Happy New Year and The Creativity Log!
January 1st, 2009, 28 Comments
Happy New Year, you Creative Wonders! I've been working on a series of pages for a "Creativity Log," a way to keep track of your daily creativity. You can fill in the dates, so you can start anywhere and write something like, "1/1/09: Got creative in the kitchen, tried some new spices in a chicken dish" or "1/3/09: doodled in my sketchbook" or "3/5/09: Finished tree painting." There may be days that what we've worked on isn't something that can be captured in a picture and sometimes you may not have time to blog about it. But it is fun to look back and remember all the ways in which you were creative.
As my New Year's gift to you, you can save the image above, which is a .jpg, or click on the download link below to download the image as a pdf. You can then print it out and use it as you wish! I've got it divided up for 7 days, so you could theoretically print out one for each week to record a year's worth of creativity! Or you could use this as a model to create your own creativity log. I started out last year keeping track of my daily creativity and then let it slide as the year went on. Well, I do believe that what you focus on expands, so I think a log is a great way to further focus my attention and intention on daily creativity. Feel free to use or ignore on your own creative journey!
Download Creativitylog
Creative Every Day: January 1st – January 4th, 2009
January 1st, 2009, 67 Comments
Normally, I have these CED posts every Monday, but since the New Year is starting on a Thursday, I've created this post to run you through til the first Monday of the month.
Feel free to leave a comment on this post or use the widget below to link to a post (or posts) about your creative activities during the days of 1/1/08 - 1/4/09.
To find out more about Creative Every Day 2009, check out the details here and then if you want to sign up, leave a comment on this post or email me to let me know (a link to my email is in the upper left sidebar.)
The totally optional theme for January is Play! I'll be posting about this theme throughout the month. You can find out more about how you can use the theme here.
Happy Creating!!
Conditions for creativity are: to be puzzled; to concentrate; to accept conflict and tension; to be born everyday; to feel a sense of self. --Erich Fromm
2009 – The Year to Leap
December 30th, 2008, 35 Comments
For the past couple years, I've used Christine Kane's fabulous idea of selecting a theme word for the year. I've spent some time pondering and have chosen the word, "Leap" for 2009. I love this word! I noticed as I wrote it that if I turned the "p" upside down, I'd almost have my name there! But I didn't chose my word for that reason. I chose "leap" because in 2009, I want to be be courageous, I want to take risks and launch into my dreams. I want to leap into the unknown, to go for it! Leap as a word means many things to me, including taking action, movement, daring, and it is also playful and fun. There is an element of trust to it and the feeling of dancing with life.
Christine Kane's "Resolution Revolution" is a fabulous way to start your year with intention. Instead of listing off the regular resolutions that we try at (and often fail at) each year, we can choose a word to inspire and lead us through the year. During the month of December, Christine has been sharing stories of people, like artist, Lisa Call, who wrote about her word of the year, Courage. Be sure to check out the blog for some instant inspiration.
Earlier this year, I created a piece of art (below) with the title "Leap" and it makes me smile whenever I look at it. Prints of this piece are available here.
I drew the word "leap" last night in my sketchbook and today I played with it in Photoshop to make the image above. Here's the original (below), which I'll be putting up in my studio to remind me to keep leaping.
Have you chosen a word for 2009? I'd love to hear it. I don't usually make a list of resolutions at the New Year as I prefer to make goals as I go throughout the year. However, I do like to do some reflection around this time of year, to think back over the past 365 days, what I've accomplished and where I've struggled. I like this set of reflective questions from the "More in You" Life Leadership blog and plan to spend some time journaling on them before the year ends.
G’s Year of Creativity
December 28th, 2008, 15 Comments
A couple weeks ago, I got a wonderful email from someone I'll call "G." I asked her if I could share her email here because I think it exemplifies what the Creative Every Day Challenge is all about. I hope it will inspire you to know that you too are an artist and that you can take the leap to be creative every day in whatever way works for you.
Hi Leah!
I wanted to drop you an email ~ to thank you for putting this wonderful idea out there to be Creative Everyday. Looking back, I have no idea how I found your website at the first of this year. But? I did! I read what you wrote, inviting everyone and anyone to challenge themselves to be creative everyday. I took it. I didn't sign up to be part of the group ~ too shy I think. I have sketched, drawn all my life ~ but kept my sketchpads in the closet. Every now and then, I would take something I had drawn and make it "public". But, that was a very rare occurrence. Never having any art education or instruction, I fell into that terrible crack called: Oh, no... I am not an artist. So very sad....
However, all that has changed through the course of this year. I did take you literally and I did draw something every single day. I also posted my drawings at the end of each week for almost 6 months. Over the summer months and into the fall, life was what life can be sometimes ~ and I didn't post any drawings. I did, however, continue to draw. October, I sat down with my scanner, scanning in all the drawings up to that point, and posted them!
I continued from that point on ~ posting at the end of each week. I sat here today, while the snow fell here in Portland, Oregon ~ posting yet another week's drawings. Looking at the calendar, I realized, with the three weeks remaining in this year ~ I DID IT! I made a commitment to draw every day. I did it! I have four small sketchpads FILLED with drawings ~ some doodles, some renditions of others' work I loved, some "pictoral journal entries and some preliminary drawings for greeting cards sent! (Yes, I said sent ~ I actually put some what I drew OUT into the world.)
My blog has been invitation only ~ and have friends tell me as the months passed, how much they looked forward to that email from me stating in the subject line: Drawings Posted. And, after a year of keeping to the pen, I have discovered alot about myself ~ and there has been this self confidence I have not known ever before ~ simply in life. A friend of mine once told me: Just draw a line on a page. Make yourself do it! And, it will change your life." With his words and your challenge, I made the commitment in January of this year to give this a try.
Thank you! Thank you for taking your idea to this forum. Thank you for setting a bar not too high, but one that we could raise or lower as we chose to do. This has been the most amazing year....
~G
Thank you again, G, for sharing your story with me and for allowing me to share it with others. Happy creating, everyone!
p.s. You can find out more about CED and how to participate here. For 2008 participants, I will not be posting a link widget for the last Monday of December. You can post anything you have to share at the post from last Monday.
Play!
December 23rd, 2008, 34 Comments
The (totally optional) theme for Creative Every Day in January 2009 will be...Play!
This year, I will be choosing a monthly theme for Creative Every Day Challenge participants. I've chosen themes that have helped inspire me and I hope that you will find some creative mojo in them as well! The themes will be general words, so that they can easily be manipulated to work with whatever creative mode or medium you are working in at the moment. Throughout the month of January, I'll be sharing some of the ways I use play to infuse my daily life with creativity. Feel free to embrace the theme for the entire month or any part of the month, if it speaks to you!
How to use the themes:
- If you're feeling creatively stuck or blocked at any point during the month, use the theme as a source of inspiration to get you moving.
- In the case of play, explore how you can get playful with your work, journal about what play means to you, make a piece of work using the word play in it, or more simply....just play!
- Using the theme is entirely optional for CED participants. Use it if it inspires you, ignore it if it doesn't.
- I'll be sharing posts throughout the month around the theme (among other things) to get you thinking about how to incorporate that particular theme into your life. Feel free to make suggestions or share how you use that theme in your creative worlds throughout the month.
- Feel free to focus on the theme in your creative activities for the entire month or as much as you'd like.
- Have fun with it!
I created the picture above through play and a bit of fun. My work table is covered with with craft paper and there were already doodles and paint smudges on it. So, I added some more, painted the word play and added some fun dodads. Then I posterized it in Photoshop to get what you see above.
Play keeps us vital and alive. It gives us an enthusiasm for life that is irreplaceable. Without it, life just doesn't taste good. -Lucia Capocchione
Creative Every Day: December 22nd – December 31st, 2008
December 22nd, 2008, 44 Comments
CED2008 participants! Feel free to leave a comment on this post or use the widget below to link to a post (or posts) about your creative activities during the week of 12/22/08 - 12/31/08. *I'm making this one stretch a little longer than a week to close out the year.*
To find out more about the Creative Every Day 2008 project, click here. To sign up for Creative Every Day 2009, check out the details here and then leave a comment on this post or email me to let me know.
To all the participants of CED this year, thank you so much for your participation! It was wonderful sharing this year filled with creativity with all of you! If you're interested in continuing on in the new year, let me know!
Happy creating!
Art is a step in the Known toward the unknown. -Kahlil Gibran
The Key to Winter
December 20th, 2008, 44 Comments
This is the painting I've been working on. It started out so very differently, based on an intuitively created sketch in my sketchbook. In the original sketch the key was attached to the heart of a person buried underground. It had a dark and Victorian feel to it that I decided to bring to life in a painting. But as I painted it, it became a little too dark for me. A little spooky even. I let it sit for awhile, tried playing with it in different ways and then at some point decided I needed to take it in a different direction. It takes a bit of courage to jump in a new direction sometimes, but I got a rush of energy and just began.
First, I put down collage elements from old architectural blueprints and then tore some of it off, I added some paint to make a snowy ground and some more collage elements, including maps of Lewis and Clark's path. I added circles and numbers in the sky and I knew I wanted the string hanging from the key to become like roots or an upside-down tree in the ground. It speaks to the potential that is hidden beneath the ground during winter. It speaks to tapping into that potential during the darker days when it's hard to see anything bright or inspiring. It's a reminder that even when everything seems cold and dead, there's magic happening underneath it all. It also reminds me of a quote I keep pinned to my bulletin board:
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer -Albert Camus
I could try and explain this painting to you more, why I chose this element or that. But I like it when people can find their own meaning.
The snow is still coming down outside. All of the sudden, winter is here in full force! O.k., I gotta run!
The Lovely Internets
December 19th, 2008, 9 Comments
It can make you crazy, inspire you, and overwhelm you at times. It can connect you with wonderful people from all over the world. It can give you energy. And it can suck you in for hours. It can help you run your business. It can give you that spark you needed to keep going. It can help you find that perfect gift. It can teach you things. It can help you procrastinate. It can make you laugh out loud. It can make you cry. Every day it seems I'm inspired by some new story of wonder that the internet has helped create. Shayla sent me a link to this youtube video and I just had to share. It exemplifies just the sort of wild and wondrous ways that the online world can bring people together. You can find out more about the artist on her blog, here.
I'm looking forward to sharing a wonderful year of creating together online in 2009!
I've been totally absorbed by a painting the past few days, but I think it's finished and I'll be able to share this weekend. I enjoyed painting today while the snow came down. Even though I started this painting about a week ago, it has a snow/winter theme to it. So it felt so fun and timely to be finishing it up today in the midst of a New England snowstorm. The snow is rather pretty while I'm here inside. Not looking forward to driving in it, but for now, that's not a concern. The cozy kitties, hubster, and I are enjoying a quiet evening. I hope you are all safe and warm and that you have a wonderfully creative weekend!
Holi-daze
December 16th, 2008, 30 Comments
The time leading up to Christmas tends to put me a little on edge. There are things that I love (the lights, cocoa, cookies, giving special gifts, quality time with family, decorating the tree), but there's a bit of stress in there that wipes me out. I do my best to stay healthy and upbeat. We've all got to remember how important self-care is during all the craziness!
Fortunately, this image that the hubster put together for our holiday cards is just the sort of thing to brighten my mood. Hehe. I used double stick tape to put this picture on our holiday cards. Last night, the hubster and I put them together, wrote out the addresses on envelopes, and messages inside, while listening to cheesey holiday tunes, and then I sent them off today. I'd love to send one out to all you, so consider this your holiday card from me, the hubster, and our four kitties.
The hubster and I were both raised by parents of different religions, so we incorporated a Jewish yarmulke on one of the kitties, so our Jewish relatives wouldn't feel left out by the Rudolf theme. I think he did a phenomenal job. Hopefully all our relatives will find it funny. Heh. We sent out a few non-picture cards to family members who are a little more old-fashioned just in case. Ha! I'm laughing again, looking at it!
Ahem, anyways, I'm getting very excited for Creative Every Day 2009. I'll be letting you in on the theme for January very soon. In the meantime, happy holidays to you and yours!
Creative Every Day: December 15th – December 21st, 2008
December 15th, 2008, 17 Comments
CED2008 participants! Feel free to leave a comment on this post or use the widget below to link to a post (or posts) about your creative activities during the week of 12/15/08 - 12/21/08.
To find out more about the Creative Every Day 2008 project, click here. To sign up for Creative Every Day 2009, check out the details here and then leave a comment on this post or email me to let me know.
Happy creating!
Paint what you love, and the ideas will never stop coming. -Brian Knowles
