7 ways to connect with your curious, creative nature
Artist, writer and botanical set designer, Rollo Skinner is a multi-hyphenate with a singular focus – creativity. Getting back in touch with his creative side at age 30, Rollo found his way to making art his living, and better yet to expressing himself in multiple mediums. And now, is helping others to do so too.
But the hardest part of getting good at any process, creative or not, is starting. We asked Rollo for some top tips on unleashing your inner artist and finding your calling – whether that’s out in the woods, up on the stage, or just in your own back garden.
1. Follow your weirdest urges
The weirder, the better. If you feel an inexplicable urge to create a self-portrait out of pasta or hop on a train and head to the sea – do it! Try spending a week saying yes to those odd little nudges. Those strange impulses are often the ones unaffected by social conditioning. They’re your inner nature trying to tell you something important.
2. Free write, daily
Every morning, I free write two sides of A4. In autumn and winter, when it’s still dark, I light a candle, it becomes this quiet, sacred ritual: just me and the page. There’s something vital about pouring your unfiltered thoughts out before the day begins. You’ll be surprised how many valuable insights appear.
3. Embrace your contradictions
You’re made up of many different selves – lean into them. The world will try put you in a box, but you are vast. One exercise I did: I made a Pinterest board of everything I love, then sketched images combining all those elements. It was incredible as my psyche started to find interesting associations between all the parts of me. It literally expanded how I see myself in the world.
4. Go outside and connect with nature
Go for walk. Find a tree, a park, a forest and just allow yourself to be still with it. When I slow down and spend time with trees, I find clarity and direction. There is so much noise in the human world, so much of it is irrelevant to us. Don’t let it drown out the quiet voice inside you.
5. Carve out time for your artistry
Like a long-term relationship, your creativity needs attention. Rather than filling your calendar with social obligations, try blocking out time just for you. A few hours, a day, or a whole weekend to live on “Artist’s Time”, where you follow your curiosity and see what unfolds. For instance, make Monday nights your sacred experimentation time. Keep the watercolours out on the kitchen table so that you have no excuse not to get them out.
6. Be extremely kind to yourself
You have to create a lot of bad drawings, poems, paintings, or clay pots before anything truly good emerges. Allow yourself to make terrible art. Play. The joy is in the making, and when you least expect it, something magic will appear.
7. Give yourself little gifts
For years I didn’t justify spending money on myself or my creativity. But one day I finally bought myself a £4 bunch of tulips from Tesco, it started an entirely new career. Then I bought some colour pencils and again it unlocked a part of myself I hadn’t allowed myself to entertain since childhood. You can even try foraging something beautiful on your walk, some weeds, some small branches. Giving yourself beautiful tools to play with is very, very important.
If you're trying to keep your creative mind abuzz with ideas, wanting to keep a track of Rollo's work – or simply a budding florist (pun intended), then you can follow Rollo's work on his instagram.
