Monday, June 27, 2011

Creative Every Day and Process Pledge

I have joined another two challenges, not like Tangled Textiles, where I have a deadline, but ones to help me keep on task.  Some of you may remember that I started this blog as a journal of my creative efforts, however I find that having things like swaps and TT where I cannot post my work each day has interfered with my blogging regularity.
It's a bit of a catch 22 - can't blog without something to blog about, but need the blogging to keep me being creative.  But I think I have solved the problem.  Creative Every Day is about checking in once a week and using a monthly theme, The process pledge is about blogging the artistic process, design, how things change and decisions, etc, not just finished products.
So let's start being creative and showing my process by giving you a peek into my sketchbook.
 This is the first page of my thinking about the TT theme, which is "celebrate".  Usually I will come up with an initial idea at this stage and the small picture at the top left is one of those, but I will also write lots of words and ideas as well.  The long list of words on the top right is from a thesaurus, which is often my first port of call.
These words all mean "celebrate or celebration" in a loose sort of way.  Because you can't read them, I'll type them in:

commemorate  anniversary  birthday  ceremony  festival  gala  glorify  honour  jubilee  remembrance  rejoice  tribute  custom  convocation  dedicate  devotion.

On this page, I also began exploring different festival and days around the world.

Japanese boys/children's day (the scribbly picture at the top right)
Chinese new year
Ballinasloe fair (Ireland)
High Plains Festival (Australia)
Day of the dead Nov 2 (Mexico)
Venice Carnival
Cinco de mayo (mexico)
Ramadan and Eid ul Fitr (Moslem)
Holi (india)
Mardi Gras (new Orleans)
Carnaval  (Rio de Janeiro)

That is a short part of an huge list that I was incapable of completing in this lifetime.

This is page two of this process.
On this page I looked at how the noun (celebration)  and the verb (celebrate) gave different ideas.
Celebration was the 'what and where' and celebrate was the 'how'
I'll talk about the how first, since it was not so complicated.
I asked myself - 'How do we celebrate?' and came up with -
dance
decoration
dressing up
dining, or food
drawing together,or gathering
display, or fireworks
As you can see, I am partial to alliterations and my thesaurus is always handy to help.
The little picture at the bottom of the page is the beginning of an idea based  on these words.

Now the noun, or what and where or to Celebrate is a bit more complicated.
I had to subdivide into separate lists-

Celebratining a person, eg A nobel prize winner, your mother, children
Celebrating a place, eg Australia Day
Celebrating an event, eg Remembrance day
Celebrating a thing, eg an invention, or trees or the internet, or even Art
Celebrating an idea or concept, eg Unity, Peace, Tolerance, happiness, science or nature

After all this thinking was done, and it is not exhaustive, I had quite a few ideas mulling in my mind.
I will show you what I did with them next time.

Have fun exploring - It will lead you to creating.