Connecting the Dots . . .

There  have been many, many books written about creativity. Some recent ones advocate the throwing-things-at-paper-and-see-if-they-stick theory of awakening creative ideas, but most of the books I have read were written for the design industry, and took a more serious approach to the subject.

If you have never sat and torn your hair out for a logo idea at four in the morning, when you have the client presentation at nine, you have missed one of life’s more dubious pleasures. But suffice it to say, there are times when you have to understand where creative ideas come from, so you can force them to come.

OK, so you can’t force creative ideas to come, but you can set yourself up to invite them, ask them politely, and hope for the best.

The creative process is really about you making a previously unthought of connection between things that are not already connected in the way you just thought of.

Interpretation: One thing leads to another, and putting them together leads to new things.

This usually brings on a DUH! – V8 sort of head slap, and then the question: “WHY didn’t I think of this before? And why didn’t anybody else?” It is so obvious once you think of it.

So this is an example of that:

Thing One:

I just dredged the Sheer Heaven Travel Palette idea out of the archives and republished it.

Thing Two:

I have been painting flowers and trying to duplicate some colors in Nature. I often use Daniel Smith watercolors for this because they are earthy. They are so earthy in fact that the color charts on their site only vaguely resemble what is in their tubes.

So, awhile back, they came up with a very creative idea to sell sheets of paper containing little dots of their colors so people could test them.

Thing Three:

While buying tubes from their website, I saw that they had put the sheets on sale – drastically – and since I was disturbed that there was very little blue in the recent tubes of Blue Ochre and Sodalite I had purchased, I bought them. (Sorry – the sale ended as fast as it started.)

When they arrived, I have to say I was a bit disappointed that the dots were so small.

Thing Four:

Let’s see . . . Sheer Heaven Palette + I want bigger dots of Daniel Smith paint.

Right! Why not put dots of tube paint on a Sheer Heaven Palette instead of limiting that idea to watercolor crayons and pencils? You could carry more paint and more colors!

I tried it. I let the dots dry overnight, and it works just great . . .

You should let these dry before putting them away, but if that is not possible – cover them with another piece of Sheer Heaven – with the slick side down toward the paint. If any color sticks to the Sheer Heaven backside, it can be easily washed off with a damp paper towel.

Is this not luscious looking? It xplains why children eat paint and woman wear lipstick, doesn’t it?

New WHENEVER Workshop . . .

With the Holiday gift making season coming up, I have moved the Five Easy Pieces workshop to WHENEVER status. Turn your photos into gallery quality gifts with very little time and effort . . .

http://www.dotcalmvillage.net/onlineworkshops/fiveeasypieces.html

And I even reduced the tuition by 10%