I've been reading Janna Malamud Smith's book "An absorbing errand- how artists and craftsmen make their way to mastery". This is a book well worth reading if you write or do any of the arts. She talks about the need to be alone to work in privacy but says "we also need to be stirred up, stimulated and challenged by others, especially others who share our interests and with whom we feel some modicum of mutual respect." She also says " our own thinking and creativity are often better catalyzed and stimulated in discourse, not in isolation". I know that for me, being in my drawing group or having a demo at a Guild meeting can set the wheels of creative thinking rolling. For the past while, I've been putting notes from what the demo speaker had to say, right in my sketch book. I often do a drawing of the demo artist too! Then I think about it and write what my take is. Sometimes it is one little idea - for example I think I'll make an accordion sketch book just for fun. I think I'd use mine for Life Drawing. Sometimes I write that I can appreciate what the artist is doing but would not want to work that way myself. Even that is good, because it means I've thought about the way I work and why it works for me.
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