As I’ve mentioned I’ve been a bit beside myself with my injured thumb, a limping old dog AND cat, headaches and various other creativity killers. Halfdone paintings sitting around that I was working on at the time but can’t for the life of me remember what plans I had and/or feeling reluctant to dive back in for some reason. And just feeling the usual irritation creeping in when I don’t get to make stuff with my hands.
So instead of struggling I figured I might as well make it easy for myself and see where that got me going. I’ve been digging through the old photos that I have backed up on the computer (I also have 2 large binders of negatives that I never got round to scanning, too bad really), picking out and playing with Photoshop making “fake” paintings or weird effects. Just trying things out. I’ve been wanting to make collages as well, but holding my stylus for cropping out items is a bit of a strain.
And it’s paid off, because I have enough images now for my picture blog to last for the rest of the year! I know it’s technically cheating, not actually doing one a day, but surely I can’t be the only one…. Anyway it works better for me to do stretches of one thing, and my temper isn’t as bad when I’ve been doing this 😉
Let som en plet
Som tidligere nævnt har jeg været lidt ved siden af mig selv med min stakkels tommelfinger, halt hund OG kat, hovedpiner og diverse andre eksterne kreativitetsdræbere. De malerier jeg lige var beyndt på kan jeg pludselig ikke huske hvad handlede om og jeg har en eller anden sær ugidelighed mht at gå i gang igen.some reason. Og ja, så bliver jeg bare sådan lettere irritabel når jeg i længere tid ikke laver noget med mine hænder.
SÃ¥ i stedet for at kæmpe for sagen, besluttede jeg at gøre det nemt for mig selv og se hvor det førte hen. Jeg har gennemrodet alle backup mapper pÃ¥ computeren efter gamle fotos (jeg har ogsÃ¥ to store mapper med negativer jeg aldrig fik scannet – egentlig rigtig ærgerligt!) og bare leget med Photoshop, lavet effekter og falske malerier og andet sjovt. Collager er ogsÃ¥ noget jeg vil i gang med igen, men det er lidt hÃ¥rdt at holde pÃ¥ en tegnepen for at fritskrabe objekter.
Om ikke andet har jeg nu billeder nok til resten af Ã¥ret pÃ¥ min billedblog. Jeg ved godt det er lidt snyd ikke at rent faktisk lave et om dagen, men jeg er nok ikke den eneste… NÃ¥r først jeg kommer i sving med et projekt holder jeg helst ikke op lige med det samme. Med bedre humør i bonus imens. 😉
This is a thing I’ve decided to do. Not really every day, but rather on the days when I’m too busy, too tired, too distracted or too something else to haul out the serious painting gear and have a go at that. Or any other creative thing for that matter. Such as this week which seems to insist on being slept away mostly, I’m a complete zombie. Lovely weather and all, I’d much rather break in my bicycle! But there’s no forcing it, I’d not be safe in traffic.
I have no idea how many people are running a something-like-this-along, most likely 100’s. But I just set the challenge for myself to feel like I wasn’t missing out on picture creation while I do other things, as well as taking the pressure off making a “real” big painting in case any of that nonsense happens. I may do a search on the topic one of these days, but I’ll be more likely to just sit and browse pretty pictures for hours or days instead of making stuff, so for now I won’t.
I’m also not going to post every day or even regularly, just when I feel like it. This is meant to be a treat for myself, not a competition or an exercise. And sometimes other matters are more pressing or I’m simply having so much fun doing other stuff that I forget. 😉
If you want to -along you’re more than welcome to, and we can do the linky thing and all that, but I refuse to make any rules or schedules, just so you know! Just post your cards and comments – or we can swap!
I started out with a piece of watercolour paper that I dipped in my woad vat while testing if it was exhausted or what. It was indeed a wee bit tired (not that I know if a fresh vat would have made more of the paper, I’ll have to test that later), so the next day I dribbled some of the plant watercolours on it, tore it into 4 pieces and had a go with a glue stick because I hated what I’d done with the dribbles. I’m sooo rusty at this collage thing. And I know I should probably stick to one topic rather than trying on all the things I’m rusty at, but it seems I can’t help it. Ok, I haven’t really tried very hard not to, so I don’t know if I could.
I also considered to just copy cat a lot of stuff to keep the flow until I get into it properly, I don’t like to but I hear it’s great for cranking your skills. At the moment, the exercise is primarily about accepting that I make poor choices and that my cards are sometimes useless in the decorative sense. Maybe I’ll have an “ugliest card” competition at the end of the year where you can vote for all the monsters. 😉
This tiny format is a HUGE challenge for me as well. I want to cram all sorts of things on there, which is impossible. And why postcard and not just “a tiny image a day”? Well, I like to pretend I’m making something useful I think. And I know I’ve framed pretty postcards and put them on the wall, so really, it’s just a name.
Maybe I’ll put old stamps on the back and write pretend messages to and from imaginary people….
Then there’s an entirely different matter. I appear to have developed a slight hand tremor. I can feel it if I try to draw or knit with small needles for instance. Why I have no idea, it doesn’t run in the family that I’m aware. So I guess I should not count on any type of precision work in drawing etc. but have to develop a style where it doesn’t matter. I hope this is it, though, I’d hate to give up making things with my hands. I’ll have to pay attention to how tired I am when it happens. It’s certainly not very good for calligraphy or fine scissor work either! 🙁
Some old pieces of tissue paper with ink. I thought they might be more interesting with some doodles on all that white space, but can I?
Et postkort om dagen
…har jeg tænkt mig at lave som projekt.
Jeg har overhovedet ikke kigget ret meget eller for nylig pÃ¥ de 100-vis af lignende websider man kan finde derude, for sÃ¥ fÃ¥r jeg aldrig løsrevet mig fra at bare sidde og kigge og beundre. Men jeg tænkte jeg kunne bruge det som en slags livline, sÃ¥ jeg føler at jeg trods alt laver noget billedagtigt i de perioder hvor der ikke rigtig er plads til det. Som denne uge der insisterer pÃ¥ at være zombie-sæson, i det gode vejr, hvor jeg hellere ville ud at lufte min cykel lidt. Men jeg ville ikke være trafiksikker, der er ikke noget at gøre…
Ikke noget med at vise dem hver dag eller regelmæssigt, bare når jeg gider. Hvis nogen har lyst til at dele lignende projekter er det super, men der er ingen regler!
Jeg begyndte med et stykke papir som jeg havde dyppet i vaidgryden da den var ved at løbe tør for farve. SÃ¥ driblede jeg lidt andre farver pÃ¥, det blev grimt, sÃ¥ limstiften kom frem…
Det er meget meget længe siden jeg har lavet collager kan jeg godt mærke, og jeg tror aldrig jeg har arbejdet så småt, så det er udfordring på mange planer. Måske jeg går i gang med at kopiere nogen yndlingskunstnere, det siges at være en god måde at forbedre sig på, og så sker der da lidt når min egen fantasi ikke ruller som jeg vil det. Nu må vi se.
Jeg farvede ogs̴ lidt papir i cochenillegryden, og jeg tror jeg hiver mine bladtryk fra sidste ̴r frem ogs̴ og klipper lidt i dem Рeller laver nye.
MÃ¥ske sætter jeg gamle frimærker bagpÃ¥ og skriver fiktive beskeder til og fra ukendte og indbildte personer…
Til gengæld har jeg på det seneste opdaget, at jeg ryster en smule på hænderne. Det er ikke noget der ligger til familien, så jeg kender ikke årsagen, men jeg kan ikke tegne særlig nøjagtigt, og jeg kan mærke det hvis jeg strikker på tynde pinde. Ret irriterende, jeg håber ikke det udvikler sig yderligere, og så må jeg jo bare finde en tegnestil hvor det ikke ses.
Now that nature is ever so slowly making a transition towards autumn – I can’t believe I’m saying slowly, the summer has gone by like a Formula 1 – I find myself getting ready to change my activities too. I’ve been doing a lot more with the garden this year and some clearing away of stuff from the barn and yard; this has basically set back all of my creative pursuits, in fact I didn’t even get started on the ponies yet either (They’ve been on a very long break while I was on sick leave for over a year).
Of course I’ve been plant dyeing all summer, but I see that as a different kind of creative, more like a science project. While I think I would have done quite well in research of some other type (except it didn’t occur to me* until recently, so that’s another botched career 😉 ), I do get fed up with the chemistry bit. I still have stuff I want to do, some is urgent before my woad, weld and indigo get too cold, but it’s not my main focus anymore. No, I am of course talking about all the artsy fartsy craft stuff.
The problem for me is always getting back after a break. I get all restless and frustrated, so angry I could spit, even, that I don’t have time and people are bothering me and if only I lived on a deserted island I could finally get down to creating masterpieces 12 hours a day. What happens if I do get a week on my own? I get headaches or cramps. I zone out and click the interwebs. I get really tired and take naps. I daydream, I read books. Go pull a few thistles. Have coffee to wake up and start up Photoshop and Writer and pull out my inspiration folder and then go click blogs and Ravelry until I’m ready for another nap. I’ve been talking about procrastination several times and after a break it always hits me bad.
It’s not that I haven’t got any ideas I could work on, I just seem to think that – I don’t know what I’m thinking actually, everything just feels sluggish and outside of my grasp somehow. I mentioned 2 months ago about doing chores first and then being too tired for the fun bits, well, that still applies. Except now I seem to be slowing down on both counts. I must be needing a break and I suppose I ought to listen….
So, during the meanwhile, I’d like to figure out what to do to get on another roll. I don’t care if it happens to be spinning, weaving, painting (which I’m leaning towards) or writing, I just want to get cracking. I’ve done all the things I’ve previously suggested, so I need a new trick.
Some people say you should simply pretend to be making art until you are. Or pretend to be some person you admire and then go do what you imagine that person would do. I’m not much of an actress, I can’t even lie properly, but I suppose as long as I’m only imposting in my own head it’ll be alright. Right? (I can’t stand fake happy and chirpy; I’m not grumpy, just not very exalted most of the time) But you know, whenever I do get out my paints and just do something without being “there”, nothing interesting ever happens. I don’t suddenly fall into the flow, from pretending to create to actually doing it, I really do feel like I’m just faking, doing uninspired and completely useless exercises, and by the way the laundry needs to be put out to dry.
Apparently I can’t even fake something properly! And then we all know the next step, don’t we. “It’s no use, it’s not like I’ll ever develop any talent in my lifetime anyway”. “Needing space and quiet before I can create is just an excuse to hide that I can’t do it at all”. “It probably isn’t what I’m meant to be doing”. “Wasting my time, wasting my life”. – “Hey, wait a minute, that’s not the story I wanted to fake!”
Does faking really work for the larger multitude, ie do I just suck at it, or is it simply that pep-talks don’t work for more than 5 minutes on average? Faking is supposed to work without believing I think, which is good, because I suck at faith too. Otoh I have no trouble believing all the dark secrets about myself, the uselessness, unworthiness, ugliness etc. I know I’m not the only one, I just think it’s amazingly impractical that we should be hardwired to support all the negative stuff like that.
My intuition is telling me NOTHING of where I should be going right now. But staying put also doesn’t feel very fantastic. So I keep pushing even though I can tell I’m not doing it the right way. Maybe life’s simply not meant to be fantastic… But I’m not sure I can put up with that for very long. That would in fact, be faking it bigtime, and we already established that I suck at that.
Ok, I’m not even sure where I’m going with this piece. I’ll just press the button and move on now. Have a great weekend all! I’ll either be hauling straw bales or visiting a sheep market.
*strangely enough, since I’ve always been the one to bury myself in piles of books in a quiet corner, taking notes and attempting to suck up any and all data of my chosen subject. Some of my friends even complain that they can’t ask me a simple question on horsefeed for example, because I give them a whole lecture where they just wanted a name. Yes, I would have made an excellent geek, I even have the dress sense to match!
(yes we did go, as I didn’t have a good photo of a path where I didn’t go. Oh wait, that’s the whole point…)
It seems that lately – or maybe always, it’s not that clear to me – I’ve been saying things like “I don’t want to go there” and at some point that’s exactly where I’m headed.
So I started knitting again a few years ago after a 20 year break. But just using cheap supermarket yarns and definitely not wool because it’s scratchy. (it still is) And no way I’d want to hoard it and build a huge stash just sitting there because I don’t knit very fast. Until I discovered all the wonderful yarns and purposes that have emerged since the last time I looked at the craft.
Spinning yarn myself didn’t even occur to me. Until I saw someone online doing it with just a stick? So out of curiosity, I asked her how the hey that was even possible. And of course needed to construct my own stick just to test the physics of it all you know. After I found out it was doable I had to make actual yarn too. And then I was hooked and went on to spin for a lace shawl for my mum, but spindles were cool enough, it’s not like I’d ever want a wheel. 3 months later, I had one. (After finishing that lace which took ages on a homemade spindle of course. But it was a really lovely shawl in silk and merino)
Firmly stuck in the fiber world, next thing I wanted was to sample all sorts of wool. But really, I reassured everybody, it’s not like I want to muck about with filthy smelly fleeces, it just takes forever to work with something like that and it stinks and no way, look at all the pretty stuff you can just get online. Next spring I asked our hay provider if they ever did anything with the fleeces of their pet sheep because it would be cool to just try it. (incidentally I now also have sacks of really nice Gotland and Wensleydale fleece added to the collection)
So knitting, spinning, dyeing (which I never did say no to btw) – but that was it. NOT going to get into felting or weaving, no way, no how! I had planned some freeform knit/crochet picturemaking that never happened, so I really should have read the signs on that one…
There’s the mixed media art journaling craze that wasn’t for me (well, I’m not sure it is actually, as my collages tends to be the kind where I rebuild images rather than make cute intuitive decorative pieces with cool calligraphy. Mine are like “Tiny fat man with giant chicken in a forest of broccoli”). I may just keep it at looking at other people’s art journals, we’ll see. I’m not a journal journal person either, and that’s not a real no, that’s experience. But for some reason, some days I still want to try it even though really I don’t. 😉
sorry, couldn’t find any of my actual collages…
I guess I have a built-in desire to investigate things for no other particular reason than doing so. The world is filled with so much interesting stuff! I guess at least it’s a good thing that only some of the things I try out stay for good, or periodically, while others pass by. Such as learning about herbs, both in cooking and as medicine. But when it comes to gardening, I’ve at least come to accept that I do have limitations after all. In another life. Or if for some reason I can’t pursue my other hobbies. Later. Maybe. For now, I grow a few dye plants, salad greens and leftover potatoes. And an abundance of grass and thistles among the perennials. So that’s a different kind of no, an afterthought rather than foresight. I’m not showing you any photos of my 1000 m2 failed vegetable garden. (I mean it)
I’ve dabbled in websites, flash animation and I just remembered that as a kid (9-10-ish) I did classes in flower arrangement and pottery decoration! Where the hey did that come from and where did it go?
I wondered this morning whether I should devote some effort to learning how I distinguish real no’s from the fake ones. And a second later decided that I can’t be bothered, really. Things will change when they do and sometimes they don’t and it doesn’t really matter if I know in advance. But it’s a curious thing.
When I say the word “no” however, I still expect people to interpret that as “no”. If by chance I didn’t mean it I’ll take the responsibility/blame of missing out on something, thank you. How do you go about saying no? Am I really saying no, because part of me actually wants to say yes to everything? And we all know that’s just impossible.
I also dabbled in 3D graphics once – created a series of robots on rollerblades. Clearly my talents are not from the girly cute department.
Ikke-vejen
NÃ¥, jeg mÃ¥ jo hellere prøve pÃ¥ dansk ogsÃ¥, ellers bliver Miri ked af det. 😉 Men jeg vil gerne sige, at jeg altsÃ¥ synes det er kedeligt at oversætte sÃ¥dan en lang smøre! (ogsÃ¥ selvom jeg sjældent skriver helt det samme – gassen gÃ¥r bare af ballonen nÃ¥r jeg har skrevet første version!)
Jeg har opdaget en tendens hos mig selv som er lidt spøjs. Jeg siger noget om at “det og det har jeg ikke lyst til” og kort tid efter er jeg lige nøjagtig i gang med dette. Det gælder naturligvis ikke alting, men det er alligevel pÃ¥faldende.
“Jeg kan i hvert fald godt nøjes med billigt akrylgarn fra Netto”. Lige indtil jeg ser alle de fantastiske garner man kan købe nutildags.
“Jeg gider ikke bruge uld, det kradser!” Ok, det gør det stadig, men farverne! er sÃ¥ meget mere fantastiske end syntet.
Spinde faldt mig overhovedet ikke ind, med alle de spændende garner i butikkerne. Indtil jeg sÃ¥ en som spandt garn pÃ¥ en pind – sÃ¥ mÃ¥tte jeg jo lige spørge ind til mekanikken i det, lave min egen pind og forsøge og ja, sÃ¥ var jeg fanget og skulle pludselig spinde et lace sjal til min mors fødselsdag. “Men en rok skal jeg i hvert fald ikke have, spindepinde er cool!” Tre mÃ¥neder senere havde jeg en brugt rok.
“Men jeg skal i hvert fald ikke have fÃ¥r og stÃ¥ og vaske stinkende uld, der er sÃ¥ meget flot og klargjort i butikkerne!” Ja, suk. Dog har jeg ikke nogen fÃ¥r, jeg KAN godt lade fornuften rÃ¥de af og til, man mÃ¥ trods alt kende (nogen af) sine begrænsninger. Men stinkende uld har jeg og ønsker mig nu en kartemaskine. Det gjorde jeg heller ikke til en start, “for hÃ¥ndkarter er helt ærligt nok!”
Og sÃ¥ er der collager og “art journaling” som slet ikke er mig, men som alligevel drager nÃ¥r jeg ser andres. Der var den gang jeg i hvert fald kun gad ride skovture og aldrig ville interessere mig for dressur. Osv. osv.
Der er ogsÃ¥ ting jeg egentlig gerne vil, men siger nej af tidsnød. FÃ¥rene. Urtelære. Den kæmpe, pasningskrævende have (been there – fik ikke nogen t-shirt).
Og sÃ¥ er der ting jeg en gang gjorde, som jeg er holdt op med. Websider, flash animationer, 3D grafik. Og sÃ¥ kom jeg lige pludselig i tanke om for nylig, at som lille pige (ca 10) gik jeg til bÃ¥de porcelænsmaling og blomsterbinding. Aner ikke hvor det kom fra eller hvor det forsvandt hen…
Jeg er på en eller anden måde drevet og draget til at studere ting, undersøge, lære, fordybe mig. Jeg kan ikke lade være, også selvom jeg ikke aner hvad jeg skal bruge det til bagefter. Nogen gange ville jeg ønske, at jeg i stedet kunne fokusere så inderligt på noget nyttigt og vedvarende i stedet for at flyve rundt som en tosset lille sommerfugl og smage på det hele. Eller at jeg bare havde meget mere energi, så jeg kunne nå det hele.
Jeg tænkte på i morges om jeg skulle bruge krudt på at lære forskellen mellem nej og måske. Og i samme sekund at nej, jeg gider ikke. Ting sker og ændrer sig når de gør det og jeg behøver ikke vide det på forhånd. Men det er sært at jeg næsten altid skal den der omvej hen til tingene.
Til gengæld forventer jeg altid at mine nej bliver hørt som sådanne. Hvis jeg skulle sige det uden at mene det, så skal JEG nok tage skraldet og skuffelsen osv. over at gå glip af noget, tak. Nej er stadig nej.
Jeg ville gerne have sat flere illustrationer ind undervejs, men frk. Photoshop er ked af det i dag. Og nu skal jeg lige rydde et eller andet op inden jeg kollapser i hængekøjen før den bliver optaget!n Nåja, og tid til kamerahavetur er det vist også.
