Want to be more Creative? Try this! (A Mindful Painting Approach to Creativity!)

Want to be more Creative? Try this! (A Mindful Painting Approach to Creativity!)

I took some ideas for this video from here: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/04/c...

Creative.

It’s an industry, a personality type, a market segment, a compliment and an aspiration.

It’s also an enigma. What exactly is creativity- and how do we get a little bit more of it?

My practice and relationship to creativity has transformed by changing my mindset and adding a little meditation into my painting practice.

So, what is Creativity? According to Mark Runco, professor of Creativity at the University of Georgia, creativity needs to conditions; originality and effectiveness.

Something creative needs to be, in some way something unique, and something of value. And that word value could be taken in many ways - a painting that reveals a new perspective of the human condition in a way that rings true would be considered something of value, if not economically, then culturally or socially. And any of us, seeing and processing the world around us in our own way have the potential for unique creation.

Truth, uniqueness- Creativity has strong links to authenticity. In a way, if you made a painting with real authenticity, it couldn’t help but be something original and effective. Something that revealed some kind of truth, because you made it, with your unique perspective.

So for any of us, wishing to reconnect with our creativity, especially as artists or painters, the question becomes, not how can I pant with more creativity, but how I can paint with more authenticity.

When you look back on the history of art, you can see this mission at the forefront of modernism. In doing away with representation, language, rationality even in the pursuit of authentic expression. Take Dada and Surrealism- if you could make automatic art, not mediated by the thinking mind, you would get an authentic expression of creativity. More real (or surreal) then waking, rational reality.

And it seems they were really onto something- artist-researchers like Paul Seli have explored creativity through the lens of neuroscience and discovered there does indeed seem to be a link between heightened states of creativity and that transitional state between sleep and wakefulness where the rational, conscious mind is subdued and our minds can wander and make links in unexpected places.

But you've got to get your mind wandering right! Research suggests that there is a difference between intentional and unintentional mind wandering. And that's where meditation can come in.

Now meditation and falling asleep are not the same. But meditation trains our mind to soften it's grasp on musts and should and insecurities. It helps us let go of our ideas about how things should be and even who we are, and in the quiet allows room for different kinds of potential.

Starting your creative practice with a few minutes of meditation can transform your relationship with your art form. Setting an intention for your artistic practice at the end of a mediation provides a frame work for the intentional, creative mind-wandering that follows. When your making from this meditative space, you might be surprised. our industry,our identity, our aspiration - perhaps creativity isn't ours to call our own after all- but something unique, and honest and incredibly valuable to interact with, converse with and allow to guide us through our problem solving and art making.

At Artanda, we’ve taken it a step further, by weaving meditation and intentional thinking techniques with watercolour techniques in every single stage of our seven-stage practice. If you want to come along to a class, make sure you check out what’s on offer at www.artanda.co.uk