A grey autumn afternoon seems the perfect time for a post about colour, don’t you think?

At the start of the year, I decided to do a weekly creative post here at I Give You The Verbs, so 52 Paintings (a category on the blog) and #paintisaverb (for Instagram/Twitter etc) were created. (If something’s worth doing, it deserves its own blog category and hashtag, right?) Here’s the first post in the series.

Over the past 14 weeks, I have painted more than I have over the past 46 years. Some weeks the paints were out day after day, and some weeks I was less motivated or found it hard to make the time. When I got a job, I treated myself to a couple of one-on-one art lessons with Selina of I I Can Draw With Selina and I discovered that I can actually draw. I think I’ll stick with painting, but it was awesome to achieve something I thought was completely out of my reach. I drew a cupcake! Selina taught me so much in our lessons; I have new skills, and more importantly, I have new confidence in my creativity.

A couple of weeks ago someone in my bloggy Facebook gang shared a link to The 100 Day Project, which you can read all about here. In a nutshell, the 100-Day Project is a celebration of process that encourages everyone to participate in 100 days of making. The great surrender is the process; showing up day after day is the goal. For the 100-Day Project, it’s not about fetishising finished products—it’s about the process.

The great thing about the project is that the manner of making is up to each individual who decides to get on board. I know people who are doing #100daysofhandlettering, #100daysofmakingmandalas, and #100daysofrandomcreativity to name just a few.

I am doing #100daysofpausing. I didn’t think I could commit to being creative in the same way for 100 days running, so by choosing to pause, I can take a photograph, paint, write, cook, reflect, strike a yoga pose, look at the sky, sing a song…. the options are only limited by my imagination.

Here are some of the things I’ve paused to make, see, enjoy, appreciate and feel so far.

I am posting every day on my Instagram account. If you don’t already, why not follow me and we can count off the 100 days together?

This challenge is an extension of what I wanted when I started #paintisaverb, which is to be deliberately creative, to make creativity part of my every day life and not some far off, only for the ‘talented few’ thing that I couldn’t enjoy. For the time being there might not be specific 52 Paintings posts each week, but I’m still creating and making!

There are about 80 days remaining of #the100dayproject – it’s not too late to get on board, and commit to making as a daily practice. I am loving it, I’m thinking more creatively, and appreciating the time spent on making. It’s not something I have to ‘squeeze in’, it’s something I look foward to every day – it might be as quick as taking a photo, or painting for 10 minutes or longer. It’s the act of making that counts, not the amount of time spent or the results.

And don’t we all need that? Something that we do for FUN, not for a result or a critique? I think so.

As the Dilmah man says, ‘do try it’.

Yours colourfully,

Annette