I have a new creative project that I am in the very beginning stages of and it is a big project. It's something that I've been thinking about for a long time and haven't been able to get to because of lack of time  and because I couldn't figure out exactly how to make it happen. But some time has opened up and the shape of it has now become very clear.

I'm very jazzed about it and my muse is totally onboard with it signaling her approval by  continually feeding me ideas. It's something that I really want to do. I think it's going to be pretty awesome once it's completed.

And I'm avoiding it like the plague.

I am hopelessly and madly in love with the creative process, but like any relationship where you are hopelessly and madly in love there are times when your beloved drives you crazy.

And the creative process is no exception.

One of the ways that it makes me wacky is how inexplicably linked it is to my inner critic. As soon as I'm ready to launch into virgin creative territory the judging mind is right there breathing down my neck, sometimes whispering and other times shouting in my ear. It wastes no effort in finding numerous tactics all designed to make me miserable and with the ultimate goal of stopping the creative show.

It reminds me of those fairy tales where the hero or heroine is searching for the treasure and they find the cave where the all the shiny, gorgeous stuff is hidden but have to deal with the big, scary fire-breathing dragon before they can get anywhere near it.

And that's kind of how it feels. When I am at the beginning of a new creative venture I start off feeling tremendously excited because I'm so very close to the source. The treasure is right there where I can practically touch it. I can imagine all the pleasure and satisfaction I will have diving into the creative energy and birthing this never before seen thing into the world. But before that happens I have to do some fancy footwork around that dragon.

And my initial responses to that dragon are not always very heroic.

At first it just looks so darn big. And I feel so small in comparison. It sits there blocking the door looking all smoky and fangy and intimidating while telling me all the ways I'm not good enough and why I don't deserve the treasure.

The treasure is only for people who are really talented and have something worthwhile to say.The treasure is earmarked for real artists and real writers. The treasure belongs to someone who is brilliant and full of genius.

In other words, the treasure is obviously not for me.

So my first non-heroic response is to hang my head and mope around for a while. I feel tired. And vaguely crummy. I keep telling myself that I just need to rest a little bit more or that I need to answer a few more emails or finally clean out the freezer. And the time that I set aside for writing or painting just slips away.

The dragon is happily sitting there feeling mighty smug. And I get more panicked and more distracted and less and less able to focus. Which of course makes me feel smaller and less confident and more avoidant. And like maybe this whole project was not such a good idea after all.

This goes on for a while. The length of time I spend wandering around in circles of misery varies with the size of the project. Since the project that I have in mind is pretty ambitious I was able to spend the last two weeks of December (which I had set aside by taking some time off work ), frittering away my precious creative time.

Another really charming aspect of this process is that while I am in this state I don't fully realize what is causing it. I go unconscious. Develop temporary amnesia. It's like I am under a weird kind of spell and I go in and out of forgetting that this is just what happens when I start something I've never done before. I forget that the dragon is doing a number on me and that the reason I am unable to make much headway is that I am feeling powerless and helpless in the face of the fear that the dragon is so good at engendering.

Eventually, something shifts. I get frustrated by and sick of all the inertia which allows me to wake up enough where I can begin to see the dragon for what it is. I will read something or have a dream or a conversation with my husband or a friend that allows me to shake off the poison trance of creative paralysis.

At that point I don't even need to be very heroic. Once the scales have fallen from my eyes the dragon loses much of it's power.... at least for the time being... and I am able to simply walk into the cave and claim some of the treasure as mine. Until the next time that I am abducted into the underworld of the dragon's lair.

It has always seemed so unfair that opening to my creative muse immediately whips my judging mind into a frenzy of activity. For a long while it was a puzzle to me. It didn't make any sense as to why I would be so crippled by fear and doubt whenever I was inspired to create something, which unfortunately for me happens on a regular basis.

But eventually I started to figure a few things out. I began to notice some patterns.

Bringing something new into the world it means going into unfamiliar territory. My creative process is constantly goading me and leading me towards the unknown. It is fascinated by what's around the next bend and what it hasn't experienced. It feeds on experimentation. It is an adventurer that thrives on risk and has no interest at all in repeat performances.

Ultimately what it wants is for me to continually grow and change and to express as much of me as I can in the short time I have here on the planet.

And all that gung-ho, let's just go off willy nilly without a map and a guaranteed outcome makes the judging mind, which is terrified by anything that it hasn't done before, go totally bonkers.

It simply doesn't like strange new things. It's convinced that any foray into places it hasn't been before is just plain dangerous. The unmapped world is full of dark alleys and muggers and maybe a touch of bubonic plague thrown in for good measure as far as it is concerned.

And so it tries to stop me. I know, I know. It's only trying to protect me. It's trying to keep me safe and in one piece.

You could say that it loves me. I'm actually pretty sure that it does. But it's the kind of love that wants to keep me so protected that I'm like a bird in a cage, my wings clipped  and my freedom to fly seriously curtailed. If I let it run the show, I would end up leading a very small and unchallenged life, littered with unused potential.

So I keep choosing to live a life propelled by my creative longings. Which means regular run ins with the dragon. And predictable periods of time trying to struggle out of fear induced creative stagnation.

The best I can do as I make this sometimes arduous creative journey is be enormously kind to myself. To be as compassionate as possible whenever I find myself lying flat on my back having been pole axed once again by the dragon's latest "tough love" attempts to keep me out of harms way.

And to try and remember that the dragon wouldn't be so fired up unless I was really, really close to something wild and sweet and wonderful that will probably change my life in the best possible way.

I have a new intuitive painting student who has been surprising herself by how often she finds herself asking the question "You mean it's really OK to do that?"

This question comes up around simple things like " You mean it's OK to make a mess? Is it really OK to use this much paint? Or to use two pieces of paper if I want to make a really big painting?"

On the one hand she knows all these questions are absurd. I have made it totally clear to her that she has complete permission to do whatever she wants. But it was incredibly eye-opening for her to see how many unconscious assumptions and rules were governing her creative life.

One of the reasons it's hard to be as fully creatively as you might want to be is that we are all riddled with these types of erroneous expectations. We are constantly being bombarded, both internally and externally, with different messages around what is allowable, what is permissible, what fits in with who you think you are and who you think others will allow you to be.

We get pigeonholed. Locked into an identity. We all have a story about who we are creatively. And that story generally comes from what we've been told by other people.

Some of us were granted the artist title. But that designation can be just as inhibiting and suffocating as being told you don't have a creative bone in your body. When you are the "artist" you always have to be proving yourself. You are constantly trying to outrun the critiques. You can't make bad art, you always have to be  original and you don't dare expose yourself as having substandard technique.

Some of us were stamped as "creatively defective". So we never even bother to try and pick up a paintbrush or write a poem because we are led to believe the myth of talent and the even bigger myth that we don't have any.

But there are myriads of other messages that we get around what is allowable creative expression, especially as adults.

One of my favorite activities is to go to a certain local city park where I can be out in nature. This particular park has a wide asphalt trail that winds through the trees and around a lake and is filled with birds and beauty and silence. It's popular but not overly crowded especially during the weekday afternoons which is when I like to be there. I also love bringing my iPod, wearing my Bose headphones and playing music as I walk.

There is one eensie-weensie problem which is that when I'm listening to some of my favorite tunes cranked up to maximum volume on my headset I am inspired to do more than just walk. I'm already pretty jazzed and energized just being outside but then the music makes me want to start toe tapping and even bursting into a little "the hills are alive" tra-la-la-ing , as well as indulging in some of my "I am a rockstar singer" fantasies.

I usually don't follow that impulse, however, because the ironclad cultural message that we all have deep in our bones is that we DO NOT sing and dance out in public on the streets if we are a grownup.

Now, singing and dancing where other people can see you is not COMPLETELY prohibited.

There are certain very proscribed places that it's OK to sort of spontaneously move our bodies to music. It's acceptable to shake our booty on a dance floor in a club or at a wedding. It's still within the realm of acceptable behavior to open wide and sing along with the performers if we are at a concert.

But walking along a trail in the forest and trying out my version of tap dance moves while gamely attempting to hit the high notes on an old Joni Mitchell song? Nuh uh. No way Jose. That is just wrong. If you do something like that you are plain weird. Unacceptable. Not normal. Way far out on the farthermost hinterlands of the bell curve.

However, even though I'm well trained in most popular social mores sometimes I just can't help it. My body simply wants to move when the beat takes hold of me. So I would find myself out there on the trail torn between the desire to appear sane by simply walking in an orderly fashion while fighting off the urge to break into a little impromptu twist and shout and risk being branded as a crazy person.

Occasionally, when I could stand it no longer, and only after making sure the coast was clear by furtively looking behind me and hoping that no one would appear around the next bend in the direction I was headed, I would allow myself to briefly prance and gyrate like Gwen Stefani on stage singing her hit song Hey Baby. And as soon as someone would come into view on the path I would immediately stop my hip twirling and pretend like I was doing nothing more than strolling.

This sneaky strategy was exhausting, completely unsatisfying and at a certain point became patently, obviously ridiculous. I actually like to think of myself as someone who is fairly uninhibited around the whole creative self expression thing. After all, it's MY JOB to help other people gain more freedom around their creativity.

I feel like it's important that I hold down that particular fort, providing some support and role modeling for people to let their creative freak flag fly, hopefully giving them permission to maybe take a few more creative risks. And trusting that if I am seen putting myself out there, it can help other people feel a little less scared and maybe even give it a try.

So I knew I had to change my approach to this whole thing. I knew I had to stop being so constrained by a cultural expectation and limitation that I think is total bullshit anyhow. I had to risk being thought of as weird and crazy. I had to break a social contract.

It was time for me to start dancing in the streets. Or at least on the city park asphalt.

I took the plunge while joyfully jumping around and belting it out to one of my favorite songs by the Ramones, I Want To Be Sedated. Because I was scared, I started my little experiment when I was alone on the path, but when a group of 20 something guys appeared coming over the next hill, I didn't stop.

This was NOT the group I was hoping would be my witnesses on my maiden street dancing voyage. I would have been much happier if it had been a group of 90 somethings who maybe couldn't see and hear all that well. But I knew it was now or never.

I needed to make a stand. And a shimmy.

I was highly uncomfortable because I could feel that it made them uneasy. I could see them looking at me out of the corner of their eye with a WTF? look on their faces that I could easily interpret as being judgmental. And they were also edging away from me slightly as if worried that my obvious unbalanced state could lead to something even more unpleasant than shaking old lady butt.

But we all survived.

They had a story that they could tell about this weird white haired woman they saw making a total fool of herself in the park. And I reclaimed a tiny bit more of my creative freedom to sing and dance wherever I damn well please.

When people come to my classes they often show up because they are enticed by a promise. I find them on my doorstep because they've been to my website, or they've seen a flyer or read my blog. They come to me believing that what they want are all the things that I say I'm offering which is an opportunity to become more creative. To regain the  freedom and joy that they once had as a child to express themselves in any way that they want.

They come filled with hope that through this process I can help them unlock the door to their unique creative juciness. To experience the happiness that comes from not worrying about what other people think and the permission to just be themselves.

And this longing to be creative without constraints is very, very real.

But what they also secretly or not so secretly want is to make a beautiful painting.

Stoners are creative people, too.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area which is a place that is a mecca for the arts of all kinds. And one of my favorite places to go when I'm needing some major hit of art inspiration is the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park.

One of the things I love about the DeYoung is their focus on diversity. Which basically means that they are partial to featuring creative installations from people and cultures all over the world and not just art made by dead white men who used to reside in Western Europe.

Many of you reading this are probably too young to remember the stoner comedy duo who called themselves Cheech and Chong. *Warning: Potty mouth alert*. Their comedy routine was basically one, long, stupid and mindless riff on being majorly fucked up, primarily on marijuana. I was never a huge fan, but they were cultural icons when I was growing up in the 60's, so I knew who they were.

Apparently Cheech took some part of the millions that he made acting like someone who could not get his shit together to save his life and became a patron and collector of Mexican art over the years. And the DeYoung was showing that collection.

In my classes one of the things that I hear a lot is people deciding that certain colors are ugly. Sometimes they will actively avoid these colors or sometimes they will consciously decide to use them because they are challenging themselves to branch out. And the colors that most often get put in that category are the shockingly fluorescent blues, greens, reds and yellows with some hot pink thrown in for good measure.

When I was walking around the Cheech exhibit at the DeYoung the thing that really stood out was the abundant use of those wild and what are often judged as garish fluorescent colors. And these paintings were beautiful. Alive. Intense. Practically jumping off the walls in their vibrancy of color.

And it struck me in that moment how much our conception of what is beautiful is actually based on a social construct.  In this western culture our idea of beauty is largely conditioned by those dead European masters. And those boys were certainly no fan of hot pink.

Who DO you think you are?

One of the things I love about the intuitive painting process is how it challenges you to stretch beyond your usual conception or (should I say misconception) of yourself.

People come to a painting class with some pretty clearly defined ideas about who they are, what they like and what they think they want out of the process. But if they are really listening to their intuition all of those things get blown out of the water on a regular basis.

The intuitive process helps people to see more clearly how they are constrained in ways that they never even realized by societal expectations, family expectations, church and school rules and regulations.

It asks you to consider certain questions like why do you think that something as innocuous as a color or a particular image is ugly or unacceptable? Where did that idea even come from? And is it even remotely true?

Claiming the freedom to be ourselves is a sometimes difficult process where we have to come up against those firmly ingrained and often entrenched beliefs.

We want to be accepted. We want to fit in. We want to be valued. We want to belong.

And ultimately, we want to feel safe.

We sincerely believe that if we toe the line and agree with what we have been told, if we go along with the party line that tells us that taupe is classy and chartreuse is trashy, then we can relax. We can trust that we won't be hurt or judged or found to be lacking in some way.

Given the choice I'll vote for lime green ANY day.

But all along our intuition is calling to us, beckoning to us, saying "Come on in. The water is fine. There is a WHOLE WORLD out here beyond what you have been led to believe is OK.

There is a world of blinding colors and never-been-seen-before creatures of your imagination, a world where things are often turned upside down and don't always make sense. And this world can nourish you and startle you and amaze you. And make you come more fully and completely alive."

Sometimes venturing away from what you know has already gotten a stamp of approval can make you a tad uncomfortable... but that's only because you've never been there before. And you might find yourself more than a little worried that if you start going hog wild with neon blue or sizzling magenta it will seriously call into question things like your good taste or color sense.

I often tell my students with all sincerity that I have never in my life seen an ugly painting. Especially in my studio. I have seen paintings that have evoked all kinds of reactions in me. And not all of those responses are comfy. But I am grateful to anyone who is able to make me feel something because they have been courageous enough to have their own feelings and to express themselves from a deep and authentic place.

One of the things that has been enormously helpful for me is to expand my definition of beauty. To recognize that beauty also includes things that are intense, passionate and demanding. Sometimes beauty makes my skin crawl. Or makes my heart break. It can even leave me feeling incredibly disturbed.

And sometimes beauty can literally make my eyes bug out of my head as I am almost blinded by the electric, spine tingling, overwhelmingness of a shimmering and unearthly green that could only have been produced in a mad scientists laboratory.

That living experience of beauty is something I can never get enough of.

And believe you me... I am happy to say that I have NEVER had that kind of reaction to taupe!

When I was a kid I absolutely adored Christmas.

I loved the twinkly lights and the schmaltzy music but most of all I loved that sense of anticipation and wonder and surprise. My family and I lived in a rowhouse that had three stories and two flights of stairs. On Christmas morning I would wake up at some ungodly early hour and  sneak down those stairs with my siblings trailing behind me (I was the big sister) until we reached the living room where the tree was set up and the wrapped Christmas packages were piled high. It was always a breathtaking moment to walk into this normally ordinary room and find it transformed into something so magical and full of treasures.

The studio where I hold my weekly classes in Oakland, CA is in a huge, old Victorian house that is very cool and charming. Over the time I've been there I've transformed most of the house into art space in one way or another. But years ago I lived there with my husband. The house has two stories so the upstairs was our living space and the downstairs was the painting studio.

It's like Christmas every day in my studio!

Each morning I would come down those stairs and be greeted by whatever paintings had been created in the class from the day before. And in the early morning light I would have that same feeling of anticipation and surprise that I had as a child , even though I had already seen them. When I'm teaching my focus is on my students, but it was like being alone with these amazing bits of creative expression, in this ever changing sacred art gallery, allowed me to experience them more simply and directly.

My students have a wide range of experience when it comes to art. Some people have been to art school and are even commercially successful with their paintings. Other folks have not picked up a brush since kindergarten. So the span of technical proficiency is pretty wide.

But walking around the studio and taking in the energy and soul with which each piece was created I found that it didn't really matter. I was moved by each and every one of those paintings. And my feelings of being touched or amused or awed had nothing to do with how skillfully the painting was rendered.

In that moment I had one of those lightbulb-in-the-brain realizations. I kind of already knew it but it suddenly became incredibly crystally clear. I don't really believe in the concept of Bad Art.

There's a very good reason why I don't go to art galleries.

In the conventional art world of galleries and competitions and selling you better believe there is a VERY strong sense about what is good and what is not. That whole process of assessment and critique, comparison and competition is rife in that community. People are always striving to be on top and to be the best which translates into more fame, more recognition, more respect and ultimately more money. There is a built in sense of elitism among trained artists.  A sense of us and them and a strong dividing line between those who can legitimately call themselves artists and the rest of the world.

And I can guarantee you that if anyone from that world happened to show up in my little studio they would be of the definite opinion that Creative Juices Arts was FILLED TO THE RAFTERS with Bad, BAD Art.

I'm pretty sure that without SOME standards the world would spin off it's axis... or something equally catastrophic.

But even in the world that I hang out in which is a much more "touchy feely hippy dippy expressive artsy anything goes" kind of crowd there is still that concept of Bad Art. Granted, it has a totally different connotation from the artiste mindset. When these folks talk about making Bad Art it is in the service of creative liberation. The suggestion is to allow yourself to make Bad Art as a way to circumnavigate the voice of the inner critic. If you are feeling trapped and stuck and paralyzed and unable to create giving yourself permission to make Bad Art can really get you moving again.

I really, really like the idea that a way to break the hold of  your perfectionism is to make what you THINK is Bad Art. I think that's a tremendously helpful concept. And has allowed scads of people to take steps towards all kinds of crazy and wonderful artistic freedom. I have even used it myself at times to help one of my students out of a tight creative spot.

But in my heart of hearts I never really believed it. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I have no standards to speak of. Maybe my eyes really ARE going. But I just don't think there really IS such a thing as Bad Art.

There's art that you might not like.

There's art that is not technically sophisticated.

There's art that might be judged harshly by some outside authority or arbitrary standard.

There's art that does not please the artist.

There's art that appears to be completely meaningless or confusing.

There's art that doesn't match the vision you had in your head.

There's art that might bring up shame about your artistic skills.

There's art that might get you in touch with some uncomfortable feelings.

There's art that is not realistic.

There's art that is messy.

There's art that is childlike.

But none of it is really BAD art. There's nothing wrong with the art itself. The art is just art.
What makes it seem bad is our expectations about what we think it SHOULD be.

There's something here for everyone to love.

One year at a crafts fair I bought a pretty silk scarf from an artist who used Batik to make her own designs. As she was packaging up my purchase she said to me "You know... I almost chucked that scarf as a huge mistake. I really didn't like it and thought it wasn't a very good design. But my husband talked me out of it saying you just never know what someone else might think."

I'm grateful that she listened to her husbands wisdom. That little scarf really touched my heart and it STILL makes me happy every time I wear it.

And that's how I feel about my own art. It touches my heart. This feels really politically incorrect in terms of the art world, but the truth is ....I love everything that I've ever created not because it meets some standard of good or bad but just because I've done it. Each thing that I've created is like one of my children and a good mother never plays favorites!

I also love everything my students have ever done for the same reason. In fact whenever I see ANYBODY else's creations my heart does a little happy dance, because it's another example of the creative impulse made manifest.

Maybe it's just proof of how goofy I really am, maybe it's that same part of me that loves the schmaltzy Christmas music, but I just can't help but feel absurdly joyful whenever I am witness to someones heartfelt creative expression.

It's the part of me that is just so grateful that we even HAVE the ability to be creative and that creativity exists in the world. And personally, that's more than enough for me.

If you're looking for a place and some dedicated time to practice some of your Bad Art skills I've still got 2 openings in my upcoming Painting From The Wild Heart retreat January 16-22 in Northern California. For more details click here.

One of the things I love about the intuitive painting process is how much it encourages me to go under the surface of things. To explore what I can't always see. To dive into my inner world and try and express visually what is not readily visible.

This can sometimes look like feelings or moods, but when I first started painting intuitively I was fascinated by processes and structures inside of my own body. Veins and blood, bones and my internal organs kept showing up again and again. And I never TRIED to paint them realistically. I was more interested with painting how I imagined them to be or how I experienced them energetically.

This little pencil drawing that I did this morning felt like that kind of inside-my-body exploration. I've been having some sciatic pain in one of my legs related to ongoing problems with my lower back. And this sketch makes me think of nerve pathways and cells and the root-like quality of dendrites.

Now the thing that always fascinates me about this process is that when I sat down to do this I didn't have a plan. I didn't say to myself  "I'm in pain so I'm going to draw about that."

While I was drawing I wasn't particularity thinking about my back issues. I just drew and painted. And to tell you the truth I'm not sure that this is even about my back. But once it's out there on the paper it's hard to not make that association. It's like my intuition is constantly communicating with me and my job is to just allow it to have its say.

This piece is done with my little handy dandy portable water color set, which I love, love, love for traveling.

Again, I don't know exactly what to make of this one. It's just another experience of trusting the brush or as one of my students puts it "following orders from headquarters." I start painting and am often as surprised as anyone to see what, or often WHO shows up.

It's a great example of what it looks like to simply listen to my intuition (which by the way, is INCREDIBLY bossy!) And that means not knowing where in the heck any particular painting or drawing may be headed.

I begin with some color and then my intuition starts talking to me. Saying things like "OK. Now paint an eye. And another one. Now some blue around the eye. A face would be nice. How about a crown on the head. Now some bubbles coming out of the mouth. That fish needs some teeth." And on and on.

When I start to get a little anxious and worried about where this is going I just keep saying my mantra which is  "The painting is none of my business. The painting is none of my business."

My only job is to keep moving my hand and let the mystery take me wherever it wants me to go!

I don't have a dog. In fact my hubby and I don't have any living furry pets at all because we both have pretty severe animal allergies. But we also love animals. And so we have many stuffed animals, carved wooden folk art animals and tons of imaginary friends in our house. I also have animal friends who show up in my art at times and today it was this happy, big hearted doggie, who appeared while I was doodling and playing with some colored gel pens.

I'm pretty sure his name is Seymour the pink Samoyed...even though he doesn't look like a Samoyed at all! But it doesn't really matter since it's MY imaginary world and he's my imaginary friend so I can do whatever pleases me!!

My hubby and I are on vacation and right now we're  in the town of St. George Utah and visiting the various national and state parks in the area. Yesterday we went to a place called Snow Canyon State Park and today we are going to the world famous Zion National Park.

I am definitely a mountain and earthy girl - Virgo all the way- so I'm pretty blissed out to be hanging out in my beloved red rock desert hiking and exploring and communing with the earth spirits.

The little colored pencil drawing I did today is pretty reflective of the happiness I am feeling. I just love how the energy of the land flows through me and energizes me, leaving me juiced and jazzed and at the same time totally content. It's been a busy and stressful last few months so I've been desperately needing a big jolt of nurturing mama goddess energy.

Considering the look on this girls face it looks like I found it!

Even though I've been doing intuitive art for about a gazillion years now it still always amazes me how taking a little time to put some color on paper can take me into a much deeper and more alive relationship with myself. I just feel whatever my experience is in that moment on a whole other level.

This piece is a painting using watercolors that I have in a little travel watercolor kit. I'm away on vacation and am in one of my favorite places in the whole world which is the Southwest desert area- Nevada, Utah and Death Valley in California. I have a pretty strong relationship with the land in these areas and I always feel like I'm more empowered and in touch with myself when I am there. So this piece kind of feels like a bit of a self portrait -me as nature girl who is connected up to the animals and the elements and feeling her spiritual oats!!

Goddess knows why I have green hair... it just felt like the right thing to do. And the zig-zag crack in my forehead has shown up in a couple of my other paintings. I think it IS related to my intuition opening up a bit more. Or it could just be a symbol that I am completely losing my mind. Which are probably one and the same thing!!

I love how this one felt to do. Even though I have no idea what it is. If I had to identify it I would say that it looks kind of organic- like a flower or plant from another planet. But it was very absorbing and relaxing to create it.

I do enjoy letting the pencils or brushes just lead me. It really is fun and takes the pressure off tremendously to not have to TRY to make my drawings represent anything real. If I were actually attempting to paint a specific flower.... like a rose or a tulip... I would have way too many opportunities to be worried that it wasn't turning out exactly right. Whereas if I am painting or drawing something that doesn't even exist on this reality plane no one can tell me I'm doing it wrong... unless one of those aliens from that other planet happens to show up here one day!!

And painting and drawing like this always feels like true creation to me because I'm actually making something that has never existed before!! How cool is that!!