Sage Infused Olive Oil
Lemon Balm Sun Tea
Beaming Ideas and Glowing Boundaries
What if you were told that you were limited to certain boundaries, to create a great idea? Many times in our artistic life, we are limited to certain mediums, wording and pictures. From those restricted elements, we must come up with a brilliant solution.
For example, a piece of notebook paper as the boundary. The assignment is, use only the colors on the paper, and you can manipulate the circles, lines and texture of a piece of notebook paper to come up with artistic solutions for each student’s personality in a perceived classroom. You have 3 hours. Do you think you can do it?
No computer, just use a drawing element that is red, white and blue. Draw it on anything you want or manipulate the paper into anything you want. Just stay within the boundaries of the notebook paper elements to use for your creation.
This assignment was given to me in college. It was really fun, but it was also teaching us to adapt to the boundaries given to us in real life. Yet it was completely and utterly hard for some of the students in the class to become bound to rules and certain elements and still be creative. They had “hippy block!”
I think the professor was a genius. It taught me to think “outside the notebook paper”, and it was actually one of the most exciting projects that we ever did.
The “Suck Up”
The Bookworm
The Brilliant Student
Real life projects are usually not limitless. We’re bound to budgets, time constraints, mediums, computers and sometimes even bosses. So if you can come up with 22-24 ideas within 3 hours, you got what it takes to create great ideas and beaming artistic solutions!
Have a Sparkling Summer!
The Inspirational Hippy
Enlightenment through A Child
I watch my grandson quite often for my daughter and son-in-law. It’s been an interesting journey being “Oma” and truly an inspiration of different ways of looking at the world. Even though I had the experience of having my own child, I think that the “grandchild adventure” is so much more enlightening and inspiring to my life and how it’s perceived. Slowing down and taking the time to watch him and what he does with toys, books, coloring with crayons, drawing with sidewalk chalk, playdoh, silly puddy, water, food, paints or pencils gives me many ideas that I never thought of before.
Thinking about my young grandson’s artistic nature inspired me to look through the box of art work and memories that I saved from my daughter’s younger years. Seeing the progression and changes of her artwork from young child to a young adult, made me realize that the mediums that she used were incredibly inspiring and creative. She even progressed from drawings of people, places and things all the way to clay pottery and used her complete imagination instead of trying to recreate something she saw. Many of those clay fired pots are still part of my household décor.
As adults, we limit our horizons when it comes to thinking of a creative idea. It doesn’t need to be in Illustrator or Photoshop at all. Perhaps it needs to start with a medium that we used as children and young adults. From there, we may discover that the best idea comes from our gut, our souls and our hearts.
Until next time, happy adventures!
The Inspirational Hippy
Walkabout for Inspiration
Ancient art is endless with ideas and possibilities. Most of us are aware of Egyptian, Greek, Roman and American Indian cultures and the art and language contributions they have made to our world. One culture that I discovered years ago that I didn’t know about was the Australian Aborigine. The Aboriginal lifestyle was based on the total connection with their natural surroundings and dated back to about 50,000+ years.
Kate Owen Gallery in Australia describes this culture perfectly, “The Australian Aboriginal is the longest surviving culture the world has seen and their culture is complex and centered on long term survival in a hostile environment. It is rich in spiritual teachings, knowledge, and cultural behavior, as well as, the practical skills and knowledge required to survive. Because Aboriginal art reflects the earliest period of this ancient culture, it has both artistic and anthropological merit.” – www.kateowengallery.com
Though each tribe of Aborigine’s had their own language and traditions, they did not have a written language as other ancient cultures did. Therefore, their pictured art made from ochre pigment, and carvings or impressions on stone walls, bark, boulders and trees was their way of written communication. For example, I found a quote from a website that describes the meaning of the “hand art” that is found all over Australia’s Outback wilderness.
“One old man in Arnhem Land remembered being carried as a child on his father’s shoulders as his father climbed up a log leaning against a rock wall. His father then sprayed his hand with red ochre against the rock, leaving a stencil he could still recognize many years later. The main function of the stencils was to record people’s presence and association with a site.” — Aboriginal Art Online; www.aboriginalartonline.com
Dot painting was also used with hidden symbols and secret meanings. These too were created from their ochre pigments and tips of sticks were dipped into the pigment to create the dots. If you surf the web, there are many paintings associated with this technique and they are quite interesting. Here is an example of one of the sites I have seen; www.japingka.com.au/articles/aboriginal-dot-painting.
Beyond my investigation into their art culture, I was also intrigued with the stories and books that have been written over the years about Aborigines. One book that I read many years ago was about a woman who ended up living with a tribe of Aborigines for a few months and learned their way of life first hand. It was an amazing story of a culture that has been deeply misunderstood by many. The “walkabout,” that she participates in is truly an interesting topic for inspiration and worth delving into.
I also had the pleasure of meeting a man many years ago who traveled to New Zealand each year and came back with beautiful photographs of this part of the world. He also traveled to Australia and I was captured by his stories and the inspiration it had on my communication solutions.
Aborigine inspired communications:
Happy creations!
The Inspirational Hippy
Do You Have “Hippy Block?”
I’ve been thinking about doing a blog for a long time. It seems that when I’m creating something for a client or an employer, like most creative minds, I get stuck sometimes. It’s like “writer’s block”, or in this case, my version, “hippy block” of your artistic flow. It seems that I get all wrapped up in the strategic plan and forget to brainstorm and for the lack of better words, “think outside the box,” to create the best work I can produce.
I always wish that I had one or two places to go to get the creative juices flowing again. Sure, we have the internet, with Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, etc. and yes, they are all great sources for inspiration. This blog can be one of them. But all the other resources seem to be computer generated, not much seems to be hand done or organic anymore. I don’t always get my inspirations from computer generated images, unless of course they are photographs of God’s creations. Now we’re talkin’.
I guess what I’m trying to say, is sometimes the real inspirations will come from a God creation that you and I simply don’t pay attention to or too busy to stop and just be and some are really based on our roots and upbringing. I’m no exception.
Today I found cases and boxes of my art work from college (above image from my portfolio). Oh, I was so excited to leaf through it and it inspired me to start this blog. I began to think about what inspired each piece, what it was created with and how it always went back to my beliefs, my roots, how I was raised, where I was raised and what means the most to me. Sometimes the inspiration would come from the world I created and expected of myself. Some good and some creative circumstances, not so good. But yet, I really got excited when I realized what I was missing and why. A place to be creative and go back to those free-wheeling days of original commercial art, fine art, photography and brainstorming until all the ideas are scribbled onto a piece of paper or board. Then and only then, was it time to make a strategic decision for that best creative solution and the excitement to know that you nailed it.
So my goal for this blog is to inspire you too, through the images that I will post here, the organic ideas and the words that transpire from my thoughts.
Inspirational Hippy 