Making time for creativity when it feels like there’s no time
Reflections on the constant battle for more time to make when life gets in the way.
The imaginary me
I have an imaginary version of myself, and she’s the one who got given all the time to create. She has somehow managed to have her days full of making art, pausing only to drink artisanal coffee with paint-splattered hands and cycle along the river dreaming up bestsellers with wind in her hair. She has a massive top floor studio with enviable light streaming in through ostentatiously-sized windows. I love her. I hate her. I know, deep down, that she doesn’t exist.
The real version of myself got one sentence into writing this before time conspired against her. My son woke up screaming from his (supposed to be long) nap, the cat then woke him up a second time, and my cup of tea went colder than a grey February morning. I came back to writing this post in snippets of time between daily, fairly ordinary, life. Days full of making art seem very far away at the moment, and so I catch myself thinking of my other, imaginary self when I’m elbows deep in the washing up and envying all her time to create.
But then I remind myself that she doesn’t exist and I feel a bit better.
Making the most of what we’ve got
Even if some people really can dedicate whole days to making art, whatever time you did have, you’d probably always want more. Even full-time artists have to do their tax return once a year. Everyone has shopping lists and laundry to do, dentist appointments to go to and a shower plughole that always needs de-clogging. My imaginary Carys, the one with all the time, she’d probably have to do those things too if I was being realistic.And those of us who fit creativity alongside other jobs - and that’s most of us, another thing I need to remind myself - are still able to make art, just perhaps in a different way.
The fact that we create anything alongside at all in such busy lives is actually worth celebrating for a moment. And in my experience, there are also some advantages to having less time, too. I have found that the harder it is to squeeze a project into the little gaps of time I have, the easier it is for me to get into a creative flow state. This was true for my first illustrated book, ‘The Curious Cat and the Lord Mayor’s Show’ by Christy White-Spunner, that I illustrated in three months from roughs to final artwork. I had no time to deliberate - I had to trust my way of working at the time, rather than spend months trying out new techniques or materials that I might like to use.
Don’t get me wrong, I would absolutely love months to explore materials, and actually it’s something I think my work really needs to progress further. But it wasn’t a luxury I had at the time, and it made me get on with the work, rather than procrastinate or give room to too much questioning or self-doubt. If I had an hour to work on it, I’d get straight to it, and found I could get into flow quite quickly. The same was the case on my recent job for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, which required 12 full illustrations in just over 2 weeks.
Seize the moment
Outside of project-based work, time to draw now presents itself when I least expect it. This week my train into the City for my non-creative job was delayed, giving me 25 whole minutes that I hadn’t expected. Luckily, I had my sketchbook and random pencil case of materials with me. I’d had a feeling before leaving the house that perhaps some time would appear in my day. And it did.
I resisted the urge to look at my phone instead and took out my sketchbook. It’s a strange urge because my phone is mostly boring, and drawing is my favourite thing pretty much but there you go! I was at the station, so that was what I drew. I didn’t have time to think abstractly about where I fancied drawing that day, I had to work with what was given. And in a way, there’s something inspiring about that, because it invites you to make everyday situations interesting.
Draw things you might think are boring. You might be surprised
One of the first observational drawings I made after a couple of years’ hiatus was a drawing of my kitchen cupboard. The one under the sink with all the cleaning products, plastic bags and things you don’t know where else to put.
This was thanks to one of The Goodship Illustration’s early podcasts*, and helped me look at my studio flat at the time with fresh eyes. This was during the long days of lockdown, and led me to discover that sometimes it’s by paying attention to what’s under your nose, rather than looking for something exciting and far away that you can make breakthroughs and find new inspiration.
Set a timer
Another thing those first drawing exercises with Goodship gave me was a love for timers. Say you only have 15 minutes spare. There’s actually a lot you can do with it! On these drawings, you can see the time each one took. Ok, they’re not masterpieces. But that doesn’t matter. They will all have helped me get better at drawing, and also given me a moment of creativity in what might be an otherwise ‘non creative’ day spent working my day job or doing other life stuff.
Setting a timer also helps me when I feel creatively stuck. For example, I find cover designs quite difficult, so I’ll often set a 10 minute timer and thumbnail as many as I can before the bell rings. It’s an effective way to trick my brain into something that scares me a bit. And it has the added bonus of making use of those bitty pieces of time we get throughout a normal day but might dismiss as not ‘proper’ time meant for creating and being brilliant.
5 minutes can be enough
Even 5 minutes on a drawing can be enough sometimes to turn a day around, re-connect me with what I love, and make me feel better. That might sound a bit mad, but it’s true!
What do you do to battle a lack of time? I’d love you to tell me in the comments.
* Wanted to take a moment to tell you who The Goodship Illustration are. They are three fabulous illustrators who’ve run free art clubs on Instagram, shared lots of podcasts and made amazing courses (two of which I’ve done). Check them out! And you can find Helen Stephens and Katie Chappell here on Substack too.
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