Play vs Productivity

Growing pains, stage fright and finding my way back to play

Hello lovely souls!

Last week I was sat at a table covered in paint pots, coloured paper, and half-finished drawings.

One child had spent the last ten minutes making what looked like a version of the Hulk in a tutu. Another proudly announced they’d accidentally got Posca paint all through their hair.

Nobody cared.

Gathering inspiration from the source

Nobody was worried about whether their work was good enough. Nobody asked if it was “Instagram-worthy”. Nobody apologised for changing their mind halfway through. They were simply making things because making things was fun.

For some context, I recently started a side job alongside my freelance illustration work as an art tutor.

It’s struck me how differently I approach creativity now compared to when I was younger. Somewhere along the way, making stopped feeling like play and started feeling like performance. Productivity. It didn’t happen overnight. A deadline here. A commission there. An inbox of opportunities. An algorithm. An audience.

All wonderful things, in so many ways. Things I’m incredibly grateful for. But somewhere along the way, they’ve definitely changed my relationship with creating. I began to ask myself…

Will people like this? Is this good enough? Can I post this? Will this become a print? Does this even fit my brand?

And perhaps the worst of the lot...

Is creating this worth my time?

Sketch-booking after gathering inspiration

Whilst they might be practical questions, they’re just not questions that encourage creative play.

It’s ironic that I’m supposed to be imparting wisdom to children while teaching, but I feel like the exchange is pretty equal. Without realising it, they’re teaching me how to free my imagination from expectation.

Growing Pains

We celebrate growth as though it’s always exciting. As though becoming more experienced somehow means becoming more certain.

But I don’t think that’s been true for me. This year, I put my lack of creativity down to creative block and mental health struggles. But I’ve started to realise it might actually be growing pains. The uncomfortable uncertainty that comes with life shifting. I’m not who I was a few years ago, but I don’t quite know who I’m becoming either.

It has looked like learning to hold onto creative time while balancing freelance illustration with two other jobs. Wondering whether I’m moving quickly enough. Questioning work that I used to make instinctively. Mostly, though, it has looked like forgetting how to play without overthinking it because time suddenly feels so scarce.

Which feels disconcerting, because the very reason I became an illustrator was because I loved making things. Not because they became products or because they made money, but simply because I adored the process.

For behind the scenes of the whole paint process

Productivity and a growing audience have shifted my ability to create freely, with no expectation, need for purpose, or pressure attached. My aim has always been to show up online authentically, but the more people who started watching, the more aware I became that people were... well... watching. I think there's always going to be some element of performance when you put your work on the internet. And now? Well now I’ve given myself stage fright.

I haven’t fallen out of love with my practice. I’ve fallen into a productivity trap. A consistent murmur that if something isn’t useful, measurable, or shareable, then maybe it wasn’t worth doing in the first place.

Play doesn’t work like that. Play doesn’t promise an outcome. It doesn’t guarantee success. It doesn’t care whether anyone sees it. Which is why I think it’s so important to creativity, because creativity is born from curiosity.

That’s probably why children are so good at it. They’re not trying to make masterpieces. They’re just seeing what happens.

I’ve realised that’s the artist I want to become again. Not a better artist. Not necessarily a more “successful” one. Just one who’s a little braver.

Brave enough to make things without already knowing where they’ll end up. Brave enough to let a painting simply be a painting. Brave enough to enjoy the process again. Brave enough to be bit a messy.

So that’s what I’m practising at the moment. Making things that might never leave my sketchbook. Painting without wondering whether it’ll become a print. Writing without it having to be spun into a takeaway or a lesson. Learning that not everything has to be productive to be worthwhile.

---

I’ve also created a little video that dives into the process behind this piece. It was inspired by many frolics through forests and that feeling of being completely enchanted by light trickling through the trees.

---

Thanks for being here!