Listening to Music

I don't think this tip will be very new to you for boosting your creativity. I think you have to think of if differently or just simply listen to different music. Don't listen to the same music you normally do. Make sure your choice of music matches the theme of the subject you are trying to find inspiration for, or listen to music that will challenge you to be in a state of mind that is different than you normally find yourself in to be creative.

Jamming out can stimulate the brain in the places where the motor actions, emotions, and creativity can be engaged.

and don't forget the classics. Do your due diligence and find the stuff that increases creativity, concentration, and other cognitive functions, find those z pattern wave length music types as your are pondering the answers to the mysteries of the universe as we can't prove the effect so much as a little classical music can't hurt, or is it the superstitions catch phrase of it's only silly if it don't work.

Zombie penguin

This was suppose to be a design for a pinewood derby car. Not that the design has any advantage for speed down the track or a quick jump out of the chutes but just a drawing, cool as a cucumber or a penguin.

The last car the boys and I built didn't have the required time needed for the more important finishing touches like this. We ended up with a great racer but nothing I would want to put on display for the whole world, even if the old boy gets second place overall.

sketchbook 004

Super Grinch is here to do something and it might be good and it might be bad it just depends on where you are in the story.

The other day my wife and I were talking to our middle boy and he was quite certain he thought he knew more than the two of us about star wars. We talked it up to him and tried to tell him how he was incorrect. I quickly thought we should just ask his older brother as he is a self proclaimed genius and would be alble to settle the debate real easy. In the end we were wrong on one account and right on the other, and to sum it all up the middle boy asked a clarifying question about the movie series to which I responded that the order of events being asked about all depend on which order you watch the movies in. We all got a funny chuckle out of that one and quickly got back to life!

The body here had some reference help from another superman cartoon comic sketch from another great artists blog, the head was a fun one to draw as the family enjoyed another christmas holiday movie.

sketch book 003

Here is some silly sketches from yet another page of the army lectures on something or other. If you really wanted to know I could tell you what most of this meant. I will admit that my visual note-taking here was not the best I have done. When I am focusing on good notes I will include some words. As you can see, no words here.

All this sketching here makes me more excited for some painting. I have a dozen or so paintings that I better get working on. I am at the stage of transfering the paintings to the boards that have already been prepared for the paint with two layers og gesso with a liberal amount of tactile texture.

I have been trying to spend a little time everyday watching a little tutorial on the youtube or from my classes I have purchased at folioacademy.com and it gets me excited to do my own work, or it just keeps me motivated to keep going as I am working more and more each day to reach my own artist goals.

Keep working and stay motivated!

Sketch book 002

This is a total copy, a one off, a repeat of another sketch I saw. I couldn't help but try it out. The overall design of the piece is what drew me too it. I need to push my own style into the ones in the future. I don't draw noses at all like the one here, but I do have the general graphic nature that was used here and maybe that is what is drawing me into this sort of silly-ness.

My kids asked me if this was me and with my lack of creativity at the moment I told them it was what I looked like in college before I met their mother and she made me into the hunk I am today! We still got a chuckle out of the short description.

I am having fun with this sketchbook filling it with green drawings done with my four color pen. I have fallen in love with the four color pens and not only have I transformed my little herd into using four color pens (we almost all have a pen with our own names etched into the side) but I love when others at work notice I always have the pen with me. I tend not not mix the colors much unless it is really obvious that I need to add in another color. Like red in the eyes seems to be the go to for anger. With only blue, black, green and red, I don't have a ton of liberty and I am too comfortable with value and haven't forced myself into color enough. Some day.

Sketch book

Here are a few sketchbook pages from a day of sketching when I had the pleasure of sitting through six to eight hours of lecture that is required of a soldier every year.  It wasn't that the powerpoint presentations didn't have important information or that the command didn't think it was important... I think it was the idea that I got board too quick from the speaker speaking in an uninteresting speaker-ish way.

I was thrilled when, as usual, I had a overprotective and hyperactive NCO tell me that my drawings may be cute but I should pay better attention. It is pretty common for too many to think that visual note-taking is not a viable form of 'paying attention'! I did pay attention and I did draw some drawings too. What fun it is.