Creativity at Play

"The Creative Mind Plays with Objects it Loves"~ Carl Jung Given the fun and light-hearted experience of this year I thought this would be a great quote to pass onto any intrepid and curious creatives out there to inspire your own adventures and endeavours in creativity as it has inspired me. What I like best is that it hints that being creative is best as a "fun" "light-hearted" experience or exploration because the creative mind plays with what it loves; not studies, perfects, or beats oneself up over but rather plays with those things . It has served as a good reminder to me that my project (the Creative Challenge) is a fun thing, and therefore something not to take too seriously or beat myself up if things don't go exactly as planned because it's supposed to be fun and playful thing. Although it can be hard to remember in the midst of trying to figure things out, plan, fit everything in, get everything in on schedule and make it a huge ...

A Trip Down Memory Lane, Experiencing the Group of Seven first hand, and an aspiring artist's reward Written for: Wednesday March 29 With March being a great month of exploring the world of using pastels and experimenting I found it about time for a reward and burst of inspiration to help further explore this form of creativity and what better place to visit than the McMichael Art Gallery- home to the Group of Seven's artwork and much more. So with that decided I put the plan in motion to head back to there and revisit the gallery a second time. I looked forward to this trip after it being so long since the first time a second visit I'd hope would give me a greater chance to appreciate the artwork and doing it myself to appreciate the artist's styles and efforts.   Group of Seven The feeling of familiarity came almost instantly as we drove down the long driveway into the art gallery as if it were almost yesterday I was there. Now it wasn't just the b...

Introducing Dabbing and Creating Clouds Well as intended I finally got the chance to learn a new technique for the month of learning pastels. This time it was experimenting making clouds and applying a dabbling technique to make them look light and fluffy (that same interesting term used in baking, now appears a part of clouds I wonder which came first...). Having it be a while since I first took a lesson in between experimenting on my own and learning techniques I was nervous about returning but decided that since growing as a pastel artist means being open to improving and taking on techniques it was time to learn more on how to expand on my own style. Feeling more comfortable using them on my own and less intimidated by the pastels it made sense to transition into another technique. My pastel hands were ready to take on another experience.  Morning sun, created March 22/2017, first attempt using dabbing effect to create clouds. An intimidating second-err-third step, ...