Day 5 - Artsy Fartsy Friday - Reading and Drawing

Pick up whatever you are currently reading. If you aren't currently reading anything, find something to read.  Magazine, book, newspaper, whatever.

Find a passage in the book.  It could be the next part you have to read.  It could be the last part you just read.  It could be your favorite part so far.

Draw your passage.  Be concrete.  Be abstract.  Make a comic version.  Make an illustration.  Draw your feelings.

My drawing... coming soon

Day 4 - Self-Love Thursday - Redesign your Workspace

Think about your workspace - whatever that may be...  A classroom, a home office, a cubicle, your car, a briefcase.

How can you make it more efficient?  How can you make it more pleasant?

Take 15 minutes this morning to reimagine your workspace.  You can stay as realistic or go off as much into lala land as you would like.  What would be your ideal workspace?

You can do this in a number of ways:  journal it.  Sketch it.  Add pictures to a pinterest page or make a digital collage.  If you have some magazines around, make a real collage.  Think about colors, decor, functionality.  Be concrete.  Be abstract.

You might even come away with an idea or two to add into your current workspace.

My classroom dream... coming soon. 

Day 3 - Writing Wednesday

Here is your prompt for today:

Write about a conversation you recently overheard.  Maybe you weren't supposed to hear it.  Write a poem, short story, or journal entry about that exchange.

For writing Wednesdays, I try to free-write - write as much as I can in a 15 minute time span.

My writing:

So I don't really want to share what I wrote today - it was all stream of consciousness.  But I wrote 530 words in about 12 minutes, so 44 wpm is ok for the first day.  

Day 2 - Rando Tuesday - Doodle or Die

Have you ever played Doodle or Die online?  How about Drawception?

These games makes me laugh hysterically every time I play.

Warning:  These sites is not always kid friendly or safe for work.  Do what you will with that information.

Doodle or Die is like the game "Telephone" with doodles and captions.  Someone draws something, someone else captions it, someone draws that captions, someone captions the new pic, etc., etc.  When you are finished your caption or doodle, you can view the whole chain so far and see just how spot on or far off everyone else was.  Be warned - some people can get vulgar, as people on the internet are apt to do, but you can skip chains if you don't like the one you get.

Check it out!  Participate in a few chains.  Be sure to go back and check on your chains later - it can be pretty funny how they are interpreted.

My doodle:

So I guess no screenshots of my doodles, but I did play around on Doodle or Die for about 20 minutes.  So silly but fun. 

By the way, Cranium makes a board game that's basically this same concept and also hilarious.  It's called Scribblish.  

When you can't do an activity...

Maybe you don't have the time or materials to do the activity that I do one day.  Maybe you don't like the activity I have planned for one day.  Here are some suggestions:

1. You don't have to do my activities at all.  The point is to do something creative 15 minutes a day. Do anything!
2. Do a past activity that you enjoyed.  There is no reason you can't repeat activities. If you are having a rough morning, the Monday Keep It Simple, Stupid activities are the quickest way to get some creativity in.
3. Work on an ongoing project.  I spend every Sunday working on a longer term project.  If you don't want to start something new, pull that out and work on it for a few minutes. 
4.  Modify or re-imagine today's activity so it does work for you.  That could be a creativity activity in itself.  
5. There is no gold medal or million dollar cash reward for doing the challenge, so if you have to miss a day, don't beat yourself up and don't quit.  

Day 1 - KISS Monday - Scribble Pictures

I am pretty excited to start Day 1 with this activity because scribble pictures were one of my favorite things as a kid.  Plus, this is a super easy, creative task that you can use over and over again.

When I needed something to color as a kid, my mom would make me a scribble picture.  As I got older, I would make my own. Scribble pictures are just want they sound like - make a scribble, and then color it in.  

I personally prefer to make a wide, loopy scribble with a closed off end, rather than a scratchy, tight scribble.  You can make it however you want.  

Add some creativity and mindfulness by thinking about what the scribble looks like, or what individual shapes in the scribble look like.  Think about your color palette.  

My results: 

I started with a big loopy sketch.

When I grabbed my markers, this is the color palette that I grabbed in the first handful so I decided to stick with it. 

I started thinking about hot air balloons as I was coloring.  The colors me me think about Thanksgiving. 

Here is my finished product.  I found this to be an easy activity to wake my brain up this morning.  

My *Ideal* Routine

Here is how I fit my creativity practice into my morning routine, in an ideal world.  Even without kids and work right now, it almost never actually happens like this, but this is what I strive for every day.

I try to get up around 6:30am, shortly after my hubs.  Otherwise, in the summer, I will revert to a 2am - 10am sleep schedule, which isn't always very productive. That doesn't mean naps don't happen.

1.  Still-in-bed yoga:  I like to start with a few poses to stretch and practice mindful breathing, like child's pose, seated stretch, cat and cow.  Nothing major here and probably only 5-10 minutes.

2.  Morning walk:  I do this first and early in the summer because I prefer to walk outside but it gets hot and humid quick here.  I do have a treadmill for days I can't get moving early enough or if the weather is bad.  I typically do 1.5 - 2 miles.

3.  First breakfast:  I am like a Hobbit.  At this point, I am hungry but I prefer to wait for breakfast until I am done my morning routine.  If I am VERY hungry when I get up, I will eat before I walk.  First breakfast is usually a banana, sometimes with PB, a yogurt, or some other fruit.

4.  More yoga:  Here I will do 20-30 minutes of yoga.  I like Body Positive Yoga and Curvy Yoga so check them out.   My favorite poses now are Pigeon and Garland.  I mix up routines daily.

5.  Meditation - 10-15 minutes.  Sometimes I fold this into my yoga practice.

6.  Creativity Challenge - whatever that may be for the day.

7.  Reading - Something, anything, (that's not facebook or pinterest) for at least 15 minutes. Currently reading Man in the High Castle by Phillip K. Dick.

8.  Second breakfast - Something a little more substantial - usually an egg but I like picking at leftovers for breakfast, too.  May do this before or while reading.  If I am going to have coffee, I will do it here, but I am not a slave to coffee in the summer when I have time to do all of the above to energize myself.

I am a beach lover, and I travel to parent's house in Delaware a lot in the summer, plus there are appointments and weekends and baby kitties, so in many ways it is harder to keep a routine like this when I don't have a set schedule, but this is the ideal morning until school starts in September.

The Challenge Breakdown

For those of you who like to know what to expect or like a little structure (like me):

KISS Mondays:  Keeping it simple, stupid.  None of the activities are overly difficult, but Mondays are always a super-easy, low-maintenance activity to get the juices flowing.  Because, after all, it's Monday.

Rando Tuesday:  Be up for anything on Tuesdays.

Writing Wednesdays:  Wednesdays are always writing prompts.  However, you can feel free to act out the prompt, talk to yourself about it, record a video, or draw a picture about it, if you don't like writing.

Self-Love Thursdays:  These are some creative tasks that also pamper you.  Treat yo'self. (While I like pizza roles, not gender roles, some of these activities involve make up and fashion, so if that's not your thing, you may want a back up handy).

Artsy Farsty Friday:  These activities involve more drawing and visual art tasks.  You may want to have some paper and crayons, markers, colored pencils handy.

Plan Ahead Saturdays:  These activities require a little more planning ahead, but are still relatively simple.  This is where I tackle some of the simple Pinterest crafts I have had pinned for awhile.  I will post what I am going to do at the beginning of the week in case you need any supplies.  If you don't want to do the slightly more involve projects I do, then you can repeat any of the activities you liked throughout the week, do your own thing altogether, or you may decide to skip the weekends.

Ongoing Project Sundays:  On Sundays, I am going work for at least 15 minutes on a longer term project.  As of right now, it's a cross stitch.  This is a great opportunity to work on whatever hobbies you have been putting off, even if it is just for 15 minutes.  So bake, sew, knit, stitch, paint, whatever.  If you don't have a long term project or hobby, you can go back and repeat any past activity you enjoyed, or you may decide to skip the weekends.

About me

I thought I would share a little bit about myself and why I am doing this challenge.

I am a high school English teacher of 14 years who has a good bit of the summer off.  I am married for almost 3 years and am a recent new mama to two very mischievous fur-babies, Porter and Shandy (yes, we like beer).  Some past and current creative endeavors include improv acting, crafting (particularly paper crafts like making cards and scrapbooking), karaoke, reading, writing (poetry, fiction, non-fiction), and baking.

Porter and Shandy actually sitting still for 5 seconds.

After spending the last three years completing my doctorate while teaching, and having a particularly difficult spring personally and emotionally, I realized that I haven't been treating myself well.  Long, long hours of reading and writing for my dissertation, paired with reading and grading essays, pouring over testing data, and writing lesson plans met I was spending hours and hours at a desk doing fairly mundane tasks.  Although my dissertation was somewhat creative, there wasn't much variety in it.  Plus, that's over now.

My first goal was to take care of my body.  That has involved yoga, walking, dancing, Curves, and a change in nutrition.

But I realized my mind needed care, as well.  I used to be an avid reader and writer, but the amount of reading and writing I have to do for work and for being a student killed the joy I found in those two tasks.  I have also found myself getting stagnant in teaching - reverting to the same activities over and over.  I feel like I can never think of anything new.  My fall-back when I need to create is to bake, but in the summer I don't have anyone to share those treats with and while I think there is some self-love in making yourself a cupcake now and then, I think it's best to add some variety in my creative activities.

I know my experience is a little different for many of you that may participate with me, especially in two big ways.  1.  I don't work in the summer.  For much of this challenge, I will not be on any kind of time schedule.  2.  I don't have non-fur kiddos.  However, I think many of these things you can do in 15 minutes, and a lot of them you can do with the kiddos.  (Bonus - 15 minutes less you have to entertain the kiddos in the summer!)  My goal is to stick with this routine into the school year, so I will try to make the activities do-able for a morning routine.

I would love to hear from you in the comments.  Who are you and why are you participating?

Summer 2016 Daily Creativity Challenge Overview

The purpose of this challenge, for me, was to provide my brain with some daily morning exercises, just like I do for my body.  As a teacher, summer time is the perfect time to start routines like this, so I am challenging myself to do something every day from June 20th - September 21st (the official dates of summer).  That's 93 days!

When I was younger, I would spend a great deal of time writing, reading, and crafting, but life got in the way.  I have found it to be very difficult to get that creative spark back.  It seems counterintuitive to schedule time to be creative, or to follow a creativity routine, but like anything else, creativity takes practice.  In our busy lives, most of us can't sit around and wait to be spontaneously inspired.

The challenge, as I am framing it for myself, is to participate in some creative activity each morning for at least 15 minutes.  I am going to do a different activity every day partially to see what motivates or inspired me the most, and partially to give you some ideas for your own creativity routine.

Play Along At Home

If you want to join me, simply devote 15 minutes every day this summer to doing something creative. I would love to see what you do every day in the comments.

If you REALLY want to join me on this creative adventure, I will be posting my creativity challenge activity each day along with my own results, so you can join in on the same activities with me. Again, I would love to see what you create.

My plan is to give a brief overview of each daily challenge at the beginning of the week, so that you can plan ahead and be ready (although my goal is to make these fairly simple activities).  Then I will post the daily challenge the night before, so it is there for you when you are ready, and I will update the post with my own results after I complete the activity for the day.

Each weekday will have a theme, so you will somewhat know what to expect.

Updated:  What Do I Need?

I am going to assume that you have paper of some kind, something to color with (markers, colored pencils, crayons, etc.), something to draw with, access to the internet and a medium for writing (paper or digital).  If any other materials are needed, I will post an overview on Sundays for the next week.  

If you are a pen and paper kind of person, you might also want to keep journal for your daily activities.