[creativity] D.I.Y. Magic: Every Person Their Own Wizard

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It seems a truism that a key to creativity can be upsetting your normal flow, forcing yourself to look at the ordinary in an extraordinary way, and it could sort  of indirectly follow from that that there is magic in the creative act, depending on how one looks at it. Certainly creation of something that wasn't there before is a sort of sorcery, when one considers the moving effect of art and anoints the artist the title of magician.

Anthony Alvarado (who we met at Linework 2 years back and who we got this clever little book from) has done a massively clever thing here. He has taken a range of techniques for hacking ones' own creative process and used the paradigm of the magic spell to create a grimoire for the creative mind, filled with adventures to take the creative soul on.

If the book D.I.Y. Magic: A Strange and Whimiscal Guide to Creativity would seem to take a lot on itself, it may be helpful, going in, to know that Alvarado encourages you to define the idea of magic as you see fit. This paragraph, in the Introduction, gives the reader a handle to grab regardless of what they may concieve of the supernatural:

The truth is we have all practiced a form of magic at one time, when we were children seeing images in the passing clouds. Remember lying on your back and watching faces appear in the sky? A puff of cumulus becomes the eye of some creature that melts into an alligator's, nose and then becomes fantastic dogs, castles, angels, cartoons of people and animals that waltz from one form to another. Images can also be seen in the hot coals of a fire, in the grain of wood beams, and on the surface of rippling water. The phenomenon is surely the reason why primitive man saw himself surrounded on all sides by the elemental spirits of all things - the sprites, nymphs, dryads, and sylphs of forest, river, and fire. And wasn't he richer for it? Now, of course we know better! But I propose that these same faculties lay dormant within us.

Alvarado's reliance on the paradigm of the magician casting spells and cantrips, then, is his clever and excellently effective way to remix that point of view and quite a few things you may have heard of, do a bit of alchemy on them, and come up with a new thing that makes nudging your creative self back into wakefulness as much or as little of an adventure as you want it to be, and expects you to define your magic your way, not his or anyone else's.

A good example is the cantrip for manifestation (a cantrip, he explains, is any spell that is quick and easy to do). The tools required are optimism, positivity, and and awareness of the ideas that you project upon reality, and the only thing it requires you to do is look at the world though that lens. If you were of a Buddhist bent, you'd probably say you were practicing mindfulness; a more spiritual sort might see it as the law of attraction; a more practical person would just think of it as paying attention. Using a positive outlook and letting your ideas guide you, for the few minutes that you do this, you'll be looking at the world in terms of what you expect or hope to see, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that you'll see more or less appropriate things as relate to whatever idea is informing you.

The book touches on quite a few concepts that you, me, and everyone else who's chased enhanced creativity have probably run across, but he remixes them into small adventures for the creative heart. A coin flip becomes an adventure in the good kind of chaos when you flip it and follow your intuition about which side came up, making your decision without ever actually looking at the coin. A tarot deck becomes a mind map when you make up your own trumps using whatever symbols you want and decide for yourself what they mean.

There are also some advanced experiments that require a bit of thought and preparation, but the book seems founded on the proposition that if a process doesn't speak to you, you aren't obliged to do it.

It's a delightful book even to leaf through and consider if you don't try anything, just meditate on the clever way he's taken a great deal of material on altering your perceptions to take advantage of the creative chaos within and made of it a whole new thing.

It's at least inspirational, and what creative doesn't need inspiring now and again?

Publisher: Perigee/Penguin
ISBN: 978-0-399-17179-6
US Retail Price:$15.00

Anthony's website is https://anthonyalvarado.net/

[creativity] The Drawback Of Mortality As Motivation, And A Wise Alternative

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Motivation.

If there's anything the last couple of years has taught me that hangs in front of my face like one of those little pine tree air fresheners in your car's window, it's a two fold thing:

1. Motivation is important
2. It's too easy to confuse inspiration with motivation. They are not the same thing.

Going into this phase of my life, I had thought that all you had to do was surround yourself with inspiration and the gifts would perfect themselves.  Mind, that's not what it looked like at the time. I thought that stunning examples of what could be would bring out of me what could happen. And, the truth is, when it comes to inspiration, I'm neck deep in it and threatening to drown. I live in the state in which I was born, which is one of the most beautiful, semi-unspoilt places left on earth. I live in one of the most beautiful and desirable cities in America, a place so painfully pretty it almost satirizes itself. I have, over the years, collected a library of wonderful books about how to draw, how to paint, and how to write. I've managed to get an education in graphic design. My aesthetic sense is sharper than its ever been before, for what it's worth. And for friendship, online and in other places? I am privileged to have met people who are insanely, happily, unabashedly creative. Artists and authors I once dreamed of just saying 'thanks for the great work' to.

So, where's the creativity for me? Well, it turns out that I've gotten it wrong all this time, or at least halfway so.

Motivation is not only the not the same thing as inspiration, if you have all the inspiration and not motivation, you have a very pretty studio but you aren't doing anything with it. Inspiration is the fuel, and unless you have the spark of motivation, it remains inactive, inert, pretty … and kind of dead, a backdrop no matter how well and thoughtfully curated.

Add that spark to the fuel, and bang … you'll get motion. Production. Whether for an aspiration to an eventual career or just a fulfilling and meaningful use of spare time, without the motivation, you have faith. And faith without works is dead.

So, what does motivation look like?  Does it carry a scythe?

Well, there's the rub, innit? Just because you've figured out what it is, doesn't meant you know what to look for. You just know you have to look for … something. And so we search.

Amongst the things assayed is the idea of mortality … the end of it all, Old Morty Reaper, whatever you want to call it. A lifespan is a finite thing, we just don't know our pull date. The idea, as I understand it, to death being a great spur to motion, is simply this: work as though you might be dead tomorrow. #YOLO. Do it today, because you might here to do it tomorrow. It falls on the just and the unjust alike.

And it'll work to a point. But the Grim Reaper is an equally humorless taskmaster, and inviting him to watch is kind of redundant, as he'll come when the time is ripe anyway. There's no stopping him. And until you do meet him, it's nothing more than a Sisyphean, grim-faced, serious struggle, working dourly against a deadline, as though the more work you put in, the farther out that deadline might get pushed just a little. The best art has always been fun, and there is no fun there … just desperate, strenuous grasping for something, you don't really even know what it looks like.

And it ends up tiring in despair. The knowledge of ultimate demise operates as an intense negative to me, and I have work over the negative before I get to the positive. By the time I'm in reach of your power … I'm too glum and tired to use it, even if I could grasp it, after all that murky work.

A few days back, one evening, I seriously considered using the promise of oblivion as a spur, and was fleshing out some thoughts about it. A little later that evening, on my way in to my evening job, I was almost presented with my mortality; moving though an intersection I take every evening, I nearly became a casualty. I had the green and was going through and was more than halfway through the intersection when a car, running the red on the cross street, flashed across my field of vision. The red light camera standing sentinel gave two brilliant flashes, casting a cold metal relief on the whole thing, and making it other-worldly and surreal. It's still rattling me. A few seconds one way or the other, or the lack of a certain reflex, and I would have been hurtin' for certain, never mind my beloved 1972 VW Beetle … and we won't think any farther down that branch for now, thank you.

A short while before that I thought about doing something in case I died and couldn't do it any more. And then something happened that could have caused that, before I had so much as a chance to put that plan into operation. The sum total suggested that just taking my pleasures as I wanted to might be the best option, since who knows?

And that doesn't seem effective. I'm having a little trouble finding the words, obviously. Suffice it to say that it seemed even more of a pointless dead-end than all my scotched plans and scrubbed missions to this point in time.

All you need is now. And to be in the now?

 

Confiding this to The Wife™ a few days after that was a real revelation for me. She had the whole thing from a different angle. And I felt something warm open up because of it.

Let's see if I can relate it as I understand it from what she said. The way she seems to look at it, you spend every moment you can doing what you aspire to, because when you're in that moment, you're doing what it is you're supposed to be doing and so you aren't striving to go to a place, you're in the place you were supposed to be in all along. All the gifts should be there with you. So, instead of journeying to the promised land, learn to see the promised land as were you are right now. And you just start doing what it is you're supposed to be doing, because it's the most natural thing ever.

She said it much more succinctly, and better. And this is what I've been rolling back and forth in my mind. I noticed one thing begin to happen after that. A certain stress seems to have changed its pull. I got the sense then, that a flower had opened up in front of me, and at least one thing I needed was there, and I just had to develop the courage to reach and pick it up.

The current step is to build that courage. 

So, let's step back from the joss-stick-and-whalesong for a moment, and distill. Changing my assumption from trying to travel to a place I want to be to assuming I'm in the best possible place right now means whatever I have now, I can use, and whatever I have now are the tools necessary. If they're a little rusty or worn, I need to repair or sharpen them up. If the room's a little drab, I can decorate it within whatever ability and tools I have now. I don't have to wait. I don't have to be ready; actually, the idea of being ready becomes irrelevant.

It all is what it is. Just acknowledge what I have now, and use whatever that is I have now.  

And it's no longer a desperate struggle. It's still a struggle, yes … but it's a little happier one maybe.

It's taken a very long time to come to this simple, if prolix insight. I wish I had been ready for it a little earlier, but again, it is what it is. And it may or may not be the key. But I've arrived in this point, and I am here. 

In the now, where I might have what I need after all.

And, so it goes. 

[creativity] A Look Into A Writer's Brain. DeNiro Knows.

3244.
The quote says quite a lot without saying all that many words.

What DeNiro is attributed to say here can probably felt to some degree by a great many of us who are artists, and the part of me that aspires to writing as well as that which aspires to drawing feels each one of those; moreover, perversely, it thinks that those things are actually my more charming points.

And that is on a good day.

Via A-Z Quotes.

[liff] The ZKT Mailroom: What Jim Horwitz Sent Me

3237.

This is another thing I've been holding back for a while, and once again I am remiss; I think a public thank you is in order for this man.

Jim Horwitz draws Watson, a comic which is has fierce fans, of which I am one. Sometimes it seems that Jim is as much of a fan of his fans as his fans are of him. I've come to know him as a correspondent with an incredibly generous heart.

Last year, he sent me a book that was important to him, and I've grown to love it too. It's this:

It's Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai.  It tells of the journey of a young, preternaturally intelligent boy being raised by a single mom and in search of his father. It speaks to genius, the creative process, the restorative power of art. It's also a fiercely-good piece of fiction, provided to me at a time when I was growing out of being just a genre reader and falling in love with the idea of literature at large, its power to create little words that are very very real as we need them.

I'll be reading this again soon, between books on writing and creativity and Pynchon and Proust, because I have a feeling that it hasn't delivered its full message to me. A great novel, I've found, is that way, just like a favorite movie, it's a flower that opens a little more with each reading.

Jim wrote a personal message to me on one of the pages. I won't share it now; it's that personal to me, but I never took the opportunity to thank him for sending it my way, just the right thing at just the right time … how he knew it, I don't know.

But he knew.

I won't share the message, but I keep this post-it on the page facing:

Watson should be a guide to everyone trying to find their way … as I still am.

[liff] The ZKT Mailroom: Paint By Numbers From Donna Barr

3236.

We get sent stuff occasionally from cartoonists. This is a delicious awesome hazard which comes from being acquainted with people with ebullient and generous spirits.

Today, we got this in the mail from Donna Barr:

Now, this is ever appropriate since I've blogged about PBN here, and Donna is famous for doing drawings like these:

Donna knows horses. If I'm looking for culpability, here's some evidence for that …

… which is a good translation and better than mine, because she actually speaks German, whereas I just make a jab at it betimes.

This made my day, need it be said?

[writing] Harlan Ellison, Crafting the Short Story, and "Night of Black Glass"

3234.

Finally found a copy of Harlan Ellison's "Stalking the Nightmare, in paperback, for my HE shelf. The high point on this collection is the short, eerie "Night of Black Glass". This is a story which stuck with me, particularly because of Harlan's exploration of survivor's guilt and how he poses it as an existential question with a real cost; also, if anyone (and I know most of you in The Harlan Ellison Facebook Fanclub have) has ever seen the documentary "Dreams With Sharp Teeth", it was apparently written as the product of an exhibition …

The picture is of Harlan sitting down in a bookstore's front window on Fifth Avenue in NYC in front of his trusty Olympia typewriter. He is then delivered an envelope with a single piece of paper, NBC letterhead, which he then opens, reads, and then gets to typing. In a voice-over, the late Jessica Savitch, from a clip from the Today show from March of 1981, states that he was given an opening idea written by Tom Brokaw: "A man walking on a rocky beach in Maine in August, finds a pair of broken sunglasses". Five hours later, "Night of Black Glass" was finished. Not only was it a demonstration of the man's almost-preternatural ability to prolifically create, it showed that creative pursuits, to paraphrase HE, was a job of work, not something dainty and airy, fit only for occupants of ivory towers.

I read it in a magazine then and didn't see it again for many years. Now I have it on my HE shelf to read when I please.

Old novels and short-stories have become like totems of existence to me. Having them on hand physically makes me feel better about being here.

And so it goes.

And here's a link: An archival page, noting the title indicates a school resource for teaching literature, but it contains the entire transcript of Harlan's interview with Jessica Savitch on NBC's Today Show from March 24th, 1981. Very insightful reading at http://archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/flatview?cuecard=34831 (if you search the NBCLearn site you only get a 15-second preview of the video, or you have to sign in to see it, and you probably have to be in school or be an educator or pay a fee for it. But at least you can read it.)

[creativity] A Pilot Program Promoting Perfection of Practice

3178.

After a great deal of reflection, I'm going to try an experiment to instill the one quality that I desperately need and have never quite mastered.

It goes by many names. Persistence. Patience. But the facet I'm most concerned with is Discipline. 

The big D. The hafta-hafta. What must be done, sine qua non anything else.

I have had skill. I've let them atrophy for a variety of reasons. I'm starting over in many many ways. But so far, every attempt to channel my boredom and rounded edges back into a sharper mien has fallen flat. Every single one. I was writing in my diary, just now, and something common to a few inflection points … the Muse seminar in February, Linework NW and meeting Lisa Congdon and her book, Art, Inc., the idea behind SARK's MicroMovements, an evolving commitment to more deliberation in my everyday things … everything coalesced in a single idea, as simple as can be.

Starting within the next few days, I'll decide to stake out a 30-minute block for creating something. Writing, drawing, either throwaway or persistent. In the beginning, diary writing (I should be writing every day; that's something I don't do, and to me, that's a pure shame which I'll not hide from), but there are ideas of things that have been pestering me. But my superpower is inertia … and you all know how that goes.

Every plan has a gimmick. Here's mine. The first day, 30 minutes. The second day, 31. The third day, 32 … by the end of the month, I'll be logging a minimum 60 minutes a day of creative calisthenics. Since I'm starting with 30 minutes … hell, I can endure 30 minutes of anything. And I can always, always do another sixty seconds on top of what I've already done. And the repetition means to encode the new habit into my psyche's DNA.

If I miss a day? Still increase it by that minute. If I can hold out for sixty extra seconds, I can certainly do 120.

It's a manageable goal. A manageable execution. A manageable evolution.

I'm a believer in evolution on more than one level. Managing ones' own is always best if you can arrange that. 

[creativity] Inspiration Pad Dares You To Ride The Wave

3159.

Of all the interesting ways to challenge your creative brain to keep up, this is one of the most interesting and simple I've seen.

Designed my Mark Thomasset, the Inspriation Pad at first seems like just another of the incredible range of paper notebooks we've been seeing all over. About the same form factor, thickness, dimensions. It's a ruled notebook, red margin line, blue writing lines. But you open one and maybe you see this:

Or any one of a bunch of different patterns, from other waves, to mazes, to off-kilter registrations of the pattern, to sphereized and pinched lines.

The closest analogy I can come to is that of the Zen koan which, as I understand it, is a riddle without a logical answer. Considering the koan causes your mind to go places where logic cannot follow and the answer to the riddle as such is equally ineffable.

One looks at the wavy pattern above and the mind jumps on it and tries to ride it, and out of that creative tension, ideas may flow.

This has apparently been around for a while, but this is the first I've heard of it and I was delighted when I did. I can see why this might work but, of course, as the response to a koan, I can't put it into words.

The first version of this is displayed as a Behance project here: https://www.behance.net/gallery/Inspiration-Pad/430578,  and the current Pad is available through design firm TM's website, here: http://www.tmsprl.com/shop.html 

[#art] A Change of Carrier

3112.

I've decided to join the messenger-bag generation.

It's cool. I'm usually a few years late to just about any party, anyway.

If you don't know if I'm hangin' around or not, you can usually tell that I'm here if you see my backpack. It's a habit I picked up never-you-mind how many years ago and I've probably kept too long, but in an unfriendly world that don't love you back no matter how hard you love it, you have to have your security blanket.

We all do, I think. I fancy I'm just a bit more honest about it than some. Then, I care less and less what anyone thinks about what I do as I move through this part of my life; I'll do what I can to cope.

My backpack has been part of my identity for a long time. It holds a lot of things that are important to me that I want to keep near; the sketchbook I'm not drawing in; the book on creativity I'm not reading or using, the art supplies I'm apparently hoarding up against the apocalypse. But backpacks encourage a sort-of hermit crabbish-ness, in which I carry my notional studio on my back. As long as my right shoulder isn't killing me (how I've avoided tendonitis all these years, I can't tell you) I figure I can carry anything. Or everything.

Whether or not I can kickstart my own engine, a touch of parsimony is called for, I think. Will it improve my creativity at all if I don't figure I have everything I need and inspiration will spontaneously combust from inside the recesses of the thing?

I don't know.  Anything's worth trying once.

I also have a taijtu (see illo) patch that will simply look stunning on the flap.

And so it goes.

[art] Guest Post: The Comic Creative, With Christina Cabral

3007.

And now, after a long,long time my little blog tries to grow up … with a guest post! I am in a sort of a mixture of renaissance/reconfiguration and I'm aiming to push this into more of a resource. This means more than just sharing my art-healing but also trying to bring more than just my fun personality every entry.

This is the first guest post of my blog and, since I've been exploring creativity I thought I'd ask one of my more inspiring Facebook acquaintances for some insight. I adore work-in-progress and the creative process … I've always imagined it was like being able to watch a nuclear reaction in real-time on the atomic level … watching small things coming together to become something more than the sum of its

Copyright Christina Cabral. More awesome
at her website.

original parts.

L.A artist Christina Cabral's work crackles with inventiveness, flair, fearlessness and take-on-the-world attitude. Since she's allowed me the privilege of a front-row seat to her creativity, I've watched her go from merely great to excellent, zooming in a superlative direction. I find her art challenging, delightful, daring and antic. It brims with a sort of confidence that's hard to contain. She's going to be something big sometime soon.

So, naturally, I wondered about how she met her creative challenge. She graciously agreed to speak a few words about it, and I'm grateful for the privilege of sharing. So, the following words, which may be read … and read through to the bottom for links that will take you into this artist's world.

And now, Christina …

Because I went to school for animation I tend to start a comic like I would a short; I make a list of things that need to get done. This is just how I get to work,I’m just a crazy list maker.

•  Idea
•  Story
•  Characters
•  Supporting characters
•  Concepts for world and character building
•  Storyboard full story arch/or short story
•  Block out pages
•  Edit
•  Finalize pencils on pages
•  Ink Pages
•  Edit 
•  Tone and/or Color pages
•  Edit
•  Dialog and FX
•  Edit

Clearly editing is pretty important to the process. Ideally sticking to the list is best but it doesn’t always happen. In the end as long as the final result is the comic you want to see then you did it,you made a thing! 

Story and Characters

It’s cool to have elaborate backgrounds for every character you have but it’s not as great to make that the first 5 chapters of your comic. For Gardenia* I just made quick 3 pose turnarounds for each character and wrote some simple stats on the side of them like; name, height, age. Since it was in black and white I didn’t color them. If it was in color I’d have worked that out in concept doodles and made a small square color key on the side of the turnarounds for future pages. 

When it comes to story I’ve learned from struggling on my first comic that scripts are important. Outline first then script will make storyboarding the pages much easier. Storyboarding/thumbnailing is also super useful because you can figure out the blocking right away. If you can coloring the thumbnails that helps too. The more prep you do the less time editing you need. 

Inking and Coloring

For Gardenia* I inked it by hand and added the tone with photoshop. Whatever you work in fastest is going to be the best bet. For me inking by hand is much faster because I feel the Wacom pen lags for the way I like my lineart. As for the coloring I like to use photoshop because it’s faster to block color out and still be able to change it on a dime.

Dialog and FX

Decorative fonts are neat but think about how you read a comic. If the text is too fancy it’s hard to read and takes longer to get the story across. It’s ok to have it on background items or characters clothes but not so much fun to read as dialog. I like to use Helvetica but any sans-serif works brilliantly. FX are just as tricky especially if the font is not contrast enough on what the FX are against. Quick fix for that is to add a stroke to the font in white or black (or contrasting color) so it will read but not distract too much. 

Layout and Printing

Layout can be done easily enough using InDesign. If you don’t know how to use it there are tutorials online that I used as well. Make a booklet tutorial (http://youtu.be/GY16m7QcFj4) Ah printing … the final frontier of your finished comic. You can use your local printer if you have connections,use a service like KaBlam (http://ka-blam.com/printing/front/) or Createspace or do like my friend and I did; print it at home/Staples using a long arm stapler to connect it. I don’t suggest the latter unless you have lots of patients and less than 10 pieces of paper for your book. The industrial cutters at Kinkos/Staples/printing places can only cut through so many pieces of paper. In the long run doing it at a printer or using a service is going to be way more cost effective because of test prints. Like always the first pancake is always ugly,no matter what. 

I hope these tips helped anyone starting to make comics. Work smarter, not harder. 

… Thanks, Christina!

A notabene… The comic Gardenia mentioned above is from her zine Kitten Squad: Resurrection, a romantic and spooky tale which I've been privileged to see. The zine is on my desk and ready for a review, and that's coming soon. Really moving stuff.

To get on board the Kittie express, you can follow her at Facebook; her Kittie Cakes Designs page there is https://www.facebook.com/kittiecakes. If you want a look at some more of her art and design, Kittie Cakes Design's home on the web is http://www.kittiecakes.net/, where you can see her other art, bloggy stuff, all sorts of goodness.

[creativity] Need Creativity Practice On The "Fly"? Try Blobbing.

3006.

Stumbled on at FRCH's Creative Fuel blog, we find one thing we might do when we're stuck or just need to take our brain out for a spin or don't know what to create but want to create something.

Here, the Blob isn't something to beware, it's something to encourage.

Photo by Ben Wiliams from his article at
http://creativefuel.frch.com/2012/06/06/creativity-practice/.
Go there to see the rest of the very excellent work.

That's the whole thing right there. Delightfully simple, probably has been out there all along in front of you, and Ben Williams just crystallized it for you right here.

This is an experience I've had in my own life. The maps I sometimes create I draw out of interesting natural or manufactured shapes I stumble on. A big city I created once sprang from the way a concrete walkway branched; it became two one-way streets merging to create a boulevard. Another map, a make-believe island nation, sprang from the pattern of crack-like markings in a linoleum floor.

It's not hard to imagine drawing shapes solely from nature. A leaf can become an island in a river. One of my favorites come from the land of pareidolia; the North Portland 'peninsula', an inland peninsula surrounded by water on three sides (south and west, the Willamette River, and the Columbia on the north) bears an uncanny resemblance to a human thumb, as seen from the palm side of the hand.

Look at it sometime; you'll see. Of course, you won't be able to unsee it, but you run this risk when looking at the world that way.

So, blob if ya gotta; imagine patterns in the sky as things to base silly, but intensely creative drawings on.

Read all of Ben's excellent blog entry, including links to cloudy goodness and even more goofy birds, here at http://creativefuel.frch.com/2012/06/06/creativity-practice/.

[art] A Henna Artist's Positive Ramble on Getting Unstuck and Creativity

2987.

Peep this, cats and kittens:



This positive, happy woman rambles on for about ten minutes and ten seconds (eleven, actually, but ten minutes and eleven seconds just doesn't fall as trippingly off the tongue) about being stuck as a henna artist and how to become unstuck as a henna artist. But, there's always a level of arting around that works universally, beyond, above, and below the obvious level of expression and art media.

This video has very good suggestions and ruminations about inspiration, looking, and being for not only henna artistes but any artist who feels 'stuck'. It's ramblin', but in the good way, most definitely.

She is, fortunately enough for me, someone I happen upon betimes in the workaday world. She's typically a very happy, dry-humored sort and if she brings that brio to her henna work, it's gotta be good.

She also has a blog (http://www.freehandmehndi.blogspot.com/) , a YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/FreeHandMehndi), and a Face-to-the-Book page (https://www.facebook.com/fhmhenna), which may be read and viewed and enjoyed.

[art] What This Brony Can Teach You About Creativity and Community …

2979.

Yes, I said brony. 

Don't laugh, sit down and listen to Dr Wolf. He has a view about creativity and acquiring new hobbies that's worth listening to.

He starts out by telling you that it only takes about 20 hours to familiarize yourself with a new hobby to the point that you can start creating. This isn't much a surprise, at least not to any one of us (in which I count myself and many people I know, and I'm fortunate enough to know people who aren't satisfied just knowing what they know and doing only what they do) who's tried.

What really speaks to me is what Dr Wolf seems to have to say about learning the community around any given hobby, studying the connections, and then stepping into that playground to play. His ideas are universal, really; take out 'Brony community' and replace with 'drawing student community' or 'video-making community' and the reasoning is just as sound.

And if you do believe Friendship Is Magic, then there's lotsa cyooot pastel ponies to look at.



H/T Scott Sanford hither.

[liff] Roberta Phillip is Out Of The Race

2396.The competition for the Multnomah County District 2 seat is pretty tough; Roberta Phillip, as of yesterday afternoon, has included herself out.

I mention this because I designed part of the look of her campaign – the campaign logo and, at the time of her withdrawal from the race, was entering into a revision cycle (set something on high speed) for her tri-fold campaign brochure.

Looking at the content I must say I think we're missing out. She has a group of firm, good, people-first values and her history suggests she would have done her level best to carry them out into her leadership style. It's to be hoped that she decides, at some later time not too far down the road, to try again.

Thanks to T.A. Barnhart, local liberal lion for giving me the opportunity to design the look of the campaign. I was proud of the logo that I produced, and it looked rather good on the top of her website.

It would have been nifty to see this on a lawn sign, yes? And, I never did get a chance to meet the lady, that would have been cool too.

For what it's worth, I'm available for similar work. I greatly enjoyed this, and would love the chance to do it again for some other political candidate.

The complete tale of the work I did here can be found at my Behance portfolio:

• http://www.behance.net/SamuelJohnKlein/frame/476140
  

Technorati Tags: Roberta Philip, logo design, political campaign design, Samuel John Klein

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[art] Comic Character Development

2367.

After sharing that last with me and the rest of his Twitter stream, @raydred shared a little character development sketch that he was a little scoff-y about but which I found quite nifty indeed. Here:

This is good for the same reason Tony Millionaire's work is good. Raydred is, in a Millionaire-esque way, in charge of his medium, and it shows in every line he draws. This, though sketch-y, shows a confidence and command that seems to come out of the drawing at me, and makes me want to look.

Technorati Tags: Raydred, comic art, creativity, comic character development