The Creative License: Giving Yourself Permission to Be The Artist You Truly Are

There are no bad drawings. Drawings are experiences. The more you draw, the more experienced you'll get. In fact, you'll learn more from bad or unpredictable or weird experiences than from those that go exactly as you'd hoped and planned. So let it go. Release your ego's desire for perfection. Take risks. Stretch. Grow. Create as much as you can, whenever you can.

The true purpose of illustrated journaling [is] to celebrate your life. No matter how small or mundane or redundant, each drawing and little essay you write to commemorate an event or an object or a place makes it all the more special.

An artist is someone who sees and feels realty very intensely. Creativity doesn't mean just making things up out of thin air. It means seeing and feeling the world so vividly that you can put together connections and patterns that help to explain reality. It means you see the beauty in the world rather than trying to hide from it.

This day is full of extraordinary things that you are missing. Wonderful sights, like the sun on your counterpane, the hairs on your cat's tail, the cracks in the paint on your radiator, the leaves piling up against the curve. Wonderful smells, wonderful sounds. Wonderful people. Wonderful opportunities. Today is wonderful. But perhaps you have lost your sense of wonder.

Birds sing, wolves howl, crickets chirp. But why? Money? Fame? Record contracts? Endorsements? What's it all for? They do it because they're alive. They do it because life is about making things.

Celebrate your life now, as it unfolds. Turn away from judgement and negative theories about your worth, your potential, and your destiny. See what you already have.