Right Brain Redux: Day 21 of 30-day Creativity Challenge

Right Brain Redux Day 21: 3 Weeks In, and They Don't Suspect a Thing

Jessica's project at this milestone: "Make something for someone else". 

Kevin's was "Post a picture of the most interesting thing you saw today".

Kevin: Now, I may be fudging a bit here, because I didn't actually take this photo today. I took it a couple of days ago. But I did not actually SEE it until today. It's a straight-down shot of a little two-prong ginseng plant my mother found when she, I, and mini-me were in the woods the other day (we didn't dig it, but we did plant the berries it had). Besides the fact that ginseng is, to me, the most beautiful plant in the woods, the way the picture turned out was very intriguing to me. To my eye, it almost seems as if the little 'seng leaves are floating above a printed paper backdrop of fallen leaves rather than an unruly pile on the forest floor.

Jess: My task: Make something for someone

I enjoyed making the Zentangles so much that I decided to do a bookmark for Kevin. It was small enough that I figured I'd be able to finish it. (Zendoodles take longer than I thought they would!) Also, he really loved my first attempt. He enjoyed finding all the little symbols and guessing what each thing was based on. I put the bookmark on a page of my notebook to take a pic of it. 

Psalm 121:1-2 "I lift my eyes up to the hills- where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth." 

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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 18 of 30-day Creativity Challenge

Right Brain Redux Day 18: T-Shirt 2-4-1!

As luck would have it, today we both pulled T-Shirt assignments. Jessica has "Design a T-Shirt based on a verse of Scripture". I drew "Create a T-shirt that a 'Dr Who' fan will recognize without using any character's face or name".

Inspired by my favorite character from the 11th Doctor's tenure, I submit to you this heavily armed potato.

 

The verse Jessica chose as inspiration for her design was 2 Timothy 1:6 "Therefore, I remind you to keep ablaze the gift of God that is in you through the laying on of my hands." (HSCB) Especially focusing on the line "Keep ABLAZE the Gift of God that is in you". The idea behind this shirt is to create a piece that fulfills the challenge while also being a design that could be used for a potential future youth ministry.

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Right Brain Redux: Day 17 of 30-day Creativity Challenge

Right Brain Redux Day 17: You want Catch-Up on that?

Just to recap for those who have joined us recently: Jessica and myself are just over halfway through a 30-Day Creativity challenge. We randomly choose a single project for each of us daily. Each chooses from their own Challenge Jar. We call this Right Brain Redux, for the old saw that creativity is a function of the right brain, and Redux from the Latin meaning "to bring back, revived". If you have any suggestions for challenges, leave them in the comments and we might add our favorites to the jars.

Today we are still working on catching up. Catching up on sleep (a sick toddler will put you behind on it fast) and catching up on projects. Those of you keeping tally will realize we are actually a day behind, even though we made a post yesterday. I'm also feeling much better after the major surgery I had back in July, so I am also trying to finish the house now (as I have the energy. Better, but still not fully recovered). Our projects for today took us to some interesting places.

For today, Jessica pulled "Color a coloring sheet" while mine was "Draw a Superhero".

Kev: For my challenge to "Draw a Superhero", I decided to go outside of my box a bit. When I do superheroes, I prefer to draw my own characters. I rarely draw ones belonging to anyone else, except for maybe in a doodle. So I elected to draw someone else's character for today's project.

It took me a little while to decide who to draw. Right off, I knew I didn't want to draw a big time super-popular ten thousand pieces of fan art character. No Deadpool (sigh), no Wolverine, no Bats or Superman. I tried to think of an obscure character from Marvel or DC. Even looked at some lists. I couldn't make up my mind. Then I started thinking about that small stack of comics I had when I was a kid. Now, I'm not trying to tell a sad story, but up until I was about ten, we were let's say, less than affluent. I didn't get to go get comics all the time. Mostly, I read other peoples' comics. When I did get one of my own, it got read and reread until it fell apart.

One of those treasures was an issue of the 60's comic "Dr Solar, Man of the Atom". In this issue, Dr Solar is invited to some sort of scientific unveiling and realizes that the hi-tech floating city this guy has built is in fact a giant nuclear bomb. The villain turns out to be King Cybernoid, Solar's arch nemesis. They fight and the human face gets torn off cybernoid to show he is a robot underneath. Now, this was pre-Terminator, so my seven-year-old mind was blown at the thought that a human could be a robot under the skin.

I read this story so many times, I can't even begin to guess how many. But one thing about the comic is when it was handed down to me, it was sans cover. I used to draw covers for it all the time in those years. I still have the comic somewhere. And it hit me; I would, for the first time in probably twenty-five years, draw a cover for that issue of Solar.

Pencil on Canson Bristol Comic cover sheet. 11"x17"

Jessica, for her challenge of "Color a coloring sheet", chose a printable adult coloring sheet with a geometric pattern. She had heard from a number of people that these "Adult Coloring Books" were fun and relaxing. Not for Jessica. She found that while she might find it fun if she was already relaxed, coloring the sheet did nothing to relax her. Quite the opposite, in fact.

First, she had to choose between crayons, markers, and pencils. Then once she chose colored pencils, she had to choose between three set of those. Then, she started counting blocks in the pattern to decide on a sequence of colors. The set of pencils she is using is a 36-piece set. After several false starts that included reprinting the sheet at least four times and starting over, she finally narrowed the color palette down to eight pencils. Then she told me that she'd like to be painting some watercolors. She did finish the center of the pattern, but it definitely did not make her feel relaxed. She thinks that perhaps a new twist on something she already knows she enjoys would be more calming or relaxing after a long day of not feeling well following a night of little sleep. Something as rigid as the geometric pattern is more stressful than relaxing. She feels it might have been less so if she had chosen a less rigid, more organic design.

It wasn't a bad project. Turned out rather nice. I t just wasn't "relaxing".

Source: "Don't Eat the Paste" Blog  by Shala Kerrigan

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Right Brain Redux: Day 13 of 30-Day Creativity Challenge

Right Brain Redux: Day 13

It's T-shirt Thursday! Ok, so that's how it turned out, anyway. Today, both of us drew T-shirt design projects from our Challenge Jars. Jessica pulled "Design a 'Dr. Who' inspired t-shirt that a fan will recognize, but you can't use any character's name or face." I drew "Design a t-shirt based on/ inspired by a Bible verse."

(Kev) My first thought was to draw an "Armor of God" picture. I've imaged that in several different ways over the years, and I actually enjoy drawing it. But then again, that is a passage of Scripture, not a verse. Since this is a challenge, I elected to select a single verse to interpret. I went with Philippians 4:13.

"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. " (KJV)

The original image in my head was of the letters outlined in white with black and white images of people doing things inside. But it just didn't look right. So I went with the text instead. The tough part of these challenges is getting them done in a short time. The nice part is that we are getting something down as a design, but we intend on revisiting the good ideas and refining them to completed designs after the challenge is over.

The thought of "DO" has been on my mind for the last while, especially when I think of that verse. "Do" puts action to something. It is also a command or instruction. "Do this." We say "I AM a Christian." To me, I just keep thinking about "Being" verses "Doing". Are we "Doing" Christianity for the world to see? When "I am", it is a statement. When "I do" it is action visible to the naked eye. Just my thoughts.

Go Do.

(Jess) When I read my challenge, the first thing I thought of was the "Bad Wolf" graffiti because I love graffiti. And that's my favorite season of the The Doctor anyway. Then I realized that there was already a lot of those designs out there. After thinking a bit, I chose to do "Bad Wolf" in Gallifreyan. I found several sites with the alphabet and showing you how to read and write it. There seems to be a couple of different versions out there, but I settled on one and turned the words into this design. How you write it and form words is very interesting. It's far from just being a simple substitution alphabet. I found myself lost in studying how to read it, and I had to make myself stop in order to finish the project.

And as Kevin mentioned, the good ideas we will revisit and refine later. This is one I definitely want to give a second (and third and fourth and...) go over. I really like the concept, but I want to spend more hands-on time with this design and the writing itself. Most likely with my own hands instead of digitally, so I can give it my style. I like... need that control when it comes to design.

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Right Brain Redux: Day 3 of 30 Day Creativity Challenge

Sundays are busy days for us, so time for the challenge was definitely part of the challenge. My (Kev) Jar pull for today was to write a poem (length and type unspecified) on a subject chosen at random by Mini-me. He chose for me "Spider-Man". I debated for a while over what kind of poem to try. Now, I'm no poetry aficionado. I do enjoy a limerick every now and again, and I can appreciate good poetry. As far as writing goes, I'm merely a dabbler. So here you have it:

Superhero when he crawls the walls

Peter Parker when he walks the halls

Intent for evil brings his attention

Dumb crooks in police detention

Extra headlines for Triple J

Really makes for big payday

May never knows where he's been

Always honors his Uncle Ben

Never lets evil doers win!

C'mon, Monday! Bring it on!

Kev

Jess // Day 3 Challenge: Take a Photograph of Something Intriguing

I had originally thought I'd try to ride around to find my photography subject. I had an idea of something involving old bricks, unexpected pops of color, and/or something you'd most likely pass by with no second thought. Those subjects will surely find me another day though as I'm always looking for them. Like Kev said, Sundays are our busiest days, and by this evening, I was also feeling rough... that sinus infection is coming for me. So I grabbed my camera and headed outside before I lost the daylight. Hope for a couple of pics, probably macro shots, I had, but what I didn't expect was later choosing 1 of 80 shots.

I find unattractive things intriguing. I'm obsessed with rust and chipped paint. Algae, moss, and rotting things make for perfect subjects. Maybe it's drawing out their intriguing qualities that makes me feel like I've redeemed them in some way. I'm sure I could analyze why that's so, but to make this blog entry a little more succinct, I'll move on. Here's the picture I finally decided to post (no small task due to incurable indecisiveness.)

Here's where that indecisiveness hits again... what I like about it: color, rust, paint chipping, something you'd likely pass by or not notice, a bonus spider web, and even a hidden spider to find. Do you see it?

I might get this one printed, and I'll probably post a few of the other 79 shots at some point too. Day 4, I'm ready!

Jess



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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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Creativity Challenge: Day 1

Right Brain Redux
30-Day Creativity Challenge
Day: 1

Kev: Fill a page with doodles

Idea Source: Emily Potts, "5 Drawing Exercises to Turn Anyone Into an Artist"

Jess: Complete a drawing based on a toddler scribble

Results to come, so check back later.