Raw art is the art you do from the deep, often lonely, place inside you that brings you great joy, but often not great understanding from others. It’s the place that sets you free, that allows you to draw, write, collage, even when you “can’t draw a stick figure.” (That’s how people who can’t draw describe themselves.) You often don’t show your raw art to people because you feel vulnerable, even exposed. Raw art is not perfect, sometimes it’s not clear to anyone but yourself.
That is the exact place creativity lives. In the work that makes meaning for you. Not photo-quality illustration. Not museum-accepted watercolor. A page in your journal that you hug to your chest because you got it right for you–that memory, that pain, that sadness, that joy, maybe even all of them together. Raw art is intimate and a bit scary because it is so real to you, so heavy with recognition of who you are, were, can be.
This raw-art journal prompt is simple–print it out, use it as a background, alter it to show what you need to show. Write over it. What is it? It’s a stark silhouette of a mountain with a moon mirrored in the still lake. Or maybe it’s just a crack in the sidewalk. You can decide. Put the link to your raw-art result in the comments.
Monochrome moon rising over lake.
–Quinn McDonald keeps a raw-art journal. Her how-to book, Raw Art Journaling: Making Meaning, Making Art will be published by North Light books in June of 2011.
