73: The Magic of Daily-ish Creativity
This week on the HobbyScool podcast, I had the joy of speaking with mixed media artist and teacher, Consie Sindet, who brings over 20 years of experience teaching creativity to our conversation about developing a playful art practice.
If you've ever felt intimidated by art or believed you're "not creative enough," this episode is especially for you!
You'll learn her simple "three S's" method for starting a creative practice (using supplies you probably already have around your home), discover the liberating concept of "daily-ish" creativity, and understand why perfectionism has no place in your artistic journey.
What I love most about Consie's approach is how she removes all the barriers that typically hold people back.
No expensive supplies needed. No massive time commitment required. No special talent necessary. Just a willingness to play and explore with the curiosity of a child.
Whether you're looking to reignite a dormant creative spark or start your very first artistic practice, this conversation offers the perfect blend of inspiration and practical steps to help you begin today—even if that just means drawing circles on a Post-it note while your coffee brews!
Tune in now to discover how five minutes of creative play could transform not just your artistic life, but how you see the world around you.
Your creative journey is waiting!
Mentioned in this episode:
Where to find Consie: Website, Instagram, YouTube
Consie's free gift: 3 Simple Ways to Start a Daily-ish Creative Practice mini class
Key Takeaways:
[00:02:00] Consie shares her earliest art memory of asking her parents to draw hearts for her to color
[00:03:00] The philosophy behind a playful art practice and approaching creativity with childlike wonder
[00:06:00] How to start a creative practice with simple supplies, small surfaces, and short time commitments
[00:08:00] An overview of Consie's Creative Playground membership and its approach to mixed media exploration
[00:11:00] Using art journaling as a low-pressure way to experiment and develop your creative intuition
Embracing a Playful Art Practice: Wisdom from Mixed Media Artist Consie Sindet
Have you ever found yourself paralyzed by perfectionism when approaching a creative project? Or perhaps you've abandoned creative pursuits entirely because they felt too overwhelming? In a recent episode of the HobbyScool Podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing Consie Sindet, a mixed media artist and teacher with over 20 years of experience in teaching creativity. Her approach to art-making is refreshingly different from traditional methods, focusing instead on play, curiosity, and letting go of rigid rules.
As someone who has tried "everything you could possibly imagine" in the creative realm—from face painting to body art to art journaling—Consie brings a wealth of experience to this conversation. What struck me most was her philosophy that creativity is innate in all of us, and even when we try to suppress it, "creativity always finds its way back."
The Philosophy of Playful Art-Making
Consie describes a playful art practice as one where "anything goes" and you approach creating with "a sense of childlike wonder." Rather than getting caught up in traditional art rules, she encourages asking questions like: "What can I try today? How would this mark look? How would these colors mix?"
This philosophy stands in contrast to more structured approaches to art education. While Consie acknowledges there's a place for formal training, she believes many of us simply want a creative outlet—a way to express ourselves without judgment or constraints.
"When you think about the way children play with art," Consie explains, "they're never like deep diving into, 'well, does red and green work?' They're just like, 'can I have red, can I have green?' They put it on a page and they just go for it." This uninhibited approach allows for joy and delight to become central to your practice, rather than striving for technical perfection.
Starting Simple: The Three S's Approach
For those feeling intimidated about beginning a creative practice, Consie offers a brilliantly accessible framework built around three S's:
Simple supplies - Children's watercolors, colored pencils, Crayola markers, or even just a ballpoint pen
Small surfaces - A little journal or even a pad of Post-it notes
Short amounts of time - Just five minutes at a time can, over time, build a meaningful practice
The beauty of this approach lies in its accessibility. Consie suggests placing your chosen supplies beside your coffee maker and spending the few minutes while your coffee brews engaged in simple creative exploration—drawing circles, making dots, or doodling triangles.
What happens next is fascinating: creativity begins to feed on itself. "If you are doing something and you are like drawing circles all day," Consie explains, "you are gonna start noticing everything that has a circle on it." Your awareness shifts, and suddenly inspiration appears everywhere.
The Power of "Daily-ish" Creativity
One of the most liberating concepts Consie shares is what she calls a "daily-ish" practice. Rather than pressuring yourself to create every single day (which can quickly become another source of stress), she advocates for consistency without rigidity.
"It doesn't have to be every day. It has to be a couple days a week," she explains. Creating on Monday and then again on Wednesday is perfectly valid. The key is maintaining enough consistency that your creative muscles stay engaged, while giving yourself grace and flexibility.
This approach removes the all-or-nothing mentality that derails so many creative aspirations. When the bar for success is "daily-ish" rather than "perfect daily streak," we set ourselves up to actually enjoy the process rather than treating it as another obligation.
Art Journaling: A Judgment-Free Creative Zone
Among the various creative practices Consie teaches, art journaling emerges as her favorite. What makes this approach so powerful is how it eliminates preciousness and fear of failure.
"The only thing you're dealing with is a piece of paper," she points out, "and you can try things in your journal. If you don't like it or you love it, you just turn the page and try again, or do something different."
This mindset shift is revolutionary for those of us who tend to abandon projects at the first sign of imperfection. Rather than starting over completely when we "mess up," Consie encourages us to simply acknowledge what didn't work, turn the page, and continue exploring.
For those wanting to take this concept even further, Consie suggests trying a "junk journal," which is exactly what it sounds like—a journal made from junk mail, misprinted papers, old receipts, and other materials headed for the trash. Working on these already "imperfect" surfaces removes even more pressure to create something precious or perfect.
Learning About Yourself Through Creative Play
Perhaps the most profound benefit of a playful art practice is how it helps us tap into our own preferences and intuition. As Consie puts it, "If you're paying attention, you start to learn about yourself, what you like, what you don't like, and you start to tap into your own intuition."
This self-discovery extends far beyond art-making. Learning to trust your preferences and instincts in your creative practice can strengthen your ability to make aligned choices in all areas of life. By regularly asking "What lights me up? What gives me joy? What brings me delight?" within our art practice, we become more attuned to these same questions in our everyday experiences.
The One Thing You Must Do: Just Start
If there's one message Consie wants to emphasize above all others, it's the importance of simply beginning—no matter how small that beginning might be.
"You have to just start," she insists. "I know it sounds crazy to say grab a pen and a Post-it and start making circles, but you really have to start somewhere."
While she acknowledges that gathering inspiration from Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube can be part of your creative practice, Consie emphasizes that "at some point, you must pick up an art supply and put it on a surface." The true joy comes not from consuming others' creativity but from engaging in the creative act yourself.
For those wanting structured guidance, Consie offers a free resource called "Three Simple Ways to Start a Daily-ish Creative Practice," which includes printables, prompts, and collage papers to help beginners get started without excuses.
Final Thoughts
Whether you're a complete novice or someone looking to rekindle a dormant creative spark, Consie's philosophy offers a refreshing alternative to perfection-driven approaches. By embracing play, curiosity, and a "daily-ish" mindset, you can discover or rediscover the joy that comes from creating simply for the sake of creating.
As Consie reminds us, everyone—including the accomplished artists you admire online—started somewhere. Your circles on a Post-it note today might evolve into something you never imagined tomorrow. The only way to find out is to begin.
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Welcome to the HobbyScool Podcast. Whether you're a seasoned hobbyist, or just getting started, HobbyScool is the perfect place to learn something new. My name is Dr. Destini Copp and I'm your host of the podcast. But before we jump into our episode for today. The only thing I ask is if you enjoyed the episode, please share with a friend and give us an honest review on your favorite podcast platform.
This helps us get out the content to more people. I also wanna invite you to get on our wait list for our next HobbyScool Online Learning Summit. These are free to attend, and you can find the link to join @ hobbyscool.com, which is also in our podcast Show notes now. Sit back. Relax and enjoy the episode.
And [00:01:00] my special guest today is Consie. Consie is a mixed media artist and teacher on her own creative journey. She has over 20 years of experience in teaching creativity. before online classes were even a thing, she taught in-person art classes to hundreds of people. She is host of the creative.
Playground membership where she encourages her students to play. Be curious and let go of perfectionism coni. I am super excited to chat with you today, before we get into all the questions I have for you, can you tell the good audience just a little bit more about you?
Sure. thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. I have been an artist forever. I have tried everything you could possibly imagine as far as creativity from all the way from face painting, a body painting, all the way to what I do today, which is teaching a lot of art journaling and junk journaling.
along [00:02:00] the way, I have tried. To stop being creative because I got overwhelmed and creativity always finds its way back to me. I think that we're all creative and you can't let go of creativity. You just have to, I. Pivot and find the next thing that you wanna be creative with and try and, yeah, I mean I've been doing it for a very long time.
I mean, I remember, I've had someone ask what recently, what my first art memory was. 'cause you know, I feel like I've been doing it since I was a itty bitty, and I remember making my parents draw pages of hearts so I could color them in. it's been a long time, that I've been a creative.
It's just. You know, the creative journey is winded around a lot. Well, and I'm gonna kind of dig into this with me, with you. before we started recording, we talked about your philosophy related to art, which I think is a little bit different from many people out there. But let's talk a little bit more [00:03:00] about.
Having this playful art practice, I know it's a little bit different from some traditional approaches that many of us may be familiar with, but tell us what you mean by that. Sure. I think what I mean by playful art practice is that anything goes and that you really have to go into it with a sense of childlike wonder
What can I try today? What would this do? How would this make this mark? How would this color mix with this? And try not to get too hung up in the rules of traditional art making. there is a place for going to art school and taking traditional art classes.
Many of us just want to have an outlet with, our creativity. And, and if you can let it be a sense of play and curiosity and what if, and you know, I don't like, let's try and make it ugly today. Let's try and, you know, make it messy today.
[00:04:00] Let's embrace all of that stuff then, you know. You really can just have joy and delight with your practice. When you think about the way children play with art and or with, you know, just their creative practices in general, they're never like deep diving into, well does red and green work. They're just like, can I have red, can I have green?
They put it, on a page and they just go for it. And I think that's what I'm looking for. Like what lights you up? What gives you joy? What brings you delight? Why do you laugh? What silly thing can you try today and bring that all into your art practice as opposed to trying to stick with rules and, make it perfect I think we wanna be not regimented. If this is your hobby, and this is supposed to be a delight, let's get the regimented part out and just play I love that. as you were thinking through that, I'm like, this fits me perfectly [00:05:00] because I don't really like following rules and I don't like following recipes that's why I think I'm a really bad baker because I follow the recipe.
I kind of just throw things in there. Right. I love that. So let's talk about if somebody is really wanting to jump in. Do this, but they don't know where to begin or might be overwhelmed or they've never done this before. I'll put myself in that category. I don't do a lot of play and just be creative.
So walk me through how somebody would get started. Sure. I think you have to keep the supplies, like three things that I, I tend to focus on. Well, there'll be a fourth, but three are all s's. So simple supplies, something like, you know, children's watercolor kit or some colored pencils, or even like Crayola markers or Crayola crayons.
small surfaces. You know, a little small journal or a, a pad of post-it notes. I can't think of anyone who doesn't have a pad of post-it notes [00:06:00] somewhere in their home. short amounts of time, like five minutes at a time will. Over time build a creative practice. if you were to say to me I would like, I would love to start tomorrow, then I'd be like, okay, grab the smallest pad of paper you have in your space.
Grab a couple colored pencils, or, it could be a ballpoint pen, it doesn't really matter. put it by the coffee maker. And every morning while you're waiting for your coffee to brew, I want you to draw and doodle. it could be, I'm making triangles, I'm just gonna draw some circles.
I'm just gonna make dots all over the page. And then the next day. See what else you can do. one of the things that creativity does is it feeds off of itself. if you are doing something and you are like drawing circles all day, you know, or not all day, but like that five minutes your coffee's brewing you are gonna start.
Noticing everything that has a circle on it, and you might pick up a pair of earrings that have circles on it, or you find yourself on a phone call and you start doodling more [00:07:00] circles, and so it starts to build on itself. the fourth thing I would say is to also be really careful with trying to do it every day.
Like one of my favorite words is the word daily ish. It doesn't have to be every day. It has to be a couple days a week. You do wanna keep it consistent. But even if on Monday you did some, doodling by your coffee and then on Wednesday you grabbed some colored pencils and were like, let me see what would happen if I make a rainbow with these colored pencils.
You know, all of those little things start to feed each other. you really start to recognize things around you. you might pick up something in a YouTube video or an Instagram post that you're, all of a sudden you're like, oh look, they're making circles, but this time they put watercolor in it and then you're off to the next thing.
So really just starting simple, small, short amounts of time. will get you. To the next level. And I love what you said about creativity, and it's just gonna kind of like rollercoaster, from [00:08:00] there. I know that you have a membership called the Creative Playground. I'd love for you not to give away, all the stuff in there, but I'd love for you to kind of walk us through, some of the things that you cover in there or that you encourage people to do.
That they might not have thought of doing. it's very much what I just talked about except I'm there. the playground is meant to offer all these different areas for you to try supplies and techniques. I'm a mixed media artist in that I'm not a watercolorist, I'm not an acrylic painter, I'm not a collage, artist.
I'm all of those things. I'm like the Jane of all trades when it comes to mixed media. I'm not perfect at all of them. But I love the idea of always trying something and seeing how maybe, collage and colored pencil will work together. the membership is made to be, why I call it the playground, is because it allows you to jump around.[00:09:00]
I can try, if we wanna use the playground one day, I am gonna be on the swing, and then the next day I'm gonna be, on the seesaw. And I want you to be able to then go, what if I, ran, did the seesaw and then I found out I did this. And so I want you to take those different elements that you learn within the membership, all the different techniques and projects, and start to learn to make them.
Your own because in the end I'm not always there. I mean, we meet like three times a month live where there's lots of opportunity for me to interact with the group. But the in-between is where I want you to start pulling from the membership to feed your own creative practice. So there's a lot in the membership of how to do this for five minutes or how to make your own rubber stamp or how to use a jelly plate.
And so it's teaching you all the skills and supplies, but it's also giving you a way to start playing with how to pull them all together [00:10:00] for yourself so you becomes your own creative practice. And what I love about that is you get to try a lot of different things and figure out, okay, I like this, or maybe I didn't like this, or I love the way this turned out.
Yeah. That helps a lot my biggest, teaching is through art journaling, which is, doing art within a handmade journal or a pre-bought journal, I should say, if you wanted to do it that way. And. I loved, I loved the concept of that because the only thing you're dealing with is a piece of paper, and you can try things in your journal, if you don't like it or you love it, you just turn the page and try again, or do something different
So you know, in the end there's no like preciousness about it anymore because. It's literally just paper. And when the journal's done, you can throw it away if you want to, or you can put it on a shelf and you can open another journal and just start playing again. it's really like taking the preciousness out of everything and just [00:11:00] seeing what happens when you, you know, it all comes down to that play and curiosity.
what's gonna happen if I do this on this page and then this happens? Oh, interesting. Hated that. Loved that. Turned the page, let's do more of the interesting. Let's maybe never do the thing I hated. And so you start to learn. Also, I feel you learn about yourself. If you're paying attention, you start to learn about yourself, what you like, what you don't like, and you start to tap into your own intuition.
Again, like how and which serves you in your life because we all wanna know what do we like, what do we don't like? And so if you can start to tap into it through your art practice, then it'll just filter out into your life. I love that. I think, me personally, kind of the mindset block that I have when I start a project like that, I feel like if I mess up, I have to start all over.
But the way you are teaching it, I would just keep going with it. Yes, absolutely. [00:12:00] that's the best thing about working in an art journal or. Even better a junk journal, which is right in the title. the journal is made of junk. It is the piece of paper that didn't come out of the printer correctly, fold it and put some art on it.
It's, the receipt or some junk mail that came and you put it all together and start working on that. you even start taking the preciousness off of the paper because it was junk to begin with and was going in the garbage. So why not just. Put some paint on it or glue some collage on it and see what happens.
So yeah, I love that. Consie, before we hang up here, do you have any last minute tips for the audience? I would say you have to just start you really, literally, I would. I know it sounds crazy to say grab a pen and a post-it and start making circles, but you really, have to start somewhere.
And if that's how you start and then you move from there, that would be what I would [00:13:00] tell you to do. Keep it as simple as you can. Keep it as. simple, small and short and, you know, just try, daily ish. One of the things I will tell people is that looking at Instagram or TikTok or wherever your choice of, YouTube videos can be part of your daily ish creative practice.
However, you still, at some point must pick up an art supply and put it on a surface. So if that's just a ballpoint pen or a pencil. On a tiny piece of paper, sitting next to your coffee maker, know that that is a creative practice because everybody has to start somewhere. Just remember all of us that you've seen online started somewhere.
if your way in is to make circles with a pen on a post-it, do that You can get inspiration from other places, Instagram, YouTube, somebody's website, but really the joy that you're going to get is you actually doing the work yourself. Great message for everybody [00:14:00] today.
Now I wanna let people know where they can find you, and I will definitely make sure all the links are in the show notes here. But can you let the audience know a little bit more about your free gift that you have for them? And the places where they can go to find you online? Sure. my website is called Atop Serenity Hill.
that's my home base. I do a lot of free tutorials on YouTube, so if you're looking to get inspired, that would be a good place to go. Instagram is a place that I hop onto. once in a while, YouTube is probably a better. Fine place to find me.
And the free gift I have for everybody is a way for you to pick up that Post-It note and a pen. And it's called Three Simple Ways to Start a Daish Creative Practice. in the little free class, I give you all the printables to print out a journal, have the prompts, give you some collage paper so that you literally have no excuse.
you [00:15:00] literally follow me along and build a tiny little journal. I show you how to work in the tiny little journal. I show you how to use prompts for your tiny little journal and it will absolutely get you started on a creative practice.
Wonderful. And Consie, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing all of your wonderful creative knowledge with everybody. Thank you so much, destiny. It was great to be here.
Thank you so much for listening today. Don't forget to sign up for the wait list, so you'll be the first to know when our next free HobbyScool Online Learning summit launches. The link is in the show notes for this episode, or you can go to hobby school.com and that's HobbyScool, with School Without an H in it.
Talk soon.