July Challenge- The REVEAL: Limited Palette, Limited Content #3

Challenge Drawing Game - The REVEAL

Red-Orange, Purple, Pale Blue: Script

Digital drawing, 10240px x 768px

This month, I have joined several internet friends in a challenge - create three pieces with a mandatory limited palette of only three colors: red-orange, purple and pale blue, and three words: "energy", "life", and "passion." All these elements were independently selected by the players.

I am a painter, of landscapes mostly, so I am used to working with images. Even when I am doing things like web design or posters where words are part of the content, overall I am concerned the look of the text in the design, and not so much with the meaning of the words.

At first, in this challenge, I found the required words to be just-plain excess baggage. Somehow, I had to incorporate them into the design. So they became another item to be balanced, repeated, proportioned, or scaled appropriately.

Gradually I became aware of using the meaning of the word in the piece, and I experimented with how the visual design supported or enhanced or detracted from that meaning in the drawing.

Then I found myself at a crossroads. What is my intent in doing the design? Am I trying to communicate the literal meaning of the word or words? Am I making a statement or exhortation with or about these words? Or am I making a visual design that speaks to the viewer at a subconscious as well as a conscious level? What do I want these words to do? What do I want my design to do?

So, that is where I will continue this line of inquiry. This challenge has been a good couple of weeks of daily practice, I have learned a lot about the software package I wanted to try out, and I have learned a surprising amount about my own approach to my work.

This is the last REVEAL - the third of three pieces for this challenge - let me know what you think!

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July Challenge- The REVEAL: Limited Palette, Limited Content #2

Challenge Drawing Game - The REVEAL

Red-Orange, Purple, Pale Blue: Flower with Words

Digital drawing, 10240px x 768px

This month, I have joined several internet friends in a challenge - create three pieces with a mandatory limited palette of only three colors: red-orange, purple and pale blue, and three words: "energy", "life", and "passion." All these elements were independently selected by the players.

Over the years, I have developed a routine of writing daily journal entries - nothing grand, it's mostly a morning mind-dump and sometimes a planning-session. Over the years, I have also learned that when I keep my sketchbook active every day, my drawing warms up with the practice. I know that what I am putting onto paper like this is not "great art" and it doesn't have to be, it's a routine, like brushing my teeth or doing the dishes. And it's necessary to me in the same way. So I welcomed this challenge as something that I could include in my daily routine.

What have I gotten out of it? Well, the elements of the challenge were different enough from what I am used to, that I had find new ways, every day, of making my drawings. And because I set my own challenge of using different tools as well, I have had to find different problem-solving strategies to come up with appropriate solutions to the challenge. In other words - I had to stretch myself to play this game, to meet this challenge.

And that's the fun of it - being playful, being creative, and refreshing myself.

So, this is the REVEAL - the second of three pieces - let me know what you think!

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July Challenge- The REVEAL: Limited Palette, Limited Content #1

Challenge Drawing Game - The REVEAL

Red-Orange, Purple, Pale Blue: Stripes with Words

Digital drawing, 10240px x 768px

Playfulness is the foundation for creativity. One of the foundations of playfulness is "rules" - what you allow to happen, and also what you eliminate from consideration - the rules of the game.

This month, I have joined several internet friends in a challenge - playing with a mandatory limited palette of only three colors: red-orange, purple and pale blue (each color independently selected by a player) and three words: "energy", "life", and "passion" (also independently selected.) Making these arbitrary limitations work together is the creative challenge. How I do it is my own solution, how I play the game.

I have added my own personal challenge to this game - I am trying out a drawing package for the iPad - and this game has been a perfect test for the past couple of weeks to put the new software through its paces, one digital drawing at a time, one daily session at a time.

This has been a "secret challenge" in that none of us participants knows, until now, what the others are drawing, how they are playing the game.

So, this is the REVEAL - let me know what you think!

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Elizabeth's Walk - Climbing - Final Layout

Elizabeth's Walk - Climbing - Final Layout

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Graphite on paper, 3" x 5.5"
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This is the final layout for the linocut I mentioned last week, one of a series depicting an annual springtime cross-country walking expedition by Innu elder Elizabeth Penashue.
If you compare the two preparatory drawings, you will notice that the trees on the left and right sides are in the same positions, but the small tree in the center foreground is gone and the climbers are spread farther apart enhancing the diagonal movement in the drawing.
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Elizabeth's Walk - Climbing

Elizabeth's Walk - Climbing

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Graphite on paper, 3" x 5.5"
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I am working on a folio of linocuts depicting a springtime cross-country walking expedition by Innu elder Elizabeth Penashue , with members of her family and guests. I want to change the composition of the photograph I am working from, and this is one of a series of sketches to try out different arrangements of the scene. As I was drawing, I could see more and more possible solutions, and ways of adding visual elements or taking them away to come up with a sense of balance as well as a dynamic feeling of movement in the image. This may not be the final arrangement, but I'm getting close!
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Art Every Day Month - November 25

Five Stages of the Creative Process









I first came across this theory of creative thinking years ago in freshman psychology. At the time I thought, this is interesting and it will probably be useful to me, in the long run.
And yes, I really have referred to it many times since.


According to this theory, the process of creative thinking separates into five general steps, which can flare into action quickly, or which can take place over a long period of time, depending on the project being considered. These steps are:


1. Identification: You identify a problem to be solved. In order for a creative solution to arise, there needs to be a situation that you know needs to be fixed. This problem could be the need to paint a landscape or to write a poem, or the need to find a way to tie a dog onto a broken leash at the park, fast! Creative thinking won't happen unless you identify a problem that needs solving.


2. Preparation: You look for ways to solve the problem that you have identified. You could research how other people paint landscapes, you could sketch out some rhymes for a sonnet, or you could rack your brain to remember your old Scout methods of tying knots. You think and compare possible ways to do what you want to do.


3. Incubation: You let things settle for a little while, so your unconscious mind can mull over the problem and the possible solutions you have thought up. Incubation could be a very quick process, or it could take a while for a solution to emerge.


4. Breakthrough: You get a great idea! A solution becomes apparent. It may feel like sudden inspiration, but this breakthrough is really the result of having applied the previous three stages of creative thinking.


5. Resolution: You try out your solution and see how well it works to solve the problem.


As an example of how the process of creative thinking works, these are the stages I followed in developing today's AEDM challenge painting:
1. I identified the problem as being me needing to complete a painting based on a 16 block arrangement.
2. Since the beginning of this month, I have been preparing ideas that I could use for daily paintings. What I did differently today was to block out divisions on the paper using masking tape. Then I painted loosely over the whole sheet and pulled away the tape, leaving a grid of plain unpainted paper to work on next. I looked at what I could do with it, and came away with no real sense of a direction to follow with the painting.
3. I decided to put the brushes down and go do something else. I came back to the work table a couple of times, but I couldn't get any clear sense of what to do next.
4. I was holding a paper towel in my hand when I thought of painting layers of color and blotting the wet paint away leaving textures in the paint.
5. I got back to my work table and started applying wet paint and blotting it off to leave textures. It worked the way I wanted in some places, but not in others.


In the end, I finished the painting by a steady re-iteration of these five steps... I'm not totally happy with it, but this painting has paved the way for me to try some new techniques.