"Paintings With Personality"

I met this beautiful young woman in Rockefeller Center and asked her if I could take her picture. The painting I did from the photo is in watercolor. I titled the piece 'Juliette's Laugh' because she was so happy and her joy was infectious.

Sometimes ‘Honey’ and I aren’t very responsive to one another’s needs. For example, ‘Honey’ had a habit of not closing cabinet doors when he was through in a cupboard. I asked him to close them but he kept forgetting and I (again) had the opportunity to bang my head or chins when I went into a room he had vacated. Last week I rounded a kitchen corner and ran into an open cabinet door with the drawer hanging out, OUCH! It was time to become creative! I opened every cupboard door in the kitchen then left for the day. Since then the cabinet doors have been closed and I haven’t banged my head once.

Creativity is what makes us unique. It’s about being inventive, experimenting, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun. It is not about being perfect or having technical expertise. Some situations make us more creative than others. Travel or even thinking about travel is one of them. Another is mentally removing ourselves from a situation and projecting to a different (imagined) time. Experiencing new people, cultures and events are a few others. In her book ‘Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain’ Betty Edwards suggested we think about math and science then about art in order to get to our creative right brain.

Forcing ourselves to move outside our comfort zones will jump-start our creativity, try painting with only three colors if you are used to a full palette or paint with a full palette if you are used to only a few colors. Work monochromatic using only value and design elements to create your painting. Or look at your painting from a different direction, examine your creative problems in ways you never have before.  Achieve your goals by doing something else, something original that has never been done before. Think about how you might create a certain feeling that you want in your art. Ask yourself how you can capture the interest of your audience. Think of the subject as being far away and not close to you at all. Take a nap then look at your work with a refreshed eye. Daydream about what you have created so far and what you want to do in your next painting session. Daydreaming only seems to work when you have already put a lot of time into your creative effort.

   Research tells us that thinking about something ridiculous can increase creative thinking. Change your routine and do something unexpected to get your creative juices flowing. Any strong emotional state (whether positive or negative) can increase creativity. Some research even suggests exercise can boost creative thinking because it makes the heart pump and puts people in a positive mood. Eat, sleep and drink inspiration by reading about, watching (you tube), and observing art. Absorb art through your pores and become the creative person you dream about.

Incidentally, I have become creative in many other ways at home. I get especially creative when I cook and ‘Honey’ (bless his heart) eats whatever I make. Did I mention we will have been married 48 years on June 11?

How do you increase your creativity? Leave a comment below.

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”  ~ Scott Adams

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