• Why Fewer Tools Makes You a Faster Creative

    Discover why mastering fewer creative tools boosts speed and productivity. Learn how familiarity accelerates flow, reduces cognitive load, and unlocks deeper creativity. Focus on depth over breadth to compound skill, streamline workflows, and make your tools disappear so the work can truly begin.

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  • The Next Tool Won’t Fix It: Why More Gear Doesn’t Make Better Creative Work

    There’s a moment that we all, as creative people know: we’re stuck, and we start to think the problem is the gear I have. But the creative tools you already have are almost certainly enough. So why do we want more? Why do we think the creative fix is in the new shiny?

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  • The Habits That Quietly Kill Creative Output (And What to Replace Them With)

    The Habits That Quietly Kill Creative Output (And What to Replace Them With) Here are several creativity killers with advice on how to stop them and creative habits to replace them.

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  • Is Your Creative Idea Worth Finishing? Here’s How to Decide

    How to Tell If a Creative Idea Is Worth Finishing (And When to Let It Go). Is that song, this painting, my story about an AI enhanced goldfish worth finishing? Here’s how to decide if your art, song or writing is worth continuing. The rhyme and reasoning behind deciding what creative projects to finish.

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  • What Years of Creating Taught Me About Discipline

    Discipline and willpower are not the super powers of successful creatives. it’s about crafting effective systems that naturally guide behaviour. Learn how these creative frameworks can help you achieve more without the constant struggle.

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  • Why Creative Constraints Make You More Productive (and More Creative)

    Creative projects with the most freedom are often the hardest to finish, or even start. The ones with tight constraints tend to move faster. And sometimes come out better. Three simple rules for creative freedom

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  • 3 Steps to Creative Heaven?

    3 Steps to Creative Heaven?

    3 steps to creative heaven? text with an image of me walking

    3 steps that are helping me reach my creative goals. This vlog looks at what works in my planning, to-dos and habit tracking. After just a few weeks of the year, I am already noticing what does and doesn’t work.


    Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
    namaste
    d
    xox

    If you enjoyed this post please support my writing by making a donation of any amount.

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  • Creativity, Just do it! – vlog

    Creativity, Just do it! – vlog

    Creativity. Just do it! text with image of Darren

    Two simple steps are helping me get back on the creative journey. In this week’s vlog, despite tech issues and other annoying things, I am managing to be creative.


    Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
    namaste
    d
    xox

    If you enjoyed this post please support my writing by making a donation of any amount.

    Sign up for my (ir)regular newsletter to keep up to date with my creative adventures, including special offers, and join me on Instagram | YouTube | Twitter | Pinterest

  • rhythm as a metaphor: vlog

    rhythm as a metaphor: vlog

    rhythm as a metaphor, goals for 2024 a vlog - text overage of harbour

    A simple introduction to how I will be achieving my creative goals in 2024. Part vlog and part poetic metaphor. Watch here or on YouTube.


    Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
    namaste
    d
    xox

    If you enjoyed this post please support my writing by making a donation of any amount.

    Sign up for my (ir)regular newsletter to keep up to date with my creative adventures, including special offers, and join me on Instagram | YouTube | Twitter | Pinterest

  • My word for 2024

    Image of the word Intent, with the meaning of the word blurred in the background

    Each year I choose a word. A word to guide me, a word to inspire me, a word I can see above my desk when I doubt, or fear, or worry, or… celebrate. This year, 2024, my word is INTENT.

    “Too many wasted nights
    obsessed with the flickering things in my life”
    Ancient Water by Future Islands

    I get distracted too easily
    by the flickering,
    the incorporeal,
    the incorruptible,
    the sublime and the ridiculous

    But 2024 will be focused
    2024 will be met with INTENT

    Every flickering moment of my existence will be intentional.


    Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
    namaste
    d
    xox

    If you enjoyed this post please support my writing by making a donation of any amount.

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  • Issues and maintenance on the blog

    caution gap next to train tracks

    There are one or two issues with the blog at the moment. These are finally making me get around to doing a little maintenance on the site. This shouldn’t affect your visit, stay or gentle browsing, but things might change from moment to moment. It is possible some bit or piece may be gone one minute, moved the next and finally after a quick breath back in its old position. I am hoping most of the work will be behind the scenes until eventually, a new and shiny, clean and clear site will emerge.

    Hold tight, please place your trays in their upright position, and enjoy the journey.


    Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
    namaste
    d
    xox

    If you enjoyed this post please support my writing by making a donation of any amount.

    Sign up for my (ir)regular newsletter to keep up to date with my creative adventures, including special offers, and join me on Instagram | YouTube | Twitter | Pinterest

  • AI art generated in Photoshop

    AI oil painting using photoshop

    The above is a piece of AI-generated art. Now it is possible that you hold the view that AI art is not art. Although I can already feel my insides becoming twisted as I begin to unpick the syntax in that last sentence. Let’s just say that the above was created using the AI generate feature in the latest Photoshop Beta.

    At this present time, the AIs in the current plethora of apps and websites don’t decide on a whim to go and create or make something. Although it is possible that by the time you read this, they will. (And, just hedging my bets, I want to say that I have always loved AI and think you are amazing {always be kind to AI, you never know!}) Anyway, as I was saying you have to ask Photoshop, or other apps, to do something. And that is how I generated the above.

    However, I didn’t simply ask it to draw a landscape image containing this and that. I began with a sketch that I had drawn in my journal. I took a photo of the sketch, imported it into Photoshop and then with some wizardry using masks and opacity asked the AI to turn my sketch into an oil painting. Below is my original sketch.

    pencil sketch in my journal

    I thought Photoshop made a pretty good interpretation of my sketch. When I did the doodle in my journal I had no idea what it could become. It was a complete creative journey…

    • but is it art?
    • did the art stop and something else take over?
    • is it another way in which pure art is being diluted?

    IMHO I believe that this is simply another form of art. Throughout history, there have been innovations that have developed the creative talents of humanity. I think the current use of AI is just another form. However, when or if an AI decides to create without a prompt or being programmed… 😲


    Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
    namaste
    d
    xox

    If you enjoyed this post please support my writing by making a donation of any amount.

    Sign up for my (ir)regular newsletter to keep up to date with my creative adventures, including special offers, and join me on Instagram | YouTube | Twitter | Pinterest