100 Ways to Live a Creative Life, 26-50

Here it is! The continuation of 100 things to do to live a creative life. It's too big to post all at once, and I felt even posting them consecutively would be too dense, so I'm taking my brother's upcoming wedding as the opportunity to back post some material.

I'm still home, but busy with packing and getting the littles and myself ready for a road trip to South Carolina. I'll be gone until late Sunday night, so look for some more creative tips this weekend.

26. Lay on your back under a tree for fifteen minutes. Watch the leaves and sun and shadows. Let yourself be inspired by that.

27. Empty out your bag and draw or photograph the contents.

28. Take your lunch hour and visit a gallery or museum.

29. Listen to a favorite album from your past. Reflect on how far you have come.

30. Take a walk in a familiar or unfamiliar neighborhood. Look for things you have never seen before.

31. Draw a shadow.

32. Go someplace where there are a lot of people. Just sit and people watch. Allow yourself to be. Allow them to be. Look at all the marvelous ways people are unique.

33. Draw a picture of your monsters. These are the monsters you see when you sleep at night. The monsters that are in your memory. The monsters that tell you what you can't do or how you are no good. Draw them, then tell them to shut it.

34. Keep a flower by your bedside.

35. Get a corkboard or string up a cord with clothespins. Keep an inspiration board. Any time you find something beautiful or meaningful or inspirational, pin it up there. Keep this where you can look at it and let it inspire your work.

36. Have fun with paper. Make a paper hat or a paper plane, a football, or one of those finger games where you flip it around to find out your future. Make a paper crane. Have some scissors handy? Cut out some paperdolls, or paper animals. Snowflakes. Paper is everywhere, explore what you can do with it.

37. Leave post it notes with inspirational messages on them in places where people can see them.

38. Put a secret on a postcard, send it in to Postsecret.

39. Learn a new hobby or pick up an old one that you can do during quiet times, like watching tv at night or hanging with your partner. Knitting, sewing, painting... something that you can do with your hands but leaves the rest of you still present.

40. Organize your life by color. The cupboards, your closets, the bookshelves, collections, photographs. Use the rainbow to reinterpret your daily life. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. It's surprising how different things look when they are placed in a color scheme.

41. Walk around with a hand mirror. Look at the world through this mirror. You become very accustomed to what you see. Looking at it in the reverse can help you see things that have gone invisible.

42. Stand on a table, or a bench. Get up high and look at the world. It looks different. It feels different.

43. Get down low. Sit under the table or over in a corner. Crawl around and realize all the things that are going on at this low level. This is what children see, and pets. It's a new experience.

44. Don't wash the dishes. Go out and see the sunset.

45. Wash the dishes. Put on some music or just allow the world to be full of splashing and clinking. Feel the water, the warmth, the suds, the slippery dishes, the different textures.

46. Pick up a guitar or sit down at a piano. Remember that instrument you took lessons on when you were 12? Play it. Don't try to follow any music if you don't want to, or do. Pick out an old favorite song by sound. Make up your own. Experiment with chords and fingering and all the sounds that you can make when you just try to make music.

47. Sing. Sing while you are watering the plants. Sing while you are going to the mail box. Sing while you are walking from the car to the store, sing while you shop. Sing the kid to sleep, sing some old games like B.I.N.G.O. Sing along to the radio, sing in the shower. Just sing, sing a song.

48. Take a walk in the rain. No umbrella. (One caveat, make sure it is not freezing rain and you have some dry clothes for later, or at least a place to go without air conditioning. I speak from experience.)

49. Get some chalk and draw on the sidewalk. With kids, without. Who cares. What would you like to see?

50. Instead of simply writing out your To Do list, try to map it out. Sketch a map of the route you would take to get your To Do list done. Draw symbols for your goals. Or do it the other way around. Draw the map out of what you did that day and where you went.