Right Brain Redux: Day 20 of 30-day Creativity Challenge

Right Brain Redux Day 20: Blind Man's Bluff

At the 2/3 mark, Kevin had to draw while blindfolded and Jessica was challenged with "Draw Zentangles".

Kevin: "Draw without looking at the paper". That's what the challenge slip I pulled out of the jar for today said. Without looking? I knew that was impossible. So I grabbed a blindfold. Because I knew, jest knew I wouldn't be able to resist looking.

For my subject matter, I chose three characters that I have drawn before.  Two of them very frequently and for years. I used a Pilot G2 gel pen on plain printer paper. I spent about 5 minutes on each drawing. Overall a fun little experiment. I used the fingers of my left hand as placeholders to give me an idea where I had drawn what, but it was still tricky, as Hulk's puny left arm and Warhawk's skinny legs attest. Here are the drawings.

First up is Marvel's Hulk.

Second was Optimus Prime.

And thirdly I drew one of my original characters that I've been drawing over and over since creating him about 25 years ago, Warhawk. Since most of you will have never seen Warhawk, I included a quick sketch of how he's supposed to look.

Jess: Draw a Zentangle

So what's a zentangle? "The Zentangle Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns." I think mine probably turned out more doodle than zentangle. Here are my results before I had to stop because my hands hurt too badly. I really didn't want to quit. These are a lot of fun actually.

Can't wait to finish it.

I love to create to music. Here's what I'm listening to tonight:


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Right Brain Redux: Day 15 of 30-day Creativity Challenge

Right Brain Redux Day 15: Super Scary Saturday

Me n Mini-me hit the woods this morning to try and find us some ginseng (along with MawMaw). We only found two diggable plants (Have to be at least a 3-prong, so we couldn't dig the smaller stuff we found). Fun time, but it ate up a lot of the day. The projects for today were:

Kevin: Draw something that scares you.

Jessica: Create a timeline of significant events in your life.

(Kev): Right off the bat, my first thoughts were to draw a monster of something. To see what I could imagine that was super-scary (Hey, anybody remember/ miss "Super Scary Saturday" on TBS? Old monster movies hosted by Grandpa Munster.) But I digress. It dawned on me that I should draw what I am scared of, not just something scary-looking. So I thought about it.

I'm not really worried about monsters and a lot of stuff like that. Roller coasters, now... THEM'S SCARY! I used to love 'em. Would stay on them all day when we went to amusement parks. Then I got hurt on one when I was a kid and ever since then, they freak me out. I rode the Scooby-Doo kiddie coaster at Carowinds and by the time it stopped I was a heap in the floorboards. Is that still there or did I just date myself?

Clowns gimmee the heebie-jeebies. 'Nuff said.

There's a 3rd fear in there. Bonus points to anyone who spots it. Not a current fear, but a recurring childhood and young adulthood nightmare.

Jess: Create a timeline of the most significant moments of your life. I took a little bit different approach with this task in choosing a theme of "What I want to be..." 

I freely admit to having some pretty random things on my timeline. Notice also a pattern of wanting to be creative. Random is definitely my style and how I think, and I no longer apologize for that. 

1981: Alive!
1984: Read "Harold & the Purple Crayon" and decided that was the life for me, drawing everything!
1985: Full-time babysitter of my new little sister
1986: Head Playground Activity Coordinator (The Boss of Kindergarten)
1987: Dump truck driver just like my Daddy & Personal body guard to my two little sisters

1988: Jem's Personal Stylist- Truly Outrageous! and 
A Dancer because I just knew I was better than Paula Abdul, straight up!
1990: Wedding Dress Designer (None of you fellow 4th graders called me up for your designs. What's up with that?!?) & Inventor of new art supplies (I totally invented colored glue!)
1993: Person who studies sharks because Ichthyologist sounded really cool and confused adults when they asked "what do you want to be when you grow up?"
1994: Fashion & Shoe Designer
1996: Writer / Journalist / Poet
1998: Dream school= Savannah College of Art & Design // Majoring in Textiles & Furniture Design

2001: Photographer
2002: Not a loser or failure at life // The best mommy I can be to my baby
2005: Founder of a non-profit- counseling children and teens utilizing the arts as therapy

2007: ??? Honestly, I had no idea. I felt really lost when it came to goals in life. I really had to pray and seek God for direction.
2008: Graphic Designer & A great, loving wife

2009: Branding consultant for small businesses, especially start-ups
2010: Jewelry Designer

2013: Artist // The BEST mommy I can be to 2 awesome boys!

2015: After a great deal of prayer and fasting, Kevin & I realized we were both being led to start a Kids' Church ministry. // Children's Church Co-Pastor & whatever God wants me to be

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Right Brain Redux: Day 8 of 30-day Creativity Challenge

Right Brain Redux: Day Ate

Eighth day of the challenge. Gone all day long for Dr appointments. But that's life. So today, Jess pulled "Recreate a childhood art project" while I drew "Create a piece of art inspired/ based on an everyday object".

Jessica told me that when she was a kid, she'd take a ruler or an object, place it on the paper, and draw around it to fill the paper with geometric shapes. Then, she'd take out the crayon box and her self-imposed design parameter was to use every single color to fill in the shapes she'd made.

Tonight's project is a recreation of this using circles and restraint (hey, it's supposed to be a challenge, right?).  Four different sizes of circles were overlapped to create a series of curves. Color was applied with watercolor pencils and brushed smooth. Some arcs were left white for negative space effects. Personally, I love the end result she came out with. I want to keep it.

Now, for myself (Kev), I actually had an idea for what I would do for this project when Jess drew it a few days back. I would have preferred to create this digitally, but Photoshop isn't a current option. So I went with gouache and pencil. I haven't worked with gouache much, but I think I like it. I laid down my shapes in pencil, then painted over and tightened back up with watercolor pencils. I actually agonized over my color choices for a while, knowing that once I put it to the paper there was no going back. Digital doesn't have that sort of commitment. It was sort of fun to just go with it, knowing that there was no turning back. Kind of like jumping off the bridge into the river (don't tell my mom I did that when I was 12... 30 years ago and I'd still catch it for that).

Oh yeah, my inspiration was a fork and plate. I had the thought of them so close up, they were just curves. This is another project I'd like to revisit later on. Maybe in a medium I am more experienced/ familiar with.

22 more projects to go. Ain't this fun? (Big grin goes here)

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Right Brain Redux: Day 7 of 30-day Creativity Challenge

Right Brain Redux
Episode 7: Revenge of the Sick

Great day for creativity. Every last one of us woke up sick this morning. Even Little slept till after 9, and he's usually up with the chickens. It's a challenge, right? Every day is a challenge of its own, and we keep on getting reminded of that. That very thing has a lot to do with the creative doldrums we are breaking out of here. Accountability and a structure keeps us rolling.

Kevin: Draw something left-handed

Jess: Cook something you've never cooked before













Jess // "Cook something you've never cooked before"

Honestly, it's been a rough day. I (Jess) know I'm sick because I'm sitting here in a long-sleeved shirt and socks. I DON'T wear socks in the summer... I rarely wear anything beyond flip flops/ sandals. Growing up in Georgia, it's easy to push that no-socks rule clear into October. 

Anyway, I slept while our Little One took a nap, and then had to go back to bed again after dinner. I did end up making something I've never cooked before and learned something to boot. Anything in our lives can be seen through a filter of creativity... think "how can I do this different/ creatively"? 

I had some leftover beef and broth from cooking a roast in the slow cooker. It was marinated in Soy Vay Teriyaki, soy, ketchup, onions, and some water. I mostly had stock and just a little meat, so I thought "how can I stretch this?" (Thanks, Mom, for that lesson of many.) Soup seemed a perfect solution, especially since we were all feeling puny today.

Tossed some stir-fry veggies (baby corn, peppers, peas, carrots, sugar snaps, broccoli, water chestnuts, and bamboo shoots) with lo mein noodles, and that leftover stock in a large pot. Let it boil then simmer for about 15 minutes. Done. Something I've never cooked before, Teriyaki Vegetable Beef Soup. 

Kevin // My (Kev) challenge for today was the same one Jess had yesterday: Draw something left-handed. She set the bar pretty high on that one, but lucky for me we aren't competing. I wasn't quite sure what to draw, and put it off till later in the evening because I just didn't feel like drawing (see accountability above). A gunfighter and a dragon were both rattling around in my head, so I decided to try both, despite being warned that I was being overly ambitious. The results are below for you to see.

This one really was a challenge. One of the biggest difficulties I encountered was my hand wanted to move in the exact mirror image of what I wanted it to. Up and down were fine, but left-right was reversed. I did not finish. But I did write a story in my head while I drew it.

11x17 on Canson Bristol

Doc walked up on the porch and sat down next to the Marshall. The huge corpse in the street was already drawing scavengers both human and animal. Lots of meat and leather to be had.

"Hated to see that happen, Doc. Ol' Joe been a fixture around these parts as long as I can remember."

"Hated to have to do it, Marshall," came the sad reply, "Joe's the third one I've had to put down in the last month. Had to deal with that big finback out on the McKeever place just last week. Half their herd is gone."

"Doc, I ain't never seen anything like this. They're usually pretty even tempered critters, long as you give 'em wide berth. What you think's goin on?"

Doc leaned his chair back and took a long pull on his freshly-lit pipe, "I tell you this much, Marshall; No one's safe in these parts until we figure out what's got the dragons riled up."

What we're listening to // Music to create by











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Right Brain Redux: Day 6 of 30-Day Creativity Challenge

Right Brain Redux: Day 6

Today's Challenges were for Jess to draw something left handed and for myself to create a timeline of significant events in my life.

For my challenge, I decided to jot down a quick list of events that stand out in my mind. Things that happened to me, not historical events. I eliminated a few items from the timeline as being too personal to share online, but the ones that I left are memories that, I feel, helped shape who I m now.

Just writing out a list was a little clinical, so I decided to represent it with a cartoon infographic. It's just a quick ink and marker doodle timeline due to today being crammed again. I am going to list out each event on the timeline just in case you can't read what it says.

First, Here's the whole thing:

1973: Issue #1, First appearance and Origin of ME!

1976: Broke arm, got first sister

1977: Watched a massive flood from my bedroom window. We lived up on the hill. I watched trailers go down the river.

1979: Started school. Principal's office on first day of kindergarten

1982: Got saved

1984: Transformers! Life would never be the same.

1988: Pawpaw Bill died

1989: 2nd sister, 1st car

1992: Graduate HS (Valedictorian)

1994: Bad wreck, wrecked truck

1996: Started Working first full time job

1998: Grandmaw died

2003: Appendix ruptured, died, came back (am I a zombie, then?)

2004: Met Jess online

2008: Broke leg, Met Jess for real, Married Jess, my Mini-Me called me "daddy", Move to GA

2013 Little arrives! (Name loosely translates to "Peaceful Builder"... answers to "Hurricane")

2014 Moved back to WV

2015 Children's' Pastor FWC Kid's Church "Spark Kids"!

Good start, eh?

Jessica selected a very detailed close-up of a dandelion scattering its seeds as her left handed art project. It's done on plain copier paper with a #2 mechanical pencil. Totally freehand and done completely with her left hand. She felt it was unfinished, but her hand was cramping too badly to continue (carpal tunnel). I think it is beautiful. Art is often like raising a child; you may not feel you are done shaping them, but there is a time they are mature enough to stand on their own. And this piece definitely is. She has set the bar quite high for me when it comes my turn to do this challenge.

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Right Brain Redux: Day Two Updated Projects

Right Brain Redux: Day 2

Today was one of those days. You know the ones: those days where everything comes up and goes haywire (especially the toddler) and by the time that you've done all the errand running and putting out fires and hidden the matches (Jess, not really, this is a hypothetical situation) from the toddler again and maybe chased down a bite to eat (that the toddler carried through the house) there just doesn't seem to be any time left for, well, anything. Well, that's where we found ourselves today. Between the errands and getting ready for Kid's Church tomorrow, there really didn't seem to be time to squeeze in a creative project this evening.

We started this little experiment as a way to kick start our creativity after it's been idle for so long, but today it has also shown us that you CAN find time to create. You just have to want to. Maybe you give up something else for it. The relaxing bath. Another episode of Dr. Who. Part of your sleep. You just decide which one is the most important to you.

Today's challenges were:

Jessica: Create a piece from/ inspired by an everyday object.

Jess took her inspiration from something most of us see every day, and incidentally our studio name. She began with a stove burner/ eye from an electric stove and stripped it down to its basic shapes and curves.  Framing a portion of the eye in the image and stripping out the colors, she added some old-fashioned halftones and created an image that I would almost swear was a domed city from one of my old Buck Rogers comics I had as a kid. I love it.

Kevin: Design a T-Shirt based on a visual pun.

I actually thought this one up yesterday without having any idea I would draw this particular challenge today. The phrase I punned was the title of the old hymn "Power in the Blood". I took the image of a blood bag and simply placed a universal style power button in the middle of it. I had thought of doing a blood splatter with the button in it, but I just didn't have time. I went old-school in the creation of this image. Light pencil sketch, inked over and the pencil erased, then colored in with some Twenty-year-old Prismacolor markers I bought way back in art school. The red one gave me its last I think. After coloring in, I went over the red with alcohol on gauze to feather it out a bit and blend.

Neither of these pieces took and extremely large amount of time to create. In fact, I'd guess about an hour apiece. Proof that you CAN find time to create. They may not be perfect design, but they are perfect imperfection. And that's art.

See you tomorrow for Round 3!

Kev

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Right Brain Redux : Day 2 Project Challenges

Our challenges for day two have been drawn from the jars. 

Check back to see how the challenge goes! 

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