Three things that have recently refueled my creative fire this week (four if you count a shift in hormones allowing me to wake up sooner).

The first came in a casual conversation with new family member Jag, he’s an artist, you can find him here. I showed him some home extensions, one of them is my creative space. We chatted about painting and shared stories of how we’ve both created over time. I shared some personal hang-ups and he listened and brought forth so much encouragement.

The second was mulling around twitter on a search for #artjournaler and I came across an old-time blogger iHannah. She’s still around painting journal pages in Sweden and her video on a page a day reminded me to just have fun and play. ‘It doesn’t matter if you paint a bad self-portrait in your journal one day, afraid to show the world – just do it.’

The third was a dream, I had a nap and dreamt I was in a small house with husband and he came to look at what I was painting, he said it was a lot of darks and there were no lights. I looked at my small canvas – dark brown, dark orange. I looked at the room, it was almost completely dark. He suggested I use lighter colours, go light, be lighter.

These three experiences tie in well with a podcast episode I listened to recently on Achieve your goals by Hal Elrod. To use what you read (or in this case experience, learn) to positively impact your behavior. It will change your thinking, you may go back and check your values. The real change happens when you change your behavior in a positive way.

Since our conversation, I’ve found a new appreciation of my creative space, I’m still experimenting with drawing though I am letting loose paint across a page again. It is partly about letting go of the past too.

iHannah inspires me no end, since watching her video and going through her blog again I’ve started journaling in an almost finished journal and added paint in new Moleskine one too. I’ve also loosened up the ‘Draw your day’ I was doing in my square book (that only resulted in four pages a month anyway) and am doing a mix of drawing and playing

I finally updated my main art supplies! These will be on the go style supplies, inspired by journal girls couch box revisited I did a big shop on Art discount and Cassa Art. Though less is more and keeping it simple is key, so are quality paints, pens, and brushes. It needed a mix-up.

I have been painting lighter, colour blocking is so much fun.

I’m exploring a possible journal project, looking into how I can journal pre-prepped pages while still making a mark in the moment. Who knows how I will feel weeks from now, a change and plummet of hormones made it unbearable to even look at a page before, let alone fill it with colour soulfully.

It’s as if a light has been turned on and the windows are wide open.

What has lit a spark for you this week?