How to get the most out of a creative event without feeling behind

It is a beautiful fantasy.

It is also how a lot of us accidentally turn something joyful into a tiny unpaid internship.

I know this because I have done it as a participant, and I see it every year as the person behind Summer Creative Retreat. The second the schedule goes live, the excitement is immediate. WE CAN’T HELP IT! We start planning and talking about how we’re going to try to fit everything in.

And I love that enthusiasm. fr. There is something so fun about seeing a lineup and immediately feeling possibilities crack open.

But I also know the other feeling that tends to creep in right beside it. The feeling that you are already behind before the event has even started and that everyone else is going to make more, learn more, show up more, and somehow have a better creative experience than you…

…the feeling that if you do not attend every session, use every supply, finish every project, and take advantage of every bonus, you have somehow done the whole thing wrong.

Spoiler: Your brain is lying to you.

Creative events are supposed to make you feel more alive. They are not supposed to become another place where you critically grade yourself.

So before Summer Creative Retreat begins, I want to offer a simpler way into it that still lets you be wildly excited, but leaves room for your actual life, your actual energy, and your actual creative brain, which may decide halfway through the week that it wants to ignore the plan entirely and spend three hours painting one very wonky flower. Honestly, I support her.

1. Start with the feeling, not the schedule

When most of us look at a big creative event, we immediately start with logistics.

• What time is this workshop?
• Do I have that paper?
• Can I attend live?
• Which supplies do I need?
• How many sessions can I squeeze into one day without my spine filing a complaint?

I'll admit these are all valid questions. But before any of that, it helps to ask yourself what you want the week to feel like.

Maybe you want to feel playful again. Maybe you want to reconnect with art after a long slump. Maybe you want to stop overthinking every line and brushstroke. Or maybe you want to sit in a room, even a virtual one, with other people who understand the very specific delight of opening a fresh sketchbook.

Maybe you’re just plain tired and you simply want something easy to look forward to!

That feeling matters more than the number of workshops you complete. It gives you a little compass when the schedule feels enormous.

  →  If your goal is to feel curious: you might choose the session that makes you slightly nervous because it is completely outside your usual medium.

  →  If your goal is to feel grounded: you might choose something familiar and comforting.

  →  If your goal is to reconnect with creativity after a difficult season: one live workshop with your tea beside you may be exactly enough.

📣 Hear me when I say you do not need to build a productivity system around joy. You can let it be joy!

2. Let a few things be the main thing

One of the easiest ways to make a big event feel manageable is to choose a small handful of sessions that feel like your personal anchors. These are the ones that immediately tug at you.

You’ll see workshop projects and have the gut feeling that you want to make it. You might see a session taught by someone whose work you have admired for years. Or maybe there’s a lesson that’s using the supplies currently giving you a guilt stare from the corner of your studio.

Choose a few. Truly, a few. Everything else can remain available to you without becoming a requirement.

This is especially helpful with something like Summer Creative Retreat because the lineup is intentionally huge. There are sooo many different mediums, approaches, and instructors because I firmly believe that creativity does not move in one neat little lane. The whole point is exploration. But exploration works better when you are not sprinting through it with a clipboard.

3. You are allowed to watch

This one deserves more attention because I think a lot of creative people assume they have to make along with every workshop for it to “count.” But sometimes watching is the best way to learn!

You can notice how an instructor holds a brush, how much water they use, how they solve a problem, how they make decisions, how they recover when something goes sideways, and what they choose to leave alone.

When you’re making at the same time, your attention might get split because your hands are trying to keep up while your brain is also trying to understand what is happening. There is nothing wrong with sitting back and absorbing. Heck, you can even watch a Procreate workshop without owning an iPad and still pick up ideas about composition, color, layering, or shape. You can watch a sewing workshop because you are curious about pattern and texture. You could hang out during a lettering class because you love the rhythm of the forms, even if you have zero plans to letter a single quote.

A watercolor artist can learn from collage as much as a digital artist can learn from embroidery. The brain is strange and generous that way. It keeps little scraps of information in a drawer and pulls them out later when you least expect it.

4. Use what you already own

I say this every year because art supply lists have a bit of persuasive power over creative people. We can own drawers, bins, cups, carts, shelves, then see a supply list and become convinced that the entire experience depends on one exact brush or one particular shade of blue.

You do not need every exact item!

Most workshops have more flexibility built into them than a supply list can communicate. The instructor is showing you what they will be using, but that does not always mean you need the identical brand, size, color, or material to understand the idea and make something meaningful from it. You may be able to swap in mixed media paper, use a black fineliner instead of a dip pen, translate a painting project into colored pencil, or take an analog idea into a digital program that feels more accessible to you.

There will absolutely be times when a particular material makes a difference. Waterproof ink will behave differently from a water-soluble pen, and thin paper will have opinions about a very wet watercolor technique. Fair. But it doesn’t mean you have to rush out and buy everything before the workshop begins. You can watch first, take notes on what matters, and decide later whether it is something you genuinely want to explore.

The goal is to learn from the session, not to recreate an instructor’s entire studio on your desk 😆

I know this is coming from someone who also sells art supplies, which is a convenient little plot twist 😂 But I would much rather you come into the week feeling curious than arrive already stressed because you spent too much money trying to prepare perfectly.

The truth is… a creative retreat can feel like stepping outside of normal life for a while, but it still happens right in the middle of normal life. There are meals to make, pets to walk, jobs to do, family members who will suddenly need the scissors the exact second a collage workshop begins, and bodies that sometimes decide they are done sitting in one position for the day. And your energy is almost guaranteed to change as the week goes on. That is allowed!

The event is there to fit into your life, and I hope you let your life stay recognizable while you enjoy it. You don’t need to disappear into productivity mode for six full days to prove that you took it seriously. Sometimes the most useful thing you can do after a workshop is keep working on the piece that caught your attention. Other times it’s to walk away from the desk, make lunch, and give your brain time to let everything settle. There is no prize for reaching the end of the week completely wrung out.