They Can't All Be Sunny Days

Sunny Days May Be Overrated

Journal page after successive rainy days :-)

I know we love sunny days.  We feel alive, warm, fun, friendly - positive.
But there is lots to be said for rainy days:

1. I get to think COZY thoughts
2. I get to layer my clothes
3. The air smells clean
4. My Puppy loves the rain
5. I live in a RAIN forest - ah DUH!
6. Rain helps things GROW
7. Rain makes me look forward to sunny days
8. Rain is cleansing
9. Rain is wet, wide, expansive
10. Rain is what I see it to be.

As is life.

"Here comes that rainy day feeling again".... and I see potential.

Creative people are alchemists.

Give Your Creative Gift to the World

Share your Creative Gift with the World - or Someone!

Once you hit your creative goal, publish, sell or give it away. You would be surprised at how much joy you can bring to someone’s life by giving them a piece of art or sharing a story you wrote.
No art is too small to be art or too small too make a difference.

In fact, you don’t need to be Picasso to be an artist – you just have to get your work out there for others to enjoy. That’s it. That’s all.


Perfection is so 50's

Get over it and yourself and create something.  I know my rose isn't brilliant.
I know it won't win awards.  But I felt alive drawing and using my pastels, and I feel alive now looking at it.
I don't deny it's scary to share these things - but creativity becomes dynamic when it's passed along.

Just write a note to a friend, implement the process at work, share your idea at the board meeting, paste it on your frig, post it in a forum, hang it on a wall!  Plant it in the garden, build it with your hammer, carve it from a stone, sing it to the moon!

What ever you do - DO IT!. Today.  Take 5 minutes or 5 hours. 

GO GUTS.  Create.

Where Does A Creative Idea Come From?

 Creative Idea Comes From the Dynamic Integration of Your Experience

Composing Creative Thought

To be realistic one must always admit the influence of those who have gone before ( Charles Eames)

Don't get hung up on where your creative ideas come from.

Let's be really honest.  Most likely it is not unique.  The general idea might have existed before you did it, thought it, played it or put it on paper.

BUT WHO CARES?

We are a composite of so many textures, colors, ideas, voices, influences, experiences, opinions, cultures,  and societies.  They all mish-mash in our consciousness and our subconsciousness and WHALLA...our creation.

It's not about competition.
It's not about winning.


It's vitality. Purpose. Flow


Enjoy it.

Creative Practice in 15 Minutes a Day

Creative Practice as a Daily 15 minute Commitment

I challenge you to make 15 min a day every day - about creating. A Creative Practice.  It doesn't take much let me tell you - once you decide you won't live without it.

You don't need to paint or draw (but you can).  You can write a song, a poem, create a recipe, create a design for a part of your garden, rethink a color scheme for the family room, come up with a new outfit, without buying any new items, think of ways to recycle your used household items, find a new route to work, write a love letter...

The choice is yours - to be, or not to be, creative today.

Think about a tough situation you are in - write down 10 possible solutions - NO MATTER HOW RIDICULOUS.  Address a relationship issue in your journal - write down many different outcomes.

Write a short story about the life you want. Take some photographs.  Dream about upcoming holidays and what you will do, or see, or explore.

Make a new friend, play in mud, climb a tree.

DO or be or act or think outside your own box - for 15 min a day.

In 10 days, come back and tell me you haven't had a thrill or You didn't have a feeling of vitality.

What you are missing - today, in life, in yourself,...

Is your power, your creative ability to change things.

DO it!

Love to hear your comment...

Together in Life : For Helen - Happy Birthday, I love you.

Today is my mom's birthday.  It matters.  She says it's nothing, and to her, who's counting.  I get that...I feel the same.
But about her birthday, and the beauty of celebrating it, I have a different sentiment, so I offer the painting and these simple words: I love you dearly Mom.  So glad we travel this life together.

Must Creative Juice Create Things?

Must Creative People Create "Things" to be Creative?

Daikon - Mmmm Tasty! Photo by Hancockseed.com

I read a post the other day from a creative teacher who said that after he had studied hundreds of creative people and worked with creatives that he has concluded that you will know if you are a creative person - "if you create things."
While I understand his point - it suggests a polarity of thought from GUTSY ARTS.

You are creative.  Period.

You were born with the ability to think of things a different way, to see something different than it is, to solve a problem using the unexpected, to find resources for what you need - in other words to be creative.

One doesn't need to produce a Mozart sonata to be a creative person.  You may never be a Stephen Spielberg or Meryl Streep.  But baby, you "guts"creativity.

Cultivating creativity it is another issue.  Recognizing it in your life - takes awareness.  And learning to play with it - is an extraordinary gift you can give yourself.

Here is an exercise for today: 

Eat something different.  (Trust me on this)

Go to a different cafe if you live in the urban centre, go to a different deli, and even better - pick up a few things you never have picked up before and make something at home.  Try out some new veggies (or just try a veggie for pete`s sake!).

Recently I plundered the market for daikon.  DAIKON?  In my California and Colorado childhood I guarantee you, we never had Daikon - and neither did my friends or neighbors.

A full size daikon is HUGE.  I learned about it from Alicia Silverstone at the Kind Life.com (for vegans)
 
When I had my first bite (a sample at a farmers market) I thought immediately -  "no way"!  It was bitter, much like a radish.  But the clerk suggested I take it anyway and grate into a salad, add to my miso soup, or roast with veggies.  I did.  And I am here to tell you after 6 months, that the Daikon is a new member of my veggie family.

I practiced a precursor to creative juice - openness, flexibility, willingness to experience something different than I know it to be.

So try it.  Just go eat something different today.  Be open.  Be Brave. Be Gutsy.

Things to note: how willing were you to try it, how much resistance did you feel, did that feeling of resistance feel familiar, what did your head say when you had the new food at your lips?  Just how willing are you to unleash your creative?

21 Secrets for Gutsy Arts

21 Secrets - Calling All Mixed Media, Beginning Artists and Creative Fun Seekers

(NOTE: I did not receive any compensation for my recommendation and paid full price for the course)

If you enjoy learning new techniques, new ways to see old things, creating something in a journal everyday, curious about how other creatives do things, or watching others do artistic cool stuff, you should consider signing up for 21 Secrets.


Hosted by Dirty Footprints Studio, 21 Secrets is a wild fun combination of a host of different artists.
I love the Fearless approach of Connie Hozvcika at Dirty Footprints Studio - who will be sharing on FLOW.  I don't know all the teachers but I do know Christy Tomlinson of Scarlet Lime (talking about texture), Julie Fei-Fan Balzer (talking about Watercolors), and Gina Rossi Armfield who will be talking about collecting images and using them in your mixed media art.  There are several others I know about a little - looking forward to knowing them better, and some I have yet to find out their gift.  


All in all, I am looking forward to the experience.  I paid for my registration today.  Heads up, wherever you buy the series, that person makes the registration money.  Go here to learn more FEARLESS PAINTING - 21 SECRETS
You have all year...or till Jan 01,2013 to study, learn, re-learn etc...on your own time.  
HAVE SOME FUN!!!

 

Beginner Art: How is Paint Made?

Beginner Art- How is Paint Made?

These outstanding picture of Indian pigments was uploaded to Flickr originally by givepeasachance and has been recognized as outstanding on Wikipedia.

All paint forms come from the same basic ingredient: pigment. In a dry form, these pigments are fine powder of colored substance that derive from minerals, plants ores, and even compounded chemicals.

The paints commonly used by artists today are categorized in three basic groups: oil, watercolor, and acrylic

Oil Paint

Oil paints are made from the pigments mixed with a vegetable oil.  The oil eventually evaporates and leaves the pigments for lasting memory. Typically linseed oil is used as the binder (or substance used to apply the pigment to the painting surface).

Watercolor Paint

Watercolors are made from the combination of the pigments and, well, you guessed it, water. However before the water is ever applied as a medium (substance used to apply the pigment to a surface, used interchangeably with "binder"), it is mixed with water soluble gum (acacia) for a binder.  (The terms are used interchangeably, so be advised).  

Acrylic Paint

Acrylic paints are made from the pigment suspended in a form of synthetic plastic or polymer.  There are a wide variety of choices for acrylic paint which we will discuss in other posts.  The various choices determine the complexity of the paint and the "flow" which is used in painting.

The Creative Nag

Use the Creative Nag to Your Advantage

One of the ways to hear your creative voice is to listen to your inner creative nag.  You know what I am talking about, that urge you have somewhere inside.  You can usually recognize it by the effort you use to suppress it.

The creative nag is the feeling you get when you have a still moment, the idea that repeats itself when you are lost in thought.  You might drive by a golf course every day to and from work and for a fleeting moment see yourself as an instructor, but it fleeting because it's nonsense - or so you tell yourself.

You may find the nag when you are on vacation.  While you sip your Margarita and look at the kids playing by the water, you gently rub the sand off your legs and think, " I really should have followed through on that house in the country, I so miss this sense of calm and well-being."  But immediately that thought is cast aside, Lord knows you could NEVER afford that house.

The creative nag is gentle but persistent.  Repetitive even.  She seems to think she deserves to be heard, or more so - needs to be heard.

Questions and Creative Nags
Oftentimes you will find your creative nagging, urging, prompting comes in the form of questions.

 "Why don't you paint a tree"?

 To which you promptly reply, I am not good at painting.

"Where could you find a good resource to help you solve this problem?"

To which you promptly reply, I am not comfortable asking for help.

The creative nag is there to help you REACH UP, REACH OUT, REACH BIG

Today's Exercise: What's Nagging at you?  What voice are you quickly dismissing?  What's the nugget in there that wants to be heard - wants to help you GROW, expand,fly?
PS  Please note my gutsy art for today.   It's not exactly a Monet!  But my creative nag  has been urging me to do a series on trees, trees and words, trees and color, trees and gemstones, trees!  So I started today with my oil crayons...  I feel light now.  Not cumbersome.  Thanks to the nag!

Comment about your nag and your experience with her (him)....
I would like to hear your take on it.

Creative People Kinda Itch

Itching to Get out of a Rut?

If you feel that hankering, uneasiness, restless, unsure feeling about your decision, your choice, your dream, your boyfriend...you just might have the Creative Hives.  Creative people kinda itch sometimes.

When my son was 6, our family took a summer evening stroll corner store.  I was playing with the kids, and doing some hide and seek .  Out of NOWHERE known, but so loud it was thunder I heard these words "get Joshua away from the street."

I didn't.  I didn't trust myself because I knew I had a fear about the kids and cars on the road.  I thought it was fear speaking.

Moments later, Joshua was hit, and we fought for his life.  (He turned out great!)

I had creative instinct, gutsy chatter, but I didn't know it clear enough to listen.

The same can be said when you run out of an ingredient for dinner and you need to improvise.  When you do that, you are practicing your creative muscle - the one that tunes into somewhere deep, and finds the answer you need.

But we get crusty.  Tuned out. Turned off. Rigid. Vanilla.

GUTSY ARTS is about the ability to stir up inside yourself your awesome voice.

Travel with me.  Let's learn together.

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Creative Guts - Gutsy Arts

I GOT GUTS

I have not always had the courage to take my artsy creativity out to the public - that's cause I thought I needed to be an artist to give me the credibility to share on creative thinking, feeling and splashing about. Wrong.
Gutsy Arts is about a way of life
Living gutsy is more than spreading paint or ink around, more than molding and sculpting and knitting a row.  Living gutsy is an ART FORM.  It is a process, a philosophy, a passion for living like every day matters, and to be able to FEEL something...(even something uncomfortable) every day.  When you live near your creative edge, there is some excitement, some mystery - a question that begs to be answered.  But then again, just having the question feels vivid and alive.
It may include paint or wood, or plaster or spice - creative juice may make words fly on a page or a wall- but in truth, it's the vital aliveness we are after- and the rest, is GRAVY. 
So join me on the journey - no guts- no glory! 
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