Creative Every Day

End of the Weekend Links

June 22nd, 2008, 5 Comments

I hope you've all had a lovely weekend! It's been a relaxing one for me. I've got some good lovely linkage to share. Ready?

• This is a little last minute, but if you post a comment before Monday morning (9 a.m.) at Sparkletopia here, you can win a beautiful print from Christine!
• This week Inspire Me Thursday was inspired by Wonderland, a fantastic project by artist Yeondoo Jung who has brought children's artwork to life. I love the idea and the execution. So cool!!
• Creative Every Day 2008 participant Cory has posted a great series of tutorials at her blog Create with Moxie. She did the same kind of rubbings (frottage) that were featured in the GPP Street Challenge, but using encaustic wax instead of crayons. Cool! I'm going to have to give that a try! The tutorials start here.
• The hubster pointed out the website Gizoogle this weekend. You can put in any website and have it translated into Snoop-Dog style speech. It's over the top and ridiculous, but pretty funny. Here's what my blog becomes. The posts are pretty funny, but I thought the changes to the CED blogs in the sidebar (on the right) were hilarious. be crafty be happy becomes be crafty be stoked, diving for pearls becomes perpetratin' for pearls.

Tonight, I'm planning to kick back and watch Design Star. Fun!

Art as Stress Relief

June 19th, 2008, 12 Comments

While watching playoff games, I used art as stress relief. I kept pens, markers, and colored pencils nearby. And one evening I pulled a whole bunch of old book pages and some other scrap paper to draw on. So much fun!! And having my hands busy kept me calmer than I might have been otherwise. Plus, I made all these fun drawings. Perhaps future collage material?

Busy day. Sent out two packages of art. I love sending art out into the world! Whole lot of errands took up the afternoon and I am totally zonkered tonight. Time to relax. Mmmmm.

Playing with Paper

June 17th, 2008, 4 Comments

I'd been wanting to try rubbings with the stamp I made at Artfest this year and the inspiration to give it a go came from seeing the GPP Street challenge and Hanna's response to it. Here are two of the rubbings I did initally:

I used some wax caran d'ache crayons that I had, but unfortunately they were water soluble, so they couldn't do much in the way of resisting wax as in the GPP Street Challenge. So, after playing with that a while. I made some rubbings with colored pencil and tried one with just gel medium to see what would happen. All of these will make great paper for collaging and it was a lot of fun to just play with no end result in mind.

I wanted to keep playing and playing, but I needed to stop to eat and the Celtics are coming on shortly. Go Celtics! So, that'll be it for today.

Creativity as a Cure for the Blahs

June 16th, 2008, 14 Comments

Last week, I was feeling a bit of the blahs and after wallowing in it for a bit, I was determined to move through it. Creativity to the rescue! Reading some inspirational words, playing, having some good laughs, and making art helped me to break free of the blahs and into something more colorful and light. Over the weekend I was working on a couple pieces that I finished up today. "Carried Away" (above) was born from an idea that came from playing in my sketchbook (sketches in this post.) It is about 6.5" x 10" and was created with acrylic, ink, and colored pencil on thick printmaking paper. I also worked on another idea that came to me on a long drive. I made a quick note as I drove, so that I wouldn't forget it (nearly illegible since I wasn't looking at the paper as I wrote on the back of a receipt on top of my steering wheel.) Later I transferred the idea into my sketchbook, played with it some more and eventually it became "Storyteller" below.

"Storyteller" was created with collaged papers (mostly maps and pages from old books), acrylic paint and ink. It's about 9.5" x 9" on thick printmaking paper. As I was imagining it in the car, I had an image of words flowing out of a woman's hands because I love the idea of art that tells a story. I think other images may come out of this idea, but this one is finished. Below is a detail of the whale, which I particularly like because of the way a piece of a map is its eye.

I've got some links to share that hopefully will bring you some inspiration, whether or not you're feeling like you've got a case of the blahs.

• Just spotted the blog Three Beautiful Things (via a small stone.) Love the simple and totally beautiful things the author has noticed  there. This one made me smile: I hear music from Oli's yard. He is sitting in the half-shade with a jug of juice and his guitar.
• I so loved this post by Patti Digh. Oh so touching and inspiring.
• In the comments of my post and art about Alzheimer's, Carla from Anonyrrie mentioned the song "Silent House" by the Dixie Chicks. I looked it up and thought it was heartfelt and lovely. You can listen to it here.
• Jim is planning a very cool sketchbook swap on his blog. I'm planning to play along!
• Big thank you to Julia for featuring my etsy art shop in her Friday favorites! Julia has a blog filled to the brim with inspiration.
• A sure-fire way to beat the blahs is to head out for a nature walk. I love the look of this collection of pine cones from the blog, unruly things.
• I love this innovative way of hanging art using pants hangers (seen at poppytalk, originally in O at Home magazine.) I think it would be a great way to display prints that you don't have a frame for or works on paper.
• I was so entertained by this interview of Melanie Ford Wilson by Danny Gregory in one of his Illustrated Life podcasts. I listened to it while I painted and enjoyed it thoroughly. The podcast talked a lot about sketchbooks which was great fun to think about and listen to someone else's approach.
• Shortly after listening, I saw a picture of a bear online and really wanted to draw it. I grabbed the nearest pen and scrap paper and scribbled this guy out (below.) Bears are terribly cute aren't they? I mean, I wouldn't want to mess with one, but if the bear weren't opposed to it, I'd totally give it a hug.
• I mention the bear drawing because I think doodling and drawing whatever your heart desires is a wonderful way to beat the blahs.

How do you use your creativity to scare away the blahs?

Creative Every Day: June 16th – June 22nd, 2008

June 16th, 2008, 13 Comments

Language

June 14th, 2008, 10 Comments

New piece I've been working on, "Language" built up from layers of acrylic, ink, colored pencil, and paper on 11" x 14" watercolor paper. Again, thinking about memory, losing words and their meaning, the way trees are shaped like the pathways in our brains, and also family trees. Finishing it was timely considering my grandmother's entrance into a nursing home this week due to the progression of her Alzheimer's disease. It's been really tough for my mom. And just sad in general. And scary. I do hope that no one else in my family is headed for that fate.

I'd been itching to see a movie this week, so last night the hubster and I went to see "The Happening." Wow. It was awful. Do not go see it. Seriously.

Anyways, its' a beautiful day and I need to run some art to the post office! I hope your weekend is a wonderfully creative one!

Views from the Sketchbook

June 12th, 2008, 8 Comments

I've had a minor case of the blahs this week, perhaps brought on by feeling a bit over-cooked in the heat. But I'm ready to snap on out of of it.

I've got one art piece that is frustrating me and may be headed to a future of torn up collage material. So I'll leave that piece alone and share some sketchbook pages from the past couple days with you instead. The first one above is an intuitive scribble drawing. I started out with a big scribble on the page (without looking) and then found forms in it to bring out a drawing. Below, another intuitive drawing, this one came from marker bleeding through from another page which suggested the form of fish and a mermaid tail.

And lastly, I've had bees on the brain lately. Perhaps inspired by a couple bee visitors in our apartment and the happy bees outside my window in the tall hydrangea bush, I've got these little sketches born of my bee-brain below.

The sun is out and the heat less oppressive, so I've got a full afternoon of things to get to. Toodaloo!

A Plum Daffy Adventure

June 9th, 2008, 14 Comments

I didn't want to let too much time go by without writing about my fantastic weekend! We had tried organizing another mini-art retreat weekend like we had last year at Jes's home, but none of the dates were working for everyone, so I ended up doing a brief, but inspiring 24 hours with Jes and Tammy. I met the girls up in Kennebunkport, Maine and we headed out immediately for some flea-marketing. I'm not sure where there are flea markets like this around me, but it seems like there are a plethora in Maine, so I was excited to look for some fun stuff. Jes has some pictures of this part of the day because I was too excited and forgot about my camera. I found some pretty aqua bottles that caught my eye, a diary of poetry written in German from the 1890's, and some other fun ephemera.

We had some lunch and some good chats during the day, sharing some thoughts on art and whatnot. In the afternoon we shopped around Kennebunkport and I was nearly tempted by a beautiful Orla Kiely bag that was on sale, but I held back. I wasn't one hundred percent and those bags are too pricey for an impulse buy unless I'm totally in love. We saw some cute shops and some super touristy ones and then in the early evening we had the best time wandering around town with our cameras taking pictures of each other taking pictures.

We attended an art opening where we were inspired by a mermaid statue which we're all going to paint this summer. So there was lots of picture taking of the lovely mermaid. We had a great dinner and then I pretty much crashed directly afterwards. In the morning I visited the garden center where Tammy works and gleefully wandered the rows of flowers taking pictures of everything. Garden centers and greenhouses are so inspiring to me and I was glad to have my camera to capture the amazing shapes that flowers create along with all the stunning color.

The drive home wasn't too bad. It felt too hot to do any antiquing on the way home and I was happy to get back to the hubster, run a few errands, and then take a nap in our air conditioned bedroom. Unfortunately, I can't spend 24 hours in the bedroom, so today the heat was monstrous again and I feel like a wilted tulip.

So I'm glad I have these pretty flowers to make me smile while I sweat all over my laptop. Hee. More of my pics from the weekend are here. Got some drawings to share later. Hope your weekend was a wonderfully creative one!

Creative Every Day: June 9th – June 15th, 2008

June 9th, 2008, 15 Comments

Lucy and the Elephant

June 6th, 2008, 21 Comments

I did some drawing last night, one of them resulted in "Lucy and the Elephant" above which was done with ink and acrylic on paper. He looks like such a friendly elephant, no? He makes me smile.

Oh, this gloomy weather is making me sleepy. Yawn! This weekend we're in for a major switcheroo in New England, going from the 60's to the 90's in one day. Woohoo! I hope you all have a beautiful weekend!!

 

© 2024 Creative Every Day by Leah Piken Kolidas – Contact Leah
Design by Foliovision

Boston Web Design