Last week, I spent a morning teaching a large group of children to make a watercolor painting of sailboats on the ocean.  There were almost 100 people in the room!  Having politely rejected the option of a microphone (which I briefly regretted), I had to use my " teacher voice" from my public school days (along with consistent visual reminders and hand signals when I needed the group's attention).  The kids were surprisingly cooperative, and focused diligently on the steps of the painting.  By the end of the lesson, I was genuinely enjoying seeing how each of those paintings turned out: unique, expressive, and full of color!  As I watched the kids painting furiously and exclaiming in delight, I kept thinking of one word: wonder.

 

I don't think there will ever be a substitute for the feeling we humans experience while creating something unique with our hands.  Although I've gotten comfortable teaching adults to paint (and prefer it sometimes, if it's at the end of a long day), the joy children bring to their creative experiences is so much fun to see! It's also infectious.  After teaching children, I find myself remembering what it felt like to paint without pressure when I was first learning and experimenting with different techniques, styles, and subjects.  I often go home refreshed and ready to try something new, too!

 

Holding on to that sense of wonder can get difficult when I'm trying to get through time-consuming or tedious projects.  That first burst of a new painting is exhilarating to me, but sometimes that exhilaration dissipates before I get to the end of the piece.  I have a few go-to remedies when I feel weighed down by my own projects:

 

1) Experiment with a different medium or technique-- I have a collection of materials available for creative "playtime," and sometimes I'll find a new way to paint or get ideas for improving older paintings by trying them out-- this might include collage, mixing different mediums together, trying a new surface (like some of those random burlap canvas boards my sister had left over from a party), or using a medium I've tried previously but not really given much time to in the past.

 

2) Take new photos for inspiration--like we need more photos on our phones, right?  If just one of those photos becomes immediate inspiration for a quick painting, though,  I consider it worth the storage space those many photos take up on my phone.

 

3) Clean it up and start over-- sometimes my unfinished artworks pile up, and it can get overwhelming.  A good organizing and cleaning up of my space can help me prioritize a particular painting or two and help me reconnect with the original inspiration for those pieces.

 

4) Put the painting materials out of sight for a while and do something totally different with my hands-- my daughter enjoys miniatures and polymer clay, and these are fun for me too!  Lately I've turned toward working with dried plants and florals, and making small, unique creations with those materials. Working to make 3-dimensional items instead of 2-dimensional paintings and drawings activates new pathways for me, which refreshes my mind for painting again.  Sewing creatively also fills this need, which is how my kids and I once ended up being randomly invited to join a guild at a local Renaissance Faire (story for another blog post!)

 

Feeling the wonder of creating something with our hands can be especially inspiring because the potential for it is always there, waiting.  There are so many moments each day where I see something and think "That would make a beautiful painting!" Even a uniquely constructed doll or a well-sewn garment can give me this feeling (this is why I've loved browsing thrift shops since childhood, when my grandma and great-grandma would take us to spend afternoons "junking").

 

For anyone experiencing a creeping lack of wonder, I would encourage you to get your hands busy.  There is something unique about that hand-mind connection and the way it benefits our brains!  And check in regularly with that sense of wonder--it's a building block for your creativity, and something that's always there waiting for you to experience at any stage of life.