Getting Crafty

Welcome to 2008! I’d like you wish you good health and success in all your endeavours this year, creative and otherwise.

You may make resolutions in your daily life, or set goals that you don’t dare call resolutions (for fear of jinxing them!). Have you ever considered setting goals or making resolutions for your crafting life? If you have never thought of doing that, you’re not alone. However, you might be surprised at how much more manageable the list of crafting you have to complete by the various due dates in your calendar seems after breaking things down to their smallest bits (or a more manageable chunk).

Ready to give it a try? Let’s go!

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Original? Imitate? Those seem to be two words that are at odds so close to each other!

If, like me, you have trouble creating, and often get stuck or at an impasse, focus on imitating as a first step. Through the process of imitating something you like, you might feel inspired to make changes to it, no matter how small. Maybe you’ll change the colour (don’t be afraid to do this-children aren’t!), size or some other aspect of it–this all counts as change, and by making changes you are exerting your personal touch on something, and expressing your individual taste or style. That’s right: you’re slowly but surely working on being more of an original (artwise, that is-you’re already an original). Once you’ve mastered making small changes, try making big changes while keeping the same main idea.
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I had the pleasure of teaching some children in Sunday School yesterday, and one thing that is really inspiring about the younger children (ages 2-4) is even though they know that grass is green, or the sky is blue, or clouds are white, or dirt is brown (and I know they know this because I asked), they will colour things in whatever way they wish.

Clouds will be pink, the water will be red, the sky will be green and to them, it’s beautiful and possible and fine.

What a lesson this is to those of us who struggle to do art the “right” way! Is there really a right way? Is there only one way of interpreting things? If there’s one place where we should feel free to be a bit silly, exaggerate or omit things, it’s in art.

Challenge yourself to do something the “wrong” way today. Do something unexpected and see just how much you like it!