Let's Inspire each other to be Creative

When I taught fibre art and now, when I discuss photography especially, I tell my students to "go for the nose hairs!" We all know what a flower looks like. Take a different angle on it and shoot it from the back, the side, only one petal, etc. It's something I always think when I look through the viewfinder. Is this a nose or is it the hair? When I taught sales people I told them to sell the sizzle, not the steak. That's a common sales idea and no one knows for sure who said it first. I've sold a $3,500 sewing machine from a picture. I didn't even need to plug it in. The customer knew it sewed a seam, now what else could it do? When I told her, she bought it. The sizzle, not the steak.

I hope that makes sense.

Thanks Chabba for the compliment!

Here's one that I have been rushing to finish because I don't want to drag it with me to Fla when I leave for the winter in a couple of weeks. I lost the lovely freshness that I had in the beginning, it was hard to hang onto it because of the complexity of the scene.

Sorry about the crooked angle of the photo - makes the buildings look like they are playing a tug of war!!

The scene is from a photo I took while on a cruise down the Rhine where I loved seeing all the buildings on each side of the canal.

Here's a funny anecdote:

When I did 3 dimensional design (same time period as the kleenex box incident) I took a metal sculpture class along with woodworking and regular sculpture.

In the metal sculpture class, we were asked to do the conceptual drawing before cutting the metal. We all came back with our drawings. The other students had amazing drawings, very elaborate whereas mine was something simple. I felt mine was dumb. Okay, I thought, these are kids with wonderful imaginations whereas I was a 40 year old housewife!

We cut the metal. Mine didn't take long whereas the elaborate designs took longer. Then we constructed and had to polish the metal. Since mine didn't take too long to cut and construct, I began polishing very soon. The elaborate designs needed a lot of work. I was finished very fast and every time the teacher came around the class looking at everyone's efforts, all I could was polish, I had nothing else to do.

At critique time, my humble little design received the highest mark. The teacher said I had turned my metal into velvet whereas the elaborate designs if you dropped them on the floor and fell on them, you would suffer a serious injury because they were so sharp. Metal into velvet LOL....So the polishing did the trick!!

Here's another funny incident.

When I did painting from the live model (same time frame as the kleenex) our final exam was a recling nude with lots of drapery. I mean the teacher really loaded on the drapery, lots of swags in the background and the model was draped in it as well as some drapery piled up nearby. We had to do the model in 3 hours with all that drapery! Holy smoke, we all said. I immediately attacked the model, working diligently to get her to look alive! By the time I got to all that drapery, time was running out. I began drawing it with the brush but it was taking too long, so i then dipped into my colours and dragged the paint around the model without any details but trying to make it look like drapery.

Finally, time was up and it was critique time. It was wonderful to see everyone's painting on display. The teacher pointed out all the positive and creative aspects of the students work, and in this particular class, there were many creative and very talented kids. When she got to mine, she said, my drapery was the best she had seen and that it was handled in a very painterly way and she advised me not to get boxed in by my "kleenex box" and to continue painting in the style in which I did the drapery. So that's me "painterly" trying to stay away from my kleenex box!!!

Sunflowers, are those soft pastels the same ones that create dust? I recall doing soft pastels years ago at art school and although you can get some really wonderful effects, the dust is not good for you to breath in, especially if you have had asthma. The dust sticks to the lungs.

I believe that watercolour is the safest medium to paint with, pigments dry quickly and many of the pigments are transparencies which have very little pigment to be of concern. Acrylic, I am told is the next best medium since they dry fast and don't stay in the air very long. But my lovely oils hang in the air too long and we must have an open window at all times with a fan pushing out any smells. I notice in Florida when I paint, the smells really linger in the room, even with an open window and big ceiling fans, must be the heavy humidity which stops the smells evaporating quickly.

What color paper? Bright white of course. Arches is the best one and you want the whitest so it shows up nice and white when you paint around it. The rose is white and is not painted. It's the white paper that you see, so I don't paint on it.Only some light shading is painted light blue.

Diagnosis: 1/15/2008, IDC, 1cm, Stage I, Grade 3, 0/2 nodes, ER+/PR+, HER2-

Gorgeous combination using the two primary colours of yellow and blue which is very popular with artists. Bren obviously has an eye for art! If you google sunflowers in a blue vase, or yellow flowers in a blue vase, you will see many paintings of this lovely combination. I tried to download one for you but it didn't work.

Have fun "Sunflower" this weekend. You are wise to choose pastels. Watercolor is by far the most difficult medium I've worked with. But I"m determined to beat it and hopefully get to where I don't look at the paper and see "White Fright".

My mother is experimenting with "reverse painting", I don't understand it, but love it.

Sunflower....come on lets see some of your stuff. We can be of help if you need it!!

I have really enjoyed following the art conversation here.  I have been away for the past few weeks, kind of in a fog for the past couple of months, but coming out of it (had BMX in Oct, with lots of complications), but am getting stronger and more energetic.  I was able to attend a 3-day watercolor workshop with Tom Lynch this past weekend, and absolutely loved it!  I do not typically paint buildings, other than the occasional barn or outbuilding in a landscape, but one session was devoted to painting windows and doors, so I really came out of my comfort zone during his sessions.  I did not come out of the workshop with anything very good to post, but I always push myself to try new things and  make my mistakes there so I get feedback and suggestions during critique, and I did get some great suggestions from him. Now if I can just remember and apply everything (or even 10%) of what I learned!

The best thing about the workshop is that it got me back to my brushes, introduced me to a different paper and different colors, and I actually painted instead of just thinking about it and then doing other work or chores.  I wish I could take an ongoing class so that it would "force" me to paint more often.