21 Days to Creative Abundance - Day 9

Dancing on a Dime

The Creative Abundance process reminds me to start my day by asking the three morning questions:

1. What am I grateful for?
2. What am I excited about?
3. What do I want to create today?

I am grateful to have the time to go through this process of exploring my creative life and immensely grateful to even have a creative life. It isn’t where I started out in life and I’m the last person who would have ever thought I would have one.

I am excited about all the new techniques I’m learning and for being forced to try new things, even when I don’t want to. Like today. Challenge #9 insists that we search Flickr for images that are opposition to each other. I never use other people’s images so this is not something I’m looking forward to. However, it has occurred to me that, by looking at other people’s photos, I am expanding my own perspective. I will probably find this a useful exercise.

And, I am going to create an image of opposition somehow using the instructions given in Challenge #9.

Challenge #9 - Opposites In Conflict (w/ Flickr Images). MUST use Flickr creative commons images. Somehow the words, “Dancing on a Dime” dropped into my mind and I saw a ballerina. The first image that emerged was fun but looked like a commercial dance poster with no conflict or opposition. I was going to move on but it haunted me so a rework wound up with the image above. Not quite as postery but I was still compelled to keep on and wound up with this version. Who knows where this could go?

This post was prompted by Sebastian Michael's "21 Days to Creative Living" and "Photoshop Artistry" programs. More information here. 

21 Days to Creative Abundance - Day 8

Dragon Dog

Sebastian Michaels talks a lot about our creative routines and how we can “engineer” greater creativity. He says our job is not to find the muse but, rather, to show up consistently so she can find us and to create an attractive invitation for her.

I know absolutely that my best creative times are in the morning and since I am doing digital art, my creative space is where my computer is. Fortunately, I work on a laptop, so I can go other places with it. What I have found in the last few days, however, is that going out with just my camera, myjournal and a pen, has a completely different feel and takes me into different thought processes. It’s more of a “pre-creation” experience, allowing more space for the “what-ifs."

 Side note: As I was writing this post, I suddenly heard Barbra Streisand singing, “You don’t bring me flowers anymore.” Perhaps my muse wants flowers?

Going out with just my camera and my journal has a joyful, just-exploring feel to it. There’s no pressure to deliver something, it’s just gathering sights and impressions. 

Sebastian also asked us to find triggers that invite the Muse. For me, I know that one reliable method is just browsing through my photos. This has always worked, but what Sebastian’s guidance prompts is looking for photos that not only inspire me but somehow seem like they want to play together.

Earlier I mentioned the app: Way of Life. If you’re a visual thinker, you may like this app. It gives you a simple process for checking off your habits at the end of the day and shows your week with bright red and green boxes which are so much more dramatic than just check marks. My ugly index card approach is gone forever. Yesterday, I missed studying Spanish so I got 4 greens and 1 red.

The important point is that it made me realize I have to have a special time for Spanish. Not my creative early morning time, but still a time when I have the energy needed for learning. I like going out for a walk around noon so I’m going to complete my 30 minutes of Spanish study before I can go for my walk. 

Challenge #8 was about photo compositing, putting things together that don't belong together in a way that looks real. The specific instructions were to put something inside of something else. With the dog I chose, that was tricky because he was tied up with a rope. I can't say this was a favorite challenge.

Base photos for this challenge were:

 

This post was prompted by Sebastian Michael's "21 Days to Creative Living" and "Photoshop Artistry" programs. More information here. 

21 Days to Creative Abundance - Day 7

Shattered Dreams

Well begun is half done!

That’s not exactly the way Sebastian Michaels said it for the 21 Days to Creative Abundance program, but that's the way I can remember it.

It basically says that the way we begin our day sets up the rest of the day. He has several suggestions for making it the best, most creative day possible. One that I thought would be useful was to establish a morning routine designed to get me off to a good start.

Morning Routine

I have become rather haphazard about cleaning the kitchen before I go to bed which means part of my first hour of the day goes toward cleaning up yesterday. So, last night I cleaned the kitchen (about 3.5 minutes), set up the coffee, laid out my clothes, and put out my yoga mat.

Sebastian suggests spending part of your first hour of the day journaling about three questions:

1. What am I grateful for?
2. What am I excited about?
3. What do I want to create today?

I really like this way of beginning the day. It feels like I've cleaned my "shoulds" off the table and now I can play with what I love.

Challenge #7 - Marquee Layer Offsets. Take an image, cut it into rectangles so that it still retains some of its original aspect. Remove original picture and drop in a new image under the rectangles. Play.

I took a picture of an abandoned house many years ago and it has haunted me. For this image a picture of a bullet hole in the rear window of a car helped create a shattered sense.

This post was prompted by Sebastian Michael's "21 Days to Creative Living" and "Photoshop Artistry" programs. More information here. 

 

21 Days to Creative Abundance - Day 6

Coming Together

Energy. 

 

It’s the key to how effective we are. Understanding our own cycle of energy, knowing when we’re at our energetic best and spending that prime energy time on what we most want to accomplish are keys to living the life we want to live.

Recommendations from Sebastian Michael's 21 Days to Creative Abundance program included:

      

Eat for Energy - what amps our energy and what drains it? I’m opting for more fiber. I like the idea of opting for more food rather than focusing on what I should eat less of.

     

Move more - I’ve set alerts for Dance Time accompanied by high energy music.

     

Meditation - Sebastian Michaels uses what he calls “gateway meditation” … deep listening to a piece of classical music.

      

Habit Tracking app - “Way of Life” free version allows you to track three habits. I’ve been doing this on index cards for a few weeks so I immediately paid $4.99 for the premium version and am tracking 5 habits.

Photo Artistry Challenge #6 focused on creating a triptych of landscape items. This challenged me from the beginning. I couldn’t find a division of the canvas that pleased me, base photos that I chose didn’t play well together, and I didn’t like the suggested texture overlays. I must have created and deleted twenty or more layers before the image above felt finished. When I finally got the title for the piece, I thought I should call it "Coming Together ... Finally!"

These challenges are really important to our learning processes and probably the more frustrating they are, the more we’re learning. Or, at least that’s what I keep telling myself. 

 

This post was prompted by Sebastian Michael's "21 Days to Creative Living" and "Photo Artistry" programs. More information here. 

 

 

Living the Photo Artistic Life Magazine

Tulip in Blue by Nancy Brezendine

There is a place where reality meets imagination. That world is called art, and one corner of it, the corner I chose to live in, is called many things ... digital art, digital collage, photo artistry and more. The gist is that it is art that begins with or builds off of one or more photos and uses tools such as Photoshop, Lightroom or Painter rather than physical brushes, paints and canvas. (Although some digital artists use those, too.)

I stumbled into this place about ten years ago, but felt like I was wandering alone most of those years. I knew people were making digital art, but I didn't know how to connect with them. A few weeks ago I discovered Sebastian Michaels and his Photo Artistry and AWAKE programs. I feel like I have finally found my art tribe.

One incredible offering available to people in the program ... and to anyone who loves art ... is the magazine: Living the Photo Artistic Life.




Volume 29 of the magazine has just been released and one of the many stunning images in the magazine is the one above by Nancy Brezendine. My new goal is to someday create an image that is as breathtakingly stunning as Nancy's.

Something else I find delightful is how well-represented women artists are in this field and in this magazine. Art shouldn't be gender-biased and in this small corner of the art world, it doesn't seem to be.

If you would like to explore this world, click here. It is free and offers an amazing journey through a newer form of art.

21 Days to Creative Abundance, Day 5

Gratitude

The universe seems to be throwing challenges my way about this 21-day process. My computer is acting up, probably a battery in the process of failing. That's not such an easy problem to fix here in Mexico where the nearest Apple store is in Guadalajara. However, I am still determined. So here I am on my iPhone writing today's post.

Today, Sebastian Michaels asked us to talk about distractions again and to find our own way to deep focus. Distractions are, of course, the enemy of deep focus, the one thing we all need to find in order to create.

When I think about distractions, I think of outside distractions and inside distractions. We talk a lot about email and Facebook and phone calls and all the things that are outside of us that cause distractions, but I also think about my inside distractions and think they may be just as hazardous as outside distractions.

Internal things that pull me out of creative focus include hunger and emotions, such as feeling lonely, bored, frustrated or tired. It is pretty common for me to be creating and suddenly think I need a cup of tea or a snack. If I take that break, there's a very good chance that I won't get back to where I was for a significant period of time and when I do get back, it takes a while to regain that same level of deep focus. 

Just 15 Minutes

One of the techniques that Sebastian talks about is "just 15 minutes." He is normally talking about just doing something for 15 minutes as a way to get into a creative process. However, it seems to me that using that "just 15 minutes" technique could also be a way to avoid getting out of the creative focus too soon.

If I were deep in creation and decided I needed a cup of tea, if I said I could have that cup of tea in 15 minutes, I could stay in the creative process longer and might be more effective.  i’m going to try this. 

 

Challenge #5 from Photoshop Artistry was about making a simple image to send hope and love to someone. In the process of creating the image, an effect popped up that I liked but had no idea how I did it. It took almost two hours to create the effect shown in the image above where you can see texture

within the image. As often happens, I finally realized that it came because I made a mistake. I've now documented how to make that same "mistake" in the future. 

PS ... my computer decided to co-operate long enough for me to finish this post. Talk about deep focus. I knew I couldn't do anything except finish this if I wanted to maintain my commitment. Who knows when it will go wonky again.

21 Days to Creative Abundance, Day 4

Sidewalk art in Ajijic, MX

All of us are standing in front of a fire hydrant that gushes information, distractions and choices at us with a force that is simply overwhelming.

How do we create anything … art, music, writing, work, healthy children, a life ... when we might create something even better if we had that last piece of information, that last opinion, that last bit of inspiration?

Sebastian Michaels in his 21 Days to Creative Abundance program, states flatly we have to find ways to take breaks from the flood of distractions if we want to find our Muse, create our art. He offers this quote from Leo Babauta, author Zen Habits

"If you can't do and read and respond to everything (and you can't), you must chose what you'll do and read and respond to, and let the rest go. Let the rest go. This is unbelievably important. You have to accept this and be OK with it."

With Sebastian's and Babauta's thoughts in mind, I took my journal and went to the coffee shop in the Plaza where I indulged in a chai frappachino and the flow of my own thoughts. I mindmapped an article about disentangling love and fear, continued to look for found objects for the next Photoshop Artistry challenge, and eavesdropped on the conversation of an artist visiting, apparently from New York.

In less than an hour, I was refreshed, recharged and had pages of notes for more writing and art. I don’t think I would have been as productive as I was had I stayed glued to my computer focusing on the projects at hand. I know that some of the thoughts that came needed the space and openness of sitting with my journal in front of me and not being distracted by email/facebook/the refrigerator. I may make a noon break a regular habit. It tends to be a time when my energy needs a boost anyway.

The found art challenge was an interesting one: take a walk and take four photos of things you find that could make an interesting abstract. Add two textures, two edges and at least 8 adjustment layers.

Among the images I found is the one above, an example of the sidewalk art I find in so many places here. I’ve gotten accustomed to wall art, but the sidewalk art is new to me. So I chose this image to be the base of the challenge.

After a lot of work, I came up with the image below, probably because I love Dorie from “Finding Nemo,” and the way I feel right now about continuing to move forward without Missy. I put the finishing touches on the piece and decided it was time for bed. 

 

Just Keep Swimming

But, sleep didn’t come. Those straight lines haunted me. I hate straight lines. But how to get rid of them? Maybe the whole piece was a bad idea? Maybe a different base image? This was supposed to be an abstract and it didn’t feel very abstract. It felt like a cartoon.

Finally, I got up and decided to try a technique for changing the straight lines. If that didn’t work, I was going to toss the whole idea and start over. Two hours later, this was the next version.

Just Keep Swimming #2

It won't make my gallery of favorites, but I definitely like it better and REALLY like the fact that I managed to get to a better place using techniques that I’m learning.

More about the quote:

From Wikipedia: Zen Habits is a blog written by Leo Babauta about implementing zen habits in daily life. It offers suggestions for how to live, and also includes frequent references to how Leo Babauta has implemented these habits. He covers topics such as simplifying, living frugally, parenting, happiness, motivation, eliminating debt, saving, eating healthily and successfully implementing good habits.