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Filling in the blanks ..

 It seems that the prospect of a blank page, day or life creates ... stress.  Maybe. I never seem to have a "OMG-what-do-I-write-draw-design-think" moment. Getting settled in a cafe or restaurant (mindful that peak service times are not the place to start your drawing and sketching career - always ask if it's OK and always purchase something sufficient to "rent" the table for an hour or so) is the most awkward 10 minutes of anything. For me. I am instantly clumsy in a new environment, overwhelmed by sights, smells, aware of all the cool people settled at their tables who didn't drop or clang anything as they became seated. I've never achieved such a feat. Then there's the sensory overload of being in a new space. I can't move or breathe. So the first 10 minutes of so is simply getting out my writing pad and a pencil or pen. And breathing.  Smelling the place. The timber, the polish, the plastic, adjusting to the lights, or lack of them, taking in the noise level, clanging conversations or the gentle sizzle of the kitchen, the laps of the water against a revetment wall. Whatever. It takes me a while to adjust. And only then can I be 60% sure that when I pick up my pen to put it to the paper below, I won't spill my drink or drop something or ... whatever clutzy thing happens when I decide to create in a new space. It just is ...
 When I'm stuck in front of a blank page there is the first rule of centreing oneself and simply record what it. Sketch the stack of plates on a shelf (anyone can make a series of 6-10 short, wobly lines in a generally horizontal fashion). Draw a line underneath and you have a shelf. First sketch.  Then there's a coaster or other thing. Write down a stream of consciousness or describe the first human you become aware of after picking up the coaster. Don't worry about the space, simply fill it then glue into the book. Gluesticks must travel in every handbag and they double for hemming material whilst out and about until a more permanent solution can be found  in a hotel room.
Flick a drip of wine on the page - red is especially good for a stain. Blind draw the label on the bottle (no one should order a glass, especially in Denmark where generosity of fullness isn't the done thing. Carafe is the minimum required order). Write the name of the place where you are and date it. You will not remember next week or month, let alone after the carafe is gone. Flick more wine. Drag a fork through the wine and make ... more wine patterns.
 More blind contours - that is, do not look at the page but draw the objects around you on the walls, shelves etc. Patterns on carpet or wall paper. The things of ambience in the place where you are.  The Kat place near the theatre in Aarhus provided much fodder for a journal. Write down snippets of conversations you here - difficult in a language you don't understand but otherwise simply write the first five words and when those five are finished write the next five words you hear without stopping the process until the page is filled or the spaces about the plates on shelves drawing is no longer empty. Get a smaller diary, A5, if this idea scares you.
Find a light fitting - what shape is it - a curve - draw that curve through a new page. Do it without looking at the page. Fill one side of the curve with every noun applicable to the cafe or space you are in - fill the other with a list of colours that are adjacent to each other - make up a rule a simple rule and follow it and then, every three minutes and 40 second (or fifth sip of wine - change the rule. I promise that trying these things for an hour will (1) fill a page or four of your journal (2) open up creative thinking processes that like most things in life get better and easier with practice.
Irony - make a list of all the things you found out walking today and their prices - a lemon tree in a pot is four times more expensive than a cash only visit to a doctor to get antibiotics which is only five times the cost of a  nail file. Okay there were ripening lemons on the tree. Still ... 2000DKK???    Fifteen minutes before anything else - every day ... make a new habit. Start something different from what you do every day before today - change. Experiment. Just get on with it. Start. Don't worry about finishing ... just get on with being the creative you that is, and was, always there.

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