Those Painting Days Gone By

It was with great pleasure to receive your blogging missive on soul-searching together with your expo-nenshall rise in creationism. Yes, I know the painting well of Monet’s of his yachts in lovely watercolour. Really spiffing and a pity such a good copy be hidden behind the armoire.

Yep, I like Felix and his gargantuan painting which was all of 600 feet long and took 15 years to paint! I think this was something to do with a recording (well his anyway) of the 20th century and some of his global meanderings. He was not related to Felix Adamant of the Cruel Sea! "Hey, I thort U was kon-fuwsed!"

The portrait is just fine—and who really cares for a true likeness unless the sitter is paying for it – or to impress one’s fellow artist-dabbers? Yeah, I got down to the bottom rung without showing too much humidity.

I got a question: Did you know on Dec. 8, 1903 or whenever, Samuel Langley's flying machine plopped unpleasantly into the river. Nine days later Wilbur Wright got their "Flyer" off the ground so why did these bike mechanics succeed when a well-known dude failed?

Langley's plans were mostly theoretical and his machine was produced from blueprint and built by others. If you look at the Wright brothers' working notes, you see their outsight and their execution are woven together. By tale and error and over a period of time, they solved problems like wing shape and wing warping—hey, they did not worry about air con then. Along the way they found it necessary to build a wind tunnel and other devices to test the lift and controllability of their ever-changing designs. They were not so dum after all! And you know what? The famous Sopworth came soon after.

Applying the Wright metaphor to our artistic creative process, we can see that success might come with a succession of adjustments in a series of daubs, large or small as you say. If you’ve read "Explaining Creativity by Tom Sawyer or The Science of Human Innovation," he explains that these adjustments need not be world-shaking. One does not necessarily have a sense of revelation. Sawyer, a sigh-kologist at Washington University, uses the Wright brothers' "tinkering" as an example. Indeed, it's the minor nature of changes that leads to creative daubing by artists or otherwise.

To bring this line of thought closer to our easel experience—a progressive process of working from one quasi-experimental work to the next might lead to artistic character but this is doubtful. On this path, errors are inevitable, even vital. Failures become the stepping stones to artistic success. By carefully watching and managing a personal progression, a dibby-dabber (a struggling painter) stealthily finds his muse—or self-amusement.

We‘ve often talked about duab-production as an aid to creativity. With small works in series there is greater freedom to experiment and err. Combinations and variations abound within each small work and within the greater series. A feeling of letting go, of "winging it," brings out our innate inventiveness. Instead of a theoretical blueprint-based slavery, one feels the magic of automatic flow. You sense that huh?

The interest and attention of the creator is held by this process and the results often have a sort of celestial inevitability—the look of natural beauty and persistent magic now that would be worth something to put in front of the armoire.

Those Painting Days, what creativity! I will stick to painting-by-numbers or coloring-in!

Kids Activities Can Blend With The Magic of Family Fun

Kids Activities Can fit in with family life.

It has often been said that kids are the most creative creatures on Planet Earth. Well, they may well be – but they can also be the biggest pain up the butt!

And the pain can start from day one, ask any mother. After all the hoopla is over and the praises are sung, then comes the really hard work for Mom. Diapers changed every hour and maybe two hours if she is lucky. Then there comes the wake-up call which starts around midnight and continues intermittently till dawn. Dad sleeps in the other bedroom "Because I have an important meeting tomorrow and I have to be awake for some hours and coffee doesn't cut it." So bleary-eyed Mom has to get the other kids off to school, make sure their lunch is packed and their hair looks reasonable but would not pass any lower grade kids inspection.

You are feeling yuk because you've had no sleep for the past 48 hours, you have to keep the house clean so there's that chore to do. Then comes the march to the store to pick up provisions for the next few days. You've got no help at all and if the older kids who are around 7, 9 and 11 they should muscle-in and do their bit to take the load off your shoulders. Hey, but do they? You've asked them millions of times to do this or that and they just yawn as if tomorrow is another day. Life really sucks sometimes and nobody seems to care. What to do with the kids? Well, switch on the TV or let them watch a movie as you have about 250 DVD's collected over the past few years (and some are pirated, but who cares?) as long as it can keep the kids occupied while you take a break.

Your new baby Jena starts to cry and you wonder if its hunger, sleep or a poop change. Yeah, it smells like it and you changed the mite's bum only half an hour ago. You shrug and think you might be able to get away with it for just another half hour. You then toss that thought right out of your mind, other mothers would not do it so why should you?

The other three kids now come home from school and they are hungry. Their first trip is to the fridge where there's lots of yummy stuff to snack on – especially the sugary eats. It gives them a 'high' and so the fun begins. They start fighting as two of them gang up on the younger one. There's a helluva racket going on and Baby Jena starts to ball to increase the decibel count to around 250. Your head is beginning to pound and you need a little space from all the noise and activity.

You calm the three kids down by threatening them with extinction but immediately soften with "Go and watch one of your favorite movies." All three yell with delight. But soon a squabble begins as they can not decide on what movie to watch.

You are tired, you have a headache, the TV is blaring and baby Jena starts to howl, she's hungry and Mom is a bit dry for breast feeding and Jena hates off-the-shelf stuff. Wouldn't you?

Don't make a rod for your own back. In other words, don't do something that is likely to cause problems for you in the future. Give the kids something to do that they have a passion for. There are countless activities for kids of all ages you can find on the internet. Kids crafts and science projects are one of the most well-loved from among the common selection of kids activities. Do a search and keep your kids active and your pounding headache will vanish. Go Here for Family Fun: http://tinyurl.com/l7lt6t