Freeing Your Creativity

I found this great article on a great website, so here's a link to them both...

First is Penelope Dullaghan's website. Penelope is a fabulous illustrator, the creator of the Illustration Friday phenomenon, and her website in a creative endeavor in itself. Check it out! penelopeillustration.com.


Within her posting was a reference to the following article which I identified with, especially lately. Being creative is not easy sometimes, even though it may be your calling. There are many roadblocks and hurdles, and most of them set up by yourself. This article was very insightful: HOW Design - Free Your Creativity: Overcome Unhealthy Expectations









HOW Design - Free Your Creativity: Overcome Unhealthy Expectations

Initiative

Here's one of my favorite quotes (by Goethe) about creativity and changing the course of one's life:

"Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, their providence moves, too.

All sorts of things occur that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no (human) could have dreamed would come his way".

I believe this thought to be true since it has happened in my life so many times.

So for anyone who is attempting to start something new, explore a different path, jump off the diving board of certainty into the unknown, remember this!

Sketches

I'm working on a new assignment, another cover for Minnesota Medicine. I submitted 3 sketches for the art director to consider for the theme. This month the key article addresses the growing problem of how to dispose of pharmaceutical waste. What a timely discussion this is! Just recently I took my father to the doctor, and I took along some old tubes of unused medications. I asked them if they had a way to dispose of them properly, and they said no, they just threw them in the trash! I was shocked. I thought they had some scientific way to properly dispose of unused medications, but apparently, most pharmacies and hospitals just dispose the contaminants like every other household - dumped into the trash and into our water systems.

So which sketch do you think they chose?

The third one, the underwater scene. What fun this will be to paint, I'll post the finished version after I complete it.

Work in Progress

I'm working on an illustration for a brochure that promotes a new procedure/equipment in eye surgery. The client was hoping for something not too specific, and is hoping for a visual that will be more exciting than the reality of it all, perhaps through color or collage elements. Here's a rough sketch with color added.

My waking thought

I woke up this morning and saw this little doodle on a scrap of paper on my desk and realized that it pretty much sums up my brain.

Hmmm.
Well, it could be worse. It could be this:

I can't seem to untangle my thoughts. They are all pushing each other around, saying me first me first me first. Too many things to do, too little time. And all I really want to do is ........NOTHING!

Maybe that's what I need to do. Absolutely nothing. To quote Lin Yu Tang, "If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live".

My puritan work ethic has prevented me from achieving this exquisite goal, but perhaps today will be the day!

Party Animal

Do you think your dog is entertaining? Especially when you are not at home? You have a party animal - yay!! This little painting is for sale in my Etsy shop. Check it out here: here.