Seeing in a New Way

In my creative life, I dabble in a lot of things. Recently, I have been spending time working on collage and painting in my art journal. I’ve also been working on creative fiction writing for the first time in a long time. Both of these types of creative work feed off each other and I’ve noticed they change the way I look at life.

Visual Arts: Learning how to see

As I practice sketching and painting, I have been starting to look at forms and shading in new ways. The deep looking you need to do to draw or paint a figure trains your eyes in a way that carries through to my everyday life. I notice lines and color contrasts now that I didn’t even see before. That kind of visual training helps me be more observant of the beauty of lines and color in the rest of my day.

Creative Writing: Putting the Sensory Experience on Paper

During COVID, I have been gravitating more to reading fiction than in my previous life. I need less education and more escape in my life right now. It’s made me interested in writing more creative pieces as well. As I try fiction writing, and try to include imagery and sensory details, it makes me think more visually. You would think that I would have already picked up visualization skills in my work as an ASL interpreter, but I have definitely started to think differently about my character’s experience. It makes me see things in my own life more clearly. I have become more aware of the sensory details in the books I am reading and in my everyday life.

A Different View of Life

This is one of the ways creative living can enhance the life of amateur artists. I don’t paint for a living. I am not a professional writer, but practicing creative things enriches the other aspects of my life.

Have you had aspects of your art affect the way you “see” things in the rest of your life?