every artist

                                     ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let's do art

A new year and more creativity in the works!

Most people's first reaction when they hear the words 'art' or 'creativity' is to say "I'm not artistic. I can't draw. I'm not creative." My response to that is baloney, I laugh in the face of the naysayers! I used to say exactly the same thing, and believed it for years. Now I AM an artist.

Everyone of us is creative, and at some point in our lives we were all artists. Remember the drawings we did every day as children? Bubble gum pink taffeta Princesses, fire breathing dragons, ancient mossy dinosaurs, our houses and families. They were beautiful and creative, and everyone knew exactly what we had drawn. We were proud to show them off and display them for everyone to see. Somewhere along the way encouragement to play with crayons and rainbow coloured markers teetered off. Instead we were told to do something 'constructive'. Learn all the prime numbers (which I use ALL the time!) or memorize all the president of the United States. While information is valuable and fun to collect, (I'm always seeking new information) the ability to express ourselves creatively is also valuable. The more I immerse myself in creativity, the more creative ideas pop into my head. It becomes like a party of ideas in there! We have all heard that music and art in schools helps kids with their other subjects, yet we relegate music and art to extra curricular activities that only the "talented" kids get to do. Can you imagine what things would be like if we were all encouraged to keep at it?


Generative research shows that everyone has creative abilities. With more training, and more diverse training, your potential for creative output increases. Sir Ken Robinson talks about how we lose our creativity over time at TED Talks

When I was a kid I remember attempting to carve animals out of the rejected bits of soap I'd find in the bathroom. I thought that throwing them away was a waste, and so collected them all up and planned to make a fantastic menagerie that would become world-famous, and be shown in art galleries and museums around the world. I can vividly remember gathering all my materials and tools and setting to work. In the end I would became so frustrated with what I thought were my failures, that I gave up and threw it all away. I convinced myself that I wasn't talented and would never be artistic.

As the years wore on I was continually stunted by my thoughts of inadequacy as a creative being. All the while I dreamed of creating something so beautiful it would make people weep with joy. I pined for the ability to draw and paint, to express myself through all kinds of mediums. I envisioned myself as one of those 'cool artists' with paint in my hair and splashes of colour on all my clothes. The years went by and nothing happened. I continued to let the fear of failing restrain me from drawing and painting. Eventually I avoided all things artsy (except for the zillions of doodles I did on all my notebooks and journals). Until one day I was asked to be the foster guardian of a tool kit full of paints and paint brushes.

I held onto that box. Took it out every now and then to lovingly gaze at the colours and promise of what they could be. The paint brushes were well used and had paint crusted on the handles, to me they were like precious jewels.

Then one day I woke up with a wild picture of colour and texture in my head and thought maybe I could create it using the paints I was fostering. I waited and waited for the right moment until one day I just couldn't wait anymore. I pulled out the paints, poured out some water and found a t-shirt to stand in for a canvas. I brushed midnight blue, sea green, foamy whites, and specks of magenta and lemon yellow onto the dampened shirt. The colours were vibrant and they bloomed like flowers across the material - they were beautiful, and I was thrilled. I had finally done art. I had made something. Everyone praised it and mentioned how they thought they could never do something like it.

I laugh about it now because that's what I always used to say and I came to believe it. Now I believe anyone and everyone is an artist and is creative. It's just a skill that needs to be nurtured. Since then, only about eight years ago, I have learned how to carve soapstone, sculpt with clay, paint and draw. I can even draw a reasonably good face now. I am a reluctant drawer, as I still have doubts about my ability, but I know the truth behind it now. I have been practising, and now I want to share it with everyone. I want to convince others that they can create too and that it is fun. If I can do it I figure anyone can do it. It just takes some time and practice, and since it's fun to do, it's not a chore!

So, I'm excited to say that I'm planning to hold art and creativity workshops here at Camp Shawny and Two Sisters Artisan studio. Laura, my Martha McGuyver, has kindly offered to do the catering and help with the art projects. We will have a place to get our creative art on, connect with our inner creative child and spirit, play, have fun, get messy, take a break, breathe some fresh air and eat good food.

I have lots of ideas for art projects but I'm curious about what kinds of things people would be interested in learning and doing. I paint with acrylic (no watercolour experience, yet, so that's not an option), make beaded jewellery, carve soapstone, work with clay, create collages, draw and illustrate and I'm a pro in Adobe Photoshop.

Some of the projects I already have in mind:

making masks

making art journals

collages

beaded bracelets, necklaces, earrings and keychains

paper making

papier mache

carving soapstone

playing with clay (clay clay and polymer clay)

creating a sketch book/participating in the next Sketchbook Project

acrylic painting (in this alone there are tons of options….you can paint with acrylic on just about any surface - I've painted shoes, chairs, mirrors, canvases (Naturally), clothing and lots of other surfaces

I'd like to have your thoughts and opinions about this!

• What would you like to do if you had a weekend or an evening to create without any outside interferences?
• How much $$ would this be worth to you for a day long or weekend long workshop doing something like this?
• Would you be interested in attending a season's worth of workshops (for example: one Saturday a month throughout the winter)?

Please send me a message or leave a comment with your thoughts suggestions ideas feedback. Any idea is a good idea!

I'm excited to get this going so your help will help me help people know they're creative.

my school blog

This year I started teaching graphic design at the private school here at Shawnigan Lake (Shawnigan Lake School). I'm teaching two classes ~ Juniors and Seniors in the Fine Arts after school program. It's been a steep learning curve but challenging and fun. To help keep the kids in the loop I created a blog where I post their project assignments and some of their finished work.

slsmadgrfx

I have found many of my class project ideas from other graphic design teachers and from reading a ton of material. I have worked to adapt the projects to make them relevant to my kids and to reflect my program but I am eternally grateful for the people who did the initial leg work!

about creativity ~ or, everyone is creative....

What is creativity? 

Dictionary.com defines it like this:

cre·a·tiv·i·ty  [kree-ey-tiv-i-tee, kree-uh-]  

noun

1. the state or quality of being creative.

2. the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns,relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful newideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination.

3. the process by which one utilizes creative ability: Extensive reading stimulated his creativity.

In other words....

...turning new and imaginitive ideas into reality or, the process of bringing something new into being.

Creativity involves two processes:

1. thinking, and

2. producing

and it requires whole-brain thinking: imagination, artistry and intuition from your right-brain and logic & planning from your left-brain.

A study by George Land says we are naturally creative but as we grow up we learn to be uncreative and we lose our creativity. Creativity is a skill, just like math, that can be learned & developed and a process that can be managed. Learning to be creative is akin to learning a sport - it requires practice and a supportive environment.

Generative research shows that everyone has creative abilites. With more training (and more diverse training) you have, your potential for great creative output increases.

The average adult thinks of 3-6 alternatives for any given situation. The average child thinks of 60.

Research has also shown that in creativity quantity equals quality - if you have a longer list of ideas the final quality of your solution will be higher.

It's a myth that you have to have "talent" to be creative.

Excellence in creativity is determined by opportunity, encouragement, training, motivation and practice practice practice.

The word creativity is derived from the Latin: creare = to make and Greek: Krainein = to fulfill

There's a great TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson about creativity (well actually, it's about how schools kill our creativity). He says (and I agree wholeheartedly) that most children think they're creative - most adults don't.

Here's a link to the talk which I highly recommend: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

If learning how to play a decent game of tennis or soccer or learning how to run is doable then so is learning how to be creative. And being actively creative comes in handy in all kinds of situations. 

"Design thinking can help you manage the innovation process and overcome some of the barriers that prevent leaders from being effective innovators. Art and design processes help people develop fresh-thinking through aesthetic ways of knowing, imagination, intuition, re-framing and exploring different perspectives. Art-based processess also help people learn to be comfortable with uncertainty, ambiguity and paradox."

So get creative and start coming up with ideas...think outside of the box for new ideas.....

follow up to my lemon logo

Use a single font that is classic and strong. If you want a second font use one that is a contrasting, clean script or serif font.

Don't use clip art you've found on the internet. Have your designer create original artwork that suits your needs, is unique, editable and supplied in the correct format(s)

my lemon logo - or, how NOT to design a logo.

Your logo acts as your silent salesperson. It's your representative and you want people to notice, recognize, remember and take action when they see your logo. These days, though, there is SO much information all around us. It's a noisy world - logos and design are everywhere and that makes it seem like it's easy to design and create a snazzy looking logo. There are lots of companies that offer quick and inexpensive pre-designed stock logos.

If you follow these guidelines (or get it done quick, cheap and dirty) you'll be sure to have a logo created for you that won't do the job you want it to do. In fact your logo could end up driving business away and costing you more in terms of money, time and effort.

Here are 10 ways to create a bad logo:

1. Use lots of fonts and break all the typesetting guidelines.

2. Use Papyrus, Comic Sans, Apple Chancery, Brush Script or another inappropriate font and especially an all caps version. The fonts either look cheap or they've been overused so your logo will look amateur and cheap.

3. Use the wrong format for the artwork. Good logos are vector images and can be scaled and easily edited.  Raster images can cause problems with reproduction at larger sizes and they're harder to edit. This way you'll ensure printers have problems reproducing your logo and it'll cost you more if you need your logo edited or revised.

4. Use stock art or photos. This can put you at risk of copyright infringement and will also ensure your logo isn't unique.

5. Rely on colour for its effect. Lots of colours can look the same when printed in black and white - this will ensure detail is lost and the logo looks different than it should.

6. Make your logo overly complex so it doesn't reproduce well and maintain its integrity when it's used at sizes smaller or larger than the logo was designed.

7. Design for design sake. Let your designer design the logo to suit his tastes. This way you'll have a logo that doesn't represent you at all.

8. Follow the latest trend. If you want your logo to last for just a short period of time and like having to spend money on new logos every year or two then do this. Otherwise have your logo designed to reflect your company not the latest trend.

9. Copy someone else's logo

10. Have an amateur, friend or relative design it for you - especially if they know nothing about design, communications and marketing but have a really expensive fast top-of-the-line computer. Or do it yourself. Heck, you just upgraded your computer....anyone with a great computer can design a logo! It doesn't matter that it breaks all the guidelines of good design or is hard for a printer to use it must be good if you did it on some really expensive equipment and have expensive software. It's like if you have the best cookware and knives you’ll be a world-class chef. If your logo looks amateurish so will your business.

If you don't want your logo to fall into any of these categories hire a graphic designer who knows how to design a logo that is unique, lasting, memorable and suits your image.