This project was to create instructions and illustrate them. I chose to do this as a pencil drawing, using yoga poses as the subject. I love to practice yoga and have seen great benefits in increased flexibility and balance over the past 15 years. I am a stickler for correct position and realize that as good as yoga is for your body, you can injure yourself as well without proper alignment. These three are my favorite poses: Triangle, Down Dog and Child's Pose. You might say I enjoy the restful postures over the more difficult ones!

Eat or Be Eaten

Fish Food

This assignment was to work with metal or wire. I've been working on a piece for the Art League, "Eat Me" exhibit. So I've been cutting shapes from sheet copper, shaping, texturizing and detailing them (remember your copper pictures from Jr. High shop class?) Salt and vinegar gives a lovely blue-green patina on copper. Liver of sulfur blackens the surface.

The first piece is my favorite - The fish are created in the manner described above, and are mounted on a spiral of copper wire. The base is of melted plastic (remember the light project?) and then placed on a slab of sandstone. This little table sculpture is in the current Columbia Art League juried show.

The middle piece, "Fish Food" is mounted on a brass strip and uses seaweed with a blue-green patina. I thought burlap and a nice stained board made great contrast to the metal.

"Fish," the bottom piece is mounted in a black shadow box. Can you tell I've been spending time with my goldfish pond? I really enjoy working with copper - it is so easy to shape and lends itself to textures very well. Besides that, it is just a pretty color!

The challenge today was to build something tall that would stand up on it's own. I used Jenga blocks to build a structure. Nothing very notable - but I'm behind a day or so on this 365 day project, so this will do!

Paper Sculpture

"Without scissors or glue, create something 3 dimensional using only paper," was the assignment. This turned out to be harder than it first appeared. Paper is rather flexible; can be folded, creased, curled, torn, fastened with tabs.... you can use a variety of paper types. Getting things to stand upright is more of a challenge. This one is mostly construction paper and some colored tissue. Sorry about the clutter in the background - my drafting table is usually rather messy!
I'm enjoying the transitory nature of these projects - emphasis on the process rather than the product.

Tape was the medium of the day. I used leftover tape from Christmas (the fruit of the Spirit) and some surgical tape, to divide the space. Very simple, but I kind of like the results.

Dots are the theme of the day... With a marking pen I started to make areas of dots which grew into a dragon-like creature.

Quantity over quality. Work with a lot of something. I chose beads, some of which are actually shells with holes for stringing. Lots of beautiful colors and textures - I didn't try to make a "picture" of them - just arranged them in a pleasing configuration.

Upside down, right side up was today's suggestion. To create something that could be turned over and still make sense. I chose a reflection picture. This scene is from a lake in upstate New York in the fall. The colors were very intense and reflected mirror-like in the water which was the color of the sky. I took a lot of photos and have intentions of painting from them some day. This is in transparent water color.

Something old, given a new purpose was the assignment for this piece. I have had a stash of old keys forever, thinking someday I'd make something with them. For now, just an arrangement with pieces of an old Chinese calendar....

All white project - Don't know exactly why, but I love shades of white! I like hand-made paper and all those wonderful textured papers. Unfortunately they don't photograph real well, as you lose a lot of the 3 dimensional aspects. So today's assignment was to be a minimalist - working white on white with a variety of materials. This one has textured papers, wrinkled papers, white fabric, hand-made paper with scoring and folding to give some form.

This week, one of the projects was to have someone teach you something. Grandson, Nathan, had been to a Science Fair, and had been wanting to make a volcano that would erupt. So we constructed a volcano out of clay, with him giving the directions. He decorated it with leftover scale model materials from our golf course and subdivision model making days. He wanted to have vehicles in the way of the lava flow, so while he worked on the vehicles, I placed the dinosaurs on the grass and snapped a picture. Then it became his project - soda and vinegar with some red food coloring made a pretty spectacular eruption and wiped out the railroad and grass! I have a video of the eruption, but can't get it to load...maybe later.

Yarn creations were today's assignment. I started out to weave this face that I had drawn a while back - I couldn't get precise shapes in the loom, so decided to glue the yarn to cardboard. I'm not sure what is choking the life out of this figure, as I have forgotten what prompted the drawing (and it's probably just as well!) So you will have to draw your own conclusions as to its meaning.

Creating something that lights up was today's challenge. Many of you know how much fun I can have with melting recycled plastic - so it was my first go-too medium. I love the happy-accidental nature, combined with the shiny glass look that works well with light. So I made two - I think the purple concoction is my favorite light-reflective piece. I might fiddle around with this one in the future. These are lit by a small flashlight, but your could make an attractive night light this way. I'm working on a fountain using the same method - haven't figured out how to wire the water pump just yet.

Piano Mobile - The assignment was to make something that is normally heavy, float in space. The heaviest thing in my house is the piano, so I made a mobile out of grand pianos floating on clouds. (Sort of heavenly music, so to speak.) I attached them to a treble clef sign. I couldn't get a photo of them swinging in the air, so they are lying flat for the picture. A little exercise for the grey matter - not what I would call great results.

Mardi Gras time! Today's assignment was a mask. I bought that feather top years ago at a garage sale....hadn't a clue why I was buying it, but it had peacock feathers in it, and I thought surely that would come in handy someday. I couldn't manage a photo of me wearing the concoction (and who'd want to see that anyway) so set the two Japanese fans (Thank you, Erin) in front for the mysterious lady. So, this would qualify as an assemblage - no intent to keep it. There might be a use for those peacock feathers down the road.

Fish drawing: Today's suggested project was to use pens to draw something. (or you could construct something out of pens.) I did a study of swimming gold fish in ink and then filled it in with wave-like lines to fill the negative spaces. The drawing is in black and white, but I colorized the photo in gold. The fish I rescued this fall have been a lot of fun to feed and watch - very relaxing!

The eye.... Today's prompt was to be inspired by the eye (what goes over it, around it, etc) My idea was to make a design that might be used as part of a mask for a gala. I used markers for enhancing the eye with paisley-type designs. I did not limit the color palette on this one - something I usually do - not sure I like the color combination, but I was happy with the linear patterns.

Camouflage project: This assignment was to create or alter something to make it disappear into the background. I chose a magazine picture and created a watercolor background to help hide them. This was kind of a fun activity in color and texture.

A pencil drawing of a Mosquito - much enlarged - is today's post. Today's assignment: Create a large version of something that would normally be much smaller. I immediately thought, ant, but that is so common, so a mosquito it is. They are so annoying and even cold weather doesn't seem to do them in. However, I couldn't find a real mosquito so used a picture and drew him up unto a frighteningly large, biting mosquito. (Oh, wait, only females bite!)

A tribute to Edvard Munch, The Scream on an apple seed. The assignment was to make a teeny, tiny piece of art. I chose an apple seed; using a needle I poked out a mouth and eyes. The seed is attached to a toothpick. It was very hard to photograph. Tomorrow I have to make something very large out of a small subject.

The assignment was to make a unique print by cutting up a potato and using it to stamp on material of your choice. I took a painting the kids had discarded and layered on some transparent tissue paper. I added an article from the newspaper on home loans. The potato prints were in the shape of houses. I like the colors in this one. 

City Scape

Yesterday's task was to make something out of staples - I puzzled over this one for a long time - just couldn't come up with anything until I thought about staples as they come out of the box. So here is my cityscape in staples.

A few days ago the assignment was to create something out of the trash basket. I had just cleaned my acrylic palette with a razor blade, creating all these interesting mixes of color and pieces of scraped up paint. By scraping them together and placing them, this lovely Japanese dancer appeared. If you checked on me yesterday, you saw how this dancer appeared in a painting. Now I have become a hoarder of my paint scrapings!

Yesterday's creative assignment was to create something from a dream. I woke up several mornings ago, with a vivid picture in my mind of a Japanese scene. There was lots of dusky red, and the left side, particularly, was composed. As I searched for the completion of the subject matter, a dancer/tightrope walker emerged in a pastoral scene of  Japanese garden with a waterfall, bridge and pagoda. Medium is collage and acrylic.

Today's project was to create something from school supplies. I chose lined paper and proceeded to fold it and arrange it with repetition and variety. I've always enjoyed paper projects: so many options for sculptural interpretation.

Today's assignment is to make something out of clay. I have always been fascinated by Myan glyphs - they are very artistically designed as well as a means of communication. This glyph does not say anything (as far as I know) it is just a pleasing arrangement of shapes.

Yesterday I was coming down with a cold and did not post, so today there are two! The assignment was to make something from food. I had used the core of a Napa cabbage to do some printing and noticed that it was beginning to dry and curl in an attractive manner, so I speared it on a knitting needle and will see how it progresses.

The next assignment was to design something with a dollar bill. I folded it and posed it on a recent appropriate headline. Neither of the assignments were earth shaking in execution, but I have enjoyed the brain stimulation of coming up with something totally useless. I am trying to shake loose from creating things that are decorative, or have a prospect of sales!

Today's assignment is to use water as a medium. I sprayed water on a drop of watercolor and then sprinkled salt on it. A rather interesting little landscape with reflection emerged. A little bit of pencil work gave some definition.

These projects are from a book: 365 Days of Creativity. Each day there is a problem to solve creatively. This assignment was to create something by using a book. After gluing the edges together, I carved a hole in the top, thinking I would make a cenote, but then decided that it would be a nice skylight for a scene inside the book. The ragged page edges created nice cliffs, so cliff dwellings followed. I am finding this daily assignment to be a real catalyst in expanding my thinking. Exploring unusual mediums with no pressure to produce a product to sell, gives a playful edge that enhances the creative process. I am blogging my results each day as an exercise in accountability. Let me know what you think!

Project 2012

I received a book, 365 Days of Creativity this Christmas. It is a journal designed to promote and expand creative thought by creating a project a day. I've been at it a month now, and feel it would help with accountability to begin posting what I have been producing. Each day there is a design problem suggestion, to be carried out in a brief or extended time. Most are simple but effective in getting new thought processes underway. So here it goes!