Quinn McDonald's Blog, page 89

Saturday Link Stroll

Saturdays are a good time to stroll around the interwebs and find interesting projects, goofy time wasters and clever mind teasers. All for creative fun.

For altered book artists, go take a peek at GoMakeSomething, who has a list of elements to add to altered books, each with a how-to link, including one for 350 ideas for altered books, as well as how to do a layout for one.

Colored pencils from metu.edu.tr

Altair Designs provides you with different geometric patterns, a brush, a color selector and a few auto-fill in tools. You can color in designs, save them, email them, and see other people’s work in a gallery. Surprisingly enjoyable; a great way to explore color combinations you’ve been wanting to  work on.

Tired of explaining your project progress  to your peers? Here’s a jargon generator that creates empty, meaningless phrases for you. The advantage is that these phrases sound important. Who wouldn’t want to empower cross-market e-platforms?

Thanks to frequent commenter Pete Harbeson, who sent (some time ago) this map quiz with a twist. The maps are shown, complete with colors, demarcations and scales, but there is no explanation. Using only the information shown and your basic knowledge of, try to guess what information the map shows. It’s not about geography, it’s about information.

More on found poetry: Logolalia is a site dedicated to artists’ collaborations. The link points to an artist who is working through a page of a book a day, looking for found poetry. It’s visually and poetically interesting.

And finally, TinyBuddha gives you simple advice for a complex life. In this link, 7 keys to happiness.

—Quinn McDonald is at the Apple store, praying that they can restore her Mac to good function. Keep your fingers crossed. She is glad her calendar is on her iPhone.

Filed under: Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: Creativity, creativity coach

The Confusing Lines We Draw

A good, meditative exercise is to load a watercolor brush with a primary color and then draw the thinnest, straightest line possible vertically on the page. After a few of those lines, start to add another primary color–yellow to blue, yellow to red, blue to red to get another color.The lines drift across the page, some really nice, some not.

After some straight ones, start to vary the thickness of the line by pushing the brush down, releasing more paint.  You don’t need a high-quality brush, you are not aiming for perfect, you are creating a space to listen.

We talk a lot in our heads. Stopping the talk to listen is the heart of creativity.

Anyone can do the painting, but the silence is a bit trickier. Because the Inner Critic shows up with one of the standard lines she uses.

Today while talking to a client, she told me about an experience that made me nod in recognition and laugh with her. The Inner Critic isn’t logical or reasonable, just always loud and threatening.

My client said the first thing the inner critic said was “these lines are crap.” And she believed it. Well, of course it was crap. Lines on a page. What else could it be? The client had a bit of a struggle, because she had enjoyed the exercise, liked the grounding and liked the simple pattern and colors.

“Well,” she thought, “then I’ll turn it into a journal page background.”

“NOOOOO!” screamed the Inner Critic. “Don’t ruin it! It’s ART!”

From crap to art, just like that. And she suddenly saw the purpose of the Inner Critic–that no matter what you do, no matter what you choose, to the Inner Critic, it’s wrong. You are wrong. Your Inner Critic will chase you in a circle, just to watch you get dizzy and fall over.

The Inner critic says both “it’s crap” and “don’t write over it, it’s art.” There is no appeasing the inner critic. It’s wise to listen, and also wise to choose a path that moves away from the voice of the Inner Critic. Choose a direction you can believe in, and get busy working on that direction. The Inner Critic is not you and is not your compass. You own that. Follow your own wisdom.

–Quinn McDonald is writing a book on conversations with the Inner Critic. She’s having a lot of them.

Filed under: Creativity, Inner Critic, Raw Art Journaling, Recovering Perfectionists Tagged: Creativity and the inner critic, creativity coaching

Adding a Pocket to an Art Journal

Building a journal is fun, but no journal is complete for me without a pocket in the back to hold ephemera I want to use, but haven’t developed a page for yet.

I’ve fallen in love with library pockets–original ones preferred–to add storage capacity to my journals. They can be glued in where needed. I also like to join them in a variety of ways, and use them as accordion books on their own.

Here’s a good short video I found on adding a gusseted pocket to the back of a handmade or purchased journal. I have just one warning–never glue on your cutting mat. The tiniest smear of glue on the mat will create a bump that will wreck your next project. Glue on a magazine, flipping the page with each new glue step.

Video courtesy:  “makezine.com: Maker’s Notebook“, posted with vodpod

—Quinn McDonal is an art journaler and creativity coach who is working on a book on confronting the inner critic.

Filed under: Creativity, Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: art journal, journal pocket tutorial, pockets in an art journal, tutorial

Tea-Dyed Projects (Loose-Leaf Journal Pages)

Tea-dying is ancient. And modern. And flexible and inventive. Here are three projects that you can do with four tea bags.

You’ll need:

4 tea bags of any black or red tea
Filtered water, about 1/4 cup
Wide watercolor brush, about an inch wide
3 Tablespoons rough Kosher salt
Pitt pen (optional)
Watercolor pencils

1.  Chose tea bags that you don’t want to make into a drink. If you experiment with tea flavors like I do, you will eventually wind up with a choice that took one step too far into the “experiment” stage, and you’ll wonder what to do with a box of coconut-lychee-pomegranate-chocolate or some other choice that seemed clever at the time.

2.  Remove the staple from the bag, if it has one. Leave on the string and tag.

3. Put four bags into a small bowl, add about two tablespoons water, and put in the microwave on high for 30 seconds.

4. Remove bowl from microwave with an oven mitt. Using a spoon, press the round back of the spoon against the tea bags to expel concentrated tea.

5. Remove tea bags from bowls and place on a piece of watercolor paper. Move the positions once. It’s fine if the tea runs onto the paper. Let sit for at least 10 minutes before moving bags. When the bags have been in two positions, remove them allow the paper to dry, then draw the outlines of the bags, strings and tags.

Project One:

Using a broad watercolor brush, dip it into the strong tea, and paint horizontal bands across the paper. After each stripe, re-dip brush and paint next stripe overlapping the first stripe, so you are painting a continuous tea coverage down the page. The page will curl a bit. This is fine. If you don’t want it to curl, spray back of watercolor paper with a mist of plain water.

Use a big pinch kosher salt and toss it on the page. On the pages, experiment with more and less salt. The salt will suck up the tea. If you have a puddle, use more salt for a darker effect.

Let the salt dry completely. All the way. Really dry. Don’t rush this step or the design will smear.

Brush off the salt. You may need help from a dry stiff sponge or a toothbrush.

Project Two:

Create a map by outlining the salt stains. You can add pieces of real map or a star chart. Label the land masses and seas according to your mood–Salt Flats, Horizon Line, Land Spill, Farther Than You Thought.

Project Three:

Using watercolor pencils, trace the edges of the salt marks and create fantasy patterns. For this one, I decided on flowers.

If you keep the flowers paler than I did here, you can use this as a background for a page. I’ll write on this, but I need to think of the words and how to make it look of a piece. Meanwhile, I like it the way it is.

—Quinn McDonald is working on her second book and playing with concepts.

Filed under: Journal Pages, Tutorials Tagged: art journaling, loose-leaf art journal pages, tea-dyed journal pages, Tutorials

Paying Attention to the Body

It wasn’t a hard day in class, but it felt long. On the second day of one course I teach, there is a certain push to keep on schedule. One eye on the clock, the other on the activities and questions, and the afternoon gets squeezed for all the teaching moments.

Lighting and a saguaro from bumpyride.blogspot.com

When I got home I was tired. Tired enough to fall asleep in the chair looking at the mail. After supper, the rain started. When you live in the desert, it’s not a sound you hear often, but the sound of rain drumming on the skylights and splashing in the pool is an instant sleep inducer for me.

I jerked awake at 10:30, horrified that I had slept away the evening. I had work to do! And while my body sat up, my mind wanted to rollover and go back to sleep.

Guilty, I hurried to check emails and catch up on an evening of work. And then I stopped. It’s really good to listen to your body when it asks for something. Whether it’s sleep or creative play, the body hardly ever asks for what it doesn’t need. (Well, mine asks for chocolate a bit too often. But otherwise. . .)

The ocotillo was all bare stems. One good rain and it leafs out in about 10 hours. The leaves stay on as long as it rains, then in another 12 hours, they are gone again.

Martha Beck says, “Having fun if not a diversion from a successful life; it is the pathway to it.” Listening to your body is an act of wisdom. Too often, I push ahead, ignore the need for sleep, or play, or just being aware.

So my plans tonight drained away with the rain. No one will do the work for me, it will be here tomorrow. We get eight inches of rain a year. Spending an evening listening to it fall and letting it drum me to sleep seems a deeply restorative choice. Like the ocotillo that sets leaves when it rains (seriously, in 10 hours it goes from a bunch of sticks, to covered in leaves) and drops them when the rain is done, it’s good to pay attention to what you need.

—Quinn McDonald loves Monsoon Season in Arizona.

Filed under: Nature, Inside and Out Tagged: natural rhythms. paying attention to your body, rain

Looking for Answers with a Stop-Watch

We wake up in a hurry.

Time flies. Photo my janussyndicate.com

We talk fast.

We walk quickly,  looking ahead.

The speed limit doesn’t count if we don’t go more than 10 miles faster.

Work is done against the clock. Hurry and learn. Hurry and finish.

Don’t think, it takes time.

Fast is good. Time is money.

Got a problem? Fix it fast or blame it on someone else.

Stop. Just stop.

Breathe.

This is the only September minute you will ever have. Don’ t rush it.

Copy this poem by Rainer Maria Rilke into your journal and read it till you know it is true:

Have patience with everything unresolved

in your heart

and try to love the questions themselves

Don’t search for the answers.

They could not be given to you now.

Because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is, to live everything.

Live the questions now.

Perhaps then, someday in the future,

you will gradually, without even noticing it,

live your way into the answer.

—Quinn McDonald is a slow learner, and she’s not sorry about that.

Filed under: Journal Pages, Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: fast, need answers, slow down

Recycling into the Studio

When we think of recycling around the studio, it’s often using one product for another, or stretching a product by adding medium or water. These two tips allow an item from one part of the house to be recycled in the studio.

In the laundry, where the kitty litter boxes are, are also the air-freshener containers. They have pull-off lids, and the bottle then gets put into a holder and plugged into the electrical socket.

The lids are supposed to get thrown away, but there’s another use for them.

Cut a thin slice of the pointed end with a craft knife, and you have a small, but durable funnel. Re-fill small ink bottles, mix small quantities of dyes or decant brush cleaner. If the job is too messy, throwing it out is not a big loss.

The tops can also be cut at an angle and be used to apply a thin bead of glue or color, if you can find a bottle to attach it to. If the bottle is small, you can add several turns of waxed linen around the threads of the bottle to make the bottle lid fit snugly.

In the image below, you’ll see an orange plastic container. That’s a recycled piece, too. It held dryer sheets. I’m saving cleaned eggshells for mosaics.

While I want to keep the dust off them, I don’t want them in an air-tight container. This serves the purpose perfectly. Air circulation and no dust.

There are other convenient containers, too. Once you become aware of what you need, you’ll see recycling opportunities all over. Molded plastic containers for cookies make great pencil or brush holders; lids from yogurt containers do well for watercolor palettes. Plastic lids with rims go well under your water bottle to keep condensation off the work surface, and white plastic lids or shallow bowls are perfect for collecting thread at the sewing machine to use in felting, inclusions in handmade paper or putting out for the birds at nesting time.

Recycling is practical and easy. It’s also a great way of keeping more plastic out of landfills, every piece you use for another purpose is space saved.

–-Quinn McDonald comes by her recyling genes from her mother, who recycled  outgrown knit sweaters to re-knit into larger sweaters of strange combination wool. Her father once made a lamp from wood scraps, a metal cylinder that he pierced decoratively, and a piece of parchment that he shaped into a shade and stitched to a frame.

 

Filed under: Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: Creativity, re-use, reconsider, recyle

Saturday Stroll

Some posts from the past to stir up some magic memories.

Michael Pollan wrote Food Rules about nurturing your body with good food. Using some of his rules, I added creative corollaries.

Containers that hold food can be converted for use in the studio. Sometimes I buy the food for the container.

Tara Donovan is an artist who works with straws, cups and steel pins. For years people told her to get a “real” job. But being in artist was what she focused on.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer who falls in love with art that is made with great dedication and focus. She’s writing a book on the Inner Critic.

Filed under: Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: Creativity, studio tips, Tara Donovan

Book Review: Look, Learn, + Create Crochet (Giveaway)

Winners of the Felting books: Congratulations to Traci Johnson and LaTrecia Rafferty, the winners of the two felting books reviewed in Wednesday’s blog post.

Today is the last day of the 1,500th-blog celebration. The three traveling journals left today and are on the way to the winners. The felting books will go out on Saturday.

The book cover

Today, I’m reviewing a brand-new book on crocheting. It’s ready to go to a randomly drawn winner, too. If you are one of this week’s five previous winners, you can leave a comment (I love your comments!) but I’m making room for new winners. Once more, I’ll spring for international shipping. I have an international audience, and I want them to feel included.

Title: Look, Learn & Create Crochet (A Workshop 101 in a Book)

Author: Deborah Burger

Details: Creative Publishing International, hardcover over spiral bound pages, 192 pages. $24.99 Includes two hours of online tutorials.

Content:

Crochet Basics (stitches and project to practice each stitch)
Putting it all together (combining stitches, patterns, detailing, finishing, and six projects)
Crochet Traditions (More complicated stitches, projects, tips and tricks.)
Glossary, Abbreviations, Symbols, Index

What I like: This line on one of the first pages grabbed my interest: “It’s important to remember that you’re training the muscl es of our hands and fingers in movements new to them. Be patient with yourself–muscle memory develops by repetition.”

A binding that stays flat and fresh, interesting projects update crochet from doilies to wearable fashion.

A description of what fibers work with crochet and which don’t

Steel and aluminum hook-size comparisons; standard yarn weight system charts

Excellent close-up photos of how to do stitches, troubleshooting photos of both good and failed examples

Instructions that are truly step-by-step for beginners that advanced crocheters can also use

Instructions begin with “What You’ll Learn”, “What You’ll Need”, and “Stitches and Abbreviations Used”.

Clear instructions for reading charts and schematics along with diagrams and photos

At least one photo per spread, many spreads with five and six photos. Good step-out photos, good page layout, good book design. (Good doesn’t mean “OK” it means well-done.)

What I didn’t like:

if I never see a granny-square project again, it will be too soon. I know it’s a practical pattern, and I know the tote bag is a good use for this project, but crochet is often thought of as a “old lady hobby” and this modern book could have done without the cliché of over-used squares.

The typeface is too light for a project book. I’ll admit that as someone who wears multi-focal lenses I like larger types so I can focus both on the project in my hands and the type in the book. While smaller, tightly-kerned type may look good, it’s hard to read.  The typeface is a serif face, and that is a big plus.

* * *   Leave a comment if you want to win the book. The drawing for the book will be on Saturday, September 8, 5 p.m. Phoenix time. Winners will be announced on this page as well as on Sunday’s blog.

–-Quinn McDonald is writing her second book and still wants to find time to read more books. She finds nothing wrong this this idea.

Filed under: Book Reviews, Book Reviews, Reviews Tagged: book give away, book review, crochet, crochet projects

Collaboration and Group Think: Stand and Work

The big pendulum of business fads is starting the long slow swing away from cubicles. Before you stand up and cheer, I should mention the swing is not back to private offices. Nope. The swing is to no-walls, few desks, and lots of collaboration.

“Key West” stand-up writing desk by standupdesks.com

There are also stand-up desks and fewer chairs, so people will have to stand more. That, of course, is an over-reaction to the bad health effects of sitting all day. But standing all day isn’t good for you either, according to Cornell University’s Human Factors and Ergonomics research:

Standing to work has long known to be problematic, it is more tiring, it dramatically increases the risks of carotid atherosclerosis (ninefold) because of the additional load on the circulatory system, and it also increases the risks of varicose veins, so standing all day is unhealthy.

The stand-up/sit-down controversy will take care of itself–I don’t think anyone wants to stand all day.

What concerns me a lot more is the constant drive toward open-workspace-as-creativity booster. I just don’t believe it. In an article called  The Death of the Cubicle–and the Killers are Collaboration and Innovation on ERE.net,  Dr. John Sullivan says about less privacy and more creativity:

Obviously without partitions separating employees, there will be less privacy, more noise, and constant interruptions. And that is exactly why cubicles are dying because the increased number of interruptions builds collaboration and sharing, which in turn increases innovation. . .

I’m clearly the wrong demographic, but “increased number of interruptions” would not build collaboration and sharing and innovation in my way of thinking, it would  interrupt my train of thought, my slow processing of information, and my ability to think. I would be less inclined to collaborate and more inclined to  take a water-soaker to work to keep people at bay.

Personally, I’ll agree with Picasso who said, Picasso: “Without great solitude no serious work is possible.” (Read more quotes from famous people on the benefits of solitude.)

Charlton Heston plays a galley slave in the 1959 movie Ben Hur.

Dr. Sullivan swoons with joy at the new workspace which he describes as “Imagine if you lined up simple tables (that are no more than 36 inches deep) end to end with nothing separating you from the employees next to you or in front of you.” Doesn’t this sound like oddly like the old ships where the forced-labor galley slaves sat lined up on simple benches with nothing separating them but an oar?

What this really fosters is Groupthink–a belief that the best ideas come from a team or group, rather than in individual. Children already sit and work in groups at tables in grades school, and 70 percent of American offices are already open-work spaces. Group compliance is praised, peer-pressure is a powerful compliance tool, and, sadly, in this cluster environment, all ideas are considered equally valid.

You might want to remember that Isaac Newton was not on the patio chatting up

Isaac Newton and the apple from pbworks.com

his pals and playing fusball when the apple fell on his head, he was alone under the apple tree.

I’ve had this quote pinned to the wall for a long time:

“Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me … they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone …. I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone… Not on a committee. Not on a team.”

Which sad loner said this? No, no, not the unabomber, but the man quietly inventing the magic that Steve Jobs fronted with great panache—the quote is from Steve Wozniak, who invented the personal computer.

The only thing that open-office, lots of interruptions, everyone sitting within arm’s length spreads is colds and flu. Ideas can certainly be half-baked in a team environment, and spurred on with group brainstorming,  but the serious work of thinking is done best in solitude.

–-Quinn Mcdonald works in solitude. She’s an every-day creative writing another book.

Filed under: Creativity, In My Life, Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: collaboration, groupthink, individuality, office space, stand up desk, working alone