Flying Girl Goes Head First, or Dive In

Flying Girl Goes Head First or Dive In...

acrylic and pencil on paper

AEDM 13, 11/13/10

Where have I been? I skipped posting yesterday. I have been cranky and sick and not all that creative. Well. I've been creative, but low energy.

Plus I've been obsessed with pinterest. It's fun, but it's definitely a time suck. I guess I prefer a time suck when I'm still sick. So oh well.

But I have been slowly recovering, regaining brain power and such. I've been trying to get back into writing for nanowrimo and I've been afraid.

Writing while I was sick and brain dead took me far off course and got me really confused as to what was supposed to be happening.

Yesterday, before work, I sketched out this.

Dive in sketch

pencil on paper

11/12/10 aedm #12

This was me trying to tell myself that it was time to just dive right in, beyond the fear, beyond the uncertainty, beyond the laziness, to just commit. Take the steps. Write the words.

And I did. I lay in bed (because I didn't feel well enough to go downstairs and sit up right) and I just started writing.

I completely skipped the scene that was giving me trouble. I just went to the next part.

And it helped me figure it out.

The act of committing. The act of writing. The act of just doing carried me past the fear and the confusion.

Am I perfectly clear about what comes next? Nope. But I have somewhere to begin.

Remember also, this is week two of the big November challenges, when the excitement and the anticipation and the stored up ideas all start to run out. When life starts to interfere. When it just ain't as easy as it was in the beginning. This is part of the process. Keep going. Dive back in. We shall pass through this and move on to the next phase.

I'll tell you about when i get there.

How is your November going? How is your creativity moving?

Altering a Bleeping Big Thrifted Man's Sweater

Neckline: Foggy Day Sweater

AEDM day 10

thrifted sweater. thread. scissors. snip snip.

I have decided that what I have is not a cold, because I don't have the whole stuffed nose cough tissue dropping thing going on. What I have is a mild versions of my daughter's nasty flu. That is why I have not been able to think. So okay. Let it go. I will fall behind on my nanowrimo. I have time to make up my numbers later.

But last night, after while watching America's Next Top Model, I finally took out my old sweater.
Here it is, pre chopping.

It's a big baggy sweater that is fairly soft of a nice heathered greeny gray. Like a foggy day. It's a little tight in the neckline for me. I want it for throwing on after a day of work, over my tshirt, to lounge about in. But I'd like it to be more stylish than just a big old baggy man's sweater.

So the first step was to cut out the neckline. I was inspired by this sweater, that I have been staring at for months, it seems. I am afraid of cutting the arms. That seems a much bigger step to take. But I think I really need to do it. I think this sweater needs it's arms chopped off. However, I like feel the cozy sweater around my wrists. I think I am going to have to take the jump and just do it. (Whenever I make something, there is often a stage where I don't want to take the big step, to try something new, to possibly ruin it... and I just have to go for it.)

The neckline has improved it already, so why the heck not? Plus, there's something awkward about the big shoulders on this sweater, they don't lay flat, so I'm thinking a wise chopping and stitching might improve the whole thing. Who knows. Maybe I'll ruin it. But I'm still counting it as my aedm item.

Oh, I also just wanted to say that I finally got my invite for pinterest and I am now officially obsessed. I may have to let go of my small and heartfelt blog for the pinterest boards, since I use s&h as a pin board of things I like, but it takes me about 20 times longer to do a s&h post as it does to click the little "pin it" button on my bookmark bar. Sorry if you liked the blog, but I just don't have the time to maintain it the way I would like. Come on over to pinterest. If you need an invite, email me and I think I can send you one.

Sex & Chocolate, Art & Writing

Sex & Chocolate

ink, repurposed menu

day 10 AEDM

Just a quick note, a quick sketch to get myself in there on this AEDM.

A friend asked me to sketch out a design for an invitation, so when I had some down time at work, I did. It made me remember that I've been doing invitations, posters, menus, tshirts and various other design projects since I was very young. I've even been paid for them.

I forget sometimes that I do that. I mean, I do it all by hand. I don't know anything about the various tools of the graphic design trade, from photoshop to screen printing, but I do it.

Maybe I should have gone to art school. Oh well.

Right now I'm too busy with the other parts of my life, and as soon as I finish this, I have to run downstairs and write my novel.

I didn't write yesterday because I was too confused. The cold plus a detour in the plotline took me off so I got lost. Today I think my brain is working a tiny bit better and I think I've decided to back up and start writing again from before I got derailed. I'm still keeping my word count from it, and the character who showed up might come back later, but I'm just going to skip over all that writing.

Wish me luck.

The Moon Was Up Here, or Creative Slumps and the Journey

the moon was up here...

watercolor, pencil, sharpie, on paper

November 9, day 9 AEDM

(It was dark, pre dawn, and the three of us walked along. On our way to the rest of our life.)

This is a quick sketch I did this morning. Well, I did the pencil yesterday and watercolor today, the ink too. I didn't want to think too much about it. I wanted to just let if be whatever came to my mind in the moment, thus the grammatical mistakes. Or perhaps the not my favorite choice for colors.

What I've learned from my years (yes years) of creative challenges, is that it often takes a while to find your groove. You start out excited for the challenge, with the opportunity to jump into some things that you have been thinking about for a while, then after a while, your ideas dry up and you kind of futz around, wondering what is going on, wondering what it is you should be doing, what it is you have to say, wondering if you have anything to say at all.

It would be really easy to stop in this point, because it's not a very fun point. That is where the commitment takes over. You keep going because you promised yourself you would. You keep looking for ways to be creative because you promised yourself you would. And it can be a grind.

But somewhere in that grind, you discover something that is meaningful to you, and it all starts making sense again and then you start having your ideas again, and your direction, and you learn new things about your technique and about your voice and the energy returns.

I am in the grind.

But I will continue on.

This is the process.

And it's all good.

How is your process going? Are you sticking with it? Are you living up to your commitments?

ps I think this may also go for all commitments, relationships, jobs, education, projects.

nanowwrimo: 30113 words, day 8

Can Eye Skip Today?

Eye.

Wax.

Day 8 AEDM

No, that is not a dried apricot.

That is an eye carved out of melted candle wax. I did it while avoiding my nanowrimo wordcount for today.

But I carved an eye.

And I hit 30 thousand words in my new novel. Bad words. Nonsense words. Words that will be removed when I finally figure out what words I SHOULD be writing in this book.

I am still cranky. I am still sick.

Can I skip today? (bad pun, I know. Plus, I did not skip today.)

The Pink Pennant Banner and The Grumpy Day

Pink Pennant Banner

repurposed kids clothes, tulle

AEDM, day 7

Well, good morning.

I have a cold and am tired and achey and cranky. DON'T mess with me.

However, I'm still trying to maintain my creative goals. Despite the way life have a tendency to whack one over the head with the busy stick. Eh, to be honest, it's my day off, I'm not that busy, except for the kids climbing all over me. Apparently they did not read my entry today, particularly the part where it said DON'T mess with me. Sigh.

But, to maintain AEDM, when I was feeling like a grump and having no ideas that were at all creative, I used my jar of creative ideas and pulled out a project that inspired my imagination in the past. I ended up pulling a project that I've been putting off for months.

I told the kids months ago that I would decorate their room like a circus. I figure it would be good for cross gender preferences, the lions and bright colors for the boy, and the sparkly decorations and pretty ladies for the girl.

One of the things I'd planned to do was to create coordinating pennant banners for each side of their rooms.

Pulling this project now made me go to my scrap clothing bin and pull out an old pair of pink camouflage sweat pants that Ivy was too big for. I would have preferred pink flowers or stripes, but those who are lazy cannot be picky. That would be me, the lazy one. I almost cut up a pink flowered dress that I didn't particularly like, but the girl saw me and cried out, "Oh not my princess dress!" and so a new princess dress-up dress was gained (seen in the first picture).

So pink camouflage it is. Please notice, I did not sew a darn thing. I just cut out triangles and slit little holes in the top. It's sweat shirt material, so it won't fray. That was part of the plan, my friends. A particularly nice detail, I thought, was when I realized that the roll of tulle I had leftover from another project would make a good ribbon. And it did. I used a bobby pin as a needle and threaded it through the slits I'd made in the top. Tied the ends into bows, and then pinned it up to the wall in her room.

Here it is, in her room. It's not a very good picture, but did I tell you I was lazy?

She likes to put her toys up at the top of her bed so she can make up stories about them. Along with the dolls and stuffed animals, there are a couple of fabric flowers, a pinwheel, a flower lei and a potty chart award, as well as a dream catcher, and barely visible to the side, her very own pink Flying Girl mobile. In this light, she kind of looks like a girl on the flying trapeze. She's already asked for a unicorn painting... and I either have to paint it or I have to buy something from etsy. The boy asked for a lion. Or was it a tiger? I don't remember.

Anyway. Grumpy and Sick Rowena has done her duty for AEDM. Grr.

I still have to go write for Nano, if I can dig up the time alone to do so. Grr.

I need some chicken soup and orange juice. Luckily, I made chicken soup two days ago when I felt the cold start to come on. Hey! I should put the chicken soup in my AEDM count.

Babette and the Balloon Flight, or Pace Yourself

Babette, dressed for Autumn balloon flying

repurposed menus, acrylic paint, pencil.

Lookie here! My Babette girl is wearing clothes. You can't see her underwear.

I drew an outfit inspired, actually, by Leah's aedm painting. It's not the first time her striped tights have reminded me how much I like striped tights.

But, I can see that I am just a beginning paper doll maker. I don't have the appropriate paper for this. I can't see through it to trace the doll and get a perfect shape, but I will admit that I made a pretty near guesstimate on the shape, making her only a few millimeters short. (At the bottom you can see her black pumps underneath the red mary janes.

ANYway, despite my flaws in the doll making, I think it's cute. She's got a green long sleeved undershirt, a light blue mini dress and a red/purple belt. All of this over the delightful green and blue striped tights, and the ruby mary jane slippers. I tossed in a pouch-purse, because it reminded me of the shape of balloons. What you don't see is the striped blue and green cap that I had to get rid of because my eyeballing it made it too dern small to fit over her head. Oh well.

As for Nanowrimo? I am slowing down. That's okay. I was going really fast before. Sometimes I set my goals too high, and then falling short makes me feel bad, so I have to recalibrate my expectations of myself. Another thing I have learned from nano years passed... if I set really high goals for myself and force myself to reach them (the first year I did 100k words, instead of the standard 50k) I end up burning out by the end of the month. Of course, I am more used to the intense pace of daily creative challenges, so I may be better able to manage them.

This whole creative life thing... it's a marathon, not a sprint. You may want to do intense fast sprints sometimes, but it's really hard to keep up that intensity in the long run.

Slow and steady wins the race, they say. Only you can define what that slow means. For me, I tend to make it be faster than other people write... but then I am a bit of a compulsive writer. I can't really stop myself from writing. I guess that's why I blog, too. And you should see my decades of journals.

All I can say is keep it up. You don't have to reach your goals all perfectly, but if you want to reach the end point, you do have to keep going. Pace yourself, figure out what works for you, but keep going.

The Sun

The Sun, (Flying Girl Tarot Card)

repurposed menu, pencil. acrylic paint, watercolor

I did this at work yesterday. Someone I know was having a hard day. I thought, you know, I don't have it in me to be a mom to everyone I know. I just don't have that much energy. I barely have it in me to be mom to my actual kids, but then I thought, I don't have to be a mom to everyone. I have something to give that is my own special thing to give.

Then I asked myself, if I had something to tell her, what would I have said? And the image that popped in my head was The Sun, from the tarot. And then of course, the song, Here Comes The Sun went singing through my head.

What did this image mean to me? As a message for her? Hard times come. There's no stopping them. But if you look at them as a passage we must travel through, if you understand that there is an end to struggle, and you understand that after darkness comes light, well, then, you know the struggle will have its own purpose. And you know the sun will come. Life will be joyous again. All is right with the world (even in those days/weeks/months when it seems like nothing is right).

And what kind of message is that for me? Because you know, all the messages I have for you are messages for me. When people buy prints and paintings from me on etsy, as I am packaging up those pieces, I am getting a message that I need to hear.

So what this piece is saying to me is to enjoy the sun that is shining today. No matter the struggles or worries, the sun is still shining. Even above the clouds, it is shining. Open yourself up to the joy of life, and let it be the beautiful life that it is.

nanowrimo: 20432

Babette and The Living

Babette, A Paper Doll (prototype)

paper, pencil, ink, acrylic paint

Yesterday, I got the urge to make a paper doll. I was standing around at work when the urge hit. So I whipped out some recycled menu scraps and started sketching. Woo hoo.

I also got some feedback from the other women at work. What woman doesn't like paper dolls? Actually, one of them came up with her name, "Babette," which gave me all sorts of ideas for possible outfits to design.

I'm still trying out ways to make this work, so I'm not sure if I won't have to make a couple of

different versions. I think perhaps her arms should not be so close to her body, and perhaps her feet should be slightly more apart, so as to make her shoes more visible. Shoes are part of fashion. Fashion is part of paper dolls.

Babette, detail

I have to admit that I was a little rushed while painting this. And I am not so sure that acrylic is the best medium for her. Or perhaps I was just unable to do it as smoothly as I wanted to. I also need to work on getting better pictures, but I am taking these photos when the sun is still not fully up. Yes. I work early in the morning. Perhaps daylight savings time will help with that.

All in all, I think she's a little clumsy in execution, but AEDM is not about perfection for me. It's about getting the ideas down. Getting the ideas out. It's about developing the practice of creating every day. And maybe some of that creating ends up being a great end product.

But you know, the end product is not the point. Not really. The point is the creating. Just like collecting material goods (art, paper dolls, clothes, money) is not the point of life. The point of life is living.

That said, I'm still going to create lovely outfits for Babette. Because I like fashion and I like clothes and I don't always have the opportunity to dress up myself. The point is not to always be the height of fashion, the point is to have fun with fashion. This is fun. Woo hoo.

Now I must start heading off for work. A little behind this morning. Lost my chance to write.

Hopefully I will be able to write when I get home today. There is no emergency in my word count, because I have been writing far above the word goal of 1667 words a day. I've been doing something ridiculous like 5k every day.

Now I like smashing my word goal every day. I like the challenge of reaching and surpassing my goals. I like finishing my scenes. I like getting past the rough patches, even though I don't particularly like being mired in the rough patches of the story. I just keep writing and I get myself out of the mess, sooner or later. And later still, I can go back and smooth out the rough edges and deleting the REALLY rough edges.

In this case, the output is the point. Except the quality of the output isn't. Just like with AEDM, it's about being creative, about the writing practice, and about getting the ideas out on paper so that I have a body of work to whip into shape.

And so.

Keep going. Roll with the rough patches. Keep going. Accept the flaws. Keep going. Live for the living. Keep going. Don't stop trying. Keep going. Sit down and create. The creating is the point. The living in the point.

Go for it.

nano word count: 16041 (day 3: 5457 words)

AEDM day 3: Babette the paper doll

Hi Ho, Silver-- I Mean, Glittery Ruby!

Glitter Ruby Horse (on desk, with plant and chocolate covered raisins.)

Plastic Cowboy Scene Horse, Gesso, Acrylic Paint, Acrylic Gel Medium, Glitter

11/02/10, AEDM #2

I had the urge, yesterday, to get some glitter out into the world.

Luckily, I had some glitter left over from Halloween projects. And unluckily for my kids' little toy horse, it was in my line of sight when the urge overtook me.

This could be a dangerous situation, as it is rather easy to turn something regular into something FABULOUS. Although it did demand patience, because there are four layers here, gesso, paint, gel medium (which might not be the best thing to make glitter stick) and glitter. And I needed to let most of these layers dry before moving on to the next. Which I did not. And it was hard to get the whole thing glittered without rubbing off some of the glitter that was already placed.

Anyway, I enjoy the broad definition of art in the AEDM rules, as this might be more properly defined as craft, but for me, I think it's a blurry distinction.

I showed my daughter, and she's already declared that she needs a pink glitter unicorn.

Glittery Ruby Horse on desk with plant and Creativity Jar

I also wanted to show you my jar of art projects.

I wrote ideas for projects on an index card, cut them up into little strips, then curled them on the end of a paintbrush and dropped them into the mason jar.

This is to help me out on those nights when I collapse on the couch after a long day, with nary a creative idea in my head.

I can reach over and pull a curly strip, and let chance decide how I will be creative that night. I haven't needed to do that yet, but I'm sure I will at some point. Every time I have a new idea, I write it down, make another strip and drop it in. And I also have no problem with rejecting an idea I pull, if I don't really want to do it. I don't want this to feel like work. I want it to be fun.

Last night, I was really tired and didn't want to create. I just wanted to be a shlub.... but I know that in order to develop the creative habit of nightly painting to the point where it is automatic instead of a chore I have to make myself do... I have to honor my commitment, my long term goal of creativity, rather than my short term desire to be lazy.

It's a delicate balance, trying to walk between that commitment and keeping it fun. But that's why we keep the rules light and flexible, so that there is room for both the commitment and the fun.

How are you doing in your creative commitments this month? Are you managing to remember that this is fun? Are you staying true to your long term desire to be creative, even though the fear pops up and tries to make you do something else, anything else?

Maybe the Glittery Ruby horse might serve as a reminder that we have to get back on that horse, if we want to get all the way to the end of our creative journeys. And yet, this is still a FABULOUS journey, full of joys and light and unexpected turns.

Hmm. Yes. I do think so.

I believe that Glittery Ruby Horse will find a place on my desk, as a muse to my creativity and a reminder to remember the joy.

(Now if only I can get her away from my daughter. Perhaps a promise of a glittery pink unicorn will do.)