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Bits and bobs of thoughts and ideas

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The beauty of the blank page…

causes me to feel both anticipation and trepidation!

I love opening a new sketchbook or journal. The page, which I really see is a giant canvas, feels endless, and that is both delightful and daunting.

Those feelings bubbled up early last week when I opened up my Sketchbook Project booklet. Actually it was even before that. When I started imagining tangling (drawing Zentangle patterns on) the cover for my book, I had some ideas but they hadn’t come together. Truth be told they haven’t come together yet although I have taken the plunge and started drawing.

 

A different canvas was revealed to me as I opened the book.  Deciding to create on a two page spread, in which each of the pages was a different color and a different consistency, felt fun, different, and exciting. Here’s my work today, though clearly there’s more to be done! And then of course, I’ll turn the page again and start with the having to sort out whether to tangle across one page or two, choose an orientation, and perhaps venture into different media. Such a metaphor for working with what we have in front of us every day we have on this earth, right?

  • What are you planning? How are you feeling about it? 
  • Where are you now? 
  • What are you dreaming about? 
  • What designs/experiments will you create on the journey to your destination?

Planning new programming—a process that happens in my mind and on paper

On a different though related note…

I’m in the throes of designing and developing a membership program – it’s compelling and complex (not just complicated)! There are so many facets to consider. As I work with all the moving parts, I am beginning by asking my people to focus on the results that they want to achieve and then building the experience by creating the goals, milestones, and action steps and all the awesome content, activities and materials, we will use together.

This process of curriculum design and development, which is rather linear, iterative, and results-oriented is really the antithesis of Zentangle, which is organic, with a focus on the present and a letting go of or grasping for a particular appearance, aside from something that is aesthetically pleasing to the tangler. 

I LOVE both of these processes and believe that having a foot in both worlds grounds me.

How about you? Do you gravitate toward the more intuitive, organic approach, or feel more in sync with a more linear methodology or maybe you have crafted your own process and developed a melange of the two? I’d love to know!

PS: If Zentangle might be a delightful diversion for you, keep on eye out for my Creative Mornings Field Trip on July 13th and the FB Live sessions, on my Tangling With Jill (FB) page that I’ll be offering the coming weeks. 

Finding joy in new projects

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Gosh, I love new projects! I admit it, my heart beats a little faster and I feel such delight when beginning something new. Happily, in most instances, I get the same feeling of joy when I complete the project.

What’s your style? 

My strengths* of curiosity, creativity, and love of learning lead me into considering many projects. Over time, I have learned to tap into my strength of perspective to keep me from going down every rabbit hole!

From the VIA Character Strengths Survey—showing the”sunny” and the “shadow” sides of my strengths.

Where do your strengths lead you? Where do they get you in trouble? How do you use them to support your endeavors?

Within the past few days, I’ve been working on a few new projects and I’m making time to note my energy and commitment to each. This opportunity for reflection is helpful.

How often do you step back from your projects and the processes that you’re engaged in to assess what’s working for you and what can be sharpened?

As I wrote last week, I am beginning The Sketchbook Project. I am smitten with the idea of a blank canvas! It feels exciting, challenging, daunting and the adventure pulls me in.

Surprisingly, the video of the sketchbook is a peek at the small zine that I created as the final project for the course, Tiny Memoirs, offered by my colleague and friend Julie Gieseke. Truth be told, I discovered in the last week of the course that I had a bigger tiny memoir in me (what a juxtaposition!) that would take too long to complete by our final session, in which we shared our work. So I put that more intensive project aside because it’s really near and dear to my heart and I need time and energy to make it into the gem I believe it can be. So instead, I made a little zine to share my thoughts about receiving and planning for making my very own Sketchbook Project. I loved using several techniques that Julie suggested, tell your memoir in four sentences, show your memoir in six visuals, and consider creating a zine. What fun!

What has captured your curiosity and desire to create lately?

Another project, the upcoming Visual Binge developed by Deepti Jain and Charu Aurora, grabbed my attention yesterday also, as I put the finishing touches on my planning for the session for July 11. I felt such anticipation,  imagining the session and what the participants and I would be doing together.

I’m also looking at a new way of organizing myself. I’ve been trying several different bullet journal formats and honestly, life just feels too full right now and I am unwilling to make the time to create the format that I like using each month, week, and every day. While, I thought I’d have the interest in the energy to devote to making a bullet journal, I’m finding that I don’t. And that’s okay!

A friend of mine, Jane Massengill, mentioned on Instagram how much she likes the Panda Planner. I’m a Passion Planner gal from way back when it was a Kickstarter campaign. I shifted away from it because I wanted to personalize my planner and so I’ve been experimenting with different formats of bullet journaling for over a year. I’m finding, lately life is so full of good things that I’m not willing to devote time and energy to create the layouts and so I am turning to the Panda Planner, to give it a shot. As you can imagine, I downloaded the free PDF and I’m trying out all the different layouts. I want something that’s just right (sounds like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, no?) because I need to put this task behind me so I can move forward. (There’s a visual!)

I have to say that new projects are the spice in my life every week! As you can see, my strength of hope also carries me forward. I just have to be sure I stay on the sunny/positive side of my strengths because the shadow side (overuse of them) can lead to overwhelm… but that’s why I’m picking a new planner!

I am happy to share more ideas about these resources!

The Sketchbook Project

VIA Character Strengths

Visual Binge

Panda Planner

Feel free to book a Connect session with me if you want to learn more about character strengths and how they work in real life. And you might want to check out these resources too