Since Betty Edwards’1979 Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, researchers, artists, teachers have attempted to transfer ideas of the creative process from the “gifted,” “talented,” “artistic,” to the everyday average person … or even you or even me. Edwards became fixed on an idea that learning to draw was simply a matter of learning to see. She developed exercises to prove this, exercises that became infectious in the idea of teaching process. Rico’s Writing the Natural Way is an obvious descendant, and Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones would have been unlikely without the previous two. The process toward understanding process has had a modern beginning.

Who’s to say how these seeds played into the development of the internet, or Apple, or the Blogoshpere? However, computers, the internet, and blogs are themselves seeds for the fertile ground where we assemble daily to continue our process of discovering our selves, our lives, and one another. Blogs, especially, have become the magic elixir of the internet, and among those are blogs continuing Edward’s model of sharing the creative impulse from the artful to the art shy.

Among these, there are Blogs about: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and The Drawing Blog, In other art forms, even the New York Times maintains a blogged piece “How to Write a Song and other Mysteries.” In fact, Googling “creative process blogs” provides 1.67 million links in .5 seconds, suggesting that one, blogs might be here with a heavy impact and two, creative process is hardly a thing to be shy about. However, a close inspection of blogs dealing with creative process provides a number of clues to their standings.

One, many blogs seem to begin with a high-minded concept of sharing methods of creativity but quickly deteriorate into messianic prose of having the answer for everyone or that earth-centered-I’ve-found-myself-and-my-universe that quickly brings into suspect new age religion or better mushrooms: tease yourself with Paulo Coelho’s Blog (not quite creative enough to use parallel structure for the steps “plowing, sowing, growing, harvesting, sharing” or even “a through e” ) or the "Creativity Portal's blog lists (links of which lose us within Alice’s looking glass or, rather, have other issues to deal with).

Two, creative process sounds like a fountain of youth renewable daily, but sites like ArtMuseDog, Creative Nudge, and Art Heart are sporadically published suggesting that these are merely seeds the artists themselves need to get moving creatively and once they do they abandon their pages and audience until the next artist’s block catches up to them.

Three, there are those creative process blogs that extend into the vapors, that seem to be continuous, disciplined, and dedicated to the process we call creativity. Brook Jensen, publisher of Lenswork has a podcast blog, Photography and the Creative Process; consider the 4 minute piece “Just the Right Amount of Ego” as it relates to your own specialty whether painting, cooking, writing lyrics, or washing cars.

These three considerations initiate a fourth: proposing a new blog called “Descriptive Eye.” With blogs good and growing, priests are needed at the gates of our greatest quests, whether this is caring for our elders, considering influences in education, or the impact of marathon running. Among these gates, an ongoing, official-acting (meaning “fair” and “objective”) blog on creative process could

help recognize, research, relish, and recommend avenues in the creative pulse and its connection not only to fine arts of the classics but the classic art of living every day with specialties we call our jobs, our hobbies, or our devotions.  In short, it isn’t a matter of accepting that we are either an artist or a technician in this life.  It is more a matter of embracing the idea that we are both, often at the same time.  I may be artistic in suddenly creatively splashing sprigs or oregano with hard cider and marinating a chicken breast with this mixture, but put a needle and thread in my hand, and I’m barely even skilled as a technician.  We all have those tasks that call us to instruction manuals, but equally we have all those bicycles we ride without giving a second thought to how we do it...because we have learned to let it be natural within us.