Diane Young Artist

Printmaker ~ Painter ~ Every Picture tells a story ~ Artwork ©Diane Young

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Creativity for New ACEO paintings in the New Year

My creativity shut up shop for the Christmas period.  I could sense my focus slipping as extra festive activities took hold.   Rather than wrestling Christmas photo of Toy Santabetween the two I gave myself a break.  I let myself off the hook.

Creativity is often seen as an easy kind of self indulgent luxury.  Those that feel they have not been bestowed any creative talent imagine the enjoyment and loveliness of making pictures.   Perhaps it does come easily to some, but I would imagine that like me plenty of artists procrastinate, heading off down the  path of least resistance, that is any other activity except creativity.

Even washing the car has an easily perceived outcome…you wash it, it looks clean.  With shopping, you shop and hey presto you have food you can cook with.  What about a bit of decorating? Assuming you buy the right paint, paint it on in a sensible fashion, the room looks completely renewed.  Having done all these things before there is no real danger of me straying into unknown territory and making a complete hash of this lot.

As for creating art, well only hundreds of decisions have to be made as you progress, tiny but important ones, the outcome of which make or break the painting.  One of the hardest decisions is eliminating your options, what should one do next?   And when things are not going right do you keep on with it or bin it?

Sketches for ACEO paintings by artist Diane Young

So enter creativity as a discipline.  I gave myself a Chrismas break,  now I have to reintroduce my creativity.  Like a daily supplement.  It needs to be rated as essential, like fruit, or vitamins to let it grow, grow, grow.

Today being the first day on my renewed creative path I have gathered some ideas and started on something new.   There are polar bears, hares, wolves and owls, cats and mice.  Harvey the Aardvark is still hibernating, but only for a short while, he will be back soon.

Wishing anyone taking the time to read this a very Happy New Year for 2014.  And for anyone wanting to be creative and not quite getting around to it,  do a little bit each day and make it essential,  just like your daily fruit and veg.


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Diane Young – Painting Edges

Manic Illustrations – Lazy Painter’s guide.

Anything from not changing the brush to not changing the water,  not being lazy means making less mistakes and mess and is more time effective in the long run.  I could have done with a list being given to me many years and many mistakes ago.

The Lazy Painter from Manic Illustrations says:  don’t be lazy – turn the paper around for best results when painting up to an edge!

Pictures showing how to use a paintbrush up to the edge of a drawing.

When you are painting up to an edge place your paper so that your brush is inside the edge and your brush point is against the edge as in Bunny 1 and Bunny 3 .  So many times I have been too lazy to turn the paper round and would reach over the edge as in Bunny 2.   Bunny 3 is happy to be upside down as it is easy to paint accurately this way.  This is for a right handed person,  for a left hander just flip the images horizontally.


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Elephants and Mice

 

The Elephant and the Mouse

Evidence seems to suggest that elephants do not like small animals running frantically around their feet particularly as they cannot see them properly. Naturally in the wild quick moving small animals like snakes are a danger and so elephants would try to get away from them as quickly as they could.   This may be  the reason that elephants appear to be afraid of mice.

Fable featuring a mouse and an elephant

An ancient fable tells the story of a duel between an elephant and a mouse for the position of king among the animals.  The elephant sat and laughed at the mouse until the mouse climbed into his ear (or in another story his trunk) and nipped him hard and drove him mad until the elephant ultimately admitted defeat.

I like my elephant and mouse to be friends, so here they are.

 


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Horse Paintings

Drawing Horses

Black Beauty

Remember these guys…..?  Black Beauty himself and the cast from the TV Series from the 1970’s.

As a child I would draBlack Beauty and Main Cast from Seriesw horses all the time.

I was completely mad about them.

I knew all sorts of facts about horses, their kit, how to keep them, their breeds and colours.  But there was no chance of owning one myself or of even being taught to ride.  Instead I read a lot of horse books from the library and drew them prolifically.

Champion The Wonder Horse

Champion the Wonder Horse, White Horses, Follyfoot and Black Beauty were among my favourite TV programmes.  I bought the Black Beauty LP and used to play it on our old single deck before I went to school.  I even made up words to the theme tune,  I was too embarrassed to sing them in front of my friend so I did so from behind the toilet cubicle door at school.  Strange days.

Horse Paintings

Today I started a new set of ACEOs with a Horse theme, here are the first two.

Dapples & Tassels, and Feathers & Forelocks.

.Dapples and Tassels Horse ACEO painting by Diane YoungHorse Feathers and Forelocks Painting by Diane Young


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A Painting for a Wedding – The Owl and the Pussy Cat

I had an enquiry a few days ago from a lady in California who had been searching for a wedding present for a friend and had come across the painting of mine of the Owl and The Pussy Cat Dancing.

Owl and Pussy Cat by Diane YoungThis is the second time for me that this image had been associated with weddings, strangely I had never gave it a thought when I designed the scene last year.  It all seems obvious now, after all there is love, a ring and a wedding described in Edward Lear’s narrative.

I came across articles about some couples’ desire to have the poem read out at their weddings but in some instances were concerned about the word “pussy” and the number of times this word would be read out and whether nudges, winks, snorts and sniggers might be set off amongst the wedding party.

Those that went ahead with the Owl and Pussycat “theme” at their wedding would have small pots of honey and quince and gold wrapped chocolate coins and so on amongst the decorations of the day.  Perhaps they would drive off in a pea green boat.  If you had a real sense of humour I fancy a cat tail from out of the wedding dress and maybe a few feathers for the groom would not go amiss!

And sadly as does happen with some enquiries even though they appear to be a dead cert, the lady interested in my painting backed out even though I kept her informed daily of the making of a mount, sorting out packing and postage costs and so on.  Apparently the recipient of the gift had changed her mind, and she signed off the email by  thanking me for understanding 😦

Oh, and then suddenly I found out a print had sold off Etsy!  So there you go that teaches me a lesson about the way I market my work in terms of originals and prints!


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Am I Seeing Things?

Blue Fairies by the Canal

I walked this morning along the unused canal near my home.  Hovering alongside the water were many many tiny damselflies. These little creatures are only around 3cm long – tiny, delicate, like little blue flecked fairies.  As I studied them with their framework-like wings and iridescent cerulean blue markings I wondered at such things that people and children might never notice or even know of. There is something heartening about discovering the beauty in nature that gives a sense of lightness to any moment.

Blue Tailed Damselfly

Blue Tailed Damselfly

 

What About The Garden Snail?

The damselflies are surely things of beauty and colour but nature does not have to be so showy to bring an uplifting moment.  Even in our inner cities there is reward for paying attention to nature while in the park or a tiny garden where shiny beetles, spiders weaving, and hopping Robins will reveal themselves, although you have to focus somewhat to feel that awe.  And keep the phone off.

So how about the common snail?  I think that the difficult bit for a lot of us  is the actual act of being still and allowing these moments to unfold, this includes me of course. Also we have to overcome some assumptions. Take the common garden snail. We know what they look like and they are kind of annoying when they are chomping on the hostas and other prize garden plants, so why on earth bother to pay any attention to one?

Snail shell pattern

Here is a snail on my garden pot.  This is surely an amazing feat for a design’ the snail shell and not the pot of course 🙂

The Golden Section

The shell coils clockwise from the centre like most snail shells do.  This is a logarithmic spiral meaning the distances between turns in the spiral increases in geometric progress. The formula for this is the Golden Section.   It is used to approximate good composition in creating images.  Using this ratio helps to construct pictures which are pleasing to the eye.  Nature uses this ratio or rule in all sorts of examples – the approach of a hawk to its prey, the construction of the eye’s cornea, the centre of a sunflower, galaxies and so on.  There are some good examples and explanation of the golden ratio in nature  by GEORGE DVORSKY on this blog.

Slow Down

This may have all got a bit technical, rather the point I was trying to make was about looking at the pattern of the snail shell and seeing how it is both beautiful and remarkable it really is.

If you slow down and stop for a while, and take a good close look around you, even if in the most unlikely of places you will surely be amazed.

The common Cinnabar Moth
Tiny Moth on my window
Thick legged Beetle on a Dandelion
Raindrops on my window.


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Artists Creativity on Holiday – Where is that sketchbook?

You often hear of artists heading off to the coast to get away from it all and give their creativity space and time and to further render their craft.  Each year we drive to the Welsh coast, and I pop my transportable art equipment into my bag ready to grab all that inspiration that is about to descend upon me.  A day or two would go by and with all the organising that went on before the holiday there is not much more to do than make sure kids were  occupied and that the ready prepared meal was defrosting.  By this time I am wondering why I am not using my sketchbook or getting out the watercolours.  Holiday sketchOver the years I have made a few nice informal drawings and paintings but the truth be known  my creativity evaporates on holiday. Perhaps it is because I am not a landscape painter or  just because the heart of my creativity is figurative and so the quiet coastal locations we choose just don’t rock my creative boat. But then surely I would still be brimming with ideas?

Writers Block?

More likely then I am suffering from a form of writers block with all that leisure time. Perhaps it is because an example of the theory that when you do nothing in order to focus on being creative it then  hides away in an inaccessible corner of your mind, waiting until you start to hoover or cut the hedge whereupon ideas will pop up effortlessly knowing you have not got a notebook to hand!  This post relates to content in a post that I made in June called Accessing Your Creativity Whilst Watching TV? which describes how the brain prefers to be occupied with undemanding tasks in order to be able to explore different avenues.  So instead of chasing my creativity into a corner by relaxing, I will be encouraging it out with a mundane task or two when I am back at home.  And as for my holiday I have found I can quite happily write for my blog ready to post when I get back.  As for the  rest of the time it is  fresh air,  sea walks and sunshine.

My breakfast last week!

Holidays


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Accessing your Creativity by Watching TV?

Chewing the Pencil or More Washing Up?

Wash up?Sometimes it feels hard to be creative and other times it comes quite easily. The barometer for this may be the number of teeth marks in the pencil end as you sit there chomping away with not very much else happening. I recently saw a program by the BBC where it was surmised that mundane tasks or doing something that requires minimal thinking like taking a shower,  or washing up allows the brain to be more creative.  Whilst solving a creative problem or trying to come up with new ideas or solutions a mundane task allows the brain to meander around the thousands of kilometres of connections.  Under pressure to be on task  to do a job in hand, whilst sitting chewing the pencil in an attempt to be creative, forces the brain to concentrate and fast forward on the most direct route to the supposed answer, without paying attention to any other possible junctions along the way.  In this instance if no solution comes to mind  this presumably is the equivalent of writers block.  In its simplest form less brain  efficiency  means more creativity.

Barely Legible……but A Good Reason to Watch TV

Ideas

I subscribe to this theory as ideas come more readily to me when I am watching TV in the evenings and I will just scribble them down for another time.  Of course I do not mean whilst watching a film where it is critical to pay attention, and definitely not where subtitles are concerned!  Even if the ideas are hardly legible, they at least have been captured and logged ready to work on properly in the morning.  In the morning the need for that elusive idea forming creativity gives way to a more strategic approach and putting the idea to good use.  Here the brain can concentrate fully and hopefully without too much distraction (except for the odd blog write up of course!).

BBC Article – Five Ways To Be More Creative