drawing/illustration skills, or to write poetry or prose, or for photography. Simply as a nudge to CREATE, a teeny, tiny something, every day. In alignment with my Creative Sandbox Way™ Guidepost #4: Think tiny and daily! 😊
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The point is to DO IT, already, and stop letting all the circumstances of life be an excuse. Because we ALL have circumstances. All. The. Time. So are you going to let circumstances run your creative life? Or are you going to TAKE ACTION? 🖍
The size of the action DOES NOT MATTER. It’s the fact of the action that counts. 🖍
So what are you creating today?
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#doodle #clouds #dailydoodle #dailycreative #originalart #doodlesofinstagram #visualthinking #visualcommunication

August 1 means it’s a brand new #creativesandboxchallenge! We have a different creative challenge inside the #creativesandboxcommunity each month—a gentle invitation for members to create something every day, based on my #creativesandboxway Guideposts, especially Guidepost #4: “Think tiny & daily”! It’s so easy to NOT do you’re creative thing, because you’re BUSY! You get stuck in the excuse of “I don’t have time!”
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Well, I call BS on “I don’t have time!” You can take 90 seconds and make a doodle, for goodness sake!
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Anyway, this month’s challenge is lovingly designed by @carla.la.la.olson, and draws inspiration from my Creative Sandbox Way™, which is so perfect! We’re all getting a much-needed reminder of Creative Sandbox principles this month! 😊
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Today’s prompt is “jump,” so I filled a sketchbook page with practice sketches of stick figures and star people jumping. None of them is quite the way I want them yet, but that’s how it goes: you practice in order to get it the way you want it! 😊 So I will keep practicing!
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What are you working on today?
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#jump #doodle #doodlesofinstagram #dailydoodle #dailycreative #originalart #visualthinking #visualcommunication

It’s the last day of the July #creativesandboxchallenge inside the #creativesandboxcommunity and today’s prompt is “cheese.” So rather than my usual abstract mark, I made a Swiss cheese! 🖍
Then what? Everything in today’s doodle started from that Swiss cheese. So just like with my abstract doodles, I responded to what was there, and added something else. 🖍
It feels weird to combine iconographic doodles and abstract doodles, but I’m just rolling with it! And for right now, they’re turning into Doodlebot dreaming about things. Food is what Doodlebot seems to dream about a lot! 😊 🖍
And now that I’ve started this thing of combining abstract and iconographic doodles, we’ll see where it goes! Who knows? That’s the fun of it: discovering!
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What are you creating today? If you’re in Silicon Valley, join me on Sunday and let’s create together at Creative Sandbox Playday! A half day co-working retreat in Palo Alto on 8/5. Link in profile or go to http://bit.ly/2NWuyAa. Only $25! (Or if you’re an Etz Chayim member, contact me directly for a discount code.)
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#doodle #doodlebot #doodlesofinstagram #dailydoodle #dailyart #dailycreative #originalart #abstractart #tinyart #creativesandboxway #imperfectionism #imperfectaugust

Quick morning doodle. .
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#doodlebot #doodleart #doodlesofinstagram #tinyart #dailyart #dailydoodle #originalart #creativesandboxway #abstractart #justdosomething

Inside the #creativesandboxcommunity we are busting our clutter! It’s the #greatclutterbust right now, and I drew this doodle to fire myself up to attack my bedroom. 🖍
Doodlebot is cheering me on, along with everyone else inside the Sandbox. 😊 Clutterbusting is a team sport! It’s great to have a team cheering you on. 🖍
Off to work!
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#creativesandboxway #doodle #doodlebot #dailydoodle #originalart #abstractart #tinyart #dailyart

The prompt for today in the July #creativesandboxchallenge inside the #creativesandboxcommunity is “pear,” so I started with a pear in this doodle. Then it evolved into Doodlebot’s dream of yummy things to eat. 😊
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#dailycreative #dailydoodle #dailyart #doodle #doodlebot #doodlesofinstagram #tinyart #tinyanddaily #abstractart #originalart #pigmamicron #blackandwhite

Listening to @thecreativityhabit interview Murphy Funkhouser Capps while doodling http://bit.ly/2K2Zr3o
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The suitcase, teddy bear, and railroad tracks are all directly inspired from this amazing podcast episode. (Though the sticker on the suitcase is from our upcoming trip! Squee!)
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If you are looking for amazing, in depth stories from artists of all kinds, HUMAN stories, LIFE stories, you must check out The Creativity Habit™. I was lucky enough to be interviewed by Daphne, and it was a profound experience. Different from any other interview I’ve ever had. Daphne is a true Story Whisperer. Her podcast is a work of art. Go. Listen.
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#doodle #doodleart #doodlebot #doodlesofinstagram #dailycreative #dailydoodle #dailyart #tinyart #imperfectionism #pigmamicron #originalart #abstractart

Underwater doodle while listening to my interview (part 1!) on @thecreativityhabit. I rarely listen to my own podcast interviews, but this one profoundly touched me. Daphne is a true Story Whisperer, AND we talked for FOUR HOURS to produce the two hours of this two-part podcast. 🖍
I’m finding it quite interesting and entertaining to listen to myself from the outside! 🖍
Find both parts of this intense interview at http://bit.ly/2A7eLwr Or visit @thecreativityhabit and find the link in her profile to her website. 🖍
(And did you notice that Doodlebot can breathe underwater?)
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#creativity #creativesandboxway #creativesandbox #doodle #doodlebot #dailycreative #dailydoodle #pigmamicron #doodlesofinstagram #originalart #underwater_world_ #underwaterworld #tinyart

20 years ago, 10 years ago, maybe even 5 years ago, marks like this would never have left my pen intentionally. If I had made marks like this, I would have been embarrassed, mortified, ashamed. I wanted to make *beautiful* things, *precise* things. I thought I had to control everything — for it to be “perfect” — in order for it to be acceptable… and for *me* to be acceptable (read: worthy of love).
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Interestingly, I could go to a Museum of Modern Art and accept that *other* artists could make crazy, wild, abstract weirdness, and even be lauded for it, but for some reason I had a different set of standards for myself. I guess I bought into the notion that I had to learn to draw and paint photorealistically perfectly *first*, and *then* I could break away from that and explore other modes of expression…? 🖍
Honestly, it’s been so long, I don’t remember. All I know is that marks like this were UGLY, and unacceptable to me. I NEVER would have made something like this!!! 😂
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And yet all this time, this is what my inner 4-year-old was dying to make! Because my inner 4-year-old is not concerned with conventional standards of “beauty” or “propriety”! All she cares about is following her curiosity!
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Thank goodness I’m more inclined to follow her lead these days. It’s a whole heckuva lot more fun. 😊👍
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#creativesandboxway #doodlebot #doodle #dailyart #dailydoodle #imperfectionism #improv #improvart #doodlesofinstagram #dailycreative #pigmamicron #tinyart #originalart

It just occurred to me that my doodles are all just playgrounds for #doodlebot. 😊 🖍
This utterly delights me. .
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#doodle #doodleart #doodlesofinstagram #doodles #dailydoodle #abstractart #originalart #tinyart #blackandwhite #dailycreative #creativesandboxway #fifteenminutes #tinyanddaily #doodlewithdinwiddie

Pure play in the #creativesandbox. With #doodlebot! 😊
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#doodle #doodleart #doodlesofinstagram #dailyart #dailydoodle #dailycreative #creativesandboxway #imperfectionism #originalart #tinyanddaily #tinyart #abstractart #blackandwhite #pigmamicron