I was reminded of a powerful life lesson Tuesday morning while reading The Book by Keith Houston.

A section on the history of illustrations in bookmaking stood out to me. The Chinese were the first to discover the power of mass-producing images with the invention of wood block printing. Take a block of wood, carve out the negative space, ink the wood that remains, and press the relief image onto paper. A simple, yet revolutionary concept that allowed an image to be created once and reprinted many times.

I felt a wave of inspiration come over while reading about this simple technique. Maybe I could make a block print of my own.

I had this same wave of inspiration 8 years ago but, made the fatal mistake of overthinking my design and ended up making nothing. My linoleum blocks were still sitting in my closet, untouched after all these years.

Not this time.

Wednesday morning I went out and got myself some paint, a roller, and got to carving.

By that evening, I had my first ever block printing series in hand.

The next day I had another.

Excited, I showed a friend at work the prints. He was shocked I made them. I’m not known as an artist and don’t see myself as one either. He seemed confused that I went for it without thinking too hard about it.

Turns out he had a similar wave of inspiration come over him three months prior. But he didn’t take action. He bought the supplies, he watched the tutorials, and yet, no print three months later.

I asked him why he hadn’t carved anything yet.
“I got in my head and started over-thinking it. I kind of lost momentum after that and it just never happened.”

Wasting time is forgivable but, wasting inspiration is a dangerous path to walk on.

It’s so rare to be inspired; a gift from the Muse. When inspiration strikes you must follow through.

When the wind blows, set sail!

Momentum is rarely free in this world so, seize it when it comes.

My friend is still thinking about the first print he’s going to make.

I’ve made three this week.

I even had to take a break from my fourth design to write this newsletter.

Momemtum is one hell of a force.

Remember, today is always the best day to get started.

Prompt:

What's something you've been wanting to do or experiment with but keep putting off? How can you take action and start in some small way today?

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Ps. No shade toward my friend. I just hate to see inspiration go to waste, especially from talented and creative people. When he finally does make his print, I'm positive is will be amazing and much better than mine. He's a great artist but like so many artists, perfectionism and overplanning get in the way. I guess that's one perk of not identifying as an artist: you get to have fun with paint without worrying about how it turns out.