Creativ Magazine

I have a new issue of the magazine Creativ. You can find it at Chapters, select International News locations and McNally Robinson - which is not in Vancouver. The front and back covers, above, show the free-thinking approach. The front cover is even slightly molded- while the back has the back view of the panda! Inside there is some of the most beautiful photography you will see anywhere and lots of inspiring pieces about people who asked "what if ?" and came up with something definitely out of the ordinary. There is: a French photographer who reimagined superheroes in the style of old Flemish paintings, fashion forward pants that come with the stories behind the block prints, a  surprisingly beautiful hand-cut sculpture of a bacterium, an unusual story about a physicist who says "Science is the journey of human intention; it is the process of risking it all for the chance of expanding what it means to be human", eco-playgrounds, an amazing painting of Manhattan - and that's not all. Both inspiring and thought-provoking, this tribute to creativity is a good one for artists and all creative thinkers to ponder. Hopefully, we can all rise to new levels of creativity.

Into February

I just did the February newsletter and used this pastel that I did at Life Drawing January 30th. The model is Ariel and we had her again at Adrienne's today. I totally love her hair! It is fun to draw.
I've been reading Janna Malamud Smith's book "An absorbing errand- how artists and craftsmen make their way to mastery". This is a book well worth reading if you write or do  any of the arts. She talks about the need to be alone to work in privacy but says "we also need to be stirred up, stimulated and challenged by others, especially others who share our interests and with whom we feel some modicum of mutual respect." She also says " our own thinking  and creativity are often better catalyzed and stimulated in discourse, not in isolation". I know that for me, being in my drawing group or having a demo at a Guild meeting can set the wheels of creative thinking rolling. For the past while, I've been putting notes from what the demo speaker had to say, right in my sketch book. I often do a drawing of the demo artist too! Then I think about it and write what my take is. Sometimes it is one little idea - for example I think I'll make an accordion sketch book just for fun. I think I'd use mine for Life Drawing. Sometimes I write that I can appreciate what the artist is doing but would not want to work that way myself. Even that is good, because it means I've thought about the way I work and why it works for me.