I can feel like a care free child any time I like. I just draw.

Drawing must be one of the first things I child creates that is preserved.

So of my earliest memories is of me drawing. I loved drawing. I drew even when I wasn't ment to.

I drew on everything. I don't remember drawing on the walls but I was probably told off for it a few times.

The thing I love about drawing is it's the way I think. It certainly helps me to think better. I think in pictures. I love the fact that a drawing becomes a hard copy of my imagination. I can look as it decades later and still get the same feelings I got when I first drew it.

It still has a lot of advantages over any electronic form used to record ideas. It quick, precise, cheap and doesn't need recharging. But what it helps you to do is still amazing, and how easier it is to communicate your ideas as well.

I believe everyone can have a relationship with their chosen medium like this. Be it song writing, playing a musical instrument, photography, film making, wood work or electronics. It needs to be the way you enjoy expressing yourself. It need to say something to you and about you. You need to see the beauty in it. You need to enjoy the process. It need to be like play.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

CREATIVE BALANCE: A DEFINITION

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Ideas that regulate or maintains Creative Balance...

One area needs to be viewed in the context of related areas:

1. If one area is balanced at the expense of other areas, then creative balance isn't achieved. eg: A balance is found between rest - energy but not Start - finish.
2. Creative balance is subjective and objective. Though it may appear to be mainly subjective.
3. Nothing can be considered from a seriously objective perspective if it has not FIRST seen to have a serious subjective value. You need to subjectively enjoy studying something objectively.
4. Avoiding extremes but not just being neutral. Move as required, not according to passing mood. And not just a little of each, just for a change.
5. Content out of context is a pretext.
6. Creative balance is not static (fixed, un-moved, immobile, inactivity). Things that prevent movement are obsolete knowledge (some published information), pre-conceptions, Uniform or general attitudes, Social or personal habits.
7. Confining or restricting your exposure to only one or two sources of knowledge or facts, Over specialisation in a field or skill.
8. Those with creative balance can be predominately specialised. Meaning that 80% of his knowledge and expertise can be in one area, but not exclusively to that area. 100% specialisation will confine your ability to be innovative.
9. It's about your creative heart, not just your thinking abilities.
10. Your creative heart includes your day-dreams, identity, interests, emotions, personal goals, motivating rewards, hopes, perceived needs, important learned skills, your values, your view of the world, the things you want to communicate, the focus of your curiosity, your desired journey or direction and what you find satisfying.
11. Creative balance is designed to explore, discover and support these things.
12. It is a tour of the interconnections that exist or can be created to encourage personal creative development.
13. It identifies the core components that are important for personal creativity. Then it connects them together so they can work as one. Connections are anything that unifies or merges parts together so an exchange of communication can begin. So all the interests, needs and hopes etc can work together, rather than competing for attention.
14. It help you find compatibility in the world around you. So the exchange of information and meaning is mutually beneficial.
15. It makes allowance for the fact that everyone wants to be happy. But for a creative person happiness comes from many sources. Some sources at one time and some at other times. Happiness is a real emotional response to emotionally determined needs.
16. It is like Chemistry. Two different substances combined will become a third and completely new substance. As you combine two average ideas, you could come up with a third, very useful idea that has no obvious appearance to the first two. With a creative person, he can combine two aspects of his life and create a new dimension to create from. For example, a creative person can combine two interests and come up with an idea for an innovative project or activity that suits him better than they could before. Or he could combine his skills with the values that are important to him and come up with a new way to communicate new meaning.
17. It isn't intellectual and it isn't emotional. It's a mixture. It it was one or the other, then creativity would be governed and limited by it.
18. A balance of creativity and curiosity comes about by personal feelings, valued experiences and the joy one can have find, develop and communicate meaning or personal observations.
19. Understanding and enjoying the relationship between opposites is encouraged, not just trying to understanding them in isolation.

(This is part of my Creative Balance series)

You can find Steve at: www.ineedtocreate.com