Got 20 Minutes: Find Creativity

What Could You Create in 20 Minutes?

Maybe you can't collage a two page altered journal spread on hand-dyed 100% cotton paper replete with miniature keys dangling from hand spun silk ribbon, BUT with each 20 minutes you could...

• Write about this moment.
• Draw or doodle in a tiny journal.
• Describe something using the process in Slow Journaling Revisited.
• Do an art journal or creative prompt from the series of Kick-Start Prompts
• Create a color palette from watercolors, acrylics, colored pencils, pitt pens or neocolors. Here's my Neocolor Palette.
• Start a mandala. Mandalas en Route was drawn on a plane
• Write in your art journal, on a blank background.
• Doodle. I doodled these flowers over the course of several days waiting for the kids at gymnastics.
• Test new markers, pastels, pens or neocolors on various notebooks or papers.
• Sketch something you see, a logo, a chair, a wrought iron fence, windowpanes, flowers.
• Sketch from a photograph you keep in your purse or wallet.
• Add a quote or doodles to an art journal page or collage with Sakura gellyrolls or PITT pens. Carry a list of favorite quotes on your ipod or in your purse.
• Color in your doodles or mandalas with gellyrolls or PITT pens.
  
• Practice lines and build hand coordination. See Line Practice: Ideas Squared.
• Listen to music or creative podcasts.
• Do a wicked Sudoku.
• Transfer a doodle to fabric in preparation for embroidering.
• Embroider one color of a design.
• Make progress on a knitting project.
• Rehearse ideas in your mind, to prepare for the next project.
• Organize your collection of thread or embroidery floss.
• Write a haiku.
• Pick a new color to use in your art [Blue + Neutrals + Orange + Pink].
• Write a descriptive paragraph about the room you are in, or a conversation you overhear.
• Make a list to use in your next journal pages, as in Journal Triggers and How to Use Lists in Art Journals.
• Do a journal prompt from Samantha Kira at Journal Girl.
• Draw a mind map to solve a problem.
• Look for patterns or textures to photograph. Spiral staircase photographed while my kids were in swimming class.

All of these things can be done with minimal supplies, minimal setup, little or no workspace. In a waiting room. In the car. At a cafe. If you can leave a project spread out, you could even make your way through a painting, an art journal page, collage, etc.

You choose. Cross things off your to do list, or recharge your brain and your world by doing something creative. You don't have to do it all at once. Just bit by bit.