Winter in the Creative Flock ❄️
Slow, steady creativity and gentle inspiration for the winter season
Hello Friends and a Happy New Year to you all,
I hope the festive season has treated you well and you aren’t emerging into January, bleary eyed and in need of a two-week holiday to reset your nervous system.
My great intentions to rest in between Christmas prep and posting out calendar orders during December didn’t go quite to plan. I was hoping to spend my pause last month to carve out some quiet time with my sketchbook but barely picked up a pencil. Still, I got my creative kicks in other ways - making pull-crackers from scratch for six people and producing my annual, enormous sherry trifle, which reliably keeps us in dessert for days. With two sets of family visits and friends dropping by, December was very much a month of hosting. There was never a dull (or quiet) moment.
Earlier this week, while tidying my studio and gently breaking the Between-Christmas-and-New-Year fug, I inadvertently disturbed a ladybird who had been dozing on my sketchbook. This sketchbook, like the rest of my studio, had been collecting dust for the past three weeks while I was knee deep in to-do lists and gift wrapping. Meanwhile, the ladybird, like all savvie hibernating creatures, was doing the sensible thing: resting when it was most needed1
As I carefully found her a new place to snooze, I reflected on our human tendency to fill every moment with tasks, a habit that peaks at Christmas, precisely when slowing down would serve us best. I’d like to remember that ladybird next December, when I’m tangled up in over-complicated family arrangements, tempted to buy just one more gift, or worrying about whether guests might notice that stubborn bit of mould around the bath.
It doesn’t matter.
Slow down.
Be more like the ladybird.
After that moment, it felt apt to reward my tidying efforts by starting Wintering by Katherine May, a Christmas gift from my husband. The book has been on my wish list for years, and I’m slightly embarrassed it took me so long to pick it up. I’m only a chapter in, but I’m already hooked. Rarely has a book made me feel so seen so quickly.
May’s concept of wintering feels both comforting and deeply validating. I would often feel shame for needing regular periods of rest and quiet reflection, particularly in spring and summer when we’re expected to feel energised and active. While I love the lift those seasons bring, I still experience lulls in mood and energy. Understanding wintering as something that can happen at any time of year, and recognising it as both normal and necessary, has been a revelation.
Hosting the Creative Flock is a joy but it takes a lot of energy to build and hold space for a community. I’m grateful to be more aware now. Rather than pushing through and masking exhaustion, I take breaks more readily and with far fewer apologies. I know how stretched many of us feel for time and energy, and how valuable that permission to pause can be.
One of the intentions I will take into 2026, shaped by my personal experiences this year and the concept of Wintering, is to show up for my online and offline communities in a way that serves me as well as others. After all, we can’t pour from an empty cup.
Wishing you a happy New Year that is as gentle and nourishing as it is creative x
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Each season, I provide creative resources, and gentle ways to let the season spark your creativity. Paid members can access all resources and sign-up links for our live sessions, further down this post.
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Friday Good Stuff
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Members, head down the post to access your creative resources for Winter:
January, for me, is a time for slow, steady creativity and gentle reflection.
Getting outdoors becomes even more important at this time of year. I try to get as much natural light on my face as possible and to notice the subtle shifts in the landscape. I love atmospheric, frosty scenes and the pared-back structures of winter trees, hedgerows and branches. Birds are easier to spot now their leafy cover has thinned. Linger quietly by a hedge and before long you’ll notice a small tremor, then a flash of brown, grey or the red of a robin darting through. This is peak territory-defending season, so wrens, blackbirds and great tits often announce themselves noisily before you even see them, too busy squabbling to worry much about us.
Over the next two months, while winter ticks by, I’ll be sharing ways I slow down, notice more, and stay creatively inspired during these colder, darker months.
I’ll be drawing from my own experiences and sharing those of other artists, as well as dipping into the brilliant Art of Noticing, by Rob Walker which offers a huge range of practical exercises for sharpening our attention.
My hope is that we’ll emerge into spring feeling more attuned to the season, quietly inspired, and perhaps with a few well-loved sketchbook pages filled. Not overdoing it, just moving slow and steady, waiting for the natural cue to re-emerge, rested and ready.
One of the small, manageable steps I’ll be taking this month is continuing my nature journaling practice. It might seem an unlikely time of year to record nature, when there’s less obvious abundance, but with intentional observation there’s still so much to notice.
I’ll be looking harder at my surroundings, at what catches my eye, and spending more time truly observing. Finding beauty in the ordinary, inspiration in the small things that are so easily overlooked. Depending on the weather, these outings may be short. I might only manage a page or two a week, but that will be enough to keep my practice alive.
