Nurturing Creativity-Part I

Nurturing creativity is a big job but I am up for it! For me, it's not as simple as walking into the studio and picking up a paint brush. My whole life needs to be about living full out passionately and creatively as a way to feed my heart and soul.  Hopefully, that focus translates to what I create in my studio.

Thinking back on the past few days of what fed my creativity I noticed these are some of the things that brought inspiration to me:


Dancing. There is always dancing before dipping my brush into paint.  I also had a ton of fun dancing and drumming this weekend at our Co-housing Community's Annual Feast Day.

Doodling and sketching. I think I have always had a writing instrument in my hand since birth. It helps the old ADD situation to scribble while attempting to concentrate!

 
Life Drawing Group is a a new found lifeline.for me. It's so very different from the work I do professionally. It truly creates new openings in my brain that make things flow a bit easier when I hit that canvas with cold wax! I LOVE it!

The Artist's Way. Huge topic but something that has helped me uncover my creativity and feeds my spirituality beyond measure. I have participated in many groups, facilitated some and even attended one led my Julia Cameron herself.  The entire process is a lifestyle for me that I recommend to anyone wanting to know themselves better.

Nature is critical in nourishing my creativity. I mean, I paint trees. I owe it to them to be out there with them showing them my gratitude. Plus, it's clearly fall in Santa Fe and that makes my heart sing!

Meditation happens almost every morning of my life and keeps me on the sane side of the scale so I can get crazy with paint after I've had coffee!

Photography- nothing fancy here. But, taking pics of ordinary things gives me moments of focus and appreciation for the beautiful things surrounding me.  

"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it" Alice Walker

Who knows I might even be inspired to paint something purple!

Thanks for stopping by. I'll post Part II on what helps me stay inspired later.

My website has some new paintings and  news of upcoming events. I hope you will visit me there and sign up for my newsletter. http://lisaadamsreed.com/

On this beautiful fall day that's HOW I SEE IT!  What inspires you??

Sacred Sepia

There are so many inexpensive and even free workshops online. FREE fits right into my budget! I signed up for a cool little series of Visual Journaling workshops and took the first today.  http://www.strathmoreartist.com/vjworkshop2011.html.

It was more fun than a barrel of monkeys collaging with bits and pieces of old sketches, photos and miscellaneous ephemera!

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Step 2--added a little depth, definition and softened some edges with colored pencil

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Step 3
I think I mushed this one up trying the oil pastel route. It's either take a class or trash those suckers! Poor lady, looks like she got socked in the face. Back to the drawing board!

Last step. Hard to see the changes actually. Changed the Artist's Way to Enjoy and it's definition.There is alot of metallic added to with ink, pigment and markers that simply don't show up in this post. Per the lesson, I added some designs and doodles in the negative spaces, added some white and darkened some lines. a very fun exercise. Now, on the finish the next! (Not that I won't revisit this one at some point!)

As I said, I had to revisit this project. I am addicted to altering images in http://www.picnik.com/  It is so much fun!! This is simply "reversing" the previous image. I think it is far more interesting than the original, but I love color and these colors appeal to my senses.