Marie Boudon - Dare to Create!: 35 Challenges to Boost Your Creative Practice

For Douce, who has always encouraged my creativity.

Dare to Create: 35 Challenges to Boost

Your Creative Practice

Marie Boudon

Editor: Kelly Reed

Translation: Marie Deer

Copyeditor: Barbara Richter

Proofreader: Linda Laflamme

Graphic design and layout: Julie Simoens

Production layout: Gary Hespenheide

Project manager: Lisa Brazieal

Marketing coordinator: Mercedes Murray

Cover: Studio Eyrolles ditions Eyrolles

Cover illustrations: Marie Boudon (except top right: Photographee.eu / Shutterstock)

All illustrations and photographs are by the author, except as noted here:

Amy Anderson: (portrait);

Courtney Cerruti: ;

Danielle Krysa: ;

Deeann Rieves: ;

Deeann Rieves/Lauren Carnes photography: ;

Eduardo Pavez: (portrait);

Emma Block: ;

Fran Meneses: ;

Ira Sluyterman van Langeweyde: ;

JJ Ignotz Photography: ;

Jordan Matter: ;

Josie Lewis: ;

Kiana Underwood/Tulipina: ;

Laura Gilli: ;

Lisebery: ;

Marie-Charlotte Photographie: (bottom);

Minnie Small: ;

Nomi Micheau: ;

Pacco: ;

PV Nova: ;

Shari Blaukopf: ;

Stefan Oberholz: (portrait);

Stephanie Seaton: (portrait);

(top);

Yao Cheng Design LLC Christa Kimble Photography (.

ISBN: 978-1-68198-735-4

1st Edition (1st printing, March 2021)

Original French title: Jose crer

2019 ditions Eyrolles, Paris, France

75240 Paris Cedex 05 www.editions-eyrolles.com

French ISBN: 978-2-212-67691-4

Rocky Nook Inc.

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Distributed in the UK and Europe by Publishers Group UK

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2020949312

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This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Printed in China.

Marie Boudon

tribulationsdemarie.com

35 Challenges to Boost
Your Creative Practice

At the beginning of 2015, I felt the need to reconnect with my creativity, which I had completely set aside for a long time. At the time, I was an engineer, and it wasnt that easy to reconcile my work with my budding passion for watercolors. I was teaching myself, and I often felt lost: Where should I start? How should I move forward? How should I organize myself? How could I find my own style? Most of the time, these questions kept me from moving forward, and I spent entire weeks at a time just thinking about the best way to do things.

In order to find help and suggestions, I read a lot of books and listened to a large number of podcasts on creativity, art, and personal development. I was hoping for a look behind the scenes at artists practices, in any field. Very few shared their secrets, because a persons artistic practice is very personal and involves their intimate life, or because revealing themselves that way would have threatened their uniqueness. And yet, everything I learned about an artists organization, inspiration, confidence, habits, or personality nurtured my own art much more than any technical advice on mixing pigments would have done. I understood that these ideas had to do with the creative process, and my new goal was to develop my own in a holistic way. The American photographers and writers David Bayles and Ted Orland, in their book Art & Fear, Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, write: We are taught to paint, but not really to paint our own paintings.

In 2016, I moved from theory to practice. Internalizing the pieces of advice that I had gathered and gradually experimenting with them was much more revealing to me than theory: it allowed me to feel things. I understood that advice on creativity fell into two very different categories:

the category of Organization, including the keywords:

order, planning, research, iterations, mastery, meticulousness, repetition, orchestration, cerebral

the category of Spontaneity, including the keywords:

intuition, experimental, risk, raw, chaos, improvisation, visceral, sensations

As a project manager, I was, of course, more comfortable with the advice that fell into the category of Organization, and I was reassured to see that many artists practiced their art in a disciplined way. When I finally decided to accept and draw on the scientific side of my personalitywhich I had thought was contrary to my creativityI was able to benefit from what I could learn from my professional life, specifically the tools of time management and task tracking, and I made a great leap forward. At the same time, I was aware that [p. 6] I also had to exercise the spontaneous side of my creative process. It was harder for me to let go so that I could improvise or experiment. But I realized that when I did, that opened up a new field of possibilities. After about a year, I started combining these different abilities and creating my own practice.

This kind of approach is thrilling, because your result (a final product) is less important than the total adventure. Exercising your creative process is a constant renewal, and it gives an entirely new dimension to an artistic practice.

I decided to write this book so that I could share this journey and help guide you on your own creative path, from your first self-doubts to the affirmation of your voice. This book is the fruit of my experiences but, especially, of a lot of research, in particular with some fascinating artists, whose own words and personal stories you will find over the course of these pages.

Whatever level you are at (beginner or expert), and whatever your artistic practice (photography, drawing, painting, collage, etc.), this book will accompany you as you practice your art and also guide you in your mental practice, which is essential to your progress.

This volume is made up of thirty-five challenges. Each of them uses a variety of methods (ranging from very deliberate to very spontaneous) and encourages you to practice. And going beyond the reading, your own activity will allow you to discover the methods that work best for you.