Working on my creativity

It’s slow going thanks to a busy schedule, but I’m trying my best to stick to my resolution of “becoming more creative”. And so on Wednesday I went out and about with my camera, trying to be arty, and I’ve also recently started working my way through a new drawing book…

The weather on Wednesday was fantastic, and it was good to take a stroll around Llandudno after work. I was trying my best to look at things from a different perspective than usual. Trying to see differently than normal. Which, really, is what art is about. It’s not so much the end result, as learning how to see things in a way which allows the end result. There are a million arty shots in my every-day existence - but I see the barest fraction of them, and actually photograph the smallest fraction of those. In a similar way as there being an infinite number of statues in a block of marble I guess. It’s the artists task to see them and realize them.

Anyway, without getting too pretentious, I ended up mostly looking to find very simple things which had nice textures or lighting, rather than looking for ’scenes’ and ’stories’.

I’ve also put up three of the first drawings I’ve done since I was mid way through high school (I was about 14, so 12 years ago). I’m working through ”The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain”, as I thought it’d be fun and rewarding to have a go at drawing again. My self portrait went better than I was expecting, though I think I took rather longer than I was supposed to (about an hour and a half I think). The drawing of my hand was about the skill level I was expecting. It’s poor, wobbly, badly shaded, and sits in only a quarter of the available space - I never was good at placing drawn objects on a page. The third drawing however, was shockingly bad. Turns out drawing from memory is in no way easy.

I’ll probably be adding entries with a few drawings each time, as I work my way through the book. Here’s hoping there’s some improvement!