Warm up this chilly season with a hand-drawn animated GIF. Click the image above for instructions to easily text this GIF from your smart phone. Available for a limited time.
Creativity: You can do it!
Keep it Simple.
No artistic experience is needed to draw!All you need is a pen, paper, and your observation skills. Believe it or not, how the drawing turns out really doesn't really matter.
That's why it's great to draw with pen or marker. That way, you must use every mark that ends up on the page, which requires creativity. So you get to exercise and strengthen your visual thinking skills along with your creativity and the same time.
Don't know where to start? Try just drawing the outline of things.No need to be perfect.Most of the time, close enough is actually more interesting!
This quick and simple drawing was done in my travel sketchbook while on a job in New York City. I didn't want to carry by big markers around with me, so I just used a think black pen and a small gray marker for shading.
Visit One Squiggly Line's Services page for samples of each type of work, or emailinfo@OneSquigglyLine.com to book a job, ask some questions, or set up a workshop — no drawing skills required!
Creativity: Failure & the Creative Life
Why are we afraid of failure?
It’s embarrassing. It’s humiliating. And perhaps it makes us feel weak and small inside.
When’s the last time you failed? How did it make you feel? Do you remember your reaction?
Perhaps it was a test. Poor performance at work. An interview. Suggesting a new idea.
Were you nervous? Did you cry? Get angry? Did you shy away and never try again?
Oftentimes these emotions are uncomfortable. Although difficult to experience, they lead to some of the most important lessons, opening up many doors for us later on in life.
We live in a culture where everything appears to be perfect and “normal” on the outside. Our social media accounts portray this.
The reality is that life is messy. We’re not always perfect people. And if we try to always stay within the lines, we’ll never know what lies beyond.
It’s important to allow ourselves to be open to failure and rejection, because on the other side is a reward - either a lesson to be learned, or you achieve what you intended.
This doesn't mean to be stupid with our failures, but rather, to be smart with our intentions and our reactions.
It’s not the failure itself that’s important. What’s important is that we learn from our failures and implement these lessons into our lives.
Ask yourself: If I fail at this, what’s the worst that can happen?
Failure is one of the most important tools for a creative life.
When we’re comfortable encountering failure and rejection, only then will we be able to experience results that we’ve never seen before.
A creative life is one that has experienced failure multiple times - not recoiling from it, but embracing, learning and implementing its lessons.
Failure is a steppingstone to personal success and creativity.
Learn more about Visual Thinking
Creativity & Visual Thinking: Love is Powerful!
Do you know what love feels like?
Does it make your heart skip several beats? Does it make you feel nervous? Excited? Content? Happy? Calm?
Love feels different for everyone - we each have our own love language. It’s our goal to identify how we respond and react to love.
In order to do so, we must become more familiar with ourselves.
This doesn’t just apply to romantic relationships. This applies to all aspects of our lives - our jobs, our friends, ourselves, as well as our significant others.
It’s important to fall in love with our lives, or at least certain aspects of them, as our lives are too short for mediocracy. Our lives are too short for mediocre careers, hobbies and relationships.
We must not settle for something that doesn’t stir our heart. We must try and live our lives in accordance with our passions.
In order to find love, we must know what we’re passionate about.
This all takes takes time, experience, and even failure. We must not be afraid of encountering new experiences, as every new and unfamiliar experience is valuable in helping us learn more about ourselves.
How are you going to learn more about yourself and your love language? What experiences do you want to have this year? What areas do you want to grow in?
Learn more about Visual Thinking
Creativity: We All Have It — Reignite Yours!
Think back to when you were a kid. Do you remember your personality? Do you remember any quirks you had?
And if you can’t remember that far back, think about the little kids you know, whether family, friends, or even strangers.
They all have one thing in common - they’re at the the most creative stage in their life.
Children are at a stage where they haven’t been conditioned to many routines and norms. They are completely themselves - unfiltered and raw.
...Always asking why
...Not caring too much of what others think about their appearance or their actions
...Saying whatever comes to mind
...Not holding back any ounce of laughter
As we grow older, eventually we don’t question as much
Eventually the routines of life become mainstream
Eventually our imagination grows stale
We hold back our laughter more and more
And eventually we lose the perspective of what could be in exchange for what is
Creativity gets taught out of us
Our teachers telling us to write in 12 pt. Arial font.
Our parents not having enough patience to answer all of our why’s.
Our own inflicted judgements
We become afraid of failure. Of messing up. Of saying the wrong thing. Of being judged.
To the point where we’ve lost ourselves in exchange for a mask that society has handed us.
We have unlearned creativity.
We all have the ability to be creative, but it's our job to learn it again.
Visual thinking is a great way to jumpstart your creativity, whether personally or professionally, alone or with a group. Simply watching someone else create something can inspire creative thinking and actions. Contact me to bring the power of visuals to your next event, meeting, or project and reclaim your creativity!
Visual Thinking & Creativity: Smile!
It probably comes as no surprise that cheerful, happy visuals can put you in a cheerier mood. Or make you crack a smile at the very least.
What may come as a surprise is that cheery visuals impact more than mood. And that impact differs between men and women. Men experience a greater drop in anxiety than women do when looking at a happy picture. Women, on the other hand, experience a greater boost in their working memory than men do when faced with a cheerful picture.
Check out One Squiggly Line's About Visual Thinking page to learn more.