The Lardner Report

Unleash your creative superpowers!

The Fear Factor: Make It Work For You

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(Pic #1) “Little Monsters” – My first sketch with a stylus on the new iPad, using an app called “Pro Create.”  Totally freaking.

Learning something new can blast you into a supercharged creativity zone.

New tech? Color me paralyzed. It happens every time I’m introduced to a new fangled gadget or upgrade. Heck, for the longest time I even balked at learning the tech of blogging. But my fearless techie friend Amy sat me down in 2010 for weekly sessions until I was able to “enter through the back door” as they say, and troubleshoot my own writings and photo layouts. I went kicking and screaming, but she swears I was just a big baby with irrational fears of technology.

(Pic #2) Illustration by San Diego artist Beau Hufford, using the Pro Create App.

Fast forward 8 years: I’m still kicking and screaming, but the difference is I’m starting to use my fear to make each new artistic experience an exciting adventure. Yesterday, I bought a new iPad, and it was my first day using a stylus (on the screen of any device) — and it felt weird. But exhilarating. My good friend and life-long illustrator (Pic #2) Beau Hufford told me about the insane Pro Create App, and I had to jump in.

I expected to be frustrated and clueless when I started, and guess what — I was right. But the joy I felt in teaching myself something fresh and new far outweighed any angst. In fact, I couldn’t put the pen down. I couldn’t stop exploring all the digital paint brushes, fat and skinny lines, magic markers, and a tool that shoots out spray paint in real time.

The cool bonus in learning new things like this is that it’s good for your brain. According to CCSU Business & Development, “practicing a new skill stimulates neurons, which forms more neural pathways and allows electrical impulses to travel faster across them.” That means we learn better. It can even help us stave off dementia.

And oh, by the way — these innovative artistic experiences end up being way cheaper than therapy.

1-Minute Painting: Sometimes You Just Gotta Jump In

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(Pic #1) Completed 1-minute painting, house paint on acrylic, video set.

I know it’s fear that keeps us from creating.

Fear that our work will suck, fear we’ll be stuck for an idea, or fear we won’t measure up. And the truth is, we waste so much time fretting, we’re missing out on opportunities to explore and express. In my corporate creativity workshops, I often use a warm-up exercise that requires only one-minute of the executives’ time. Literally. Facing large white canvases or boards, they are asked to splash or swipe paint all over the surface, until time is up. Interestingly, it takes all the fear out of the equation, because there is just no time for it.

(Pic #2) Our backyard “set” with backdrop, latex paints, acrylic sheet and lights for video shoot.

In art school, our teachers would pare that task down to 30-seconds of quick sketching, and then 10-seconds of drawing the same model. It got to the point where we were cranking out a dozen sketches or more per class, and miraculously, they were kind of cool. The really gnarly part was when they told us to draw with our eyes closed.  Control freaks freaked. But in the end, as always, it was really about the process, not the product: the experience of getting it done, fearlessly, and boldly. It went a long way toward establishing confidence and feeling joy from a newfound freedom.

I’m working on a new website this month, and I decided to videotape a one-minute painting, shot through a 4 x 8 foot sheet of glass (technically acrylic). We edited a 5-second cut from the minute, but we’ll post more once we launch the site. It was a bit of a production in our backyard (and definitely tested my marriage) because my photographer husband warned of the 35-mile-an-hour Santa Ana winds blowing through… and the acrylic sheet was precariously placed under clamps and between a few cinder blocks. One swift nasty gust and we would have had to call it quits. (The shoot, not the marriage.) Check out the video below. It ain’t no Sister Wendy.