summertime creativity

What happens to your creativity in the summertime?
Does it melt faster than a gelato al limone in the sun?

I don’t know about you, but I am not a huge fan of summer. The sweating, the mosquitoes, the languishing in the shade, the humidity (even though it makes my curls go bananas – in a good way).

It makes me sluggish and I always feel like I lack energy. Not good for someone like me who always like to be on the go, and has a bunch of stuff to be doing.

So, how can I approach this season (at least 4 months of serious heat here in Italy where I live), and come out the other side without having that feeling like I just wasted all that time languishing with a melted gelato in my hand?

I have come up with a few ways that I like to harness this different season and try to alter my rhythms to match the rhythm changes and the climate.

daily schedule

It’s light earlier, and later. I love the cool morning air, but I normally haven’t been able to get to sleep until late (where IS that damn mozzie in the room!!!). While during the rest of the year I normally get up at 5am – the quiet dark is a time I love before the rest of the house is awake – in summer I sleep in a bit later. This also matches with my family schedule as the kids are not going to school, there is no rush rush rush.
The slower pace is nice, and it also means I work a bit later into the evening , after the obligatory siesta time imposed by the oppressive heat from 3pm until about 6pm.

This shift means I am awake at times that are different than normal, and so I have the opportunity to make different observations that I would otherwise.

I am awake in the evening twilight and not in the predawn dark. Different points of inspiration appear, new angles and shapes are observable.

place

Summer is the time for travel, for visits to the local pool, or beach or river or lake. Being near a body of water gives rise to a whole new set of sensation- ripples, sounds, light, smells, tastes, colours. A feast for the senses, even if those senses are dulled by the heat.

I love to take a small sketch book wherever I go –

Kids in the pool? No worries, keep an eye on them as you sketch the ripples on the bottom of the pool.

Going for a hike in the mountains to get away from the heat? Pack a small sketch book and a pencil. Jot a few things down along the hike, or when you stop to take in the views. What better way to relax at the top in that delicious cool air than to process what you are looking at through sketching.

Bored at the beach? Read all the magazines? Sketch shells, patterns traced in the sand, umbrellas and their moving shadows, seagrasses, rocks, kelp.

travel

The act of movement, in the car, whooshing past landscapes, scenery. Maybe it’s a road you have driven 10 thousand times before, back to grandma’s house, or to your favorite camping place, or even back home.

Look at it with new eyes. What colours do you really see? What shapes? How does the landscape change? What about the sky? How many changes can you document? What happens when you try to sketch the moving view out your window? Can you keep up? Fast sketches, or time altered sketches?

Film the whooshing view on your phone and later play it on a loop and sketch as the video plays. You’re trying to capture the moving shapes, but also the abstracted, drawn-out, time expanded visions that appear.

Travelling with kids? Give them a small pad or notebook and a pencil too. See how differently you all observe the passing landscape.

These are 3 ways which I use to shift my focus from the buzzing mosquitoes, from the dripping sweat, from the languishing heat, from the long roadtrip. They are slow ways to stay connected to my creativity in an otherwise energy sapping period of the year when I would otherwise feel highly unmotivated.

Small ways to stay connected to creating when your schedule and cycles are thrown out by the changes summer brings (kids home from school, work increasing or decreasing, energy levels changing).

Let me know what you do during the summer- do you pack your creativity and take it on holiday with you? Or do you abandon it and hope to return to it when the weather changes? Drop a comment here.