Paper Crane Study

// November 10th, 2011 // 7 Comments » // creativity

So, for today’s Art Every Day Month offering I’m posting some study sketches of paper cranes. I’m going to try a few of these out for my ‘ephemeral adventurer’ series of art cards, they’ll be joining the paper planes, paper boats, and paper lanterns. I enjoy drawing the cranes, they’re not as complicated as I thought they’d be, so a few more study sketches and then I’ll try one out with the paints.

And while we’re on the subject of paper cranes, here is a link to my old paper crane poem, which is at least partially responsible for the idea behind the series of paintings I’m working on this month:  Letter Written On A Paper Crane

Hello Sardinia! Where’s the fish?

// November 4th, 2011 // 8 Comments » // creativity

Today’s ephemeral adventurer is another paper boat. I’ve enjoyed researching each place featured on my art cards and using that info for my Etsy descriptions and blog posts. But I was a little distraught today after learning that Sardinia was not, in fact, named after sardines.

In my head was this vision of a thriving community built on the backs of fishing fleets overflowing with sardines, with maybe some little tin mines and canning factories flourishing in the hinterland. I imagined well fed factory workers whistling as they cheerfully stuffed tin cans with plump, silvery fish.

But, no. Lots of brutal famines in Sardinia’s history. Brutal. There’s plenty of chemical plants, though, to keep the old economy chugging along. How idyllic. (It still seems a lovely place to visit)

You And Me and Napoli

// November 2nd, 2011 // 8 Comments » // creativity

So, Napoli. It’s Italian for Naples and the city has been around since 600BC. Also: pizza! Napoli / Naples is the destination for todays Art Every Day Month offering.

I was originally drawing my planes in with a micron pen, but after some smudging problems with the ink sitting on top of the glossy acrylic paints, I switched to black fluid acrylic and a fine lettering brush to do the plane outlines.

My lines aren’t where I’d like them yet, but AEDM is a good opportunity to practice with the brush. I always feel more confident drawing than painting, so it feels like a good opportunity to move past that and get more confidence.

I’m doing lots of practice drawings and I think tomorrows art will feature a different mode of transportation.

Paper Plane Over Severodvinsk

// November 1st, 2011 // 12 Comments » // creativity

Today is the start of Art Every Day month over at Leah’s Creative Every Day blog.  Last year I participated and set my self a theme of ‘Labyrinths’. I really enjoyed the momentum I got from participating and thought that it would be fun to join in again this year.

So recently I was given a collection of old National Geographic maps and was wondering how I could use them in my art. What I came up with is a series of paintings over collaged map pieces that I do on ACEO cards. (ACEO = Art Cards Editions and Originals, they are miniature collectable art pieces and are always the same size: 2 1/2 in. x 3 1/2 in.)

I started with paper plane paintings, I love working out how to make paper planes look like world traveling adventurers. There’s something wobbly and brave about the image of a paper plane setting out into the great big world that I really enjoy!

I have played with a few paper boat paintings as well, and have been really pleased with how they are turning out. I have a few other variations that I want to experiment with over the month. Hopefully participating in AEDM will spur me on to experiment and have fun with this (while also filling out my Etsy shop!)

Whole Life Creativity: Rituals and Doors

// July 12th, 2011 // 6 Comments » // creativity

I was reading a book on creativity the other day and one of the artists being interviewed for the book stated that, while she didn’t have any creative rituals, she did like to start each day’s work with a hot cup of tea.

Nice ritual!

Rituals are a huge part of my creative process, I enjoy using them and creating them too.

I can see where some people might balk at using them though. Rituals can come across as esoteric and unrelated to daily life.

I went to religious schools and was exposed to lots of ritual that was bewildering at best, and at worst, creeped me out. I didn’t feel a connection to any of it.

Which makes sense because every last bit of ritual I was exposed to was imposed on me, not once was my opinion sought or input asked for.

It’s a shame they ran things that way because rituals can be very powerful, and helpful, and fun too. Especially as part of a creative practice. They are helping as a tool for building a creative space and encourage our artistic or writerly sides to show up.

When I hear the word ritual these days I try to think of small actions that help me to stop, and remember, and help me to drop into a responsive state that settles my mind.

Some things I know about rituals:

Rituals are useless when there is no connection or relevant meaning to them.

They only need to be relevant to the person performing the ritual.

Rituals can be real or pretend.

They can be serious, or playful, or both.

These days I think of rituals as doorways into more creative ways of responding to the world.

Thinking of rituals in this ways helps because doors are an everyday object, I’m in relation to them all the time, I know how they work.

Some things shared by doors and rituals:

They are for walking through. Both doors and rituals are entry points from one realm to another. Performing a ritual is like crossing a threshold.

Doors can shelter things and keep them safe, so can rituals.

Rituals and doors can be both functional and decorative.

Doors and rituals can be intricate and mysterious or nothing special (like a bedsheet slung across a doorway, or a cup of tea brewed before sitting down to paint).

They both require mindfulness — you don’t want to run into a door or get your fingers caught or lock your keys inside, and not being mindful while performing a ritual makes it, well , not really a ritual.

Rituals and doors are both designed for opening and closing, beginnings and endings, arrivals and departures.

Perhaps …

Lighting a candle and reciting sutras or prayers may be your ritual for beginning the day.

Greeting your children grandly at the door could be your ritual for moving from work time to family time.

Sitting in the garden for a few moments might be the ritual that prepares you for going  back to work after lunch

Sharpening a handful of pencils could be a nice transition from putting the kids to bed to beginning your evening art practice.

Some rituals which I have embraced/ borrowed/made up:

‘Noticing’ (a form of mindful meditation, but with pen and paper) is my ritual for moving from the blank page and into a writing session.

Making morning coffee is my waking up ritual.

Burning incense before meditation.

Putting music on (Pandora radio or playing with Omm Dana depending on my mood) whenever I write a blog post.

Lighting a candle before coaching or doing a Tea House writing session.

Do you have any creative rituals (or other kinds) I’d love to hear about them and how they work for you!

Whole Life Creativity: Blue Thing

// July 1st, 2011 // 8 Comments » // creativity

I used to live in the bush just outside of Sydney. Our house backed onto National Park and one day as I headed out for a bush walk I spotted a Bower Bird nest just a few metres away from our back fence.The male bower bird builds a bower and then goes off searching for blue trinkets to attract mating partners.

I remember looking in at the nest and seeing the  weirdest assortment of things: blue clothes pegs, milk bottle tops, pens, plastic strapping–as long as an object was blue, the bower bird would be interested.

 
This common thread tying the bird’s bower decorating aesthetic together was amazing to me. It’s one thing for a bird to make a nest filled with junk, it’s another to fill it with only blue coloured junk. The choice implied an intelligence that I wouldn’t normally assume of a bird.  And that intention lifted what should have been a nest filled with plastic into a mini art exhibit in the middle of the bush.

 
I’m noticing this blog is turning into a bower of its own. I’m compelled to keep gathering, not objects, but processes and creative activities and bringing them here. My interests shift from writing poems, to the Tea House writing sessions, my art work moves from cartooning, to illustration, to painting and then back. Labyrinth walking, yoga, meditation and Shiva Nata all swing by for a while and disappear to be replaced by something else.

 
Once I’ve latched onto something, though, it does get incorporated into the cycle.

 
Labyrinth walking will swing away for a while and be replaced by Shiva Nata, or writing might take a second seat as I get the urge to paint more. The thing is, they have all been given a place in the bower. The bower being my creative practice.

 
It might seem random to someone walking by, but for me, like the bower bird, there is an underlying order to all of this. Each of the activities that I take on and decide to keep are ones that help me to relate more deeply with the world, and also give me some way to express that relationship.

 
My blue objects are the things that help me respond more fully to the world.

 
The first (and only) time I saw a painting of mine hanging in an art gallery I felt the thrill of accomplishment. I had the same thrill when I first saw my writing  published in a magazine. But after blogging for a while, and being able to publish my own art and writing, I’ve noticed that sort of thrill isn’t the primary thing I’m after.

What I’m really interested in is building a kind of creativity that infuses my whole life.

 
I’m starting to think in terms of practising a whole life creativity, rather than trying to become a particular sort of artist.
A whole life creativity is more about being conscious and present in the world, and less about impressing people. A whole life creativity is less about becoming a master at one thing, and more about including the whole of my life and responding as creatively as I can.

 
I still play with all the artsy things like writing and painting, labyrinths and Shiva Nata, but the organizing idea, my blue object, is that the focus of these activities is based on my relationship to life. A whole life creativity might involve art and writing , but also folds in family and work, ordinary daily actions and reflection.

 
I think that organizing principle has always been there, but this idea has been slowly coming into conscious focus over the last six months or so as I noticed the shifting nature of my interests and how random it all seemed, but how it also made perfect sense to me, too.

 
I’ve signed up for the Ultimate Blog Challenge for the month of July, that involves committing to posting 31 posts in 31 days. I thought I might make a lot of those posts an exploration of whole life creativity and what that means to me.

 
I’d love to know what you think of the idea of a whole life creativity and if you have your own ‘Blue Thing’ .