Art Whenever I Can: Finding Creative Motivation

This is a book review of Danny Gregory’s book Art Before Breakfast: A Zillion Ways To Be More Creative No Matter How Busy You Are.  Doesn’t that title just jump out at you?  A zillion ways!  That is a lot!  I am not a seasoned artist, I am a adult trying to heal my art scars from childhood, an adult trying to heal my creativity scars from childhood so I like to dive into books that claim to boost creativity.  This book gives me A ZILLION no matter how busy of a mama of 3 kids I am.  Ok, I’ll check that out!

*Disclosure:  I was given a copy of this book from the book distributor Raincoast Books in exchange for my honest opinion.  I only review books that I think I might enjoy, or appeal to me or I think might appeal to my readers.  All opinions are my own.

He opens the book with:

“This books is for people who don’t have time to read it.”

He wants us to add one more thing to our already busy to-do list life.  What is it?  Well the title is Art Before Breakfast and it is book created to help jump start your creativity through art whether you are a seasoned artist, which I am not, or someone just beginning to delve into the depths of my own creativity in other medium forms.  How does he want us to do that?  Well before breakfast of course!  However, if you are like me, before breakfast is usually a frenzy of lunch making, organizing kids, husband, and myself for the day.  So that is why I changed my title a bit to make it fit my lifestyle.  Art Whenever I Can!  Sometimes that includes quiet time away from the house, quiet time in the house but most of the time it includes a shared art project with my kids.

So how is the book set up.  Well, it opens with why it is important to express ourselves through creative endeavours.  He provides tips on how to develop a creative habit, and gives a little bit about himself and how he has lived the creative dilemma his whole life.  The next section of the book is a week of 15 minute drawing lessons to get you going on your creative journey.  He has it set up as 15 minutes that you would take before breakfast or while you are enjoying it.

Monday’s lesson is just to draw the outside edges of the objects on your table.  Or as he explains in this video assembling a couple of coffee mugs to create one shape.  Because I do need to work on drawing what my eye sees and not what my brain interprets what it sees I thought this was a good place for me to start.

Here are my coffee mugs and my 3 attempts in a 15 minute block of time.  It wasn’t before breakfast but after I had taken all the kids to school and before the rest of my day started.

I made sure I was using a sharpie so that way I knew I couldn’t erase.

Attempt#1

Attempt #2

Attempt #3

I do think by the time I got to my 3rd attempt I was improving but it could use more time.  I think a week of just contour edge drawings would benefit me.  A month…

Tuesday’s lesson is about negative space, and Wednesday’s lesson is about starting to draw the interior shapes of your breakfast table, Thursday’s lesson is drawing the objects in your medicine cabinet just with the outer contour edges again and then in Friday’s lesson drawing the interior of those objects in the medicine cabinet.  Then Saturday’s lesson has you standing at your kitchen window and drawing the shape of the sky and the edges around buildings, telephone antennas, wire lines and trees.  It is here where he tells us of the 80/20 Rule.

Keep your eyes on the things you are drawing 80% of the time and on your page just 20% of the time

I know for myself this is something I really have to work on.  Too many bad habits have been acquired since being a kid and learning how to draw back then.

The last lesson of the week is Sunday’s lesson which is to stay in bed.  Wait, what?  Oh, draw what you see from lying in your bed.  Look down the hall or into your ensuite bathroom or closet.  Here he teaches you how to use your pen to measure objects.

And this is all just the beginning of his book.  The reminder of the book is a smorgasbord of prompts that you could flip open on any given day and at any given time and find inspiration.  Because I’m new at developing my own creative habit and silencing my inner art critic and repairing years of art scars Danny Gregory’s Art Before Breakfast is a gentle, yet motivating book that inspires me to take small creative steps in my learning.  I can’t live by the title of his book Art Before Breakfast but I can do Art Whenever I Can and I think that is what he would like most of all.  Just to inspire us all to add a little creativity to our lives.

For more information about Danny Gregory you can visit his blog where you will find lots of motivation and challenges.

Are there really a zillion ways ways to be more creative no matter how busy we are?  Well of course, we just have to learn to let go and dive in.

And because I loved adding this book to my collection of books on sparking creativity you will likely see more posts titled Art Whenever I Can inspired by the prompts found in his book.

Cheers,

Bonnie

Educator, Writer, Blogger, Mom

Contact Me: [email protected]