where to start?

My inner critic is loud these days so I struggle to find starting points. I start and stop more times than I can even begin to comprehend. When I was a kid I was always drawing and making things. Where did that go?

Where to start? at the beginning

Where's the beginning? where ever you are

The important thing is to show up and (like Nike says) just do it!

There is so much to do, so many possibilites how can I do it all? Well, you don't have to do it all all at once. As my cherished partner reminds me on a regular basis.... "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."

Banish your inner critic to the vault and don't listen to it. Be like a kid. Draw outside the lines. Make the sky pink and the grass orange. 

Pick up a pencil and make random marks all over a piece of paper. The paper can be plain white printer paper, a paper bag, pizza box, paper towel, a page torn out of a magazine or old discarded book or in a sketchbook. You can even draw on the sidewalk with chalk.

Make short lines, thin lines, long lines, fat lines, 

straight lines, curved lines, upside down lines,

vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines, 

jagged lines, dotted lines, light lines, dark lines,

squiggly lines, smooth lines and rough lines. 

Fill the paper from edge to edge. Put them in a box. Draw a circle and fill it with dots.

Once you've filled the paper you're done. You've just explored one of the basic elements of art and design ~ the line.

Tuck your lines away or display them on your fridge. Don't criticize them or let anyone else criticize them. They are what they are and they're awesome.

There, you've started.

Now you can do more or put it away for now and come back later for more ideas and prompts.

Have fun getting your artistic groove on!

in your daily travels look for and collect images made entirely of lines. See how many examples you can find. I've set up a Pinterest board where I keep mine....

and here's a sample I did using a discarded paper bag...