Making Friday: The restorative power of a nap

I’ve been feeling a little scattered in the Making Friday department lately, partly because of all the promotions work that this time of year takes up, and partly because I’ve been working on designs for next year’s new fabric collection, but on Friday I really felt the need to simply sit down and make something. Anything at all, just as long as it wasn’t something I HAD to do (which is what Making Friday is all about).

I had an unopened box of watercolour pencils at the Think Tank, so I bust these open and drew a whole bunch of coloured squares all over a piece of watercolour paper. That wasn’t terribly exciting, so… I lay down and had a nap.

Now, my naps are a bit of a guilty secret, so I’m a little hesitant to tell you about them (and I hate to think what my team is going to think now when I say I’m off to the Think Tank), but I’ve decided to come out about my occasional indulgence, as I find it immensely useful. Often (but only at the Think Tank), when I’m out of ideas, or feeling uninspired, I feel a dreadful heaviness come over me, and I can hardly stop myself from lying down on the floor. It’s a horrible, dragging feeling, and as I’m a pretty energetic person on the whole, it’s quite unpleasant. So I set my alarm for 15 minutes and lie down on the ground. I usually wake after 10, and when I get up, it’s quite amazing. The heavy feeling is gone, and it’s as if I’ve passed through a portal. I feel re-set and ready to go.

This time, after my nap, I got down one of my scrapbooks (more about them here), where I paste images cut from magazines, and sometimes make collages inspired by something I’ve seen in the mags, and stopped at this sketch I’d made with coloured paper and pens:

This gave me an idea about combining lines and blocks of colour, so I added some ink ink lines to my blocks of watercolour pencil, did some cutting, and came up with… marmalade and jam!

I still liked the wineglass shape though, so I drew one, with a smear of lipstick on it (gross), and then added the culprit (with a wineglass-shaped head) who was having a funny feeling that she’d left something behind at the bar.

And that’s all I did, apart from napping. What I made has no function other than flexing my creative muscles, but just like taking the stairs instead of the elevator, these are the things that keep us in shape.

Hoorah for Making Fridays… and for naps.

PS: If you’re wishing you could also have a Making Friday, but don’t know how to start / fit it in / keep it going, take a look at this article from the marvellous Abby Glassenberg about waiting for inspiration to strike. Hope it helps!