The Creative Type.

How can one describe the excitement the artist feels at her easel? How can one describe the obscure thought processes that conjure up a picture that absolutely needs to be painted? Why, when I am feeling creative do I feel that Iam living more 'fully' than during the rest of my life?

Creativity: The Work and Lives of 91 Eminent People is a study published in 1996 by Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi. (Harper Collins)

In my case I am describing an artist as in a girl standing at her easel but of course creativity is a phenomenon itself too difficult to describe easily.

The report suggests that creative people tend to have good physical energy but are also often quiet and rest.
We can be smart yet naive.
We combine playfulness and discipline.
Although we may alternate between imagination and fantasy, we also have a rooted sense of reality.
We can be both introverted and extroverted.
Humble and proud.
Rebellious and conservative.
Passionate but objective about our work.
Creative people, to an extent, escape rigid gender. This is psychological androgyny, referring to a person's ability to be at the same time aggressive and nurturant, sensitive and rigid, dominant, and submissive.

This original report is well worth reading as although it cannot answer individual questions it does offer explanations as to how and why creative 'types' behave and feel as they do.
Can creativity be learned, and will it be a much harder skill in these days of digital dominance?

My creative self was born when I was a young girl at infant school. We were sent out onto the playing fields to find chrysalides' which we then popped into old plastic sweet jars filled with greenery.
A couple of weeks later, to my utter delight a beautiful moth emerged.
I began to perceive the world in a new way.