Category: Blog

I woke up this morning to the words, “These are the first birds I’ve drawn since I was 10 years old and I’m 67” and I saw a page full of Silvereyes and Wrens and Blue Tits, and it stretched my smile as wide as the Pacific.

We have developed some funny notions around creativity and art that are crippling and boring and make our world more black and white than colour so there’s little that delights me more than seeing the rampant swirling of pencils hinting to the possibility of a mind allowing itself to be unleashed.

Something that’s important to remember:

We always have the right of return. We can begin again at any time.

Just because you stopped or got put off or life became life-ey doesn’t mean that you don’t get the change just to begin again.

Everything is waiting for you. The widest point is the one between you and the start.

A principle I work to when it comes to navigating this wild and vast world (and to prove my point, 500,000,000 birds were migrating across the US just last night. Vast and wild I tell you!) is allowing yourself to be new.

Letting yourself be new means that allow yourself to meet the page or the pencils or the *insert whatever the thing you want to do is here*  and see what happens.

You don’t go in with preconceived ideas. You don’t entertain good or bad or right or wrong. You allow yourself to be a creative explorer, open to what shows us, allowing yourself to be guided outside of a mind that is doing its best to convince you that things need to be a certain way.

Let yourself be new. Who knows, you might find yourself in a position where ten minutes ago, the paper was white and now a whole flock of birds are living on your page.

Onwards.

xx Jane

Here’s something you are no doubt already aware of: It’s easy not to be creative.

It’s easy to not to write or draw or do the thing that you are called to do. We are surrounded by so many stories of creative yearning and lack that we bond together in conversation over what we would rather be doing, over our constant lack of time.

It can all get rather boring.

We constantly and persistently argue against our own happiness and what’s more, we are very good at it.

I don’t have any magic solution for finding you more time, other than to say, I know what it’s like to be busy. I feel the strain of it constantly,

But I also know what it’s like to not make time for the things that I love (in my case drawing and writing) and I can tell you, it makes you miserable.

And with this in mind, I wonder if the biggest piece to making time for what you love is not time at all but trust. We have to trust that our ideas are worth valuing. That the things that sparks our curiosity mean something.

I remember talking to my friend on the phone and when she asked me what I was doing, I told her I was drawing lots of birds.

I said to her, I don’t know where it’s going or exactly where it’s leading, but I have to trust that the kind of love that I feel, and the desire to do it means something. That it doesn’t exist for nothing.

I really feel that to be true of all our art. You have to trust that it means something. And once you truly believe that, you will start to find the time.

I do not mean this flippantly. I understand that many of us are exhausted and truly pressed for time.

Which means, we have to let go of what the ideal looks like- big blocks of times, oceans of days laid out before you- and start to snatch creative moments in minute blocks.

I want to remind you that your curiosities, you desires and your creative yearnings exist for a reason. And that as a consequence, do whatever you can to find the time.

Do it like your life depends on it. Because I’m of the opinion that it actually does.

xx Jane

If you fancy drawing birds, Winging It starts next week! It’s designed to be completed in less than an afternoon, or if you want to space it out, half an hour a week for 4 weeks! We’ll draw all kinds of birds; from reference, life and imagination.

Come play with me! You can learn all about it here.

I’m a little late this morning because I’ve made it my mission to draw a bird for you every day, and I went off piste as they might say.

I got flamboyant in the evening and decided to play around with watercolour and then got experimental with some gouache (neither of which I am experienced with but then isn’t that the joy of it?) and then went back in with my favourite black ink pen and then, after staring a bit longer, had a play around with pencil.

I’m not sure he’s quite finished, but in any case, I present to you with Exhibit A: My Carrion Crow.

I will tell you though something completely devious that is the underlying pulse of why I love to draw my birds. A story to illustrate my dark secrets:

This morning, I continued with my crow in a Co-Creating Session we have as part of the Creating Wild Membership (I describe it as a big kitchen table session where we all meet up and chatter and work on whatever it is we wish).

I was talking about my crow and that started a conversation about Ravens and the question was asked, do you have Raven’s in New Zealand?

At first I said yes, and then no, and then you know, I’m not quite sure, and so I looked it up and learned that we used to have two endemic Ravens to Aotearoa New Zealand that went extinct in the 1600’s.

And then I learned from my lovely friend Brigid, who is also in the group, that Raven’s are protected where she is in California but they are slightly problematic because they are thriving on human settlement where other Birds of Prey are not (which leads not only to problems with the Birds of Prey themselves, but the things that they take care of).

And you see, this is how it works. When we pay attention to something, we inevitably become curious. Curiosity leads to discovery and discovery leads both to wonder and to learning.

And then- this is the part where we need the drum roll- wonder inevitably leads to care. We understand what requires our voices, our hands and our protection.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is my big secret; the motor behind everything.

Opening our eyes to the world through art is a way of offering it our protection. A portal, if you will, where we can not only share our fascinations and our loves, but to fuel our actions that lead to better care.

Art as gentle activism. I’m all in.

xx Jane

Next week, my bird drawing course, Winging It, is opening! We will explore ways to draw birds from reference, from life and as illustration. It will be luscious and inspiring (I mean, birds!) and well worth your time. Pinky promise.

You can check out Winging It here.

 

On the weekend, I took the littlest of my small ones to the Ecosanctuary near us for hot chocolate, but my ulterior motive of course was to admire all the birds. Right near the entrance doors, just to the left as you walk through, is a rather ramshackle bookshelf. On it are the remains of donated and discarded books that you can purchase by donation. I look at them like old forgotten friends.

I have bought three vintage bird books there now to date, all slightly torn but full of hundreds of coloured illustrations. I ogle them with the same love I imagine they were created with.

This last visit, I picked up a book with a dated looking photo on the cover, and pictures of a similar quality inside. I thought of putting this one back- it struck me as a little boring- but then I started reading and realized I was most definitely wrong. The descriptions were amazing, and I began to also understand the quality of the photos within the context of the time, without zoom lenses and fast shutter speeds and digital possibilities.

The way that the author, M F Soper, talked about feeding habits and nests (amongst a host of other things) came from the wisdom of someone who spent a lot of time outside simply observing:

“One of the most striking things about a Pigeon chick is that it seldom if ever demands food. Despite many hours at a nest, I have never seen a squab demanding food and have never seen one fed. A friend of mine, hoping to obtain a movie sequence of the feeding act, spent days and days at the nest yet only saw it once.”

In another book I read recently, The Place of Tides, the author laments the loss of childhood time spent outside observing. On the outer Arctic isles of Norway, where the book is set, the inhabitants of the island consider observing an action as worthy as any other.

How else are you supposed to learn the comings and goings of the place you are a part of if you do not take the time to simply watch?

I often feel this pull, this desire to observe without time limits. How many of us can do that now, and if we do, without the guilt that we should be more productive or there’s something else we need to do? I would guess the answer is not many.

The messaging we are fed about what’s important and a good use of our hours is insidious.

When I started drawing birds, it was a reclamation of time as much as anything else. I desire to get closer to what was real, the snuggle up to the immediacy of the ground outside my door in a way that would allow me to know it better. And what’s more, it really worked.

Drawing is a kind of alchemy that I never appreciated when I was caught up in the idea that art was for other people, or that my drawing was not good. If you can let go of that, it’s amazing what comes through. How you can get to know thigns in ways you never knew them before. It’s the best kind of everyday magic.

In a week’s time, my bird drawing course, Winging It, opens- the early bird offer is available now! To take a pencil in your hand and pay attention is a wild and beautiful act- I’d love to share that with you if you are at all curious (and especially if you have the desire but are convinced it’s not for you- proving yourself wrong there is part of the fun!)

You can check out Winging It here

xx Jane

 

A little while back, I began creating what I came to call my Book of Allies, a ritual magicked into existence to sustain me through a difficult time.

The practice works like this: each morning when I wake up, I hop skip my way around the usual temptations that call out from the confines of my phone. Instead, I take out my sketchbook with the soft blue cover, my favourite black ink pen and start to draw. I would draw whatever or whomever comes to mind, intuitively, instinctively.

At first, I was worried that no-one or nothing would arrive, that I would sit blank paged and equally blank of mind– but they always did. And always the birds.

Pen in hand, I watched my allies find me, arriving in fine lines of changing grip and pressure, amidst a myriad of tensions and uncertainties, each stroke alerting me to an undercurrent of mood or feeling that would have otherwise passed me by. As I grew their images on the page, the anxious parts of me became diminished.

My Book of Allies could equally be called my Book of A Thousand Tiny Exhalations.

Truth be known, I’m obsessed with drawing birds. I can give you a million explanations and no explanation at all as to why that is the case. But what I can tell you is that choosing to focus my attention on beauty, on my birds, pulled me out of my anxious brain and grew the part of me where new ideas were free to find me.

A place that would have remained hidden had I kept trying to find solutions in the same part of my brain that was creating the problems.

When I feel that anxious part of me rise up, I know that I will always feel better by turning to my sketchbook. It untangles the knots in my brain that pull my insides into tightness and at the end of my drawing, I am different.

I think this is where the gold is. Not in the good or bad, right or wrong, but in the fact that as part of any creative process, you come out changed.

xx Jane

In just over a week, Winging It is opening. I’ll share my love of drawing and illustrating birds, but perhaps more importantly, offer a start point to a creative practice that I have found to be life changing. I’d love for you to be a part of it! You can learn all about it here: www.janepike.com/winging-it

Can we sit down for a moment and talk about expiration dates?

Not the ones that we find on packets at the back of the fridge, but the ones we have invisibly tattooed on the back of our hand (or even worse, upon our heart) that tells us that time has passed us by or it’s too late for us or that thing that we want to do that’s showing up as curiosity is meant for other people, not for us. We do love to get in our own way.

Here’s someone you may never have heard of, but she is one of my creative heroines. Her name is Isabella Ducrot. Below is a paragraph from an article that featured her in the New Yorker:

“Only in the past five years has Ducrot, who turned ninety-three in June, become internationally recognized for her art, which she didn’t even begin making until she was in her fifties. When creating her works, she stands and uses a brush sometimes attached to a stick, sweeping loose arcs of ink or paint onto paper or fabric. She often later incorporates scraps of other papers or textiles. Her painted collages usually depict ecstatic figures and stylized landscapes; arrays of ovals or checkered patterns are a recurring feature. Typically made in series, her works are light, energetic, and uninhibitedly beautiful.”

I have read this article countless times, and every time it makes me cry. Not because she is an inspiring older artist. But because she is an inspiring artist full stop. I mean, imagine your work being summed up like this:

“Ducrot’s work and life offer an alternative possibility: that an individual might remain wide-eyed and open to experience—in an enduring state of naïveté, and with a capacity to be joyfully surprised—until the very end.”

If I have a life goal, that would be it.

You might not have aspirations to be internationally recognised for your art. I don’t care (in the most loving way) what it is you want to do. Whatever it is, if you’re telling yourself it’s too late, it’s really not. I can even argue against you with neuroscience, but we’ll save that for another day.

In just over a week, my bird drawing course, Winging It, is opening and if you are keen to start drawing or continue on exploring, I would love you to join me. We’ll work with drawing from reference, from life and creating illustration. And I can even help you prove yourself wrong if you’re telling yourself you cannot draw.

Staying wide eyed and open to experience is exactly what we are going to focus on, through the medium of observing and drawing birds.

You can learn more about Winging It here: www.janepike.com/winging-it

There’s an apple tree outside my office window that looks a little like the Magic Faraway Tree, a book I was obsessed with in my Enid Blyton phase. She’s not especially beautiful (although in their own way, all trees are), but every day she gladly holds her limbs and branches wide for the seed and nectar feeders I place there, and together, we watch out for the birds.

There’s a ranking system that’s easy to observe. The Tūīs are the neighbourhood ruffians; most everyone gives way, and there’s always a bit of infighting amongst them.

I’ve started to be able to pick out the males from the females in their lack of obvious distinction; slightly smaller, more refined, less dominating than their male friends.

The Korimako, or Bellbird, ducks and weaves out of the Tūī’s flightpath. Though higher in rank, they’ll share their place with the Tauhou, or Waxeye.

Mr Blackbird now brings his lady friend, Mrs Blackbird and they are incredibly polite. Big, round eyes, gentle movements.

If a bird hug was a thing, I would want a hug from her.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, the Kākā flies in, and all bets are off. The Tūīs have tantrums while the Mountain Parrots clamber up and down the tree, preening, chattering, picking at the apples, and sipping nectar.

Yesterday, for the first time, finches appeared. I squealed out loud with delight.

I can’t tell you how much joy they bring. My understanding has deepened beyond what I ever imagined, simply from drawing and observing. The more I look, the more I see.

And the best part? The more I see, the more wonder I experience.

With the world as it is (I don’t need to describe it), it feels more important than ever to know our place intimately and to really recognize our natural allies beyond the human.

In my bird drawing course, I’ll share these friends with you- and I hope you’ll share yours too.

It’s not about “good drawing” (you don’t even need to know where to start). It’s about cultivating attention, and a reverence for the ones you share your backyard with.

And honestly, I can’t think of anything better I’d rather spend my time doing.

Come join me for Winging It: a short, joyful bird drawing course for nature lovers and creative explorers.

Early bird pricing is open now! www.janepike.com/winging-it

I’ve love to have you join me!

xx Jane

You are galloping along, and you have this vision in your mind, and it all seems wonderful, perfect. This is exciting.

You can see it, you know? What a brilliant idea, you think to yourself. You pick up your pencil and make some marks upon the page.

You’re full of gusto. You are going to Freaking. Do. This.

You smile at everyone to benevolently share in your enthusiasm. Sharing is caring. You’re good like that.

The first line seems quite wonky, like your hand is not communicating to your head at all. Weird.

You rub it out and try again, but the second line really isn’t that much different. You feel your first spark of uncomfortability, a shimmer of annoyance.

You rally. You’re an adult after all and it would seem childish at this point to have a tantrum. You keep your feelings to yourself but are going from bad to worse.

The tantrum persists and it’s crawling on your insides.

Nothing is looking like you want it to.

And then it happens: you start to feel al little silly. Like you can’t believe you ever thought this would be fun. Like what an absolute load of walloping bollocks that you ever suspected you could even be that good.

Hmmph.

You’ve reached the quit point.

Of all the things I’ve witnessed getting in the way, frustration is one of the biggest adult dream killers. We have somehow delusionally convinced ourselves- especially when it comes to art- that we should have instant success is translating what we see inside our head down onto the page.

And when that doesn’t happen, we see it as evidence that we should quit, as though any inkling of frustration is communicating to us a lack of creative potential and possibility.

In fact, the opposite is true.

Frustration from a brain and body perspective is an in-road, not an exit ramp.

When we feel frustrated, our brain is madly working on new pathways. You are in the abyss between two mountains, and your body is the bridge; hands hanging on one side, legs hooked across the other.

The neural pathways between your eyes and your hand are in the process of updating; roads are being built, stuck points are being streamlined.

Your pre-frontal cortex is communicating to your visual cortex to your motor cortex to create a neural symphony.

The orchestra of your insides is a cacophony of noise, working to manifest and co-create your vision, if only it’s allowed the time to do so.

This is all frustration is: A temporary holding pattern while things are smoothed and worked out.

A period of white noise before the notes again start to make sense.

A process of advancement and reconfiguration.

And the only thing you have to do is keep on moving.

xx Jane

A sketchbook drawing of Korimako || Bellbird at my bird feeder

Whether something feels inspiring or intimidating all depends on context. Not the outside kind of context- the context of your insides. If you arrive with glitter in your blood and feet firmly connected to the ground beneath you, you’ll most likely meet the work of others you admire with enthusiasm.

You’ll let yourself leapfrog off their creative brilliance, becoming allies in the act of making, picking up the golden thread of an idea they’ve offered and carrying the chain further into the world.

Their work births little thought-babies in you, gifting you the potential to ignite the same spark in someone else, regardless of whether the artist you’re delighting in knows you exist, or even whether they’re alive or long gone.

But if you’re feeling wobbly, those same sources of inspiration can slip into comparison and deflation. Intellectually, we might understand the futility of it, but practically- because we are alive and human-ing- we know the truth of that feeling.

It’s a delicate dance, this dance of creative exposure, especially in the age of the internet.

Because I’m in the midst of a big creative project right now, I’m being careful where I rest my eyeballs. I’m choosing to give my attention, more often than not, to what I call Slow Art.

Slow Art is the art that invites you into intimate conversation, where the only ones present are you and the object of your attention. It’s the gallery pieces, the books, the music- the things you can look at, read, or listen to and form your own opinion, without the likes, the comments, and the heaving, loaded threads.

At this point, while I’m untangling ideas and navigating thoughtscapes that don’t yet have clear beginnings, middles, or ends, the voice I most need to hear is my own intuition. It’s the voice of my creative ancestors dancing on my insides. Perhaps it’s even the silence- the space that allows ideas to form- that is most required right now.

When I consume too much online, my inner docking ports get cluttered. When I want to think further on an idea, all I can hear is the irate opinion of Gary from New York, offering his unwanted thoughts on politics and the role of women in climate change.

Be your own creative protector. Guard your heart and your inner resources. They are needed. And Gary, I’m afraid, is not

Let me talk about two things that happened yesterday which I will classify as ‘Most Important Moments’.

Most Important Moment Number #1 was when I was sitting at the kitchen table with my coffee and doing absolutely nothing. My phone was lost somewhere in a random coat pocket, or possibly in my bedroom. My book wasn’t in its usual place on the table. The boys weren’t home, and my laptop was sleeping in my bag. For a few moments, I let myself sit and do absolutely nothing. Most unusual.

Most Important Moment Number #2 was when I went out for a walk. I didn’t listen to a podcast, and I didn’t send messages to my friends sleeping in time zones the opposite to mine. I didn’t try to think about Important Things. I just walked and let my brain noodle. I chatted to the birds.

It’s curious how we’ve become wired to “maximize every moment” and in the process turned ourselves into information-consuming machines. We use “daydreaming” as an insult and treat being “off with the fairies” as a dysfunctional state (though honestly, who wouldn’t choose that if they could?).

But we need nothingness for the everythingness of our brain to do its job. It’s in the white-space times- the soft focus, gentle intention times- that the wash of our thoughtscapes rolls over all we’ve learned, creating new connections and understandings from what we already know, and what, in the future, we might want to say.

We are equal parts solid and spacious. We need those pockets of wistfulness, the seeming emptiness, the daydreaming states, to allow new ideas and possibilities to find us.

The dreaming and the fairies, it turns out, are essential states of being