Entries Tagged as 'writing'
What Do You Listen to When You Create?
June 4th, 2009, Comments (18)
I put up a question on Twitter (I'm @leah_art on Twitter) yesterday asking, "What do you listen to when you create? Music, Podcast, Silence?" Here are some of the responses I got:
82Apple my favorite CD's
JimDoran Jazz, Pirates of the Caribbean.
ladymisssusan Music or (saddly) the tv
obrown Sometime (usu) silence, occasionally mindless television, rarely music. Great question!
acrawley I listen to music-instrumental/classical or a mix of rock/pop/bombastic when in the studio; depends on my mood & mood of the artwk- acrawley Tho' sometimes I do like to create in silence.
kaleidoplex Lately, I've been listening to the electronica music television channel when I'm working on my mixed-media projects
TouchSoul Silence when I draw; Music when I color. News when I clean.
alexispl what I listen to in the studio depends on my mood: sometimes it's music, sometimes it's silence
ERLong8502 Silence usually, occasionally instrumental music. People talking/singing tend to interrupt my flow & scatter my focus.
OoffAhh Nothing helps the creative process like Philip Glass!
T_C_P i usually check with my inner muse to see what she's up for : )
bgmillsart I listen to NPR programs like This American LIfe or music
HiroBoga Silence when I'm writing. Music when I'm creating book covers or drawing or cooking.
Good stuff! For me it all depends on the mood. But I tend to listen to a variety of music, audiobooks, or podcasts while painting. Sometimes silence. Sometimes mindless t.v. If I'm writing, I can't have on anything with words, so then I might just have silence or turn on something instrumental. Lately, I've been enjoying writing to the New Age Ambient station on Pandora. Today I put it on a Radiohead station to work to. I could go on and on about the things I listen to, but first, I'd love to hear from you:
What do you listen to when you create? Is your art impacted by what you listen to?
What the Full Flower Moon Can Teach You About Creativity
May 8th, 2009, Comments (11)
Today or tomorrow (depending on where you are in the world) marks the start of the Full Flower Moon (also known as the Full Planting Moon or the Milk Moon.) When I thought of the Creative Every Day Challenge's theme of Nature this month, one of the first things that sprang to mind was the moon.
moon under water
I'm a big fan of the moon. My astrological sign is cancer, but beyond that I'm just drawn to it. I love its rhythms and its beauty. The painting above is called "Moon Under Water" and can be purchased here. I dreamed of the moon under water one night, and when I first sketched the image of this painting, it inspired the following poem:
I dreamt last night
that the moon was under water,
not the whole of it,
just half,
as if she was too hot for this summer night
and decided to take a dip.
Finding it bracingly cold
and frighteningly vast in its darkness,
she kept her face dry and safe
above the water line.
But just the legs of the moon
were enough to give the ocean
an ethereal glow
that startled the fish from their slumber
which caused the waves to ripple and dance.
And when the stars moved in
for a better view
the surface lit up like a discoteque
and the air hummed
like a refridgerator late at night.
On a distant shore the waves lapped, lapped
on the rocks
marking the thumping heartbeat
of the skinny dipping moon,
shivering and alive.
Perhaps the glorious full moon will inspire some art in you this weekend, perhaps a poem will spring forth. The moon is also a constant reminder of the cycles of life which are much like the cycles of creativity. I spoke about these cycles with Jamie for the Your Creative Spark interview and I also wrote about them a bit here and here. It's important to remember that our creativity ebbs and flows and it's perfectly o.k. to experience downtimes. If we ride them like the waves, the whole experience is so much more smooth than if we fight them.
You could also play with the full moon by creating a Full Moon Dreamboard, which Jamie Ridler leads us through every month. These are similar to vision boards, but the idea is to create the vision of what you hope to bring into your life with each full moon. I painted a dreamboard for myself for the Full Pink Moon last month and it was a lovely experience.
Try this: When you reflect on the Full Flower Moon, what does it inspire in you? Perhaps some blossoming or blooming that is wanting to take place? Write, doodle, sketch, or paint whatever comes up.
I hope your weekend is full of inspiration and creativity and fun! In the meantime, go howl at the moon!
Artful Blogging Magazine
May 1st, 2009, Comments (41)
Yay! I'm so thrilled to say that I've got two articles in the the Summer edition of Artful Blogging Magazine which is available online or stores like your local Barnes & Noble today.
Since I first saw this publication, I hoped to someday be featured in their pages. It's simply gorgeous, full of color and inspiration and loads of great blogs to check out.
And now, here it is. So wonderful to see a goal materialize. You can see one of my paintings (Dreaming of the Seven Sisters) in the lower right corner of the cover.
The first article consist of an article from me about being Creative Every Day, illustrated with my art along with a partial blog post and the second is an interview with me about the Creative Every Day Challenge, illustrated with the art of Creative Every Day Challenge participants! Here are the first two spreads of my article.
And here are the spreads from the interview with me about the Creative Every Day Challenge which features the art of Creative Every Day participants. (I asked for some submissions before the article came out and the magazine editors chose from among them.)
The artists featured are Steve Emery, Rowena Murillo, Jim Doran, Tammy Vitale, Erin Prais-Hintz, Mary Stebbins Taitt, Karen Mowrey, and Shayla Perreault Newcomb. And there are also quotes from Emily Carson, Sherry Goodloe, and Aurora Fox! Thank you to all of you for sharing your art and words to help make my interview with Artful Blogging so special!! It means the world to me and wowzers, your work looks amazing on the glossy pages! I wish we could have featured all the CED participants, but that would take an encyclopedia!
And thank you to all the readers of this blog and all the participants of Creative Every Day for making this space so safe and so special. You all inspire me and have helped me grow as a person and an artist. I am eternally grateful.
Wishing you a wonderfully creative weekend!
p.s. We have entered the month of May and the totally optional theme is Nature! I've got lots of ideas about how to explore this theme and I look forward to seeing what you'll do with it!
p.p.s. Be sure to join in Jamie's Virtual Dance party today!!
Dialoguing with Your Inner Critic
April 30th, 2009, Comments (16)
A few weeks ago, I had a Couching session (sort of like coaching) with Sark (completely awesome by the way.) One of the things we discussed was talking with your inner critic. She recommended the book, Embracing Your Inner Critic by Hal and Sidra Stone, which I've just started reading. The idea of dialoguing with a part of yourself reminds me of the work that Havi talks about on her blog quite a bit. It's new to me and I admit, it feels a bit strange to try, but it can be incredibly effective.
It's amazing how much wisdom we hold, if we just give ourselves the chance to answer.
Within the same week, I took an art journal class with the lovely, Lisa Sonora Beam, and dialoguing with your inner critic came up again. I told Lisa about the discussion I'd had and she gave me a few questions to start with.
Later on, I drew my inner critic in my art journal, which intuitively came to me as a bird/human with winged/clawed hands, I wrote the questions next to my inner critic creature, and then drew speech bubbles to allow it to answer. This is the page:
What kind of surprised me about the process was the realization that my inner critic is not out to get me. Yes, it causes a lot damage. Yes, it can create a lot of self-inflicted pain. But I felt some tenderness for my inner critic when I saw some of the reasons behind its behavior.
I asked my inner critic, "What are you here to teach me?" and it answered, "I am here to teach you how to dig deep and let go. If you persevere past the initial fear, you'll get there."
Hmm, apparently my inner critic likes to rhyme! Ha!
I then asked, "What are the next steps?" and the answer came, "Be still. Listen to your intuition. Write."
Next, I asked, "What would support me?" and my inner critic responded, "Less clutter. Walks. Journaling. joy - laughter - silliness - light-heartedness - play."
Lastly I asked, "What do you need me to know?" And it replied, "I am your inner critic, yes, but I love you and want you to succeed."
Wow. O.k. Good to know.
Give this a try: Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and imagine what your inner critic looks like. Without thinking too much about it, draw your inner critic on a piece of paper or in your art journal (you don't need to be an artist to do this. Stick figures can do the job. Or you could pull magazine images that represent what your inner critic looks like and glue them to the page.)
Write the questions you want to ask your inner critic and then draw speech bubbles. Let your pen move across the page and answer in the voice of your inner critic. Don't worry too much about whether this is silly or not what your inner critic would say. Just write down the first thing that comes to mind. What comes up for you? What does your inner critic need you to know?
Colorful Poems
April 3rd, 2009, Comments (16)
Our way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
~Rumi
April is National Poetry month. I love the idea of playing with the Creative Every Day Challenge's theme of color and poetry. How could you mesh the two?
You could:
*Write about yourself as a color, as in "I am blue. I am soft, ethereal, just-woken."
*Write about how a color feels, how it smells, and tastes.
*Paint a wash of your favorite color in a journal and write the lines of your favorite poems over it.
*Play with writing a poem in color, mixing the words with what colors you imagine them to be.
*Turn your head to the right, what's the first color you see? Right a poem about it.
*Use a colorful photograph as the jumping off point for a piece of poetry.
*What is your least favorite color? What is it about that color that you dislike? Write free-form style about it.
*Read a favorite poem. Does it seem to reflect a certain color for you?
*What childhood memories does the color red bring up for you? Let that be a starting point. Red makes me think of my sister's stained t-shirts, popsicles in summer that turned our tongues red, the choke berries in the woods that made me wonder if they really did make a person choke, the red jumpsuit I was wearing the day I got my first period.
Color can hold so many associations, so many memories. Where do those color memories take you?
For more poetry goodness, check out:
*Resources for writing poetry with kids
Red bird came all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing else could.
~Mary Oliver
And I couldn't resist sharing...more Mary Oliver below...
(more...)A Month of Living Curiously
March 1st, 2009, Comments (1)
Heidi Fishbach has created a wonderful guide to living a curious life that she calls A Month of Living Curiously (AMOLC). Through almost-daily emails she offers tips and inspiration for increasing your awareness, looking at your underlying beliefs, and getting curious about them in a gentle way that encourages change. And the fabulous thing is that, this month there will be a theme of "dreams" running through it which fits so perfectly with the Creative Every Day Challenge theme of dreams this month! If this sounds interesting to you, go here to learn more about the project and sign up.
AMOLC starts today, but you can join in up until March 5th. (I'm not getting any kick-back for this, I'm recommending it to you because it's something I've enjoyed!) This post is an example of the missives you would receive from Heidi. It was sent towards the end of the month in February and I just loved the GPS analogy!
Weekend Update and Some Final Word Links
February 28th, 2009, Comments (2)
I've had such a fun weekend! The hubster and I went to the MGM Casino, where we had a complementary room. The hubster played in a poker tournament while I went to their fancy, shmancy gym to do a workout. They asked for my shoe size in the locker room and gave me a locker with a spa sandals in my size and a soft bathrobe (the gym is connected to a spa) and the shower had a heated towel rack. I had the hot tub entirely to myself (and I was totally giggling in there because it all felt so luxurious.) After the gym, I headed back to our room where I ordered room service and watched a movie (Vicky Christina Barcelona.) I felt totally pampered and exhausted by the end of the night. The hubster won big that night too (I'm not a gambler, but he enjoys poker and blackjack.) In the morning we got breakfast, took a long walk, played a little roulette, and did some window shopping before having a lovely drive home.
Today is the last day of February. I know it's only a couple days shorter, but this month is has just flown by. Swoosh!
Theme Transition:
I enjoyed the words theme and I know a lot of CED participants had fun with it as well. As we move into the Creative Every Day Challenge's (totally optional) dreams theme for March, you certainly don't need to abandon the themes of the previous months. Play can be incoporated into everything (in my humble opinion.) And there are endless ways to play with words.
Here are some more ways to have fun with and get inspired by words:
* Write for your life: Productivity tips for writers.
* Amano Books: Bridgette Guerzon Mills makes gorgeous journals and she now has a blog focusing on art journaling tips too.
* Beautiful book sculptures from artist, Georgia Russell.
* Awesome typographical assemblage from Lou Dorfsman.
* Listen to classic poetry out loud.
* Journal writing prompts.
* Read Write Poem: for those who love poetry
* Tomorrow, Connie of Dirty Footprints Studio Blogtalk Radio program will be interviewing Elena Rego at 12 pm EST. Elena creates absolutely stunning journey manuscripts.
Thank you for playing along with me this month, I look forward to all the wonderful creativity we'll share in March!
Writing on the Wall
February 24th, 2009, Comments (9)
CED participant, Tammy Vitale, took a picture of the graffiti above and shared it on her blog earlier in the month. It totally cracked me up, the way it joins the first two themes for the Creative Every Day Challenge this year, play and words. Perfection!
If you've ever been to Manhattan or any big city, you've surely seen some gorgeous graffiti art on walls, doors, trains, and dumpsters. I saw the image below in Montreal a few years ago.
Explore graffiti art:
*Lots of inspiring graffiti art can be seen here.
*You can create your own graffiti online at this awesome site.
*Do you look for words while you're out and about in the world? Kelly Rae Roberts has a great post about seeing words in the world and the way they inspire her.
*I love the idea of writing words in chalk on sidewalks for people to find.
*Here's a great article from Keri Smith about how to be a guerilla artist.
Write on your own walls:
I also love the idea of words on interior walls. Bohemian Single Mom, posted a picture of her wall all painted up with a quote, which I thought was just fabulous.
*Make your own chalkboard paint to paint on your wall.
*I love these Typography Walls, painted and/or assemblage-style typography displays, from Whip Up.
*Another great way to decorate your walls with words is through using letter decals or one of these fabulous chalkboard decals from Velocity (the alligator ones crack me up!)
So many ways to play with words. I sometimes want to write quotes and poems that have inspired me on the walls in tall letters or scribble them on my clothes. Do you ever feel that way?
I've never been tempted to write on bathroom stalls, but that's another place you often see words scratched and scribbled. Usually fairly dull statements, but sometimes filled with humor. Quick look into the wild world of google led me to The Writing on the Stall, a website dedicated to these stall scribblings. Too funny. Ever seen anything funny or inspirational written in a bathroom stall?
Well, I'd say that's enough writing on this wall for one day.
Art From Writing
February 22nd, 2009, Comments (14)
Albatross
This month, I participated in Amy Souza's Art from Writing: Writing from Art project, where artists and writers were paired up to share a piece of writing or art, with the theme of "hope," as the jumping point to inspire a new creation. I was paired up with a writer, Melian, who sent me a poem to work from, and I sent her a picture of my painting, Lighthouse which speaks to the idea of hope to me.
I often get inspiration from the written word, so I was excited to dive in. I did get a bit frustrated when I got stuck about mid-way through the process. I was fighting the direction the piece was going and things never go well when I push against the flow. But after letting it sit overnight, I was able to come back to it with new perspective. I made some adjustments, cut some parts away, went with the flow, and found the finished piece. I'm calling it "Albatross" and it's about 12"x12" with collage, ink, and acrylic paint on watercolor paper.
I think the word "often" that showed up in the bird's belly has to do with seeing signs, little winks from the Universe, and the feeling I get that I'm headed in the right direction when I start to see a lot of them in a short span of time.
Tomorrow I'll be posting about the Creative Every Day Challenge's (totally optional) theme for March and I'm so excited to share this one with you! It's one of my favorite sources of inspiration.
I hope your weekend was a wonderfully creative one!
Hello, Little Albatross
February 19th, 2009, Comments (7)
albatross detail
This little guy is a detail from a painting I'm working on as part of a project where artists and writers are teaming up to create a piece inspired by the work of their partner. I was given a lovely poem to work on and the poem mentions an albatross which I really wanted to include. I collaged the backround, and serendipitously, the word "often" showed up in it's belly, so I kept it there. There is some literary symbolism attached to the albatross (from a Coleridge poem, Rime of the Ancient Mariner) which has associated the bird with a heavy burden. But before that, the bird was known to be a symbol of good luck, so I'm going to go with that. Birds always seem like good omens to me.
p.s. I shared my "You Are So Loved" painting over at Pecannoot today. Thank you so much to Jess for sharing my work!!
p.p.s. I'm going to be a bit quiet this weekend because my little brother is staying with me and I need to come up with some creative ways to keep him entertained. I hope you all have a wonderfully creative few days!
