Entries from: November 2007

Infuse Your Life with Creativity: Creative Every Day 2008

November 30th, 2007, Comments (21)

Art Every Day Month was awesome this year! Thank you to everyone who participated, visited, and/or commented throughout the month. Each year, as AEDM has grown, I feel that I've grown as an artist while also meeting so many fabulous creative people all around the world. It's truly amazing and I'm so grateful.

As I mentioned earlier this month, I'm planning a new challenge for 2008 and I welcome anyone who is interested to join in! Every year, I love the way AEDM creates a great sense of community, brings together people with different styles and backgrounds, and gives me a kick in the butt to keep on creating when I might otherwise do nothing. I've been wanting to find a way to extend the process, but as much as I admire those who create and post a piece of art every day of the year, I knew that would burn me out. Besides, it's not really my goal to create a piece of art every day. But I do want to be creative every day.

Originally, I was going to call my blog, "Everyday Creative" meaning a person who is creative in their day-to-day life whether that be through making a piece of artwork or doodling on a receipt or cooking something or taking a walk to gain inspiration in the colors of nature or re-decorating a room or whatever! That domain name was taken, so I went with CreativeEveryDay.com and included Everyday Creative in the tag line. Melba recently posted about creative dreams. I have loads of them and loads of them have come true! One of the things I aspire to is to be creative every day and also to inspire creativity in others whether that be through my blog, my art, through leading groups like AEDM, or through someday leading workshops or writing a book.

2007 was a wonderful year for me and I want to keep up that momentum and kick it into a whole new gear with a year of being Creative Every Day. I'll make some sort of logo/icon for it and have a list on the sidebar as I did for AEDM. Again, this will be a very low pressure challenge. I won't be the creativity police with you (or myself!) The idea behind it will be to encourage myself and others to find creativity in every day and in the everyday things of life. I won't post daily because I think that would be a bit too much of a burden for me, but I will post about every day's creativity in some form or another. And I'll encourage others to do the same, whether that be once a week or once a month. Throughout the year, I'll also be posting creativity tips that help me and hopefully will provide some inspiration to anyone looking to infuse their life with more creative goodness.  I'll be posting more about this challenge throughout the month. If you have questions or know you want to join in, feel free to pop me an email (link to email is in the top left of the blog) or leave a comment.

Thank you again to all the AEDM-ers. You rock!!! Keep on creating!

Day 30 – More 37 Days Art

November 30th, 2007, Comments (3)

Today, I spent some time finishing up three more images for the 37 days project. Do check out the Flickr group to see all the great art that's been made around these essays!! So cool! And a great way for me to finish up this year's Art Every Day Month adventure.

This one is for the essay "Write Some Blues." and is made with paper collaged from old books, ink and acrylic paint on watercolor paper.

This next one is from the essay, "Eat Slowly and Thank the Chef." And was done with acrylic and ink on watercolor paper.

And the last one is from the essay, "Close the Boardroom Closet." Which I changed to "Close the boardroom door." Hmm, I seem to be having issues with changing titles don't I? Ah well. It was also done with acrylic and ink on watercolor paper.

What great fun these were! I plan on doing another post about the whole aedm experience this year, but I'll leave it at this for now.  Toodaloo!

Day 29 – Burn Your Toast Rules

November 29th, 2007, Comments (7)

This image is for the 37 days project. As I mentioned earlier, Patti, author of the 37 days blog and a future book put out a call for artists to make images to go along with the essays of her book. This one goes along with this essay, which is actually called "Bust Your Toast Rules," not "burn." I totally changed the title. Doh! So, I'll have to fix that tomorrow. I'm working on a few others and I'll probably post those tomorrow. It's 7.5"x10.5" with acrylic and ink on watercolor paper.

Burnyourtoast

Tonight was busy. The hubster and I went to a basketball game with ridiculously good seats. We saw some celebrities which was kind of fun. But we ended up leaving early when the hubster's team (he's from NY) was down by over 40 points. Ouch. I'm super tired. So, good night, sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite!

Update: Playing with photoshop, I was able to finagle the proper letters into place. Ha! Thank goodness. I'll scan it at a high dpi tomorrow and do this with photoshop again. Big sigh of relief from me. Making this was time consuming and I really didn't want to re-do it! Hubster thinks I should learn how to work with a program like illustrator to do vector images. Hmm, maybe I will!

Bustyourtoast1

Day 28 – “Cat Garden”

November 28th, 2007, Comments (11)

I drew this first as a little sketch in my sketchbook the other day and decided to do it up in paint and ink today cause I'm feeling especially lovey towards my kitties and also quite sleepy. *yawn*! It's about 8.5"x6" with acrylic and ink on watercolor paper. And that's all I've got today. Sweet dreams.

Wellness Wednesday – Visit an Art Store

November 28th, 2007, Comments (5)

Today, I drove into the city to visit a particular small underground art store that has these fantastic wood panels that I like to paint on. I might have ordered them online, but their website doesn't have all their items on it and I knew if I just sucked it up and drove in, it would be well worth it. I went in the early afternoon when the traffic was slower and made it in fairly quickly. Once there, I fed the meter and walked around soaking up the colors and textures of an urban area, the grafitti, the layered paper stuck to the walls, the murals, the variety of people. On a door, someone painted, "throw stones at glass houses," in big blue swirly letters. As I was staring at it, the door flew open and two men carrying flowers in vases came rushing out.

I crossed the street and entered the art store. And I lingered. I picked out what I needed there and brought it to the counter, so I wouldn't have to lug it around and then I wandered aimlessly. I didn't really buy much of anything at this point, but I wanted to look. I went up and down each aisle and touched the handmade paper, looked at all the gloriously rich oil paint sticks, I felt the tips of paintbrushes and the thickness of deep cradled canvases. I peeked into boxes of mat boards and opened blank journals. I checked out the flyers stuck on the wall and the art displayed there. I soaked in all the different types of mediums, powdered pigments, and adhesives. I picked up big blocks of beeswax, paraffin, and microcrystaline waxes to see how heavy they were. I quietly breathed in the scent of the beeswax when no one was looking. I poked into drawers of transfer paper and illustration board, and laughed at silly trinkets on the counter. And when I felt all filled up to the tiptop of my head with color and inspiration, I was ready to go.

Chilly days are a wonderful time to take yourself on a solo trip to the art store, even if you aren't buying anything (I go a lot without buying anything!) It's a place full of possibility and endless rows of color to fill your eyes and your heart. And if you feel inspired by a particular medium, do buy something and take it home with you and bring some of that art store color into your life.

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Unrelated to Wellness Wednesday, I was tagged today by the super sweet Karen of Zazazu to do a meme of six random things about me. I'm not sure what I haven't mentioned before, but I'll just start typing and see what comes to me.

1. I have loads of art in my home, but very little of it is on the walls. The hubster and I live in an apartment with old walls that seem to crumble when trying to put in a nail. Having huge holes in the wall is awful to me and since we painted our living rooms, I haven't wanted to wreck the walls any further. But I think it may be time to give it a try again.

Astridchair

2. Recently I've been drooling over patterns. Patterns on wallpaper, upholstery, whatever. I never would have imagined myself liking such a chair, but now I want two of Anthropologie's Astrid chair in different patterns (above and below)!

Pearchair

3. When I paint, I especially like to work on a surface that's square or long and skinny.

4. I'm very sensitive to sounds and I'm not a fan of super loud noises, especially shouting or loud buzzers.

5. I space out quite often.

6. I'm not a big fan of the color pink, but I have this hideous mug with pink hearts all over it holding the pens and pencils on my desk. I've got to do something about that! :-)

And now, I'm supposed to tag six people to do this meme, but I'm just not feeling like it at the moment, so if you want to do this meme, please do!

Day 27 – Black Bird Forest

November 27th, 2007, Comments (14)

This piece is 6"x6" with collaged newspaper, ink and acrylic on a gallery wrapped canvas. Another spontaneous piece, using intuition as my guide. I love how it came out. It would appear that I've got winter on the brain. Winter always brings up this sort of sadness in me. It reminds me that everything dies. I know, sounds kind of morbid, right? But it doesn't have to be. In recent years, I've managed to turn it around to see it as a way to make sure I'm doing what I want to be doing in life (because life is short) and also a good reminder to tell those I love how I feel about them (and show them too.) But that achey sort of sadness still lingers. It's not terrible, it just is.

Fortunately, I'm not stuck in the gray. I laughed many times today with the hubster, at the kitties' antics and I even found the Christmas music blasting in every store I entered to be fun and I sang along. I think it may be time to bring out the decorations and get into that sparkly, twinkle-light mode that makes winter so cozy and delightful. And there must be more cocoa. :-)

Day 26 – Life Underground

November 26th, 2007, Comments (9)

I wanted to do another piece with the roots as trees in an upside down kind of world. I started by collaging elements (pages of old books, an old bingo board, patterned paper, a bit of map, a bit of music, a photocopied lace pattern, a stencil and pretty, textured blue tissue paper) onto watercolor paper and then painted over it with acrylics. It developed spontaneously and was fun to play with. It's about 9.5"x12.5". Yes, I do love me some trees. And what's better than trees with roots that are also trees? It's a little bit Alice in Wonderland with the mirrored world.

Today was so quiet and gray and the kitties knew just what to do with themselves. They found the cutest snuggliest positions and cuddled up for long luxurious naps. They're so darn cute! At the moment, Sadie is camped out on top of a paper towel (cats love paper in all their forms) and Tabbers is sleeping in the castle. Gah, the cuteness! It was a great day for leftovers and cocoa.

Happy creating! The month is almost done! All you AEDM-ers are doing so great!!

Day 25 – In November

November 25th, 2007, Comments (9)

Wowzer, I can't believe there are only 5 days left in November! That's nutty! Still a little zonkered after a very full weekend. It really seemed to zap my energy in such a powerful way and I felt exhausted every night. Once I got home last night and had a good night's sleep, I felt my energy returning. I settled in for a quiet day focusing on thank you notes (which are necessary, but tedious) and working on photos I took last week. Last week, my former boss hired me to do a photo shoot with her dogs for their family Christmas card. She's a busy lady and although I'm not a photographer per se, I do have a nice camera and I know the dogs oh so well, so it was a good match up. Their older dog who I spent loads of time with, was a great subject, very patient with me and willing to sit still. Their new dog, who was adopted after I left, after one of their dogs passed away, is younger and still full of that puppy crazy energy. The only way to capture her in a picture was to wait til she tired herself out and took a nap. lol... It was fun though. Here's one of my favorite shots.

If for some reason, my boss couldn't take care of him any longer (which I can't imagine ever happening), I would totally adopt him. What a good boy!

Anyways! Here's my art for the day. I had a little fun here, doing something entirely spontaneous, squirting paint directly onto the paper and just going with it. This is what came. I chose the colors because of an gorgeous color combination I saw while we were driving home on Saturday. There were all these burnt orange trees against the greens. This piece is about 6"x13" with acrylic on watercolor paper and I'm calling it "In November." It's kind of gothic looking and the face reminds me of Toulouse-Lautrec.

I’m Back! Days 22, 23 and 24

November 24th, 2007, Comments (15)

Above is my art for today, "Flower Root Trees" which is about 7"x9" with acrylic and ink on watercolor paper. I drew a sketch of this in my moleskin notebook while stuck in traffic today with the hubster. I can't usually do much in the car besides stare out the window because I get car sick, but with the slow drive, I did a little bit of sketching and some fun lil ideas for future art.

Extremely busy weekend in NY, but we're back home now and I've got a big orange fuzzy cat in my lap, so I'm quite content. Thursday and Friday were jam-packed with family obligations, traveling, and a trip into the city, but I still managed to do a drawing each day with ink on watercolor paper. I may paint these at some point or just leave them as is. 

And now to go relax...I hope your holiday was a lovely one. Happy creating!

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 22nd, 2007, Comments (2)

I did make art today, but I'm in NY with a bad connection here at the in-laws. So, I may be able to post my art tomorrow and if not, I'll just post all the pieces I made when I get back home on Saturday. Hope your weekend is wonderful and filled with laughter and love. xoxo - Leah