Saturday, December 26, 2015

All Work, No Play? Why Goofing Off is Good for You

The day after Christmas is a good day to just chill out, and that's precisely what I did today. After all the frantic preparations, shopping for gifts, cleaning the house, preparing Christmas dinner, coping with torrential rains and violent storms and dodging tornadoes as well as toppling trees, it was so wonderful to just sit and do absolutely nothing. Oh sure, there are a million things on the agenda yet to tackle, but today was truly a day of blessed rest! Sometimes we put so much pressure on ourselves preparing for the holidays that we forget to reserve time for ourselves to "recharge." I plead guilty on all counts. Now that I've spent all day doing nothing at all, and feeling restored and refreshed as a result, I see this is a gift I should give myself more often.

Of course I did spend time in the studio, but instead of working on a project I "should" tackle, I chose to just play with some transparent fluid acrylics. With nothing more purposeful in mind than observing how the colors would interact, I splashed pigment onto 8x8" gessoed watercolor paper, pushed it around, added some lines and marks, then added more lines and marks with inks and brightly colored Sharpies. It probably won't ever hang in the Louvre, but this "playtime" experiment actually yielded some exciting ideas for a future series. This happened without needing to consciously think about anything, plan it or do any analyses. the lightbulb moments just seemed to come out of nowhere. My motto for 2016? Work less, play more. A lot more! It goes to show goofing off is truly GOOD for you!

©2015 Lynn Edwards

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