Everyone is born with creativity. But those people who appear to be super creative have a secret. They know that creativity has to be developed and exercised to come easily. I am on a quest to immerse myself in creativity of all kinds. I hope you will join me!

Tonight while I was wasting time on Facebook, I came across this 4 year old dress designer and her Mom. I love everything about this story and am inspired to try construction paper as a building material. Check her out: Paper Dresses by Mayhem

I cannot remember being this cognizant of anything at that age. Well, maybe reading. I loved reading. Would all kids show this kind of creativity if encouraged? And where would we be if that was the case?

Give your 4 year olds some Vitamin C!

Being an ex-dancer and a would-be artist, I found this fascinating. Even if it does not resonate with you in the same way, maybe it will spur you to think about combining two things you love into something new. Something that was made for you and by you. Very creative!

Here's more….

Use your Vitamin C!

I love how other people's brains work. I would probably never look at a three foot wide alley and say, "This is the perfect place for a house!"

Definitely some Vitamin C happening there!

I love this blog post from The Busy Mockingbird. I read it three times. Now you..... Click here.

Right before I watched this, I took a quickie test to determine if I am right brained or left brained.  Not sure if a facebook test concludes anything really, but it affirmed what I know about myself.

Immediately following that was this video. It is pretty awesome. I watched a couple times to figure out how it was constructed and noted how many details had to come together to make it work. Then I read the comments and laughed right out loud. There is every conceivable reaction to this video, and then some. Some of those people need a nap.

So, your thoughts? Was a right brain or a left brain responsible for this?

Someone took his Vitamin C!!!

Seeing this ad for the first time yesterday, made me laugh out loud. The designers who work for me often hear that kind of description from me.  

"It should be not a light enough teal-ish color so it looks aqua or girlie, and not deep enough to feel like you are in the woods, something kind of in between, a little bolder than that color that is trendy right now.

Weirdly, that makes sense to them.

Guessing the writer of these TV Commercials (there are a bunch of these on You Tube), spent a day in the design department, and came up with these "design-speak" commercials. That's where the magic happens, hahahaaha!

Use your verbal Vitamin C!

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people." -Steve Jobs.


Talk about Vitamin C!

I have been stuck in my own personal rut for a couple days. I know the reason and I am too lazy to fix it.  My hopes are that by putting the words out here, it will make me get busy.

I just read an article on The Swell Life about ways to inspire creativity in yourself. Ten basic and very helpful ways to break your rut are discussed.  While all ten might not work for you, I bet most of them will.

One that I will add to the ten is to clean up my work space. I used to be able to work in chaos, but more and more lately, I cannot function unless things are cleaned up. The mess is distracting. Hence the reason I am not functioning.

And then, I think that we each probably have things that work for us that are more personal. We just have to find them. I sort of hate to admit this, but one thing that really spurs me to create is the success of other people.  Not sure why.

Success is out there to be had?

If she can do it, so can I!

That looks like fun.

Whatever the reason, it works for me.

What works for you?
Take your Vitamin C!

For more stable, thicker pages, glue two together, back to back. The first step was to cover the pages with gesso.  If you have not used gesso (pronounced jess-o), you must give it a try. It is used as a primer coat, a mask. It also comes in black. Works great, it is a valuable tool for your art box.

My selected palette of acrylic craft paints...

These are just examples. Sometimes I combine two or three of these into a new pattern. And if you change the colors used, it can give you a totally different feel.  The background will be much softer if you paint it with a monochromatic palette, for instance.

These are just visual road maps, guidelines, ideas.

What kind of thing do you do that would benefit you from inclusion in a handy notebook?

Take you Vitamin C....and your Nyquil!

Have you joined Stumble Upon?

This place is fun and dangerous. It can be worse than facebook for stealing time from your day.  But, it is more productive and can inspire creativity.

Set up an account: free.  Determine which areas you have interest, and click the button.  Every time you click, it randomly takes you to a site or blog in one of your areas of interest. You can join the community and chat with like minded folks. There is so much there, it is mind boggling. It pulls from everything online. There are many creative minds out there in the world.

I found this today:



You might find your daily dose of Vitamin C on StumbleUpon, who knows? GO!

There are actually people out there who specialize in creativity. It seems to me more like they know how to jump start the brain into a new and different direction.  And that is what creativity is all about.

I read a book some years ago by Roger von Oech called A Whack to the Side of Your Head. Of course, he is not talking about a 2x4. He is talking about a metaphorical whack that makes your brain reboot.

This afternoon, I was following a rabbit trail of links when I found Roger has an app for iPhone.  I never pay for apps, and this one was $1.99, but I went for it.  It is a deck of "cards" that will whack me upside the head. Today's card of the day tells me to ask "why?"

It's advice reminded me very much of how I worked through writing my thesis. Asking question and unveiling curiosity will almost always show you a new path, or new paths.

I will recommend Roger's book if you are interested in growth of your own creativity. He also has a blog, google it. Oh, and of course, you can friend him on facebook.

Meanwhile, I am going to ask "why?"
Take your daily dose!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Imaginina, the Wise......



Watching daytime TV today is making me scream. Shoveling every driveway in the neighborhood is a more satisfying activity. I watched a show on justice as meted out by some woman who thinks she is just. 


Neighbor A has tooth marks all over his Mercedes. He gets a nanny cam to see whose dogs are the culprits and finds out which neighbor to sue. We are talking about chewing a metal car.


Neighbor B explains that Neighbor A framed his dogs by planting something inside the car that the dogs would want.


We see the video of the dogs chewing on the car. Indeed they spend as much time sniffing around and under the car as they spend chewing. And a dog expert is brought in to say that for sure there is something in the car to which the dogs are attracted.


Oh yeah. Here is creativity at it most useless. If these people used their creativity together for good instead of stupidity, who knows what they might accomplish? 


Park your car in the garage, keep your dogs on a leash, and get together for some creative brainstorming! And stay off daytime TV!


It is about time for me to have my own TV show...
Imaginina

Briefly, the book is about a guy who had a job that was boring him sick. When he started in his career, the job was exciting and he was passionate about it everyday. Yeah, things have a way of getting old and stale. And the job he loved became a drudge. One day, he wandered into a rehearsal of a Cirque de Soleil performance and struck up a very interesting relationship with that organization. In the end, he realized what he had originally loved about his job was the creativity he needed to have success. Eventually, it became business and he used the techniques and processes that had always worked for success. Through a change of thought process, he was able to recapture some of the creativity and interest from the early years of his job.

So, I am there. Entrenched. Buried. A bit bored. I work in an industry that inspires creativity in people. Yet, I use little to no creativity in my job. Seems weird, but it is true. I am a designer whose left brain has taken over. After all these years, I know how to do the job quickly and efficiently, and have stopped the experimentation and fun.


So, we are gathered here today to begin a journey to find the flowers in our days.  Let's go.......