Just imagine...

Image from www.thenomonworkshop.com

Children are simultaneously a source of great inspiration, and an impediment to, creativity.

I'm currently doing a part-time graphic design course. The tutors - obviously - encourage us to pursue creative past times. Doing so is also recommended by the primal living guy.

Both say its good for the mind and soul. That it doesn't really matter about the quality of what you produce. The process is the point. Devote enough energy to the process and, more importantly, have enough fun with it, and the results will take care of themselves.

My current lifestyle allows ample opportunity for creativity, at some level. My 'job' involves lots of mindless tasks during which my head is free to turn over ideas. And there's Rosie herself, of course. Her laugh, the tiny curls at the back of her head, the light resting on her round cheeks, little hands and feet in action - it all has me longing to capture every fragment that is the beauty and joy of child and childhood.

Yet whenever I sit and attempt to commit these concepts to paper or pixel, it is invariably that moment in which she climbs on the couch and falls off/gets stuck under a chair/gets a little too affectionate with the cat/has a meltdown because some toy or random object won't do as she wishes ... You get the picture. 

And I remember it's not just about chasing my own creative genius (ha!) but being a mummy who comes to the rescue. Who soothes that precious little soul so it can dust itself off, jump back up and once again follow where imagination leads. 

Imagination at work in recent weeks.