Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Favorite web sites (and books!) part 1: Looking at things differently



As an art quilter I find inspiration and enjoyment from several different kinds of web sites though I won’t discuss them all today because I plan to revisit this topic!

I particularly enjoy Art related web sites – those that give advice about both the techniques of art (composition, color etc) and the business of art or just discuss art in general.

An interesting one I came across is: emptyeasel.com

This site has loads of information about every aspect of art and you can even try to become a “featured artist” with a very easy upload of a couple of images.

A recent article that caught my eye was “jump starting your creativity” – the author encourages us to question ourselves “what if?” For example, I often make quilts about cityscapes, and buildings.. so instead of taking another photograph of an urban scene and rendering it into fabric without much change, I could ask myself –

what if I was a mouse looking at this scene, how would it look?

Or if I was floating from a balloon?

What if I cut this image up into squares?

What if I imagined it was dark and I had a big search light?

What if I only had two colours to work with – what if they were a really strange combination – like lime green and orange?

What if I asked the next 5 year old I stumbled across to start the sketch for me……(have you never stumbled across a 5 year old? I know I have!)

What if I closed my eyes and drew it?

What if I tried to sketch it upside down?

These questions reminded me of a wonderful book by Alan Fletcher, a British graphic designer, said to have been one of the best designers ever, called “The Art of Looking Sideways” – you can see him on YouTube discussing his book which he says is “a box of goodies”! A thousand or more ways of looking at things differently.

So today – don’t forget to ask yourself how you too can look at things differently…..

……………..and if you have been, thanks for reading! Elizabeth

1 comment:

frazzledsugarplummum said...

Elizabeth,
Thank you for this and the other (yes I did read them) posts.
I am very new to fibre/art. I have quilted a few quilts, boring ones, but still loved because of the warmth they give. But at 50+ and with a retrained life behind me I feel a desperate need to create artistically. I have started on postcards as I seem to have no imagination. What I really wanted to do was to see the world differently, visually and mentally. This post was God sent. I am even starting to dream designs..not that I'd know if they were any good..lol ..as long as I am happy or not happy with them and trying MORE.
Thanks for sharing your ideas on the net.
Shirley