A vision for a solo creative retreat

A new idea for my digital nomading experiments

Well, goodness. It’s not even been a full month since I got back from France and, after having said that I was “actually kind of done with going away for a bit”, my feet are starting to itch a bit already. If I can just work out how to wangle a break with Chris for our (20th!!) anniversary in September and have that booked, they would probably stop itching. Though maybe not.

I think, in the same way that I search for the perfect way to set out my portfolio, and the best way to cook a certain food (See, you were wondering how quickly I’d drop a hint to go check out my new food substack, weren’t you? And, the answer is… very quickly, indeed!) all these trips I take are part of a search for THE perfect way to digitally nomad (for me, obviously everyone’s perfect way will be different for everyone else’s).

And last month’s trip wasn’t quite right, for a number of reasons, not least of which was that it was just a holiday and had no additional purpose. Now, up to that point, I had mostly tried to use work to create the additional purpose.

travel + work = lovely balanced combination

(It does also mean I can go more often, because if I am earning money while away it costs less. Kind of. There’s a logic there, but it doesn’t always stand up to scrutiny.)

But what I hadn’t fully considered was the idea of finding a different additional purpose. Not just ‘winding down’, having ‘a break’, ‘relaxing’. Not that there is anything wrong with those things and they are all very important. But more that having those as the sole purpose, for me, gave the trip (or holiday, if you will) a lack of balance.

I was chatting with a colleague the other day about how much we need some kind of creative outlet to give us a good mental balance. I realised, in that conversation, that some kind of creative act is my non-negotiable. I can (and frequently do) skip walking, and yoga and exercise of any kind (not advocating this – I absolutely shouldn’t do) but I will find at least five minutes (and usually more) to be creative in some way. Cooking a meal from scratch can count. Writing in a journal (or a substack post!) counts. Sometimes I feel reading counts, too, though only when it’s something that sparks thoughts of some kind, rather than just plain plot or character, or instruction.

But unsurprisingly, for me, drawing and painting are my most common, and favourite creative tasks. And there are varying levels of how much energy it can feed me, depending on what else is going on at that time, how much I can give to it and what sort of thing I’m doing. Sometimes, it’s a go-with-the-flow painting or pattern-making, especially if there’s symmetry involved that feeds me a wonderful underlying calm. Sometimes it’s a deep dive into a particular piece that will bring intellectual stimulation, or a feeling of joy. Sometimes it’s a only a five-minute doodle that acts a moment of mindfulness or meditation.

When I’m on a working + travel digital-nomad-style trip, I forget that they are generally quite busy. The times when I’m not working, I will be out walking around the streets, visiting museums, taking train hops down to nearby towns or villages, going to the theatre, sitting in cafés soaking up the language and energy, reading, dipping my toes in the sea… I am filling my soul with inspiration and intellectual and artistic stimulation, in between the (not always) mundanity of the work tasks that have to be ticked off.

I always take sketchbooks and pencil cases with me. And I frequently do nothing more than dipping in and out of some go-with-the-flow mindful floral patterns. Maybe a few 10-minute sketches while out wandering. I’ll also take a lot of photos, but my photographic skills are not such that they are creative photographs – just documenting the things that catch my eye for later perusal, really. And I almost always question why I didn’t do more. Why didn’t I return with my sketchbooks full and having had to visit a local art shop to buy a new one? Why was there only one new file in my Adobe Fresco folder for the whole week? Why didn’t I write a whole novel?

And the truth is, it’s because I’m too busy with soaking up the inspiration in the in-between times when not working. With experiencing life and not just documenting it. And, so often, I end up working longer hours while away than at home (I never plan it that way, but it frequently seems to happen) and then what I need that creative downtime for is the mindfulness winding down side.

So, surely that actual week’s holiday (I still find that a really difficult word to use - is that because holidays were not things we did when I was a kid; we visited family or we went on adventures or trips – or moved to another country for a year; never on an actual ‘holiday’?) should have been jam-packed full of a tonne of new creativity. Why wasn’t it? Why was all I did pretty much the same kind of thing I would do on the working trips?

Well, some of it was being ill for two of the days, probably. But mostly it was because I had no plan (and I’m not going to discount the fact that I didn’t have a laptop with me – writing is absolutely a very big part of my creativity and, while my hand-lettering is great, my hand-writing, is really very not).

I find it really weird and very much in conflict with the image I have of myself as someone who likes to go with the flow. I love to wander round cities just looking at the architecture and the people and the waterways and street art or statues or gargoyles. So surely my creativity must be the same? Surely, if I am just sitting there alone with nothing to do and no responsibilities or deadlines, it will all just flow out and I will have multiple new illustration pieces and thousands of words.

But it’s really not a surprise that it doesn’t. I’m not used to having complete creative freedom, or complete freedom, even! I usually have to plan my creative tasks around workloads and family responsibilities. And when I don’t – or when I don’t have the energy to do the specific already-planned tasks – only then do I do the mindful, go-with-the-flow work. The ideas of what I will be drawing at normal times come from a combination of sources – client work, courses or challenges I’m doing, or specific plans for portfolio or personal work of some kind; it’s fairly rare for me to just sit down at a blank page without a plan and come with anything other than a floral pattern or geometric pattern or abstract pattern. Anything else takes thought and planning.

So, there should be no surprise whatsoever that I didn’t develop the sudden ability to just spew out useful finished creative projects purely because I have some extra downtime.

Which leads me to what I want to do next time I have a work-free solo trip – of whatever length. Even if it’s just a two-night hop up to London and not a full week abroad. Even if it’s just a working week in St Ives (just is definitely the wrong word – that’s literally one of my favourite breaks and, as

Karen Staniland-Platt

said on

Beth Kempton

’s post recently, it’s a place that is brimming with magic; it would probably be one of the best places to take a planned creative break), rather than heading off on the Eurostar to baguettes and sun-drenched vegetables.

I will make a plan to create my very own tailor-made creative retreat. I will plan to spend a similar amount of time on creative tasks as I would normally do on work tasks. And then spend the rest of the time exploring and filling my creative inspiration bucket.

Here are things I would like to include, in order to provide both some dedicated space to create some specific pieces, and also some dedicated space to creatively explore in a more focused way than usual. And I would probably look to throw in some learning as well – whether that’s taking a particular book along with me, downloading some podcasts, watching some course or YouTube videos, or practising a specific skill on a daily basis.

• Have an illustration project to work on.

• Have a writing project to work on.

• For each of them, have some manageable targets to achieve over the period – so that might be a number of words for the writing project, or a number of pages/spreads; and it might be to create character sheets for the illustration project, or draw 5 full-page sketches, etc. or having five or more rough sketches So, some targets that would be similar to work targets and in a way mimicking that kind of workflow.

• Take a particular skill to practise and spend a dedicated amount of time each day on it – for example, it might be practising a particular medium, or digging deeper into colour palettes or texture, or practising drawing a particular animal, or children, or cars.

• Set aside definitive sketchbook time each day and go out and live sketch, maybe with a planned location for each day. And accept whatever comes out of it, as a learning exercise in and of itself, regardless of what the end result looks like. And make notes about it.

  Adam Ming
  has been making sketchbook notes recently and it looks like an incredibly useful exercise).

• Take a creative inspiration book with me to dig into. I have shelves full of inspiration books – from specific educational texts about illustration, to collections of patterns, to books about a single artist or a movement, to illustrators sharing their journey or specific skills. I rarely take the time to actually sit down and dig into them and take notes. So, I feel it would be great to do so on this type of break. Just pick one to take along (especially as I like to travel light!).

• Make at least one of the museum/gallery trips as a learning one where I sit and sketch and make notes (whether about a number of pieces or just picking one in particular, or one artist) and don’t just go with a soaking-up-the-atmosphere go-with-the-flow attitude.

I think I’d probably like to dig down a bit further into some of these and maybe make more specific plans. But always making sure they’re manageable ones and would fit into around five hours a day (which is usually my aim when I’m doing a combined working and travelling trip – though they seem to often end up being more like 8-10 hours!), allowing for expansion outside of those hours if the inspiration and drive is shouting out for it and as long as it doesn’t stop me from going out and exploring and experiencing wherever I am.

Have you ever built your own creative retreat? Or have you paid to go on one of the group ones? (They always look amazing, but way outside my price range – I haven’t seen any under a grand and most of them seem to be a few thousand. I did come close to going to a weekend workshop in Seville recently. I think it was under €300 for the workshop, which spanned three days, so doing that and paying to get there and accommodation would have been quite reasonable (especially if I took the non-environmentally-conscious option of a super cheap flight). So I might just keep an eye out for something similar to that. Combining travel with a short workshop or a life-drawing class at a local studio or similar, could be a really good option.) What would you include in your creative retreat, if you were making one of your own?