I was home sick yesterday. It’s Saturday today, and I’m still home sick. Actually, it’s not so much sickness, as remarkably strong fatigue. Ever since my diagnosis and treatment, I have some days that I can do nothing other than sleep, or lie in a heap on the couch with a delicious cup of green tea before going back to bed to sleep! The fatigue is crazy-powerful. It makes me feel ill in many different ways. It’s annoying, but what can I do? Press on with relentless positivity, some kvetching, and of course some creativity!

Today’s a bit better, but yesterday even creative thinking, and artistic work, had me climbing back into bed. But as someone said “Earth without art is just eh. Go.make.art!” Or as I say, “Life without creativity and art is missing some serious joy!” So fatigue or not, art and creativity here I come!

I’m trying to figure out a design for a bathroom cabinet. I know it will contain the word LOVE in arts and crafts style lettering, as well as some as yet unknown number of arts and crafts style flowers. I thought about the project for a few days, and then began sketching the flowers. I’ve done them before but these will be mirror images of the ones I’ve done in the past. Sounds simple right? Yeah, not so much.

Yesterday I grabbed my grid paper and began sketching a plethora of flowers. Some of them looked a lot more like eyeballs than flowers! Eyeballs! That just won’t do! It cracks me up and frustrates me all at the same time. So I sketch on, immersed in my creative and artistic process.

• Math — the shapes, the number of grid lines I’m using to create each flower, where the various shapes lie in relationship to the middle of the whole flower.
• Freedom to make the shapes flow and a bit askew instead of mathematically perfect.
• Deep observing — of the flower, the shapes, the sweep of the lines, the areas that are outside my original space.
• The beauty of my pencil — how it feels in my hand, and how wonderfully it skims across the paper leaving my mark with great ease.
• The process itself — think, try, think some more, look at it a lot, go away, come back, look at it again, rearrange, repeat.
• And, finally there is me, my breath, my brain, my heart, and the joy and contentment I feel as I create, learn, make mistakes, try again, and eventually succeed.

This is my work from yesterday. Overcome at one point with how much they all really did look like eyeballs I pulled out my watercolors and brush, hopeful the color would help me see flowers. If nothing else I figured the watercolor would bring me joy.

Thankfully the watercolor worked wonders. The eyeballs transformed into  proper-looking flowers, and I transformed into a little less frustrated, little more happy and content me.

I want to share this process more and more with my students — in all areas of the curriculum. I want them to experience all I just experienced.

I’m sure I’ve said this before, and each time I have this revelation anew, I try to be mindful of my teaching practice and classroom management. Do I gift my students with time to process, think, create, observe, learn, fail, try again, rethink, and change their minds? Am I transparent sharing my own process with them? Do they know how many times my flowers look like eyeballs?

I try, that’s for sure. But, there is something really intrinsic to my process, that I am not convinced I provide for my students. Is it time to think? Time to be with one problem or project? Time to observe and learn about things on their own?

I don’t know. But, for sure there is something about being in the moment, something about the immersion, the peace, the struggle, and the whole process that I must continue to reflect upon, and bring to my students.