ArtiphyTheHeart

Doodling The Clock

This evening was the final teleconference for the Creating Time Mega Event launching the book Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life by Marney Makridakis.  I've attended all three, and I must say that I've had more fun, met more people, and been introduced to more new books and websites than in any other webinar I've taken part in.  

In each of the three events, we've doodled clocks.  Instructions were to take moments instead of taking notes.  So I recorded the pregnant pauses as well as the salient points while I looked for the metaphors.  I listened intently, watched a video, composed a group poem, and adjourned to small groups twice for discussions.  All this over a period of an hour and a half, all the while doodling my clock and taking notes moments.  

At the end of the webinar, I was surprised.  I really hadn't looked at the paper I was doodling on in the process.  I was on autopilot, expanding time by layering my activity, my attention heightened and present for listening, moment taking, doodling, and coloring, all at once and equally present, all happing at once within the same moment in time.  

Who says time isn't pliable as putty?  Here's what I discovered I had done by the end of the evening: Not a piece of art, but a cohesive collection of ideas, colors, pattern, and metaphor.  A surprising outcome for someone who was present in so many places at the time the drawing was taking place.  

Quite different from multi-tasking, this was a free act of letting the hand do it's work while the brain watched and listened.  The words "Creating Time" and the date were added afterward.  Everything else was done while participating in the event.  

So I wanted to take the time to share this with you, and let you know that I highly recommend the book, Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life. It's filled with insights, activities and wisdom from the more than 80 artists, creatives, authors and other luminaries who contributed to this effort.  Yesterday was its release date on amazon.com and it hit #1 in sales in numerous categories.  I'm not surprised.  

If you're interested -- and who wouldn't be? -- in celebration of the book's overwhelming success on it's first day of release, the special offer I mentioned in yesterday's post has been extended until April 24. You can find out more by clicking HERE to read yesterday's blog post, or by clicking HERE to sign up for the offer itself.  There are more than $125 worth of fabulous and absolutely free items and perks, just for buying a book you'd want to own anyway.  I know, because I took advantage of it and spent hours downloading all the fabulous morsels and tidbits, which include e-books, online courses, audio recordings and more.  Really.  What are you waiting for?  This isn't a sales pitch, it's my own personal opinion.  As they say, you snooze, you loose, so go for it!

Time Sensitive! Don't Wait! Creating Time And Free Stuff!

WOW!  Marney Makridakis of Artella has put together a package of freebies worth more than $125!  

This post is not an advertisment.  It's a public service to creatives everywhere!  I just hope I'm not too late in posting for you to take advantage of this amazing package of goodies!

You may already know that Marney has published her new book Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life.  Today, April 17, 2012, is the release day!  And to celebrate, Marney has put together a package of goodies worth more than $125, free to anyone who orders Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life today.  In a minute I'll tell you how to get this fabulous package, but first I want to tell you why I didn't mention it until now.

To get the more than $125 worth of freebies, the book must be ordered on the release date--TODAY!  I have been excited about this book since I first heard about it last December, and I have mentioned it in past blog posts.  But call me skeptical, I wanted to see for myself what was in the free package of goodies before I urged you all to place your orders on the 17th of April -- Today -- so I decided to place my own order first, open my package of goodies, then decide whether or not to pass along the information.  I've been saving an Amazon gift card just for this very purchase, so it was great to find out that in order to get the freebies, the order must be placed online with either Amazon or Barnes and Noble.  

I placed my order, followed the directions to type my order number into the correct box in the form on this page: http://www.artellaland.com/time.html, and within minutes, I had an email in my inbox with a .pdf filled with links to goodies provided by Artella, and also from the many contributors to Marney's book, people like creative coach Jill Badonsky, author ofThe Nine Modern Day Muses (and a Bodyguard) Third Edition, andThe Awe-manac: A Daily Dose of Wonder.

I'm not going to list everything that is in the package of goodies because I think it's meant to be a surprise, but suffice it to say that there are audio recordings, full length online classes, and more.  If you're interested in art, writing, or otherwise engaged in right-brain creative activities, this is SO generous, and SO worth it!  And all for the cost of a book you'd want to buy anyway.  At least I couldn't wait to buy it! 

I rarely tell you to go out and get something, so today is really special.  Just don't wait.  Offer ends at midnight!  

Here's a reprise of a journal page I created during the events leading up to the kick off ofCreating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life.  You may have seen this page already since it was in my last blog post HERE, but just in case, it's apropos to the day!  

P.S.  I get nothing extra for passing along this information.  As I said at the beginning of my post, this is a public service, not an advertisement.  But if you do decide to order, please consider using the links to the books that I've provided within this post, because I do get credit from Amazon if you place your order directly from clicking the Amazon links in this blog post.  Then go back to the link on this page to the form and type in your Amazon order number.  Thanks!  You won't be disappointed!

The Beginning Of Time

Monday marked the official start of Creating Time, a mega event that you can learn more about and even join for free by clicking the link on my right sidebar.  Part of this event is the featured launch of a new book by Marney Makridakis of Artella: Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life.  I've been anxiously awaiting the release of this book for ages, and I can't wait till a copy is in my hands!

Every day throughout this event a new exercise in seeing, thinking about, and experiencing time in unique and potent ways is presented to each of the participants.  Monday's activity focused on answering a list of questions about time specifically and in general, culminating with an art project to illustrate the essence gleaned through the process.  You can see mine in a minute.

But first, before I share the journal page I did for this project, I'd like you to take a few seconds and watch this snippet of a video I put together with watches from various magazine ads.  And I want you to notice.  Notice what?  Well, that's what you have to figure out.  What do you see?  Don't scroll down till you've watched or you'll spoil what may be a surprising fact.

 

Ok, now that you've watched, did you notice anything unique?  Unusual?  Different?  Similar?  Surprising? Or perhaps even suspicious?  

Before I tell you what I noticed and what it means, let me share my journal page for Monday's Creating Time, Day 1, and tell you a little bit about it.

The first thing I did was to sketch my little drawing of someone (me, perhaps?) laid-out flat in her efforts to uphold time.  She has to keep time balanced while the clock is ticking without letting it crush her in the process.  Sound familiar?  I'm sure we all feel this way at times.  

Next, I found the clock image I wanted to use.  I could have drawn it.  It would have taken less time and effort, but I wanted the contrast and interplay that comes from using multiple types of images in collage.  I found a few other parts of pages in magazines that caught my eye, so I ripped them out too.  Then I decided which journal to use.  

I keep several "open" (aka: ready for use) journals of different shapes and sizes available at any given time.  One of the benefits of this is that there is always something on hand, ready to accomodate any size page that a combination of images will dictate.  This way the artwork is king, not the size and shape of the page.  I grabbed the journal that best suited the project, and started arranging and re-arranging the components until I came up with a pleasing composition, then I glued them down.  

All the while, I kept my answers to the time questions in front of me so that my answers stayed in the back of my mind throughout the selection and arrangement process.   When everything was on the page, I took a break, had a cup of tea, then came back and took a look.  The page contained all my answers, and more.  It showed me things I hadn't thought of while answering the questions.  Things that were just as pertinent, perhaps even more.  So I began to write.  First a thought here, then a thought there, then another over in that corner, and also one right here at the side.  My thoughts flowed onto the page, becoming commentary on my perceptions of time.

And now, back to the video.  I was searching for clock face images when I happened across the watches I clipped for the video.  I wanted a clock face or two to add to my little drawing.  I kept finding images of diamond watches, artsy clock faces, and unusual artistic shapes when all I wanted was something clear and the proper size for my drawing, but  I decided to cut them all out as I went through the magzines and sort them later.  

As I clipped, I noticed that all the watches were set to the same time.  10:10.  I looked through another magazine.  Same thing.  10:10, regardless of brand.  I started to Google "watches set to 10:10".  The minute I typed-in "watches", the words "set at 10:10" automatically popped up in the search.  Apparently lots of people know this.  My husband knew it when I asked him about it.  You probably already know it too.  I would have thought that I would have known it, having worked in advertising, but then I never did a clock or watch ad, or worked for anyone who carried those accounts.  Here's the deal:  10:10 is an industry standard.  When watches and clocks are used in advertisments, setting them at 10:10 puts the hands in the best position to frame the name of the maufacturer.  It's easiest to read "Timex" or "Rolex" when the hands are set at 10:10.  

So there you have it.  Now you can say:  "I knew that!"  Or, you can say, "Wow!  I never knew that." Or you can get your friends to watch my little video and ask them what they see.  If you have the time, of course.

X-Book

One of the first books you make when you study bookbinding is the X-Book.  It's simple, but its folding has a purpose that repeats with other more complicated bindings.  It's what I used to call a root book, since its construction is the basis for so many books.

Some of us in Artists Of the Round Table are working our way through Alicia Golden's bookMaking Handmade Books: 100+ Bindings, Structures & Forms.  We'll be making 100 books beginning with the X-Book.  Here are some pictures of mine:

It's made from a single sheet of paper that is cut and folded so that the middle puffs out.

It's easier to get the picture from the top.  Each fold is a page, and when the two end pages are pushed together toward the middle, it forms an X, which gives the book its name.

Then the outside folds of the X wrap around the inside folds to create the cover and the back.

Even if you made a gazillion of these in grade school, you make them still when you learn to bind books.  And it's amazing how easy it is to forget the simple stuff!

I decorated the pages with a combination of lettering, drawing, and clear stamps from Layers Of Colors, Close To My Heart, and Character Constructions.  

India ink and a Rapidograph coordinate perfectly with black VersaFine ink.  I added some of my own lines and quirks to the some of the stamped images, and it was impossible to tell where their lines left off and mine began.

Place Your Orders At The Coffee Bar

Exhausted, exhausted, exhausted...so I'm taking it easy today.  I decided to just draw what was in front of me, which happened to be my mug of tea and the insulated pot.  It needed silver, so I used the duller side of aluminum kitchen foil, cut it to size and shape, glued it in place, and photographed it with my phone since a scan wouldn't caputre the shine.

Day 11 of Tracy Bunkers 30 Days of Drawing.  Still having fun!

Layers

One of the things I like best about working in my current art journal/sketchbook is how the pages interact with each other after they're finished.  This isn't planned, and it often produces the most beautiful and unexpected combinations.

I particularly like how today's page is off-set by the layers of other pages peeking through.  Sometimes it's difficult working with different page sizes, but in the end, it's always rewarding.  

Nothing too complex today.  I saw a bird ornament at Anthropologie, sketched it on plain notepaper, and glued it into my art journal.  I'm thinking of creating a pattern from my sketch, so I added some notes on how I might like to stitch it.  Ten days in, and so far I've sketched every day for Traci Bunkers 30 Days of Drawing.  

Eight and Nine

Yesterday I decided to remake a page.  Actually, I do this almost every day.  It isn't about whether or not I like what's on the page, it's about putting what I happen to want on the page today, and reconciling that with what's already there.  I could start with a blank page.  In fact, I do that all the time.  I've heard people say that blank pages can be intimidating.  I've also heard people say that pages with too much stuff on them can be confusing.  Since I'm neither intimidated nor confused, it really doesn't matter to me whether the page is blank, or full.  Either way, to me it's a just substrate.  

Here's the semi-finished product--semi-finished, because it hasn't been written upon yet. The pages are really not wonderful until they've been written on, so this one still has a long way to go.

 The page was remade primarily with paint, and a pine tree that I drew and carved into a stamp several years ago.  "Road-tested" was clipped from a magazine and used as-is.  "High Altitude" was constructed from white rub-on letters on top of a piece of black magazine paper cut to fit the top. The road and date were drawn onto the page with a Rapidograph and Inda ink.  

For remade pages, much of the the beauty is simply that what's under the finished product lends so much to the final outcome, both texturally, and in meaning, that the page wouldn't at all have been the same if what's underneath hadn't been there in the first place.

 Here's what was underneath the page above when I started:

If you look closely, and maybe squint, you can see some of the dots and part of that smilely face underneath the finshed page.  I didn't remove a thing.  Even the brown grid tape was laid on top of the pink tape that was already there, which added to the color of the tape layer on top.  

I use art journals and sketchbooks to stretch my creative muscles.  Sometimes that means sketching out plans.  Sometimes it means glueing-in a lot of things that please me.  Things which might contain elements I'll want to use in a finished piece later.  Sometimes it's all about color, and making notes.  

This particular book was made for Mary Ann Moss's Full Tilt Boogie workshop, and I've been working in it since mid-summer.  I'm using it to stretch my conscious creative decision making.  I say conscious, because so many of the decisions we make are habitual and shortcut the thought process.  This book is full of pages patched together alongside full blank pages, alongside pages with other elements added.  If you'd like to see what the book looked like just after it was created and before I started working on the pages, there's a flip-through you can see by clicking HERE and scrolling down to the bottom of the page.

Speaking of other elements, I drew some of those today to use later.  I've used quite a few frames on other pages of this book, and really like how they can be used to confine and define select words and design elements, so I drew a couple of funky frames with a wide-tipped Sharpie to have on hand for future pages, one on plain paper, and one on patterned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That takes care of Days 8 and 9 of Traci Bunker's 30 Days of Drawing.  A great incentive to keep pencil to paper, and to post about it.  It's not too late to join the challenge.

Day 5 Of 30 Days Of Drawing

There are more components to making art than most people are aware of.  Encapsulated within each component of the process is the entire process itself, in much the same way that the entire plant is contained within the seed.  

Drawing is so much more than skill with pen on paper that the skill with pen on paper is often dwarfed in comparison to the rest of the process.  The choices to be made are first and foremost.  What paper: Plain?  painted? patterned? photograph, etc.?  What medium: Pencil? ink? paint/type of paint? crayon? pastel, etc.?  What will the first mark be?  Where will it be made?  Will it be from the imagination?  Or from a model?  How much to add?  When to stop?  What to take away?  Positve space?  Negative space?  Photorealisim?  Realistic?  Abstract?  Whimsy?  Serious?  Color?  Grayscale? Lighting?  Collage/placement?  ...the list goes on, and it is endless.  Many of these decisions are automatic;  some are consciously thought out, sometimes easily, sometimes in agony.

Today's drawing is illustrative of a movie I saw and loved.  Nightwatch.  It's a Russian horror film, and a youtube video of the trailer follows.  If you are disturbed by horror movies, don't watch the video.  But if you love great special effects and are a fan of well acted, well scripted, beautifully lit, and beautifully fimed intensity, then this may be for you.  I won't tell you anything about it.  One person's description is another person's spoiler, and I hate spoilers.

As for my drawing, it's in the art journal/sketchbook that will be finished at the close of 2011.  Some of the decisions I made for this drawing were as follows:

• grayscale
• photographs
• deep green background paper
• Rapidograph and India ink
• Bats as stylized "V"s and other marks drawn around the roof tops of the photo on the left
• "Night Watch" as two words in all caps drawn by inking-in the negative space of a rectangle

 

I'm participating in Traci Bunkers 30 Days of Drawing.  There's room for everyone in this challenge, and I can guarantee that whatever you draw, you'll be better for it.  Click the link and join us!

In The Cards

Day three of Traci Bunkers 30 Days of Drawing.  Rapidograph, sepia Micron, and gray Pitt pens on an ex-library page in my Hand Book.  Just by coincidence, the last page in this book will be finished on the 31st of December, and I'll be starting a new book on January first.   If that's not serendipity, nothing is!  

I have three new books in various stages of binding.  Two will be filled with white mixed-media paper, and the third with Full Tilt Boogie style signatures.  I'll post pics of all three soon.

Word!

More exercises from Quinn's book!  I'm loving the group of us that are working our way, page by page, through Raw Art Journaling , guided by Quinn McDonald herself, and her handcrafted lists of exercises designed to stretch and flex our creative muscles.  

This past week was all about words and squeezing them to get the meaning out.  Here are some of mine inside the container I made for them:

What I did with the words is something else all together!  Amazing what can come from just a handful of words!  I won't show you here, but you can come and join us HERE to find out!

Lining Up My Ducks

I first used a computer in the early 80s.  The first one I owned was a Timex Sinclair.  The first computer language I learned was BASIC.  I've been online continuously (read: daily) since the early 90s.  I'm equally Mac and PC savvy, and I evolve with the updates.  I'm no stranger to social media and can carry on conversations about most of it before it hits the public airwaves, although I am picky about what I use personally because I'm not out to collect widgets;  I want what works for me.  I like keeping my knowledge complex, but my experiences simple.

So where did I miss the boat on feed readers?

Yesterday I started using Google Reader to organize my online reading and news.  I spent the afternoon creating and refining subscriptions and making files to house sites I visit daily, weekly, etc.  I took a break long enough to grab my moleskine and put my ducks in a row.

Then I went back to the reader to catch up on what I've been missing by haphazardly cruising online without a navigator.   What a time saver!  

Now I'm off to broom my internet files and bookmarks.  I've accumulated a lot of trivia and it's time to bin everything that isn't useful.  In the process, I've reacquainted myself with some great websites that had gotten lost amongst the rubble.  Big, clean, deep, breaths of fresh air!

Once Upon A Time

I sat down with my brush and inked out a rooster, with absolutely no idea why.   What is a rooster?  Why is it on my mind, so close to consciouness that my brush put it on paper?  Roosters signifiy morning.  Wake up.  Sunrise.  A new day.  

Then my daily dose of Wylde Women's Wisdom from Tammy Vitale hit my inbox.  It all became clear.  My rooster was there to remind me to begin each and every new day with Once Upon A Time.  

Once Upon A Time, Barbara woke up, and by opening her eyes to the morning, she began a whole new day, filled with endless possibilities and magical outcomes!

 Once upon a time is always now and always forever.

 Once upon a time is a sacred place and a sacred time

in which miracles happen.

 

It's the essence of a fairy tale.  It's the essence of story.

 

When we hear it, we become a child.  That is,

we become innocent.

We are ready and able to understand

what is mysterious.

 

I mean, you can hear as you listen to the story

the way it speaks our journeys.

 

Deena Metzger

 

 

Wylde Women's Wisdom collected and brought to you by Tammy Vitale.

 

 

 

Moleskine Monkeys

One more from my moleskine, this time with ink.  I was amazed at how well the moleskine paper accepted ink.  Wet, as well as dry brush.  I didn't expect that at all, since the only thing I've really liked to use with sumi-é ink until now was rice paper, or a small selection of Japanese handmade papers. 

Another good book for the study of sumi-é that I forgot to mention yesterday isOriental Painting Course: A Practical Guide to Painting Skills and Techniques of China and the Far East  It doesn't have any pictures of monkeys, though.  

It isn't as easy to find books on Oriental brush painting that contain monkeys, but they are some of my favorite subjects, so I commit to memory as many as possible to draw from when I'm grinding ink.  My favorite Chinese monkeys are the ones painted by Wang Yani when she was still a very young girl.  I first discovered her work in this book of her life, written for children and young adults:A Young Painter: The Life and Paintings of Wang Yani-- China's Extraordinary Young Artist  

 

Moleskine Rabbit

Once again, no time to grind ink sticks to a rich black and make the seven shades of gray.  Patiently grinding sumi-é ink is one of the most meditative and helpful practices I've found to center oneself for artwork.  But I have to live with my Western schedule, which sometimes means exchanging Eastern ink sticks and brushes for pencils and brush markers.   

I should have been more attentive to the limitations of the priniting in my Western dictionary.  The second character of the calligraphy was printed with an ink flaw which colosed it at the top, and I copied that mistake on to this page.  My daughter corrected me, but saw the dictionary mistake only after I had already copied  it onto my drawing.

I have a reason for making these sketches, beyond the calming joy and satisfaction the process brings.  They are seeds of a larger project which I will tell you about when the time is ripe.

If you are interested in sumi-é, I suggest you begin with looking at lots and lots of artwork until you begin to notice the subtleties that make each painting completely different.  

This isn't something to undertake if you plan to treat it casually.   It is most advantageous to have a sensei, or master teacher, if you are lucky enough to find one.  

If you plan to study from a book, the best book I know of for a comprehensive study is The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting.  

Also very good, Wang Jia Nan and Cai Xiaoli's book Oriental Painting Course: A Practical Guide to Painting Skills and Techniques of China and the Far East is one that I have read and refer to quite often.  

It is futile to study the technique without also practicing the way, as this type of art eminates from and communicates an unbroken inner energy, or "chi".  Without "chi", or with broken "chi", there is no life to the drawing, no matter how skillfully rendered.  

I recommeded a film to watch, and I posted the trailer to it in yesterday's blog post, HERE.   It's a documentary of a Japanese-American master painter, and one of the most uplifting movies I've ever seen.

Visionary

This is one of my favorite ways to work in a journal.  Not because of any particular technique, combination of techniques, or content, but because of the process of discovery.  Sometimes it delays, and that takes patience, but it never disappoints.  

I make up the rules spontaneously as I go along, working in segments that I define and set time limits to.  It doesn't matter what comes first, second, third.  I just decide, for instance, that I'm going to use two things I haven't used in ages, and three things I use all the time.  I set the timer for 8 minutes and use them.  Then I move on.  Maybe this time I'll write for 5 minutes.  Maybe I'll decide to pick up 3 magazines and cut out things that catch my eye for 4 minutes, then take another 2 minutes to use them all.  It doesn't matter what, how long, or when.  It's about rules, but rules decided randomly, on the spot.  So in the greater context, it's not about rules, it's about me, and my choices of the moment.

 

Without fail, these are the sketchbook pieces that I identify with personally, as opposed to pieces that identify me.   I don't work to illustrate my identity or define myself.  When I'm working, especially in this type of process, I identify intimately with the work that evolves, as it evolves.  

In dreams, the symbols and  connections that are brought to mind by the dream cannot accurately be defined outside the context of life of the dreamer.  In this respect, these sketchbook spreads are like dreams.  Each of the symbols a person perceives, even archetypical symbols, can be defined only through the life and experiences of that individual.  So whatever you see here, it's for you.  If you make identifications in my work and draw parallels, it won't be me you're seeing, it will be yourself. 

Of course this is finished.  And it isn't finished.  Which means that it has said all it has to tell me today.  I think probably this is where it stays, at least for now.   But you never know about later.   

There are lots of great things that come out of working like this for me.  Two of the biggest benefits are that these types of pages almost unfailingly lead to stand alone work, outside of the sketchbook.  Not work that looks like the sketchbook, but work that the sketchbook evokes.  

The other huge benefit is what I see after I've finished, walked away for a time, and then come back fresh.  Things that looked like something at first, now seen in a new light, take on different meanings.  There are Aha! moments.  Things I saw before that had me saying to myself, "I think this may be...." and, "Hmmm, this looks a bit like....", etc., all of a sudden jump out and have me saying, "Ah!  So that's what that is!"  

If you haven't done this type of work before it may seem a bit odd, crazy, quasi-mystical, etc.  But it's none of those things.  It's just making dreams from the unconscious appear on paper, and going back to see what they might have to say, then using ideas from them in larger works.  That's simply all there is to it.