Let's Inspire each other to be Creative

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Anonymous
Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
edited June 2014 in Bonded by Breast Cancer

I'm a real beginner, at age almost 66 (on Monday) taking drawing classes, and landscape painting classes.  Always inspired by friends on bc.org who post their gorgeous photographs, even if Lisa doesn't call herself an artist, she is in my mind.  The creative projects I've found since bc, 4 years ago this month, have contributed to my healing.  I'd love to hear from other women about their art, sculpture, painting, quilting, polymer clay, and everything I can't remember to include (CRS!) creative work - especially how you inspire yourself on those days when you aren't feeling as good as you'd like to feel ( Arimidex friends?)

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  • thefuzzylemon
    thefuzzylemon Member Posts: 2,630
    edited March 2011

    I will add this to my favorites!!  It will inspire me to do some things that I just haven't got around to!!  Thank you for starting this ... got any photos of your projects?

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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
    edited August 2012

    delete

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  • thefuzzylemon
    thefuzzylemon Member Posts: 2,630
    edited March 2011

    That is a great idea!!  My little neices would remember that painting project forever!!  Thank you so much for you compliment :)

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  • thefuzzylemon
    thefuzzylemon Member Posts: 2,630
    edited March 2011

    So, today ... I did some stuff!  I found a new app on my smartphone that let's me edit and play with photos - I've always loooooved doing that and had a ton of fun!  Then, my DH got me some seeds and I started my planting for the garden this summer!!  Might not sound very creative, but it felt a little creative! 

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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
    edited March 2011

    Fuzzylemom

    sounds creative and HOPEFUL to me!  One of my favorite quotes, from Ralph Waldo Emerson, is "Earth laughs in flowers."  It's only 30 outside in Western MA, and we get frosts until the very last days of May, so I don't start my seeds indoors until the middle of April.  Mostly annuals, "kids flowers" I call them, but my favorites, Sunflowers, Nastrutiums, Heavenly Blue Morning Glory - and Moonflower.  I adore the scent of moonflower, but by the time it blooms here, last September, it's too cold to really smell it!!!!  Meanwhile, I spent most of today working with soft pastels, painting autumn landscapes of the fields around my cabin.  Will some day figure out how to use my digital SLR camera so I can post one.

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  • thefuzzylemon
    thefuzzylemon Member Posts: 2,630
    edited March 2011

    That sounds beautiful!  Uploading with a digital is really a breeze ... I use Picasa on my computer ... it's a free site that you can upload, store, edit, share, and order prints!  I've used it for years and it's sponsored by Google.  I'm very technologically challenged so ... even I can do it!!  LOL

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  • marybast
    marybast Member Posts: 138
    edited March 2011

    Hi there, everyone. I'm new to these discussions, BC diagnosis and bilateral mastectomy in December 2010, no chemo, on Arimidex generic since 2/8/11. I'm 72 years old, started oil painting classes three years ago when, honestly, I thought I couldn't draw a very good stick figure. But oil painting is very forgiving, and I have a very good teacher. Now post-BC it's great to keep my mood positive, taking jaunts to get good photos to paint from, and the painting itself is totally engrossing. I can't figure out how to attach a photo here (don't know the "dimensions") but have a painting blog at http://marysoilpainting.blogspot.com. Thanks for being here. 

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  • thefuzzylemon
    thefuzzylemon Member Posts: 2,630
    edited March 2011

    Hello Mary!!  I will be checking out your site straight away!!  I have never done oil painting ... but I am very interested since you said it is "forgiving" ... that's my kind of project!!  LOL

    I see you only have 2 posts ... just let me know if you have any new comer kind of questions and I'll do my best to help!

    Apparently, all you need to do is copy and paste ... I have never tried it but that's what I've heard.

    Have a wonderful wonderful day!  HUGS and a SMILE!!

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  • thefuzzylemon
    thefuzzylemon Member Posts: 2,630
    edited March 2011

    OMG - Your painting are amazing!!  The River, the Cranes and the Flower are my favorites!!!  You are so talented!!!  Thank you for sharing that!

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  • marybast
    marybast Member Posts: 138
    edited March 2011

    Couldn't get the copy and paste to work, but figured out how to get the photo's dimensions by right-clicking:

    Ichetucknee River

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  • thefuzzylemon
    thefuzzylemon Member Posts: 2,630
    edited March 2011

    Hmmm...I can't see it here yet ... but I love that painting ...

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  • marybast
    marybast Member Posts: 138
    edited March 2011

    Couldn't get the copy and paste to work.

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  • marybast
    marybast Member Posts: 138
    edited March 2011
    Really, I give a huge amount of credit to my teacher... she rarely "instructs" except for the basics, lets us learn as we go, is always encouraging. Everybody in the class (including beginners like me) are creating amazing canvases. A couple of them took me nine months to finish (if you scraped away the outer paint you'd see all my mistakes). Smile
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  • thefuzzylemon
    thefuzzylemon Member Posts: 2,630
    edited March 2011

    Well ... you must be a really good learner ... or have a very natural talent!  I can't get over how wonderful they are!  I don't know what I expected but they really inspired me!  I live in Wisconsin and I see cranes all the time - they look just like that!!  And, I love water - they way you caught that river is breathtaking!!  And, the flower looks like you could pick it and smell it!! 

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  • painterly
    painterly Member Posts: 602
    edited March 2011

    Hi Caerus,

    Did I read a comment on another thread that you had  felt the need to be creative when you went through treatment?

    The same thing happened to me except with a difference. I went into immediate denial on learning about my diagnosis and began painting like crazy as an escape from reality. I was in denial for one year before I came back to reality LOL.

    Mary, your paintings are lovely!

    Glenis

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  • painterly
    painterly Member Posts: 602
    edited March 2011

    Happy Birthday Caerus!

    Glenis

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  • painterly
    painterly Member Posts: 602
    edited March 2011

    I tried to upload one of my oil paintings, but it didn't work.

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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
    edited March 2011

    Marybast

    I love your paintings - especially the italian vase, peacock feathers, on a shawl - just love it. It's so LARGE - wow!  I know what you mean about oil being forgiving - I was taking a class when several people used oil, I tried acrylics cuz I could stand the smell of the oil, turps, gave me a headache. Diidn't like the feel of acrylics, and then tried watercolor, which I'll go back to when I find a good teacher - love the freshness, transparency of watercolor- which I was not able to create cuz I constantly overworked it ;(  Alas, water color is very unforgiving.   I was being too hard on myself - so, bought many artist grade pastels ( which are so much better than the junky stuff I first tried from craft's stores) and I love the soft pastels.  I really do.  For more specific, detailed learning, I used Faber Castel Albrecht Durer ( sp?) water color pencils.

    So much of the process of learning to draw, for me, was/IS being patient with myself, and learning to love the process, which I do.  Trying not to be too critical of what I create, seems to be working.

    I am nontechy, doubt if I'll ever learn to put a picture online, but, maybe some day.

    Glenis,

    Right after my diagnosis, I learned about a place in Northampton MA, called The Cancer Connecton. From them, about a series of workshops ( free to bc survivors) run by an art therapist called Art from the Heart.  Credit it with so much of my healing, blossoming creativity.  Several weekend day courses, in all kinds of different crafts, creativity, with other women who know exactly how you are feeling.  My first class, on a Saturday, I was only strong enough to last  a few hours, but I still have the silk "suncatcher" I painted resting on a south facing window in my little cabin - and I give thanks every time I look at it, for my healing.

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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
    edited March 2011

    fuzzylemon

    I love your new picture - did you paint it???  

    Glenis, thank you for birthday wishesKiss It is a lovely day here - cold, but sunny, windy, bluest sky, nice day to have a birthday!  Hope all are enjoying their creative ventures too.

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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
    edited March 2011

    Marybast,

    when conservationists "scrape away" from museum pieces - they are thrilled to often discover the earlier stages of a work of art.  Can't remember any of them ever being called "mistakes."Tongue out

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  • thefuzzylemon
    thefuzzylemon Member Posts: 2,630
    edited March 2011

    Hello Birthday Girl!!  Glad to hear that you are enjoying it!!  I just looked into speaking with someone about my writing ... after I read this post!!  I want to publish and this may be the time ...

    I'm so glad you like my pic!  I mentioned that I was doing some silly photo stuff the other day on my phone (I love taking and editing photos) and this was one of them ... it's my photo (unedited) as a jigsaw puzzle.  The colors just came through so nice ... so I kept it! If I could paint like that ... whew ladies ... I'd be uploading like crazy LOL

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  • 3monstmama
    3monstmama Member Posts: 1,447
    edited March 2011

    Hi All,

    My creative outlets are primarily knitting and cooking.  Cooking I'm pretty good at but then I've been doing it since grad school [nearly 30 years] so one would hope I was managing.  I like all kinds of cooking--the long involved stuff and the quicky stuff--though I am not as much of a sweets maker as I am a savory maker.  The sweet exception is jam.  There is something immensely fun about jam.  Knitting is a newer thing for me--only since fall 2006.  I have yet to complete a sweater though I am pretty good at hats and scarfs. 

    I have never been big on painting or any finer arts---couldn't satisfy the imagine in my  mind's eye.  But I do like taking photos or at least I used to pre-monsters.  Never did learn to develop photos though I would have liked to.

    For that matter, there are TONS of things I would like to try---needle felting, quilting, upcycling. . . .dumb old bosses and their insistence that you go to work in order to get paid!!!!

    The mindchanging while painting is referred to as "pentimento" from the latin word pentirsi  And as was noted, it indicates that the artist changed his mind as to the composition during the process of painting.

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  • CindaD
    CindaD Member Posts: 120
    edited March 2011

    Hi everyone,  every once in a while I check the boards and I saw this thread, I wish this would have been here when I was going thru tx.  I found that being creative is what kept me from going CRAZY!  I spent hours making things on the days after chemo when I was to tired to go to work but able to go down to my workroom in my sweats!  I made alot of mixed media projects and did a whole series relating to breast cancer.  I also started cancer journals, one I wrote in daily, it allowed me to get the yuck out and the other is  mixed media with pictures, I guess you could say a mixed media scrap book of my cancer journey.  It includes pictures of me with my doctors,friends and family the big radiation monster and every time I went to chemo and  I documented shaving my head and the new growth when it came back, I have lots of bald pics, I hope that it is only time in my life I will be that way and I wanted to remember the feeling so I could help others. It's not complete, lying in pieces, every once in a while I go back to it....I hope to finish it soon, but life and other projects keep cropping up and that's not a bad thing!  Painterly I'm going to check out your blog when I get home tonight, I'm on my lunch break!

    I personally think every cancer center should offer a creative outlet for their pts.  I think everyone has a creative side, they just have to find it.

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  • painterly
    painterly Member Posts: 602
    edited March 2011
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  • painterly
    painterly Member Posts: 602
    edited March 2011

    The above painting has a few touch ups left that I will be doing like the statues on the bridge, I ran out of paint and couldn't put them in and then we left for Florida, so on my return up north, I will put in the statues.LOL

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  • painterly
    painterly Member Posts: 602
    edited March 2011
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  • painterly
    painterly Member Posts: 602
    edited March 2011

    Figure on the beach

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  • thefuzzylemon
    thefuzzylemon Member Posts: 2,630
    edited March 2011

    WOW!!  I am really going to enjoy this thread ... these are wonderful!

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  • marybast
    marybast Member Posts: 138
    edited March 2011

    Wow, from me, too, painterly. Beautiful! 

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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
    edited March 2011

    Painterly

    How wonderful - I am amazed at how you have "captured" the water, in the pic with the young girl, and her shadow.  They are all so amazing.  The reflection of the trees in the water - how you have shown so accurately the direction of the light - where is that?  Figures on the bridge?  Gargoyles ;)??

    Inspiring - just love seeing how people "see" their own environment.

    CindaD.  I agree with you completely.  Mixed media - was the only way I could express myself during the chemotherapy.  I used to write, but there was just too much going on I couldn't deal with, and the Art from the Heart workshops, introducing us to all different art projects, really was what got me through all those months.  Working with my hands, paper, paints, - opened up a new world for me.  

    Gardening is also a passion - but we have a very short growing season in Wesern MA.  Last frost is last weekend in May, first frost is sometimes early October.

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