Unfinished, Unpolished, but good!

#creative #process #inspiration #recomposing #imperfections #rehashing #growth #poetry

So, I do a lot of rough sketching, catching the moment, jotting details down. I also sometimes just try and catch the moment in poetry.

I plan to post some that I wrote several years back when we had come back from living in Honduras. It sometimes was the only way to solidify the effects of the visuals and raw experiences there.

In looking through my sketchbook from last year, a lot looks like quick doodles, not finished, not polished, but still with meaning. Bit by bit by doodle ideas for a children's book take on more life, but its incremental... its still growing. They are all signs of life.

Sometimes we want things to be all polished and tidy, right away!.

But this creative process is messy and ambling along, taking twists and turns as it progresses.

I could say, " I won't show any of this work until its all finalised and off to the printers" ...but I think in some ways people miss out on the whole experience then. They don't learn about the process.. the behind the scenes, the scribbling out, the re-drawing, recomposing..these imperfections are actually US as well! `

So, maybe there is comfort in this too -- that we don't need to hide our imperfections, our progresses, until its all ironed out? Each page is part of the work...

This poem was done near our Shrewsbury house. I think we were still in some kind of lockdown, but people were out and about. I sat down on the bench which is not far from the house - looking out over the River Severn, early on in the day about 8:30 a.m so the day was just getting going. I also did some drawings from the spot. Captured an inquisitve little bird, then fiddled more with the drawings back at home.

Inquistive bird.......

These are the beginning doodles for the Children's Counting Book - page 7 will be a FLUTTER of Butterflies..... its not tidy, or finished.. its called the process... Even these butterflies had to go through quite the process to get to this stage! See previous blog ...HERE

Butterfly F is labelled in Latin : Chrysochlorosia Spendida ! that is quite the name!