Over on Instagram, my feed is almost exclusively art journaling and art. There are a few family members and friends, of course, but it is really heavily skewed to arty goodness.

One thing I love to watch is process videos. I find it fascinating to see a page go from nothing to full of color and texture. It’s almost like one of those cool nature documentaries that show a flower sprouting out of the ground and blooming.

Flowers like these, for example

In making other videos I’ve discovered I take for-ev-er to complete a spread, even when it’s heavily edited. I’m happy as a little ant, hauling leaf bits back to the hill then heading out for more, but that’s my process. People don’t need to see me hem and haw through the whole thing. But with hyper lapse, we cut out more of that puttering and we get to the end result much more quickly.

So let’s give it a go, shall we? [Edited to add: a couple of the videos are jiggly at first but they quickly calm down. I hoped the hyper-lapse element would help them be smaller files so let’s hope this works.] I’ve got this in a few parts, four I believe. Here’s where we end up after the layers and adding some words:

Here’s video One:

And then Video Two:

https://tclarson.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/img_4393.mov

When I started I really had no idea where I’d end up. I didn’t set out to include a person, and when I got to the middle of it I actually thought it might be good with a simple quote in some of the white space. And it could have worked that way as well. Because I got the inkling to carve out a person, and where she ended up, there was this secondary pocket of color that asked for a second figure of some kind.

Here’s Video Three, where things start to come together:

https://tclarson.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/img_4454.mov

And finally Video Four:

https://tclarson.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/img_4456.mov

You’ll have to tell me what you think. Do you enjoy process videos the way I do?

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Here’s an added challenge for you…

Start.

Start somewhere.

Whether that’s pulling out your yarn, dusting off some old sheet music, trying a new recipe, downloading that design app on your device, it doesn’t matter what your area of focus is, just start one thing. Take one step into your own creative expression. You don’t have to have an end product in mind when you begin. You can enjoy the process of discovery and experimentation.

I promise it gets less daunting the more you do it.

And here’s the thing to know…as you try it, you might very well discover a whole community of other people who are also into that activity, especially if you use social media in a useful way. Explore more hashtags, follow a couple people who are a couple steps ahead of you, and just see where it all leads. It might surprise you. (And keep me in the loop if you do!)