Do you love the anticipation and excitement that comes from signing up for a new class? Perhaps you are like me, always studying, always feeling inspired by new insights and connections. Ever since I was a girl, I have loved being a student. When I became a teacher in 1994, I felt like I was at home designing both cooking and writing classes.
So it’s natural for me to think of my creative projects as classes I am both designing and taking. No one is grading me on these, but I find that the simple frame of a curriculum does a lot for me.
Framing things helps us focus. I’m always working with my clients to help them feel a sense of structure and focus. Without a frame, it’s easy to feel like we are all over the place, randomly consuming and creating and never getting anywhere.
Maybe you use a framework that suits your style. If you’re curious about how my clients and I develop our own course of study, read on.
Elements that go into my curricula:
Identify your creative edge.
My current creative edge is combining text with images, improving my composition and exploring hand lettering. All of these elements are present in my series 365 cups, where I draw, letter and write short bits of poetry or story. It’s the perfect amount of challenge and I love it.
If you’re having a hard time identifying your creative edge, imagine seeing a class description and saying ‘That! I want to take that class!”
The class description should show what you are learning and what you will leave the class with. I’ve been teaching since 1996 and I’ve written hundreds of class descriptions. Here’s a description I wrote for the series I am working on now:
Illustrated micro-essays
Bring your drawing, lettering and design skills together to produce a series of illustrated micro-essays around a theme. In this year-long class, you will:
• learn how to design a pleasing page layout
• gain practice with hand lettering and illustration
• practice how to succinctly and powerfully tell a story or share a mood in just a few words.
At the end of the 365 days, you will have a body of work that shows your progress and that could be compiled into a book, a series of greeting cards or illustrations that can be sold or licensed to others.
I would sign up for that class in a heartbeat – and I did by making it up!
In 75 words or less, write your course description that allows you to work at your creative edge.
Specify your satisfaction metrics.
We so often feel like we didn’t do enough or didn’t do things correctly. I’ve found it helps to identify what, specifically, will help you feel satisfied.
An exercise from the book The Art of Possibility by Benjamin and Rosamund Zander helps us to determine our own satisfaction metrics. Called Earning Your A, you simply write down what would you need to do to earn an A.
Clarify your A at the beginning of your ‘semester’ and return to it often to see how you’re doing.
Select source materials.
There’s such an abundance of podcasts and books and blogs to inspire and inform us. What materials relate specifically to what you are trying to achieve?
I’m currently reading things related to what I am teaching, a new course called Drawing as Meditation. These materials also contribute to my training as an artist and I can see their influence in my series.
On my reading lap are Frederick Franck’s Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing and Lynda Barry’s Syllabus.
Podcasts I listen to while drawing or cooking:
• The Savvy Painter
• On Being
• Design Matters
• NPR Arts and Life
What inspires or accompanies your work?
Show your work
In his book Show Your Work, Austin Kleon encourages us to develop our work and ourselves publicly. This showing can help get feedback and encouragement.
Every day I post a piece from my series on Instagram and Facebook. It’s not easy on travel days or when I am teaching like at Camp GLP last week. Some times require me to do several pieces in advance.
I use the hashtags #WIP (work in progress) and #showyourwork to feel like part of a community of global artists putting things out there.
Where do you show your work and how does it impact you?
Make consistent time.
One of the main reasons people sign up for a class is to force themselves to be consistent. But you can train yourself to be consistent on your own terms.
Doing a daily challenge works to help me stay on track. Using rituals like I wrote about in the last newsletter also helps.
Even if you don’t have a ton of time for your writing or creating, you can be consistent. One session a week, every week is consistent.
What can you commit to in order to show up consistently for your creating?
What does your course of study look like for this autumn? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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