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April 16, 2009

EDM Challenge #218: Draw a Knife

                Knives.jpg

We really enjoy visiting Paris and since 1970, one of our regular stops in the City is Dehillerin kitchen supplies.  The old Les Halles was still across the street when we first visited and Pied du Couchon was still a modest restaurant with fabulous onion soup.  Over many years and many visits, we purchased some of our favorite kitchen tools at Dehillerin.  Here are 3 of the knives we bought for ourselves.  During one visit. we also bought each of our children one of the big chopping knives.

April 14, 2009

Playtime in Central Park

This is a picture from our recent play time in Central Park with 4 of our 5 grandchildren.

P1030899.jpg 

 

My journal page is my attempt to paint one of the Magnolia blossoms that was partially opened and photographed from above. 

I clearly need to learn how to achieve the sense of depth in the center of the flower- although I really did observe and paint the shadows as they appeared in the photo.  Painting the bloom in person was not an option with 4 under the age of 6 running around. 

                     Magnolia.jpg

 

 

Our two youngest were in strollers with my husband and I pushing them out of the Park and Syd (age 4) and her 5 year old brother Henry were walking in front of us.  Suddenly she reached over and took his hand - and they walked all the way back to 5th Ave holding hands.

                       Henry%20and%20SydCROP.jpg

This is a link to a similar journal page that I did of them in Hyde Park London more than 2 years ago.

http://www.paperandthreads.com/2007/01/edm_challenge_draw_a_landscape.php

 

April 10, 2009

EDM Challenge #217 (Umbrella) and Signs/Hopes of Spring

                      Umbrella.jpg

Our weather is currently bizarre, with April showers, several snow showers, and teaser days for Spring.  We just returned from a morning of play in Central Park with 4 of our grandchildren and while they have quiet time, I thought I would try to upload a few journal pages from one week ago. 

                    WC%20Pencil%20PLAY.jpg

While two of my grandchildren painted and colored at our dining room table last Friday, I played with my grand daughter's Sargeant watercolor pencils - obvioulsy hoping for lots of tulips before long.  The magnolia blossoms were partially open this morning and I see tulip buds in the huge beds of tulips in my neighborhood.

                    Daffodils.jpg

Last Sunday there were beds of daffodils blooming in Central Park - and they still looked very fresh this morning.  My 2 year old grandson doesn't understand why I won't let him pick all of the pretty flowers he sees!

April 3, 2009

EDM Challenge #216: My Inner Critic

              Inner%20Critic.jpg

This is ME with my Internal Critic pictured in front of my "right brain."  I  tried to assign a particular human form to my internal critic, but I know that it is just a piece of me that I need to deal with. I feel as if I’m fooling myself when I try to create a person to blame. 

My critic likes perfection and can make me unhappy every time I make mistakes. This puts emphasis on product, not process, and I have to remind myself over and over that "play" is an important component of creativity, and perfection should NOT be my goal. Mistakes are a wonderful opportunity for growth to occur.

I also deal regularly with "fear of failure" and it is sometimes strong enough to keep me from trying something new. I think that working small, in a sketchbook, and everyday helps me overcome some of the doubt. But I have to really work hard to step out of my comfort zone and create tricks to get past the Internal Critic in my brain.

What does my Internal Critic look like? Half of my brain? A really small part of my brain? If so, where? Maybe I should have sketched a really small person and put her on my head - as if she were in my brain. When I try to picture her, I see a "bag lady" if I see anything - someone with an incredible number of opinions but no creativity, passions, skills or products of her own - just a mouth, thick frame glasses, and a bag of scripts.  The major scripts that she repeats over and over are the ones listed above.

I really haven’t made much progress changing my perception of my creative abilities. I’ve read enough about creativity, the origin of creative ideas, and how to stimulate creativity - so I am developing skills to deal with my critic. And every once and a great while I do something that even I feel is original.

 

March 30, 2009

Reading About Afghanistan

Last week I was immersed in Khaled Hosseini's book A Thousand Splendid Suns for 2 days.   The story is set against 30 years of war in Afghanistan and when I chose my daily sketch for each day, I was inspired to look for something that would capture some of the images from my reading.  I searched news articles and photos of mujahideen and sketched one of the members of a group photo.

                  Mujahideen.jpg

On the second day I searched for photos of women walking in the streets in their burqas and painted one of them.

                         Burqa.jpg

As I post these, the US is increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan and I can't imagine what the next phase of life is going to be like for these people, especially the women.

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