In "Artist Way - Developing a consistent Art Practice", Julia Cameron explains the value of involving yourself in a practice that allows the creative mind to act freely and create art, free of the shackles of doubt and fear. The two examples she gives are Morning Pages and Artist Date. The morning pages calls for you to write 3 uninterupted pages of writing as the first thing you do every morning, whether cohierent or merely verbal diarrhea. This is to help spill the early morning thoughts that hinder creative work and skip straight to the mind ready to work. The Artist Date refers to the inner artist as a small person that you must raise and take care of like a child. The Artist Date calls for scheduled quality time with you and your inner artist in an environment that makes them comfortable and ready to work.
I produce my best work when my mind is free from intrusive thoughts and distractions and are given the opportunity to get comfortable physically and mentally. This is why I find that I produce my best work in the half dazed state of sleepiness. In a normal state I often find myself tangled in the distractions of everyday life. However, during the opening stages of sleep deprivation my mind is more loose and open to uninterrupted time to make art. I get comfortable, listen to music, and work until I pass out. In the morning I am often hardly able to remember my process but feel satisfaction in producing valuable work. This state, funnily enough, is also experienced in the brief after-lunch period, normally when I am in class, (though I don't officially condone doodling in class, it is a nice way to vent some of the artistic need in a loose, quick, and short period of time). This is often why sometimes I am able to produce better sketches in my past school notebooks than I am in my notebooks designated for sketching. When given the opprotunity I try to produce art while in this state, because I find that I can use a lot of the things I do while my mind is in such a loose and experimental state.
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