Everyday Canvas

Ingredients of the Creative Process

Prompt: Gathering all the ingredients for a design is a favorite part of the creative process. What are your thoughts on this?

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It depends on what you are doing and if you are gathering the ingredients ahead of the work or during the process.

If you are painting a watercolor picture, for example, in addition to the paints, brushes, paper, and all else material, you have to have every step and the final idea of the picture in your head before you begin. (That’s why I wasn’t very good at it.) If you are painting in oils, however, you can create and try different things as you go along, which made me love the build-up process with oils. The same applies to knowing what you are writing beforehand with an outline and all the necessary research versus pantsing or freeflow, which I love to do as well. Talking for me, I like a good coincidence or a happy find, anytime.

This idea applies even to cooking. In cooking shows, we see all the ingredients on the counter in small neat containers. Obviously, that cook must have ten people helping her or him. In my case, not only because I lack counter space but also because I don’t like to make extra work for me, I take the ingredients in ones and twos and put them back in their places as I go along.

I don’t know how this idea works with every specific craft, but I believe each craft must have its basic rules. Sometimes, the necessary ingredients are complicated and varied and you have to have all of them in front of you before you begin. At other times, all the necessary materials for creativity are only a couple of things, such as your fingers, intellect, and the keyboard or a pencil and a note-book.

Above all, the most basic ingredients are our imagination and perception. This means if we can spot the possibilities with our eyes and use a bit of imagination on the subject, we are on our way.