All posts tagged: Creativity

Are ‘creative’ prompts helping my creativity or hindering it?

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I make every effort to do something creative each day, I keep a Moleskine planner which I fill with a different ‘arty’ thing every day so I will at least do that page if nothing else.  For this I have no rules, I just paint, stick or draw what I like, consequently some days are all the details and some are a wash of paint. Usually I manage something extra in the creative genre,  but I have been noticing more and more that this ‘something else’ is often a prompt or an idea from someone else.  What’s wrong with that?  Prompts are great for creating ideas and the accountability which often comes with prompts – share on Instagram or to a website for example – will usually keep the momentum going for as long as the prompts are there.  This is usually a monthly process and every month of this year so far  I have had at least one prompt based challenge on the go. I have noticed that most of my recent arting has …

Painted paper collage

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My new favourite thing is paining block colours onto plain or old book paper, cutting out random shapes and making a collage from them. I don’t use purples very much so I decided to paint some blocks of colour onto some slightly textured paper (This is Sumi-E painting and sketch paper) overlapping the colours slightly but not particularly deliberately.  Of course I had to throw in some gold and paynes grey. Once they were super dry, I cut them into shapes and strips of paper. I really love how the overlap and edges of the colour look so effective once they are in shapes. Then the fun part, sticking the shapes down on a page (in this case, my daily Moleskine). I try and keep a balance of white space and shapes as well as a balance of colour placement. I had swashed some gold over the page already so I stuck the shapes over the gold. I can’t wait to do this again as I have lots of paper and shapes left.  Maybe next …

Cabins and Trees Colouring Sheet.

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  I like to draw colouring pages and sometimes I like to colour them in and usually when I ‘colour’ them I grab my acrylic paints and use my fingers to add some colour to the page, then I might rip some of the page up and add it to my art journal. I am not your conventional colourer! I like to be loose with colour over a printed sheet, this one is partly finished and I painted with my brush and with my hands. If you would like to print and colour the sheet, please click on the image for a printable page. Don’t forget to share your colouring!  I am going to add my sheet to my art journal and see where that takes me. Happy colouring and Happy Wednesday x  

Topping up Creativity.

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I am pleased to say that my creativity levels are usually brimming and this week was no different. Just to keep everything bubbling and brewing in my imagination I decided to get myself onto the Metrolink, jump off at Skinker and scamper across Forest Park to the Art Museum. In fact I scampered to the Missouri History Museum first catching a couple of Pokemon on the way (for my son, I know, I am a good/crazy Mum!).  It was a lovely day, not quite cool, but certainly better than it has been in the humidity department. The Little Black Dress exhibit at the  History Museum is about to close, so the pressure was on to see it.  I wandered the dresses for a few minutes, sketched one or two and snapped a couple of pictures. Honestly I was underwhelmed, I mean it did what it said on the can, there were black dresses, but it was nothing amazing. No matter, the St Louis Art Museum had been calling to me all morning, so even though …

Ways to Forge Creativity into your Day.

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I like to create something everyday, even something small like a layer of colour on a blank page. If I don’t know where to start, colour is my kick off point most times, grab some paints and choose 3 to 5 colours and make a background to work on immediately or another day. Things I might do to fill my creative soul daily – I like to follow an organized prompt based challenge. This month I am taking photos with Susannah Conway’s August Break and art journalling with Creative Bug and Dawn De Vries Sokol. Art Journal a background or finish a whole page in one of my sketchbooks. Sketch a flower from my garden or a mushroom spotted in the woods. Maybe a quick pen sketch or a watercolor impression or a combination of the two. I will pull out my Gelli Plate and see what I can print with it, or try and use my stencils in a new way. There are so many ways to use equipment like this, the results are …

Ideas and how best to tame them.

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  Where on earth do all of the ideas in the world come from?  Books? Brains? Computers? Instagram? Do you have lots of ideas or do your struggle with the blank page? I think the blank page stares us all down on a regular basis, especially when there is no brief or stated requirement in place. We all need a starter idea, so what can we use as that beginning? We could add some of these things – Colour- wash, splash, pattern, dot, dots, cover the page or a corner. Word-Single, quote, lyric, random, at the top left, in the middle, upside down. A stripe of washi tape – small, across the page, tiny rips. A magazine cutting – torn up, cut out carefully, words, pictures, colour. Any of these should add enough to the most stubborn page to get started. How come sometimes ideas seem to spout out of the top of my head and I have to spread out my sketchbook net to catch them all before they fly off and yet sometimes, …

Coloring Sheets for Adults (or anyone!)

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Creativity is a marvelous thing in my opinion and I think we can all be creative in one way or another.  A very popular way of celebrating our personal creativity is a coloring book.  Now adults get their own, instead of shoving the kids out of the way and nicking their favorite pencils, we can officially have our own book and choose our own pencil case and fill it with abandon (or pens, whichever you prefer). I love to doodle and draw and I will often color in my own pictures, but I don’t color in official books.  Having said that there are lots of amazing coloring books to be had, featuring everything from patterns to seasonal pictures via mandalas and animal kingdoms. As I was doodling around and coloring in my sheets of drawings, I thought maybe you might like a coloring sheet to print off and get stuck in, right now!  Grab those pens/pencils/paints/crayons and print one of my coloring sheets.  I made two for you.  Just click on either image to get …