Sunday, May 02, 2010

April experiments from Daisy Yellow

Time to check in with how things went with the April Creative Experiments suggested by Tammy of Daisy Yellow!

April is usually a pretty crazy month at the best of times, and this year in particular I knew my schedule was going to be really tight. So I kept my goals from the list trimmed down to the ones I really wanted to try, and keep them achievable. Here's what I managed to do out of the ones I chose:

Document one day of your life in 5 photographs
Write the blurb for the back of a book about your last vacation
Follow an art lesson or tutorial from a blog, video or book
Sketch something from a photograph
Adjust the artistic process. If you doodle with a pencil, try markers or calligraphy pen. If you shoot digital, transform to BW using editing software.
Practice drawing using product packaging as inspiration (ex: Line Practice: More Ideas)
Create art focused on a book, inspired by the story, characters or location or just climb into the book
Write morning pages (ala Julia Cameron); 3 stream-of-concious pages first thing in the morning on 3 days this month.


Looks like it was a good thing I kept the list short! However, I really enjoyed what I did do, and made good use of my camera.  I documented the day of  Snowmaggedon for my five pictures, experimented with free lensing, photographed some of the buildings on campus for drawing practice.

library

cubular coulees

The prompt I think I enjoyed most was starting the morning pages. I had started reading the Artist's Way about a month ago, and though not all of it seemed a good fit for me, the morning pages alone seemed as though they'd do me some good. And then, coincidentally, one of the women in my project mentioned having worked through the book and having written her pages that morning. That was just enough of a gentle push to get started. Even if I never do anything else from Cameron's book, this practice - and it is a practice - seems to be worth continuing.

Tammy has posted her list of the May Creative Experiments and as always, they look really great - check them out! However, I'm going to take a break from them this month just due to my schedule - except perhaps for the Create-your-own-Experiment joker card, as she calls it. I'm musing on how I can perhaps merge that with Leah's Creative Every Day theme for May: Intuition.  I'm sure there's something that can come out of that.

2 comments:

michele said...

two of my favorite views on campus!

love that you caught that piece of blue sky in the window reflections on UHall.

Sophie_vf said...

Thanks ladies!
yes, michele - actually it was the reflection that attracted me and I maneuvered my way around trying to put it in different windows.
We're on our way back to Canada tomorrow - will catch up on some pics (of Turkey) then!