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 14 of 30-day Creativity Challenge

Right Brain Redux Day 14: Bluebelly the Pirate

Started today out in the woods with Mini-Me, hunting some 'Seng (Ginseng). Didn't find any this time, but still had a good time. Today's Challenge projects were:

Jess: Create a new Pandora station, then create a piece of art inspired by the third song that plays.

Kev: Finger paint with the boys and post the results.

It wasn't hard to get Mini-me on board with the finger painting. He went to town as soon as we sat down. Little took a little more convincing. First he wanted to wave the paper around. Then as soon as there was paint on his finger, he had to taste it. Must've been pretty bad, based on the face he made and the fact that he didn't try to eat it anymore. After I put his finger on the paper and showed him he could make a streak, he lit up. He was pointing at colors that he wanted and holding his hand out for me to wipe when he got too much paint on it.

Mini-me finished his piece solo while I supervised Little on his first one. Then all three of us got our hands on the third piece (literally. All 3 of our handprints are on it). I even got Jess some of Little's handprints in her sketchbook before we were done. Then, Bluebelly the Pirate made his first appearance. Shortly thereafter, he began to Hulk out and then went for a scrub. But not until he painted MY belly, too.

Mini-me never said what he was painting, but to me it looks like the woods when the leaves start to turn. Which we did see one tree already changing color this morning, so maybe that was in his head still.

Who knows what Little was painting, but he was very deliberate with his color choices and placement on his solo piece. And belly.

Jess: Create a new Pandora station, then create a piece based on the third song that plays.

My song was "Freedom" by Warr Acres. This song brought into my mind the thought of "Crying out to God". So I looked for verses that fit that feeling. I came across "In my distress I called to the Lord". The image I chose was of a hand, reaching out for help. I placed the verse within the hand. Outside of the hand I added the verse "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, and turn from their wicked way, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land. 2 Chr 7:14". After this, I needed to look up the reference/ location of the scripture on the hand, because I couldn't remember it.

It turns out this phrase appears in 5 different places in the Bible, giving me one verse reference for each finger on the hand. I did NOT plan this. God is amazing.

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Right Brain Redux: Day 9 of 30-day Creativity Challenge

Right Brain Redux: Day 9

Coincidences do happen, I guess. One way or another, Jessica and I both have the same challenge today:

"Write a Haiku about something you can see right now".

Jessica drew hers in the living room late in the day, while I drew mine early in the morning in our bedroom/ office. This gave us a very different range of subjects to choose from.

Jess: When I pulled my challenge out and saw it, the first thing I saw was the living room itself. I had the indelible stamp of Little on it. All over it, in fact. Every time I looked back at the room to try and choose a subject, the only thing I could see was the room itself. It got cleaned up at least three times today. (Yeah, he didn't feel well today, so he was a little off his game.)

Epic Destruction

Home Lays In Ruins Today

We Have A Toddler

Kevin: I actually had a time picking my subject for the Haiku. What I can see from my desk chair gives me a lot of possibilities. Too many, actually. So I narrowed it down to my desktop itself. (Single letters are words)

Nine S D Cards Here

Fifteen G B Of Treasures?

Yep Mostly My Kids

Fun!

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Right Brain Redux : Day 1 Projects

Today marked the first day of the thirty-day art challenge we set for ourselves as outlined in our previous blog post. Jessica's first draw from the Challenge Jar was to take a scribble/doodle drawn by our toddler boy and turn it into a finished drawing.  My first pick was to fill an entire page with doodles. Mini-me (our older  son) joined in as well, being allowed to choose between our projects. He chose to do the page full of doodles with me.

Jessica has titled her piece "Sad Flower". The first image is the scribble by Little, the second is her finished drawing. On a day when she draws out a simpler project, she intends to go back and color this one in. I love her line work on this. She gave Little a sharpie and a sheet of paper and let him doodle for a few minutes (Had to take it away when he started drawing on the high chair and his hand). Then Jessica let the paper stay on the table for a good part of the day, looking at it as she passed by, occasionally turning it to different angles until all at once the image leapt out at her. "Once I'd seen it, it couldn't be unseen."

It took a few minutes and a couple of false starts to get Mini-me to understand what I meant by a page full of doodles. The idea we went with was no plan. Just put your brain in neutral and draw whatever popped into it. He was reluctant at first, worried about it being "good", or if it was as good as mine. I told him that he didn't need to compare his work to mine. Only to himself and what he had done before. As he loosened up, he really got into it, and I think he turned out a wonderful piece. It's really a big deal for him to create something so abstract and unstructured, being where he is on the autism spectrum.  I was delighted when I looked at it after he went to bed and followed all the patterns around to the "Bad Wolf".

I began my piece in the top left corner and worked my way down and around the page.  I spent a little time trying to hard in that first crowded corner, but as I went counterclockwise around the page it began to flow a lot better. The last part came out less detailed (top right corner) because time was slipping away from me. I put my project off till the evening because I was gone a large part of the day, and then Little decided he didn't want to go to bed. Lately, he lays down when big brother does and goes right to sleep. Tonight he decided to fight it for over an hour, and I finally had to hold him for half an hour before he gave it up. I know that's not artistic information, but it is life with Spectrum kids. It's part of our process.

It's always surprising to me the things I find in the shapes when I start to doodle. I don't always end up with what I think I'm starting to draw. BEWARE THE BANINJA! (Bananas are ninjas. Really. You ever heard one sneaking up on you? That proves my point.)

Can't wait to see what tomorrow has in store!

P.S. If you have any suggestions for challenges, put them in the comments section.  We may just add them to the jar for the next round.

Jess needed our toddler to draw a picture for her challenge. 

Here's what he gave her to work with.

And here's what she produced from Little's drawing, "Sad Flower."

Our older son joined in on the challenge. He chose "Fill A Paper With Doodles."

Kevin's Challenge for Day 1: "Fill a Page with Doodles"

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Right Brain Redux

Right Brain Redux

(30-Day Creativity Challenge)

Redux- adjective 1. brought back; resurgent; 1650-60; < Latin: returning (as from war or exile)

In honor of back-to-school, Jessica and I have decided to subject ourselves to a creative experiment. I know, School started yesterday and we are a day behind. Trust me, that's early for me.

With so many things going on in our family life over the past year (Moving to a new house, moving to a new state, Starting a Kids' Church Ministry from scratch, Remodeling a house in the new state, moving into the new house in the new state, major surgery-- all while juggling the rest of the usual stuff of living and working and raising two awesome autistic boys.) our creative lives have really taken a hit. We've tried to eke out time to art here and there, but often we just haven't been able to find it. Or we're too worn out from chasing a toddler who has decided he will only answer to "Hurricane" for the day.

So here's the challenge we've set for ourselves; together, we have created a list of creative challenges to be performed one per day over the next thirty days. There are about forty in all and have been printed on slips of paper which are folded and placed into Challenge Jars.

Each of us has our own jar with the exact same set of papers, but to keep it interesting we will each select one challenge per day from our own Challenge Jar. This way, we probably won't be doing the same challenge on the same day, but we should have done most of the same projects over the course of the challenge. The projects cover everything from drawing and painting to photography and writing. One day I might have to write a haiku on a subject chosen by my son while Jessica draws a friendly robot or finger paints with the boys.

The randomness of the challenge is designed to flex our creative muscles and give us a workout. The projects are simple enough to complete in the course of a day. The one-day deadline is to keep us moving. We will be posting our challenge for you to see each morning, and the results each evening. You can feel free to join in and try your hand at each day's challenge if you'd like.

It's gonna be a crazy-fun month!

Kevin

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