Chewing on creativity.

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Sandra

I’m participating in an online course by the director of Stanford Technology Ventures Program, Tina Seelig. It’s called A Crash Course on Creativity and there are students from all over the world.

Our first assignment was to create a book cover for an autobiography book. The second one was to create a mind map where we registered observations from real life in an visual way.

And the third one, which was due last Sunday, Mother’s Day, was a short presentation in slides or video of reframing the use for the bubble gum.

Hundreds and hundreds of videos have been submitted with all kinds of ideas. Some feasible, others not (like mine). The important thing is to think outside the box and have fun.

One thing I learned about bubble gum is that it’s made from the same material as tires and almost all gum being sold are not biodegradable. Can you imagine all the gum that is thrown away? Luckily, there’s already a company in Mexico producing the first biodegradable, 100% natural chewing gum. I checked their site and it looks like Whole Foods sell those gums. I’ll have to look for them next time I go there.

This video was my submission to the assignment. I used Prezi to create the slides… I had never used it before.

I called my project The Incredible Bubble Gum Balloon.

I remembered I had some pictures of my daughter and I from years ago when we went to a resort in Brazil… we were being silly chewing our gums and I snapped pictures. They are pretty funny. We had such a great time on that trip… I’ll never forget it. It made me think that maybe we could make enough bubbles from our gums to make a balloon we could ride on. That gave me the idea for my project.

Each Monday we receive a new challenge/assignment and there will be a total of 6.

Next one has been released and we have to find a way to combine two different objects into one, creating a new use for the combination of both.

Something in the lines of a Chindogu.

That should be fun!

Have you ever had an idea for product like that?

Flowers in the Snow

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Sandra

It’s almost May, which here in the States means it’s Spring. Summer is well on its way. Here in Florida it’s 81F as I write this (27C).

I love this time of the year! It’s warm but not humid; breezy, sunny, just beautiful.

And yet, it’s still snowing up north! Wow… the cold days are dragging for those nice people.

I made this painting on a beautiful deep wood panel from one of Carla Soheim’s online classes. When I shared it on a Facebook group, Fiona Bisset mentioned it looked like flowers blooming in the snow!

So I named this painting “Flowers in the Snow”. I loved making it and I want to make more, using the same technique. Lots of layers, gesso, watercolor. Yum.

It’s available in my Etsy store, here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/130430492/flowers-in-the-snow?ref=shop_home_active

I’m working on two collage paintings now, with flowers on one of them, at least.

Flowers just seem to be on my mind lately.

Expectations

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Sandra

What do you expect from the splendor of your creative moments? (they are splendorous, even if they don’t seem to be)

Dazzling perfection? A piece “that sells for X”?

Think about how much inspiring art goes undone…

how many creative dreams perpetually and repeatedly vanish in thin air,

how many authentic manifestations of self go unexplored…

because we convince ourselves that we are not meeting the super high expectations we set up for our creative process.

We don’t want to risk too much; we might disappoint lots of people.

We want to please, be accepted, loved, embraced, celebrated.

But isn’t that too much to put on the shoulders of something you’re pouring your love into?

Expecting and hoping our art is admired while we make it seems stressful to me.

And yet, I do it so many times.

Why?

Does it happen to you, too?

Do you catch yourself having a ridiculous inner dialog of criticism and no-enough-ism while doing the one thing, among so few, that truly brings your heart happiness?

How is it possible to feel confident while you willingly expose your feelings, skills (or lack of thereof) and beliefs on a piece of paper/wood or canvas… and then, share that with other people?

Post it on social media, show your family, publish on a blog.

It is a part of you you’re putting out there. In a way… it is YOU.

And you’ve been judged and had your passions diminished so many times, haven’t you?

At school… at work…. at home, even.

But what if you knew, for a fact, that nobody liked your art?

Nobody… in the whole world. (Supposing the possibility of that being true existed or that we could even know for sure, if it did.)

Not a soul. Nobody liked or even cared about your art.

My question is…

Would you still do it?

And if you would….

Would you take (many more) risks, then?

Would you paint, draw, glue things down, color, sew, sculpt, fold and everything else you do when you are alone with your desire to make art… with true abandon?

Would you experiment and allow yourself to BE SILLY and completely mesmerize yourself with the amount of fun you were having.

Without fear of “failure”?

Just for the fun of it?

Would you make art if it were impossible to share it with other people?

Would you make it for YOURSELF?

And if you did…

Would it matter if this color was “right” or that line was “crooked”?

Would you stop yourself from painting/drawing/creating to think “is this good?”?

I think those are valid questions, yes?

Henri Matisse put it brilliantly when he said:

“Creativity takes courage”

Courage …. not so much to receive other people’s opinion, but to give yourself permission to have fun.

Instead of having high expectations for our art, why don’t we have high expectations for the way we treat ourselves in relation to the art we make?

The highest expectation I can have of myself is to expect my art to represent what I want to create in any given moment, instead of being a reflection of what others might want me to create.

To have any other kind of expectation, especially when it comes to other people’s opinion is insane.

Trust yourself and dare to be who you are.

So that clarity and magic can show up and plant a soft kiss on your face.

That’s my wish for you.

Imaginary Creatures

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Sandra

Some imaginary creatures have invaded my studio!

I made them with a technique I learned with the great painter and illustrator Carla Soheim, in her workshop called Imaginary Creatures. Imagined I did… and here they are!

Wouldn’t they be fun in a child’s bedroom?

The cool think about this technique is that it’s very intuitive, meaning that, just like the way I like to paint, it starts with a meaningless and super lose application of watercolor paint on the paper.

And I most likely wouldn’t have drawn these animals like that if I had started the drawing with a “plan” to draw them to begin with.

I start with nothingness and they show up! I love it!

As a matter of fact, I like them so much I’ve decided to have a few folded greeting cards made.

And since I was test driving it to see how they’d come out, I included my flowers, too, which, by the way, were also made based on one of Carla’s workshop, called Flower Crazy.

I like them! I think I’m going to group them by theme and offer them at my online store. What do you think?

They are blank inside. It’s also possible to custom make them with different occasion messages inside. Soon on a “buy now” link near you!

Today is World’s Poetry Day

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Sandra

Instead of writing poetry on World’s Poetry Day, I painted.

If you feel like reading some of the poems I write, I keep them in a “poems” category and the link is here.

But today, I painted… finished these two on paper. Because… although it doesn’t look like up north, it is already Spring, after all.

But aren’t painting and poems closely related?

Painting is poetry in motion… instead of words, brushstrokes.

The emotions are there; so is the inspiration. The abandon and feeling of being “in the zone” .

So these flowers were my poetry today.

I’m looking into making some greeting cards out of those. What do you think?

Let them eat cake (or fruit!)

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Sandra

I don’t know if you saw this post about the making of my Sketchbook for the Sketchbook project. Well, my little sketchbook has been digitalized for posterity, with thousands of other sketchbooks from all over the world. That’s very neat.

You can see the page here: http://www.sketchbookproject.com/library/13167

It has also been on a tour all over the United States. Every time someone picks my little book out to take a look, I get an email. It tells me where it’s been viewed. So far, I’ve dazzled people in Brooklyn, NY….Atlanta, Georgia…. and Austin, Texas… lol

It’s a cool feeling to know that something you created is being seen and touched by someone I haven’t met.

I wonder if that’s the feeling authors have when they write and sell books? If it is, I want to write one.

A birthday weekend in Sarasota.

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What a lovely birthday weekend Jay and I had in Sarasota visiting with his family!

The weather was just perfect – deep blue sky with sunny days and crisp, fresh air.

It was a circus theme birthday!

Fun + Art + Greatness + Color = one happy birthday.

We went to see Circus Sarasota on Saturday night. Absolutely amazing!

How inspiring to see all those artists perform their best and show us what a life of living your ART and your GREATNESS looks like. The biggest start was the great Nik Walenda !!

I was reading Nik’s website and I came across this interesting fact:

Last year, after crossing Niagara Falls on a two-inch steel wire, Nik was approached by a Canadian custom agent who asked for his passport.

Agent: ”What was the purpose of your trip?

Nik: “To inspire people around the world to follow their dreams and never give up.”

On Sunday, the day of my birthday, we visited the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art and Circus Museum.

Sarasota 023

Thanks, Susan, Don, Jan and Tom for the wonderful weekend!

What’s in a studio?

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Do you have a special place dedicated to your art making in your home?

Let’s define art making, shall we?

Art making = doing what you love to do and what makes your heart sing. It could be a hobby, cooking, playing an instrument, writing, knitting… anything that makes you happy. And if that’s a business that brings in some money, that’s even better, right?

Here’s my garage-turned-into-art-studio, the place where I draw, paint, do collage, journal or just read inspiring art books.

A fancy word for it would be “atelier”. And it’s French, hence the fanciness.

The other end of the spectrum would be to call it the place where I get messy. Doesn’t that sound yummy?

My art studio

I just submitted this picture to the “Encyclopedia of Work Places” Project.

It got me thinking… what does this place mean to me?

And here is what it means:

This is where I feel most alive; where stars collide, magic happens and I’m free to explore who I am. It’s where expectations cease to exist.

When I touch the paper with a pen or dip a brush into paint, I’m touching the essence of my soul. Every creation is a piece of the creator and the paradox is this – the more I create, the fuller I am.

Before I had this space, for many years, any place was a good place for art, especially the dinning room table. But there’s something powerful about having a dedicated corner where you have your art supplies. It’s all there… contained… your creative world.

Even if it’s one section of the couch where you crochet. Or a drawer where you keep your little sketchbook and pencil that you take with you when you get out there and sketch.

Why is that important? If you are passionate about your art but you don’t honor it with a space in your life and home for it, are you allowing space for it to grow? You might find out that it’s easy to find a reason not to do it. Which is not good, if that’s the thing that makes you happy, yes?

Do you have a special place where you honor your art? I’d love to see it if you feel like sharing.

Build it anyway.

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They say they built the train tracks over the Alps between Vienna and Venice before there was a train that could make the trip. They built it anyway. They knew one day a train would come.

Any arbitrary turning along the way, and I would be elsewhere. I would be different.

The house protects the dreamer.

Unthinkably good things can happen, even late in the game. It’s such a surprise.” ~ Under The Tuscan Sun

Connections

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“Nonsense and beauty have close connections.” ~ E. M. Forster

The Art of Greatness

by Sandra Belegi

Chewing on creativity.

Flowers in the Snow

Expectations

“Creativity takes courage”

Imaginary Creatures

Today is World’s Poetry Day

Let them eat cake (or fruit!)

A birthday weekend in Sarasota.

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What’s in a studio?

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This is where I feel most alive; where stars collide, magic happens and I’m free to explore who I am. It’s where expectations cease to exist.

When I touch the paper with a pen or dip a brush into paint, I’m touching the essence of my soul. Every creation is a piece of the creator and the paradox is this – the more I create, the fuller I am.

Build it anyway.

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Connections

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