Day 30 – 30 Days of Creativity

I was sitting on the floor with my dog, and forbidden to draw him [again], but I was intrigued by my view out the door. I liked the perspective and the layers of chairs. Here’s a quick sketch. If my butt didn’t hurt from sitting on the ground, I would have done a longer drawing…

This piece has a lot going on, and I wish I could have done more with it, but it’s just a sketch and I’m not unhappy with it. So I guess that’s good. It was in my Moleskine sketchbook, that’s why there is a crease in the middle of the page. Maxwell is usually lying in the doorway, and I was kind of hoping he would go there while I was sketching, so I would HAVE to put him in there… but he didn’t. He stayed just off the paper, directly in front of me.

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Day 29 – 30 Days of Creativity

Today, I decided to do a painting, without drawing it first, in acrylic. I remember now, why I hate acrylic… It doesn’t have the same depth as oils. Maybe it’s because I know what oils can do, and I haven’t experimented as much with acrylics. But I don’t like them. They feel like switching from Prismacolor pencils to crayons.  It’s probably just lack of experience. I know plenty of people who have done beautiful paintings in acrylic. This is not one of them.

I don’t want to show you the piece up close, because it’s not done yet, and I don’t like it yet. So here is a pic of  my drawing table with the photo on the left and the painting on the right and the palette and all the junk on my drawing table too.

Once it’s done, I’ll post an update. Maybe tomorrow I’ll paint over it in oils…

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Day 28 – 30 Days of Creativity

I’m a very lucky person. It was hot today, too hot. And yesterday too. So I decided that it would be better to be hot by a lake than in my studio. My studio is a pretty cool place. It’s in the basement, and I have air conditioning, but I don’t like to use it. I’d much rather just be in a cooler place. …or go jump in a lake. So that’s what I did today. I brought my computer and a few art supplies and drove up to the lake. I knew what work had to be done and I did it. Here at the lake. Then I jumped in and cooled off, went back to the computer and worked some more. In my bathing suit. On the deck. I repeat: I’m a very lucky person.

So my 28th day of creativity, I took my portable watercolor set and sat by the lake and painted the neighbors beach. (using lake water)

 

It’s not the best quality image, because I don’t have my scanner. So I took a picture with my iphone and color corrected the best I could in photoshop. It’s pretty close to the original.

Part of what makes a good artist is knowing when to stop. I still struggle with this. The background of this piece could have been very simple, but I didn’t like it, so I just kept going. I made it darker and darker. It is dark back there, but this might be darker than it’s supposed to be… Oh well. It looked better when I stepped back. See? 🙂

 

 

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Day 27 – 30 Days of Creativity

On Day 1 I created a pig. I sculpted him out of sculpy clay, and baked him. Today I decided to paint him. He’s a normal pink pig. But he now has a name: Albie. He’s a happy pig, but he worries a lot.

 

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Day 26 – 30 Days of Creativity

I’ve been teaching my little cousin art lessons. She is learning how to paint with acrylics right now. She made me miss painting. I haven’t painted in a very long time. I draw often, and I love pastels and colored pencils, but painting is different. It’s more of a challenge. The paintbrush is less predictable than a sharp pencil tip. But I love it. I love painting, and have to do it more often. I usually use hot press watercolor paper. Hot press watercolor paper is smooth, cold press has a texture to it. It comes down to control. Watercolor is a fickle medium and I want to control it. Which, with practice, is doable, but time consuming and hard. I’ve found that most people use cold press watercolor paper. Most people are also less controlling of the medium than I am and let it flow freely. I have a hard time letting go, though I have to realize that it’s okay to let the medium go where it wants to. It’s part of the beauty of watercolor.

So my creative thing for today was to paint an apple in watercolor on textured paper. It was a challenge, and I have to learn when to stop painting and just let it be….

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Day 25 – 30 Days of Creativity

Just a doodle. In colored pencil in my Moleskine sketchbook. Nothing fancy, no thoughts, just doodles. Colors and lines and curves and shapes.

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Day 24 – 30 Days of Creativity

I’m all about letterboxing now! I already made my stamp. I went to the art store today intending to purchase a notebook specifically for letterboxing. I saw a Moleskine that I really liked, but figured… I can make that!

I used an old map for the cover. I wanted it to be like the Moleskine I saw, and I wanted it to be more of a story instead of a standard book. So I made it one long piece of paper folded into a book. This way, each new letterbox stamp gets it’s own page, but you can pull it out and look at them all together too! Here are a few pics of the book:

 

This shows the cover pretty well. The finished book size is 3.25×5.25, small enough to fit in your back pocket while hiking.

 

 

 

Here you can see how the pages fold.

This is how the book unfolds. There’s another picture with Max in the background with a normal face, but I thought this one was funnier… he’s yawning, OR he’s really excited about all the hikes we are going to go on!

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Day 23 – 30 Days of Creativity

This is a necklace that I’ve been wanting to make for awhile now, but haven’t had the time. Now I had the time, and so here it is:

 

I used hemp for a more earthy feel. Click here for a link to the pattern I used.

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Day 22 – 30 Days of Creativity

This one was a blast from the past… I used to make these things all the time. Friendship bracelets. I used to just do them in stripes. Then I got good and and could make a “V”. From there I figured out how to make all sorts of different designs. Here’s one:

Day 20 & 21 – 30 days of creativity

Day 20 was a flop. I was not in a good mood. I have this deck of cards that I really wanted to do something cool with. But I just couldn’t. I wasn’t feeling creative and I played with the cards, I cut them up, I put holes in them. I wanted to create something awesome. …and that was the problem. Instead of just letting it flow naturally, I was trying too hard. So I let it go. I decided instead to play the guitar. I have no image for this, but it’s a creative thing that I did that day.

Day 21 was much better than day 22. I was looking at the mess of cards that I had played with the day before and this time, I had no preconceived notion that I was going to create something amazing. I just wanted to make something. In the mess from the day before were holes from what I had punched out of the cards. Little, tiny, eighth inch circles. Each one unique, each one red and white, and each one a part of a greater whole that no one ever pays attention to. I looked closely and discovered that each one of these “holes” was a piece of art on it’s own, and proceeded to blow them up so you can admire them too:

Aren’t they pretty? They all started as 1/8″. It’s amazing the amount of design that is on the back of a card. The part that everyone looks at, but no one sees.