Overflowing with eclectic and beguiling hand-drawn artwork, Drawing Momentum: Volume 1: Creativity was created by artist Tiffany Carman, for colorists, aspiring artists, anyone wishing to unwind from everyday stress and worry and have fun engaging in unique avenues of imaginative play. In a serendipitous dance with creative mindfulness, Drawing Momentum partners with you, to make coloring a more meaningful creative experience. Not your standard coloring book, these coloring pages raise the bar to help you tap into your imagination and ‘get in the zone.’ Here, a steady transformation, or creative momentum, is encouraged, at the pace of you, to reveal the healing energy of your uninhibited creativity ~ even without an “artistic bone” in your body. A visual garden, granting you the space and grace, as you become best friends with your inner artist, Drawing Momentum cultivates your ‘true colors’ to let your creativity blossom! By picking up the pen, coloring the beautiful pictures, you begin to linger in a meditative ‘paradise,’ where worries melt away and you find your center, rejuvenated and serene ~ drawing momentum ~ to reclaim your tranquility and deliver you to your restful happy place.

One glance at the original artwork within reveals coloring pages that are surprisingly original and a bit unconventional ~ a tantalizing, intoxicating, and evocative burst of sensory input waiting for you to experience! Inside, you will find coloring pages brimming with lavishly detailed illustrations ~ hand-drawn with flowing lines, sweeping swirls, tessellating patterns, and organically flowing geometric shapes, waiting for your embellishment and personal flair. Using colored pencils, gel pens, crayons, markers, watercolors, inks, even some not-so-common materials, all ages will delight in the freedom of discovery and the exploratory creative process, to put their own personal twist and colorful vision into the author’s hand-drawn artwork, drawing momentum toward manifesting your own ‘cool new idea’ into action. Then you can enjoy your Drawing Momentum keepsake artworks ~ frame and display them, use for crafts or other projects, make into a personal journal, practice tracing and drawing, share your artistry with a friend, write a poem for, decoupage your door, make mobiles from cutouts, or use to design your next tattoo! No doubt, you will be drawn to come explore within, where you will encounter a generous variety of creative amusements~ to intoxicate the senses, propel the imagination, and indulge the creative fantasy of every colorist.

A window for the eyes, a voice for the imagination, Drawing Momentum’s myriad fantastical designs and surprising spirited themes range from quantum jellyfish, galloping unicorns, a mechanical moon and stars, spiraling seashells, seahorses, masses of floating bubbles… to whimsical octopus, draping strands of pearls, smiling dolphins, woodland creatures, a pet moth, a cat-moth… to cosmic flowers, tree ladies, Egyptian glyphs, shamanic ‘masks’, and dynamic, far out anthropomorphs. Each page is an engaging visual story, somewhere that’s calm and safe to explore and daydream in a unique ethereal, otherworldly place. The famous psychologist Carl Jung was using coloring in the early 1900’s as a cathartic art therapy in his practice and knew of the power of symbolism in reducing stress. Jung is quoted as saying “Whoever speaks in primordial images speaks with a thousand voices. . . This is the secret of great art . . . the unconscious activation of an archetypal image and . . . elaborating and shaping this image into the finished work. By giving it shape, the artist translates it into the language of the present, so makes it possible for us to find our way back to the deepest springs of life. Therein lies the social significance of art; the artist is constantly at work educating the spirit of the age, conjuring up the forms in which the age is most lacking. The. . . artist reaches back to the primordial image. . . seizes on this image, and . . . brings it into relation with conscious values, thereby transforming it until it can be accepted by the minds of his contemporaries according to their powers.” With its out~of~this~world imagery, surprising perspectives and odd angles of approach, Drawing Momentum shifts your awareness along a different stream, intercepts your mind’s chatter and stress, disrupts your habits and assumptions, letting your emotions slide out of your comfort zone and into your imagination zone. Undeniably, ‘every picture tells a story’ and ‘is worth ten thousand words’. Drawing Momentum proposes that an uncommon picture is worth way more than ten thousand words.

Mesmerizing you with bold, expressive and imaginative displays, Drawing Momentum lays its heart on the table, coaxing you to pay attention, inviting you to dialogue and participate with them. Research says looking at and admiring art is not enough to develop creativity and ‘get in that magical zone.’ We must actually maintain attention, intrinsically motivated, fully emerged in the creative act, doing the ‘task’ of coloring, to purposefully manifest a response, an expression of oneself. Like an exotic obstacle course for your senses, Drawing Momentum picks up the pace and takes coloring to the next level ~ to flex your creative muscle, team up with your inner artist and stimulate your creative sensibilities. Challenge is necessary for creativity; it keeps us from becoming too passive, comfortable, bored or apathetic. Challenge and unpredictability focuses our attention towards becoming completely engrossed in the process, where our creativity can flow. The intricate layers, patterns and quirky combinations of subject matter of Drawing Momentum are just the right amount of unfamiliar territory to get your creative juices flowing. Undeniably present, naked and raw on the page, stark in their crisp black and white patterns and lines, tugging your attention this way and that, like adventures down a rabbit hole, everything means something else. Oooo~ing and ahhh~ing, as you color Drawing Momentum, your ‘eye’ finds and moves over what attracts your attention, challenging you to be intuitively observant, curiously focused, and keenly aware. Your inner artist is given a playground to come out and imagine in ~ to question, wonder, ponder, dream, and experiment with the ‘what ifs.’ Attentive to the messages, we recognize them by our memories, pulling them from the deep. Feeling your way, you choose your response. The only way to know how is to try.

As you become present to the feeling states that Drawing Momentum bubbles up to the surface, your own personal subjective experience and internal memories, you begin to make choices and attach your own meanings to the imagery, your own ‘spin,’ adding another layer of experience, a new frequency. Then your awareness circles back to your kinesthetic senses, to focus on what your hand is doing, with its concentrated back and forth movement, using your hand-eye co-ordination and fine motor skills. And then moving the momentum along, you refocus, returning again to check in with your ephemeral senses of perception, you ‘lean back in’ to listen to your feelings and memories. Meandering back and forth, in and out, recalibrating, and narrowing in our focus, as we color Drawing Momentum, our consciousness vacillates between two different states of awareness ~ logical processing to control the physical movements of doing the task and tapping into our subjective feelings and memories ~ to express ourselves. This ‘balancing’ or ‘teetering’ awareness between our physical efforts and our subjective awareness often slows our pace, narrows our focus, quiets our thoughts, and regulates our breathing and heart rate, often bringing that heightened state of awareness, that Zen feeling of being mesmerized ‘in the zone.’

Lucid mojo is like a secret key that unlocks our subconscious memory, that place where intuition, deja vu, dreams and serendipity live. It’s like wearing a new pair of glasses, ones that make gravity even feel ‘off’; sometimes, light looks differently; or we can see sounds or taste words; boundaries disappear and we lose ourselves; the air seems to vibrate; it’s like floating on air; maybe even some might compare it to an out-of-body-experience. Flowing in lucid mojo just makes you feel different, like in a dream. Coincidentally, this heightened, relaxed and creative state also occurs during dreaming, or REM sleep, when theta brainwave frequencies are between about 7 and 13 Hz. Buddhist monks, who are the happiest people on record, practice methods of meditation, including the creation of mandalas, to achieve a state of Zen, or enlightenment and nirvana, to develop mindfulness, concentration, supramundane powers, tranquility, and insight into everyday life. The renowned artist Alejandro Jodorowsky emphasizes and takes advantage of the shamanic healing qualities of lucid mojo in the most intriguing and ingenious way, naming it psychomagic. This ecstatic state is often experienced by athletes, artists, scientists, musicians, dancers, poets, authors, actors, healers, monks… and many others who are intrinsically motivated toward the ‘mastery’ of a semi-challenging open-ended task or being mindful, innovative or creative. Most claim that this zone is where they come up with their most ingenious ideas and unexpected bursts of creative insight and joy, and I agree. Lucid mojo is a direct line into creativity and creation, necessary for ingenuity and innovation, and solutions-focused appreciative inquiry, even how we might color a page from Drawing Momentum… or knit the best sweater ever or find a new use for all of those old toilet paper tubes or how we make chores fun or how we solve world hunger or find the cure for cancer or plan a trip to the moon or show someone how much we love them.

As we engage with Drawing Momentum, our focus narrows and concentrates, our mind quiets and we become immersed in the throes of perfecting our coloring and creativity ~ we get ‘lost in the zone.’ We lose track of time, almost hypnotized, in a trance, in a mild state of ecstasy, working our lucid mojo, letting our creative juices flow. Coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi as ‘flow,’ “to stand outside of yourself in an alternate reality” is now described by neuroscience as the ecstatic state of awareness ~ intensely paying attention ~ that one is forced to sustain while fully enmeshed in doing a (single) task, where a moderate level of skill or challenge is required. In addition to these factors to bring on a state of flow, Drawing Momentum incites several other key factors and qualities to help bring creative energy to the experience: concentration, inner clarity of mind, single-minded focus, mindfulness, fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination, play, spontaneity, intrinsic motivation, encouragement, feedback, integration, autonomy, curiosity, observation, sensory perceptiveness, adaptability, equanimity, non-judgmental-ness, openness to possibility, dynamic cognitive processes, working memory, and a fairly defined goal that is open-ended in its outcome. Many recent scientific studies, experiments, with over ‘83,000 brain scans’ and a growing genre of research and creativity tests, show that flow dynamically works all of the areas of your brain, ultimately building new neural pathways, your brain’s scientifically-proven ability to regrow, called ‘neuroplasticity’.

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Yes, Drawing Momentum is my creation; these coloring pages are my copyright protected works of art, each page hand-drawn, signed and dated and titled by me, Tiffany Carman. Yet, if I were to only offer Drawing Momentum as a printed book with one go-around on each coloring page, it just wouldn’t jive with the creative process. With creativity, the process, not the product, is key, where creative momentum builds the layers upon itself, where all creating becomes a co-creation. Don’t get me wrong; ask anyone who knows me. I love books!… But by offering Drawing Momentum in a digital format (edited pdf files/.zip file), it honors the creative process. With a digital format, you can print the pages of Drawing Momentum that you’re wanting to color more than once, on your preferred paper, black or greyscale for a lighter line, for all of your personal creative coloring needs… coloring, journaling, tracing, collage, practicing techniques or new approaches or ideas, or sharing quality time with someone you love, yourself.

Excitedly overcoming our trepidations toward the challenge ~ we just can’t ‘get it wrong’ because creativity is a process ~ we gain confidence along the way, as our brains release ‘feel good’ chemicals and dopamine as a result of the effort-driven reward system. We need not worry if we ‘mess up;’ we can consider it a part of the process and keep going, attentively playing, exploring and integrating, taking our path wherever it may lead ~ because we know we can always print it and try again, armed with new insight. Drawing Momentum honors the creative process, understanding that we are all creators, subject to our creations, yet unlimited in their potential. Interestingly, creativity tests don’t measure IQ levels or problem solving skills, but test for fluency, flexibility, originality, novelty, elaboration, and focus towards open-ended tasks. Art does not have ‘right answers’, only infinite perspectives and perceptions. This is the grace of being human. We get to see ourselves reflected in the world around us, while we simultaneously get to reflect ourselves out on the world.

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In the current cultural explosion of our millennial new age of universal mind expansion, awareness and enlightenment, I am not surprised that coloring, with its nostalgic links to childhood simplicity, is making a comeback as a popular pastime. Creativity is an integral part of finding our true inner joy, compassion, insight, innovation, adaptation, development, at the crux of consciousness and understanding, possibly even the enlightenment, evolution and well-being of the planet. What’s more on the pulse of the ultimate divine energy (god/source/Big Bang/etc.) than the act of creation? How everything in the universe was created, especially ourselves, seems to be a question on many minds. Everywhere are seekers, from scientists to philosophers to spiritualists, attempting to crack open the Cosmic Egg, seeking to find the ever illusive place within where science meets spirit; we are, I believe, enmeshed in a constant state of redefining ourselves, individually and collectively, discovering that the world is our oyster and we are the pearls. Creativity holds the key to unlock many mysteries, indeed. Drawing Momentum is a valuable and accessible way to tap into our creativity to self-heal, regain our balance, rejuvenate and soothe our bodies, minds and spirits, to deliberately, yet gently reconnect to things that deeply, numinously matter, like love, nature, happiness, peace… And creativity, too, for we are creators, innovators. We are artists on a journey, coloring in the meandering lines of our lives, in the process of working on our ultimate masterpiece: ourselves.

Like a lens, Drawing Momentum refocuses our attention to go within and, with the objective curiosity of a seeker, to change perspective, and to then travel in a different direction, along new streams, oftentimes, leading us to that ocean of infinite wisdom and possibility. Similar to entering the ancient spiral of meditation and divination, we follow the unknown and challenging path… Drawing Momentum… Integrating new experience and meanings, we incite our lucid mojo, get in the zone, to flow through a transcendent portal… Drawing Momentum… We narrow our focus until we can hear our own inner voice, and with grace, redefine, recharge, and reclaim our center to reconnect to things that deeply matter. Then as we unwind our way back out from the spiral’s center… Drawing Momentum… We have a fresh perspective, are self-empowered, rejuvenated with new insight, ignited with passion, reconnected to our intrinsic values and appreciation… Drawing Momentum… Once our perspective shifts, freed from old patterns, blocks, and stressors, we can see around a problem, envision new potentials, without an ‘obstacle’ in our way… Drawing Momentum… We keep on moving, entering new ‘spaces’, exploring, experiencing, integrating, responding, creating… Drawing Momentum ~