Being in the Zone...........huh?.

This bird goes by the name ''Talgoxe'' in Swedish and

''Great Tit'' in English.

It's not a rare bird, it's ''song'' is not particularly

beautiful, it's quite small and can be found almost everywhere.

(Scandinavia, Europe, West, Central and North Africa, etc.)

When it comes to being able to adjust to changes in it's 

environment, this little bird(12-14cm)however, is doing so 

particularly successfully.

Though the image of this little bird may not be ''special'' or rare,

what is special about it to me is, that this is the first ''painting''

that I have managed to create not by using brushes, pens,

paper, canvas or paints, but by using digital technology.

Some years ago I bought a small Wacom Tablet determined

to embrace a new way(for me) of creating images.

After I had installed the tablet and all the necessary software 

I realized that I had no clue as how to use it.

I made a few feeble attempts but it just didn't feel ''right''.

Slapping paints on a fresh, white canvas or cardboard

feels so tangible, so physical, so invigorating and so

''freeing'' ......whereas moving a ''fake'' pen on a

little black plastic pad while staring at a screen just

felt artificial and impersonal.

I decided that I would learn the basics of how

to use the tablet for photo editing 

purposes and left it at that.

Until a few days ago.

Intending to paint a Red breasted Wren, I googled the net

 for some images to use as a reference. 

While doing so I suddenly thought: why not paint a Swedish bird?

I typed in Talgoxe in the search bar and found a nice

photo of one that I thought would work well as a

reference.

Using a pencil and a sketchpad I made a sketch

of the little bird. Happy with the sketch I grabbed

my water colour pencils, some brushes, a glass of fresh 

water and some proper water colour paper.

Then another a new thought.

What if I just scan in the sketch and then do the ''painting''

on the tablet?

A few minutes later I was staring at the sketch in Photoshop

Elements.

Okay, I thought, where do I begin?

Well, I need a brush and I need some colour.

Although the ''fake'' black pen felt strange in my hand,

I choose a ''wet media brush'', a colour and then began to ''paint''.

Much to my surprise I suddenly seemed to somehow

know how to use pen as if it was a real brush.

How was this possible?

I mean, I really had no idea what I was doing.

Then it dawned on me that I had once again stepped in to

 the ''Zone'',  I was in a state of flow.

Before I read a book by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

called ''Flow'' I had never heard of ''being in the Zone'',

so when I read his definition of it: ''the essence of flow

is the removal of the interference of the thinking mind''

it suddenly made sense to me how time and place

always seemed to disappear when I was in the throws of 

creating ''stuff''.

Some define being in the zone/flow as: 

''a mental state of focused concentration

on the performance of an activity in which one dissociates

from distracting or irrelevant aspects of one's environment''.

 Painting the little bird there was no thinking,

only doing. 

 As the image more and more

started to look like the reference photo I realized

just how much fun I was having doing the ''doing''.

(Not only fun, but I also found it quite exciting.

 Only when my hand holding the ''pen/brush'' started to ache

did I notice how much time had passed.)

 I can't say that I remember exactly how or what I did

when I painted the little bird because more often than not,

when I do creative stuff I tend to lose myself in the

process, aka being in the zone/state of flow.

However, be that as it may, entering into it usually

begins with letting go of expectations and ''having a go''.

- Your computer crashed? my son asked.

- Yes, I've lost all my photos and my software, I answered.

- So, paint instead, he said.

-Paint? I don't know how to paint.

- Do it anyway, he said and with those words a new chapter

in my life began.

''Do it anyway'' opened my mind to a much larger

world, a world full of possibilities.

Wanna dance but don't know how?

Do it anyway.

Wanna sing but don't know how?

Do it anyway.

Wanna .....insert here what you want to do.........

but don't know how?

Do it anyway.

Throw open the gates of possibilities.

About the images: Boy dancer- ink on brown paper

Gates- photo