For anyone out there who has ever been inspired by life's little details, I recommend this book by Danny Gregory. He has a couple other great titles (see Everyday Matters), but The Creative License: Giving Yourself the Permission to be the Artist You Truly Are helps you see each day through a whole new set of lenses, and the possibilities begin to seem endless!
"[Danny Gregory] gently instructs us in the art of allowing ourselves to fail, giving up the expectation of perfection and opening our eyes to the beauty around us. The result is...a wild celebration of amateurism, full of humor, passion, and encouragement, sure to inspire every doodler, frustrated writer, wannabe musician, and midlife-crisising executive--in other words, the artist inside every one of us."--Hyperion Books
Excerpt from Everyday Matters:
"...Then one evening, I decided to teach myself to draw...I committed to drawing the things around me, sticking to studies of real things... my first efforts were horrible... But one quiet evening, ... Something about that drawing was different from anything I'd ever done before. I took my time, and then suddenly I zoned out. My mind went blank, my breathing slowed, and when I finally stopped to look at my page, I was amazed that I had managed to create anything so beautiful. At first, it seemed like a fluke... but then I drew the contents of our medicine cabinet (slowly, slowly), and again I saw something new...
What was different was not the drawing but the seeing. I caressed what I drew with my eyes, lingering over every curve and bump, gliding around contours and into shadows. No matter what I looked at in this way, I saw beauty and felt love. It was very weird but it happened again and again. When I slowed way down and let my mind go, I had the same incredibly sensual experience. It didn't matter what I drew. And then I discovered it didn't matter what the drawing was like. In fact, I could simply toss it away, like the skin of a banana. What mattered was the slow, careful gaze." --Danny Gregory, Everyday Matters
P.S. Click here to check out his blog
photo credit: Amazon.com
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