"What Makes a House a Home?" Series. Plus Now and the Future

This is the last week with the CED2010 HOME theme. It's been a fun month. I managed to continue to create every day and to create using the HOME theme. How about you? Most of my week was spent exploring the idea of "What makes a House a Home?". I finished with two all encompassing little experiments that seemed appropriate for completing this month. Here are my efforts:

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

Saturday:

Sunday:

I did a few other creative things this week. I participated again in Inspiration Avenue's weekly challenge - this week was "Purple" (while on a plane from Toronto - making creative use of travelling time!). Also it was a full moon yesterday and time for Jamie Ridler's Full Moon Dream Boards, this month Dreaming Big on the Full Snow Moon. I continued to work on creating a clean, less cluttered house and a fit body. The habits I am trying to create are still intact and I exercised 5 times again this week. :)

Next month the theme is STORIES. Sigh. So far nothing excites me about this theme. (Sorry Leah.) AND I am getting about concerned that my keen interest in participating in CED2010 is distracting me from the writing I want to create. What to do.....??? My plan so far for next week is to do something in my CED2010 book every day but it will not likely be on theme and may be just something easy, and not terribly time consuming - so I have something to "show" to myself and to you. My main goal, however, will be to write every day. 500 words a day ideally, 3500 or the week. Or sit in front of my word document for an hour each day - hopefully that way the words will come! If successful, I will be creating! 

I hope you had and will have a great creative week! I look forward to seeing all your efforts! My heartfelt thanks to those of you who have been commenting!

Visiting Unusual Homes this Week!

A new theme for CED2010 started this month - HOME! But I haven't quite left BODY behind. I am working on creating a fit body, and so far, am still on track. (Though progress never seems to go as fast as I'd like!) I exercised 5 times again this week and finally got some medical tests done that I have been procrastinating terribly on. Just normal course type tests but I put the requisitions in a "safe place" and it was a bit too safe as it took me quite some time to find them again! Have you ever had that happen? Those "safe places" can be dangerous! Now the tests are done and hopefully my doctor will talk to me when I next need to call.

This week I started to explore the theme HOME - starting with unusual homes mostly in nature. I continue to try to get better with a variety of tools - ink, watercolours and pastels. I'm still starting with a pencil sketch. Wonder if I'll develop the skill and confidence to do without that stage. Or is better to keep that stage? I was also playing around with markers in a different book this week. Interesting! Boy, do they ever leak through the page on to the next one! Maybe I'll post some of those eventually.

Monday:

Tuesday:  I quite like how this wasp's nest turned out. I think waterolours were the right medium for the delicate nature of the nest.

Wednesday:

Thursday:  Tried pastels again.

Friday:

Saturday:  I love this turtle zen doodle!

Sunday:  Playing with letters again - making them into a variety of unusual homes.

I am also working on creating a clean, tidy and less cluttered home. In addition to the usual chores I pick a room or two to focus on for each month. Last month it was the living room and this month it is the upstairs bathroom and under the basement stairs. I've started cleaning shelves and drawers in the bathroom and did a few in the kitchen as well. Breaking things down into very small (manageable) tasks works for me. What works for you?

I also started to create a new interview for an interview series I am working on. Yay!!! I'd been a bit stuck on these the past few months and I am pleased with how this new one is progressing.

I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing all of your efforts over the past week! Hope you had a good one and best wishes for a great creative week this week!

EVA

Last Week of BODY Experiments

This was the last week for the CED2010 theme BODY and next week is the start of HOME. It has been lots of fun experimenting with the BODY theme. Lots of silliness, some seriousness and much learning. These are what I tried and created this week.

Monday: I thought I would try to create silhouettes using charcoal and then I added pastels. I stll have a lot to learn. At first I hated this due to my amateurish strokes but it has grown on me. I really like the effect.

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:  Another experiment in pastels. I've enjoyed these pastel body experiments almost as much as the zentangles.

Friday:  Another creation this week was my Full Wolf Moon Dreamboard. After completing it, I thought it would be fun to create a version of it in my CED2010 book as well.

Saturday:  All month I have been thinking about the theme and the word BODY, playing with variations of the word. I decided not to explore the bodies of too many other animals or vehicles but one that kept coming back was trees. After Wednesday's pastel (which turned out to be the tree pose in yoga) and Leah's recent post on Tree Bodies, with her lovely artwork, I decided to do my own version using pastels and water colours.

Sunday:  A last zentangle/Zen Doodle of one of my favourite little bodies. He looks a bit more mischievous than he really is but it was fun to do!

Thanks Leah for a great month! Many thanks to all of you who have posted comments to my little blog! I really appreciate them! This has been an excellent learning experience so far. I have tried new tools - pencil, ink, charoal, watercolour pencils and watercolours, and a couple of kinds of pastels. I have a long way to go to be skillful in using them but, as with everything else in life, that comes with practice. I am also learning that creating this one habit - creating every day - is spilling over to creating other habits. I have been working on creating a fit body and I was successful in exercising 5 times a week, each week this month. Not quite a daily habit but I think that would be impossible for me while this has been achievable. Although the theme is shifting, that part of my focus won't.

What about you - what did you learn this month? And what was your favourite experiment? Did you create any other new habits?

Have a creative week! I'm looking forward to seeing your efforts!

All the best,

EVA

Full Wolf Moon Dreaming

Just after midnight, and the Wolf Moon is full. Finally, we have a clear night and the Moon is shining brightly for me to see, and for us to chat. This always makes me happy.

I am eagerly participarting again (3rd time!) in Jamie Ridler's Full Moon Dreamboards. This is the Full Wolf Moon. Jamie says: "January’s full moon has this name because wolves are often heard howling at this time as they seek for food. What are you seeking? What is your heart yearning for?"

Someone appears to have spiked the water with bubble juice and all my desires appear inside those howled  bubbles. Images seem to come more into my mind to draw rather than jump out of pages of magazines at me to collage. (No doubt I am reading the wrong kind of magazines. Forbes may not be the best choice for this activity!) For this one I tried using pastels instead of watercolour pencils like the last two. I am learning as I go, and I am learning a lot. Since I am also participating in the Creative Every Day 2010 Challenge, I thought I would do a zentangle/Zen Doodle version in my daily drawing book:

I hope the Full Wolf Moon brings you everything your heart is yearning for, and what you are seeking!

Have a great month!!!

21 Days Does a Habit Make?

They say it takes 21 days to form a habit. CED2010 has just finished 24 days so I may be well on my way to a new habit - creating every day! How about you? Have you formed this habit yet?

So far, so good. I am still on track for a new creation every day. And I am:

• Having fun!
• Learning - so much!
• Trying new things
• More focused on the process than on the results
• Amazed at the results
• Seeing some overflow into other areas of my life
• Still thinking about the theme - BODY
• Happy I am participating!

Monday: I wrote a blog entry about that challenge and posted my charcoal and pencil experiment then.

Tuesday:  Pondering the theme BODY, "dead body" entered my mind and I thought - "Hmm, how about an Egyptian sarcophagus?" and went as far as to look at images. They were already so ornate that it didn't feel right to try to Zen Doodle one. Then a stormy crime scene entered my mind, and this was the result.

Wednesday: Again thinking about bodies, what are bodies made of? Well, at first I was humming Moby We are all made of Stars (and I may still use that...) but really bodies are made of the DNA that forms our flesh and blood. This is my fanciful attempt to represent a body made of DNA.

Thursday: Relaxing....

Friday: I decided that I wanted to try a new medium. Since I had some pastels around and had years ago tried drawing a poppy from my garden using them and liked the resulting piece well enough to keep it, the next two are body studies using oil pastels.

Saturday:

Sunday: I like the zentangles/Zen Doodles I have done so far. I'm not sure quite what they really are or where they came from or how one is really suppose to draw one but I like doing them. Zen - very appropriate. Do you feel a zen/flow state of mind while creating a zentangle? Here is another one based on the body of Rodin's The Thinker.

These are my creations for every day of last week. I am looking forward to seeing yours!

A Toast to Getting it Wrong

Last night, I wasn't totally happy with my creation/experiment using charcoal pencils. I started talking to myself: "It's okay, it's fine. I'm learning. Practice makes perfect. Maybe I'll go back to fun creations before trying serious ones again but I will try again. (Etcetera.)" and then I stopped and laughed at myself.

Monday:

CED2010 is an exercise and an experiment for me, one that I am really enjoying. I surprise myself with the bizarre and silly images I have created in 2010, and while I would love to be a great "artist", that isn't really my goal. Some of  the CED2010 particpants are already excellent professional artists! Others, based on what I have read so far, yearn to be. And some are really hard on themselves. (Maybe we all are at times?) I am so impressed with everyone's creativity and ideas! And I have also found that everyone is so encouraging and supportive of each others efforts, and that is fabulous!

So today when I came across a great post by Mark McGuinness of Lateral Action discussing Creative Blocks, I thought I'd share it. In part 2,  Mark encourages an anonymous reader to go out and GET IT WRONG! Then he quotes e.e. cummings (I love quotes): 

"and even if it’s sunday may i be wrong

for whenever men are right they are not young."

Isn't one of the great parts of CED2010 that we have the freedom to get it wrong and learn from our mistakes? To share if we'd like to? Or not?

Two of the comments on that post also resonated with me (and the first surprised me):
Picasso’s technique was never to refer to his paintings as ‘works of art’ but always as ‘experiments’ or as ‘research’. A little bit of self-deception that got him past the perfectionist road block, resulting in a lifetime of continuous productivity.  Chris Vaughn
and:
"Wow, I just went through that entire thought process on my latest project..”what if I get it wrong? Then I need more materials. Oh, I have those, with enough to spare.” And then..”Wait! I’m making this up, it’s what ever I make it.” funny, how I needed to actually articulate that, actually ask those questions, but then also answer them." Martha Downs

What if you get it wrong tonight? I know that I will just be making it up. Are you going to make something new up tonight?

Hmm, now I have this urge to go listen to the Rites of Spring!

To mistakes!   Cheers.

EVA

Another Week, Another Creation Every Day!

Creative Every Day 2010 continues successfully!

I have been playing around with the January theme of BODY. Silly things, plays on words, come into mind and then make their way into my art book in fashions I don't expect when I start. The unexpected nature of these little creations of mine is surprising and fascinating to me!

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday: Thinking about bodies brought all kinds of shapes, and other aspects, to mind. I thought "hard body" and was going to try to draw a body builder. Once pencil was put to paper, instead of a body that was as hard as rocks, a body built of rocks appeared. Not sure if my attempt to also reflect the Northern Lights worked but I am just learning to use these watercolour pencils I bought. (I am learning so much!)

Thursday:

Friday: While thinking about a Body of Water, I started humming to myself Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay and ended up with this relaxing body/bay.

Saturday: As I was exercised (so far so good there too!), I was thinking about what to try next. So this is my amateur attempt at drawing myself. (My, I look so much fitter there!)

Sunday: I really enjoyed doing the Zentangle/Zen Doodle last week and thought I'd try a variation of that - still with the BODY theme. Da Vinci's "Man" kept coming to my mind - unfortunately not very accurately! I looked at the original mid-way through this and realized the head didn't go all the way to the top of the circle! Oops! Oh, well! It was never meant to be a copy.

The overflow of creativity into other areas of my life was limited this week - a new soup creation (using leftover salmon), and a start of a "startegic planner". (Hey! - that typo seems to make more sense! Hmmm.)

I continue to be so impressed by all the creativity I have seen from this group!! You guys (gals) are awesome!! I check out Leah's update page regularly, and the Flickr page occasionally. So many talented artists! Wow! I am enjoying all your work thoroughly and learning so much.

This week I may try to experiment with other tools - I think I have some pastels and charcoal pencils somewhere. (I wish they came with manuals.) Paints will have to wait for the summer when I can use them outdoors.

What are you going to try this week?

Happy Creating!!

Week 2 CED2010 - Creating Continues!

Are you having fun yet? I am!

I am SO impressed with all of your work!!! What an amazingly creative group of people the CED2010 participants are!

I continue my attempts at creation. By and large I am pleased with the results so far, and with the process. Sometimes ideas come into my head in the middle of the night and talk to me until I have time to create them. Others days are more challenging but so far I have created each day. Thinking of the theme BODY has led in me in interesting directions!

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

I had never heard of a Zentangle or Zen Doodle before but I have seen a number of them since joining CED2010. Wow!!! Those I have seen by participants are awesome and the process of creating one is fascinating! Here is my first attempt. I had no idea it would turn out like this  - that it would be an egg about to hatch. Very interesting experience! I like them! I think I will do more.

Friday:

Saturday:

Sunday:

Most importantly, my ulterior motive for participating is starting to kick in. I have also been creating in other ways. I created 2 Mind Maps and a preliminary Powerpoint presentation. The last time I wrote a paper, I was procrastinating terribly and couldn't get started. I finally decided to do a quick version of the presentation that would eventually accompany the paper. It worked tremendously well to clarify my thinking and I finished the 22 pages of my paper without much more procrastination. (Just a lot of work!) So, since the main thing I want to create this year involves extensive writing, I decided to try the same strategy. The Powerpoint has helped and I am clearer about what I want to write.

This year, I also want to create a fitter body (laughing to myself, thinking about the BODY theme) and I exercised 5 times this past week. So that is great!

How is your creativity in CED2010 affecting your personal or professional life?

Creative Every Day Check-In #1

Welcome to my first weekly report on my first participation in a Creative Every Day Challenge!

So far so good! I am 3 for 3 and have enjoyed each small creation.

I chose these two books as my primary tools for the Challenge. I bought them several years ago when I was in New York City and saw a special Tiffany exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The small version I am using as a bit of a journal for my thoughts during this creative journey.

The next three images are my efforts to date. "How to start?" I pondered as I opened my immaculate new notebook. With a single step!

After all, the theme for January is "Body"! ;)

The next two involve different kinds of bodies: - one snowy and one furry!

I haven't drawn much in years and drawing 3 days in a row is highly unusual for me. A very interesting experience thus far! I am having fun! Are you?

Full Blue Moon Dreaming and 2010 Word of the Year!

Happy New Year!! Happy Full Blue Moon! Dream on and Dream BIG!

My best wishes for a happy, healthy, prosperous and creative 2010 to all of you! Thank you again, Jamie Ridler, for introducing me to the wonderful idea of creating these Full Moon Dreamboards! Thank you too, Christine Kane, for your idea of the Word of the Year! I've chosen to combine them together in my Full Blue Moon Dreamboard.

As I hum along with Dean Martin, I am thinking about the year to come. How very fast they fly by! 2010 promises to be an excellent year and I have much I want to accomplish. The fireworks in my FMDB seed some of my wishes for this year. These include (since the image of that part of my dreamboard isn't as focused as I'd like it to be - note to self "Buy new markers!"):

• Contribution
• Art
• Create my Path
• Research
• Play
• Inspiration
• Invitations
• Travel
• Energy
• Friendships with Remarkable People
• Focus
• Magic
• Prosperity
• Passion
• Write and
• Fitness.

CREATE! is the Word I have chosen for 2010.

CREATE!

I chose "CREATE!" as there is something specific I want to create this year. A document but it may become a book. It will be a minimum of 60 pages and the most I have ever written is 22, so I know this will be a challenge. I still have much research ahead of me but the time has come to start writing. And creating. It has little to do with the type of creativity I see in the dreamboards - Or does it? Does creativity and creating in one arena lead to creativity in another? I am betting that it does. What is your experience?

What kind of mechanisms can I put into place, I wondered, to ensure that I create this year? Participating in the Full Moon Dreamboards is one way. Already in my 2 initial efforts I am astonished by the finished products and by the process. Amateurish they may be, but they are my creations. So I have started to create! Another decision I have made is to participate in the Creative Every Day 2010 Challenge. Some days creating will be the writing I want to do. Other days - who knows?! I feel excited just thinking about it!

I looked at one of the Flickr group slideshow that Leah Piken Kolidas, creator of CED2010, mentioned and immediately started to doubt my ability. Amazing artwork has been created! At the moment of my worst angst, I looked back at the screen and saw this:

Wow!!! What an amazing image to see at that very moment! Thanks so much Annette Q for your great picture! The synchronicity continues!

In 2010, I will Create!