Sunday, April 17, 2005

Creative Challenges!

What a beautiful day today! Lynn and the boys have gone off to the Antique Farm Equipment Show in Tulare, California. Too far for me to sit and ride with my back and knee, besides I must admit it didn't sound appealing either, so I'm catching up on projects that I need to get done and enjoying the peace and quiet *smile*

I'm not very good at keeping up on this blog, its a challenge for me I admit it *smile*. I've never been the type to keep journals. I just could never stick to writing in one and I always felt too exposed. So with this blog I'm trying to get myself use to journaling more and for me typing is much easier then writing. Just don't expect daily posts from me LOL but more like what I've been doing :-)

Thursday night was a fun night at Art Click. We had a great project that Kris set up where we each began working on a 4x6 canvas board then every 10 mins we switched places and worked on someone else's. We also were challenged to use only the supplies in front of us. That was the hard part, we all have our comfort supplies we're use to working with and it definitely was hard for me but I enjoyed the process and seeing the end result of every one's boards was great. I hated mine in the beginning and felt so conscious of the timer that I didn't know where to begin but by the end I loved what everyone had added:


As a designer for the Altered Arts Magazine, aside from our normal submissions due we each had to "volunteer" to sign up to create 1 special project during the year. The project is to be created from a small kit we're sent right before kits are to be mailed out. An example sheet of our project will be included in the kits to aid in giving ideas to people for the product they'll be getting in their kits. This is another hard challenge for me because its a very limited amount we're sent to try and create with and its usually things I wouldn't necessarily pick out. Or I would at least have other things I prefer using to add to it but we're asked to try and use only what's in the kit. This project's theme is Patriotic and I was given a 2 1/4" sheets of scrapbook paper and few other miscellaneous things. I started doing a spread in a board book and didn't have enough to really do more for another spread so I altered a puzzle piece....I'm at a loss as to what else to add to the puzzle and will have to think on it. I did however create a tiny art doll to place in the board book spread. I used the head from a collage sheet and the compass from a tag sheet sent and then add the wings, milagro arms and legs (I antiqued the wings, arms and legs with antiquing solution and then highlighted them with blue and red inks):


Its a real challenge to create when your muse doesn't seem to be around and your not feeling inspired for whatever the reason is. If it wasn't for deadlines though I think I would easily get into a rut of not creating and so although stressful as they are to me, deadlines can be a good thing. A question was asked by my friend Anne from LiberTeas whether I've pulled out of a swap because I wasn't feeling inspired anymore by the swap. No, I've never pulled out of a swap once I've committed unless it was at the very beginning of signing up and the swap hadn't begun yet. I have however WANTED to pull out many times and I definitely know the challenge of trying to create for a swap that I no longer was inspired or interested in doing. What I have found is that it challenged me to push beyond those feelings and find the inspiration I needed. Sometimes I have created some of my favorite pieces other times I felt like I could have done better. Swaps can be a good challenge as long as you don't over commit yourself to too many.

I challenge anyone reading this post to try creating something outside of your comfort zone and see what you come up with think of it as a stretching exercise :-)

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