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Posts Tagged ‘creativity’

It’s cold here today and I mentioned to my mother that we had condensation on the windows.

Now, you should know that my mother is very artistic and has an arts and languages background. She’s been to the creativity wars, you know?

Here’s what she said:

Great advice, right? And while I didn’t have enough condensation to draw anything real (and oh right, I can’t draw anyway, see above lopsided grimace for proof), the important thing is that I didn’t stop there. 

I woke up thinking about Impressionist art (as one does) so I decided to try my hand at computer aided pointillism using this tutorial.* Here’s the result.

Original photo by Pietro De Grandi on Unsplash

Thanks, Mom!

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* I also learned that Mary Cassatt, one of the “three great ladies” of Impressionism and an artist who focused much of her work on the social and domestic lives of women (subjects often ignored by male artists), was from Pennsylvania.

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“Never be afraid to sit awhile and think.”

― Lorraine Hansberry

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Photo by billow926 on Unsplash

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“What are you going to do? Everything, is my guess. It will be a little messy, but embrace the mess. It will be complicated, but rejoice in the complications.”

― Nora Ephron

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Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash

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Today, some useful writing advice from award-winning writer Nalo Hopkinson.

The point of fiction is to cast a spell, a momentary illusion that you are living in the world of the story. Fiction engages the senses, helps us create vivid mental simulacra of the experiences the characters are having.

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Photo by Sean Pierce on Unsplash

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“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

― Stephen King

That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!

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Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

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Apparently I am not done with the Chimera Chronicles, or whatever you want to call this animal-human hybrid portrait thing I’ve got going on.

Behold, King Cassowary!

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With apologies to William II, King of the Netherlands. Bird image by David Clode on Unsplash

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Some days you get an idea in your mind and you have to go with it or spend the rest of the day pestered by the project that was not.

Meet Captain Pepper Griff McCaticus. She lives with friends and, apparently, spent a previous life rising through the ranks. Which helps explain her current position as queen.

“You know how it is with cats: They don’t really have owners, they have staff.”

― P.C. Cast

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Original images via Captain Cat’s devoted staff and Unsplash.

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Ha ha ha ha, this is 110% amazing!

More info and videos on this obviously critical area of scientific research:

So if humans visit underwater environments in a submarine, are these fish driving around in a supermarine? 

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Oh hello, nice of you to stop by. Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

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I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions, but studies have found evidence that temporal landmarks can help overcome motivation problems. You may have seen it referred to as the fresh start effect. It’s not a panacea (as gym members everywhere can attest) but whatever, if it helps me to rethink my process in a productive way, great.

As New Year’s rolled around I started thinking about trying new things. Today I’m thinking about new recipes. 

Be it bread, brownies, cake, yogurt, or a magic wand, I like working out the best way (for me) to make something. And knowing that my birthday cake is going to come out exactly as planned? Priceless.

But I also like working on new projects, triangulating resources, experimenting with techniques or components. Making something new.

So far this year I’ve tested new ways to make cinnamon sugar bread, lemon cake, and mushroom soup. Next up? A quick trip to the tropics.

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Mr Man brought home a box of fresh passion fruit yesterday. I’ve tasted it before, most recently in a collection of holiday Chocolates by Enid.* Passion fruit also appears frequently on the Great British Baking Show, where bakers treat it like your average ingredient but might go bonkers for recipes I consider excellent but everyday, like Key Lime Pie. 

My lack of experience means I have questions. Why are the fruits I’ve got two completely different colors? How can you tell when they are ripe? Do you just scoop out the pulp or is there bitter pith to be avoided? How do I keep from thinking about runny noses and other gelatinous goop while engaging in said scooping? Does the goop need to be strained? And why are those seeds looking at me?!

So much to learn, and all of it sounds like fun. Wish me luck!

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Not Enid’s chocolates but hey, close enough! Photo by Massimo Adami on Unsplash

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* These chocolates appeared as a temporary holiday treat at a local farm store but the source is otherwise mysterious. Who is Enid? Where did she come from and why won’t she make chocolates past December? Has she now retreated back to Choclandia with the other chocolate fairies? And where can I find more of those passion fruit cream-filled chocolates?! 

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“A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called “leaves”) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.” 

― Carl Sagan

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Photo by JoelValve on Unsplash

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