#162 - Traveling As A Part Of Our Creative Habit
On going outside to trigger ideas.
YouTube Video - Practice Drawing A Rotating 3D Curved Cigar Model
’ve been on a three-week holiday, into my third week as I write this, my eighth newsletter article. After filling sixty percent of my sketchbook and preparing nine or so YouTube videos. A holiday where I had creative epiphany after epiphany.
There was a summer where I cycled a lot for health purposes. As soon as I was outside the city and in a more rural area, a drastic change of scenery, I had to stop about every hundred meters as I had an epiphany, a new idea worth pursuing. I just had to stop to jot down the idea. (always have a sketchbook with you, no matter how small!) It was ridiculous: cycle, stop, take out the sketchbook, write down an idea, put it away, continue cycling for a short distance, rinse and repeat.
I discovered this fifteen years ago on a holiday in Japan: the change of environment is such an attack on your senses that it starts your creative juices flowing in a big way.
Your output is a response to your input, so control what your senses take in. Going outside, and especially traveling, is a radical variant of that.
Maybe it’s because the change of scenery assaults your senses, or maybe it’s because you are taking a step back from creating so your subconscious can get to work. It doesn’t matter. It works. Try it if you get a chance! Even a free spot at a local public library can work.