[-quick tip, practice-]

A Quick Creative Practice
~simple habits can have profound impacts~

Keep a tablet and a pen or pencil on your bedside table at all times!

DREAMS
If you wake with a dream still in reach, jot it down immediately. If you want to fall back to sleep, don’t worry about transcribing the full dream. If you write the most important words and images you’re likely to remember the connecting links later.

SOLUTIONS
Those transitional times just before falling asleep or waking—especially from a nap—are rich times for problem-solving and inspirational ideas. Having paper and pencil nearby will allow you to capture these gems that might otherwise disappear from your mind as the world crowds in.

SKETCHES
The tablet isn’t just for words. If you’re like me, you’ll sometimes *see* images that need to be painted or drawn. Make quick sketches before they too are lost to time.

[-art, photography, alterations-]

‘lingering doubt’

© 06 - 07 angela petsis all rights reserved

Today we have a wax collage done by Angela Petsis. She says that she’s only been doing collage a short while but it’s obvious that she has a natural affinity and skill for gathering, and the layered construction that collage requires. The transparency of this image - with words and background images showing through the figure - give it a dreamy quality. The wax she uses in lieu of glue gives it depth and an aged look.

I am always more drawn to an image when it’s been given an evocative title like this one. “Lingering Doubt” immediately draws me in. I look more closely at the woman’s image and begin to wonder about the look on her face, her stance, what she’s wearing. But more so, it makes me think about what’s going on within her. Both ‘lingering’ and ‘doubt’ are ambiguous words. They can lead to positive or negative outcomes, but they are evidence of an internal struggle that helps to give meaning to this complex image. The combination of title and image result in visual poetry.

- See Angela’s great tutorial on how to do Polaroid transfers
- Showcase of Angela’s Polaroid Transfer artistry
- Be sure to visit Angela’s beautiful website to check out what other kinds of art she’s doing: angelapetsis.com

Thanks Angela for your evocative collage!

Originally published in the original Practically Creative blog, February 2006; edited for re-publication

[-photography, digital art-]

Memories of hope

Originally uploaded by Baywhale.

This locally sunny (woke up to snow, but the sky has ‘blued-up’ nicely) Sunday, I’ve chosen a photograph by baywhale.

His abstract images use reflection, transparency, colour, texture, words and numbers to bring us in close to his unique view of an urban world. Fragments of walls, windows, surfaces - rusted, painted, peeling, dirty - are transformed into visually rich, deep and poetic works of art. In addition, he uses titles to expand upon and offer glimpses (though no simple explanations) into his own interpretation of these images.

Here’s a tutorial that baywhale was kind enough to do for The PCQ on the technique he uses to make what he describes as “photosandwiches.”

Thanks, Baywhale!

© 05 - 07 baywhale, all rights reserved

Please visit Baywhale’s flickr stream to see more of his creations.
Of his Adventures in Wonderland set, Bay says,

I see this set as ‘pure’ art, the deep and dark psychology takes place when I take the individual pictures but when I combine them it’s all about pleasure.

Baywhale, a computer operator in London, is also a proponent of the World Community Grid, a painless way to contribute to our world. Information on his World Community Grid group can be found at the flickr group, The Painless Charity of the Amazing Secret Angels- photograhers who flickr

Originally published in the February 2006 on the original Practically Creative blog; edited slightly for re-publication

[-photography, alterations-]

The Patina group on flickr.com is for images of anything that has “a rich, interesting, complex surface sheen due to age and use.” At this writing, 101 photographers have contributed close to 900 photos, gathering, IMHO, one of the most gorgeous collections on flickr. Read the rest of this entry »

[-art, digital art-]

Meet Flik R, our featured doodler

Flik R - who chooses to remain in his flickr persona - does fantastical drawings with gelpens and Uniball Signo rollerpens. But rather than be satisfied with that, he keeps going, taking his art farther by using his drawings as the raw material for digital art.

Flik draws the design in pencil first and then erases the drawing so he can still see the outline of each shape. He then colors them in with gel pens.

Using his graphics program, he uses the “negative” command to do an inverse of his drawing with rather spectacular results.

Experimenting with this led him to do some drawings with the negative in mind.

Flik then began selecting triangles from his drawings and using a tile function to make kaliedoscopic patterns!

This drawing and its inverse were used to make all these different patterns.

all images © 2005-2007 flik r all rights reserved

Thanks Flik R, for showing us a couple of ways in which hand-made art
can be altered with our computers to make wonderful new images.

See more: Flikr illustrates, The Dread

about the artist:
Flik R is 35 year old male from the United Kingdom. He entertains himself with various creative, technical or abstract projects as well as enjoying animals, computers, and long walks at night in the countryside. When asked what he thinks about while doodling he said,

He says of himself,

My ‘favourite’ picture is of the horse, something calming in that, something impressive in a horse also. The picture was just something a friend gave me the idea to draw one lacklustre day many years ago. A few hours later I had this picture, tiny and delicate, and it brings me comfort and calm just to look at it now, well a copy of it. The original lives in Sweden now. Favourite may be a strong word, it’s really just one I like a lot.

See more of Flik R’s drawings at flickr.com/photos/flikr/

Originally published in the April 2006 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: alterations

[-photography, how-to, art-]

Words and Images by Angela Petsis

Polaroid Transfers are a fun and creative way to elevate your photography to a whole new level. The most important thing to remember when starting out in the world of transfers is to have patience, and be open to experimenting with different transfer methods because what works for one person will not necessarily work for another.

antique store still-life © 06 - 07 all rights reserved angela petsis

Angela says,

This image was taken on a sunny afternoon in St. Augustine Florida. This is a great example of an image I felt would benefit from extra alterations after it was dry. The colors were added using colored pencils, but you could use any type of paints, crayons, even markers – the sky is the limit! Make sure to wait at least 24 hours before making changes because transfers are very delicate when wet.

To begin, a Polaroid transfer is made using specific Polaroid films. These films are instant color film; when you take a picture using this film you wait about 60 seconds, and you get a color picture that’s ready to go into a photo album or scrapbook. The beauty of the Polaroid’s ER line of pack films is that if you disrupt the development process at just the right time –and your photograph can become a whole other work of art. The two most common and least expensive of these ER films are type 669 and 690. They are 3.25 x 4.25 inches. There are larger formats, however these require more elaborate equipment and money.

polaroid daylab copy system

In order to create a Polaroid transfer you must first have a method of exposing the film. You can do this several different ways, the most popular being either a slide printer or a Polaroid Daylab Copy system. The slide printer takes 35mm slides and prints them directly onto the Polaroid film – the great thing about the printer is that everything is handled neatly without a darkroom, and you need very little space to work. When I used a slide printer I worked right off of my kitchen counter. The Copycat system (see photo) uses 4×6 prints instead of slides. So you can take your digital pictures or film, print them out, and copy them right on to Polaroid film for a transfer!

Once you have a method for printing your photographs onto Polaroid pack film, you are ready to start making transfers. Your work area needs to be flat, and accessible to electrical outlets (working in a kitchen or bathroom is probably easiest, so you can have access to hot water as well).

You will need at least two 8×10 photographic trays, a receptor (such as paper) to place your transfer on, tongs, and a drying rack.

Transfers are made by interrupting the development process of the film; instead of waiting 60 seconds to have a fully developed print, you will pull apart your film after 10-15 seconds and throw away the actual print.

By disrupting the development processes, all of the dyes have not had a chance to move over to the print itself – much of the dyes have remained behind on the negative. It is the negative piece that will be placed on top of a new receptor to create a transfer. Experiment with different materials – the most common receptor sheet is hot or cold pressed watercolor paper; but you could also use silk, handmade paper, even papyrus – the choices are endless.

I like to dampen my watercolor paper with hot water before placing the negative on top. This technique is the wet or heat transfer method.

Some people will use a hot plate or blow dryer once the negative is in contact with the receptor sheet, to help the dyes migrate to the paper properly. I like to gently roll my image with a brayer to help insure that the image will be evenly transferred. Leave your negative to develop for about 60 seconds.

This is the time you could place it in a tray of hot water, or on a hot plate, but you can also let it sit until you are ready to peel off the negative. I like to peel my negative off the receptor under warm water as it seems to prevent any of my image from lifting off and helps to avoid any damage to the image.

Once your transfer is complete, let it sit in a tray of gently running water for several minutes, and place on a drying rack in a safe place until completely dry. Never stack your images or place anything on top of them while they are still wet, or they will be damaged.

Once they are completely dry you can use watercolor paints or colored pencils to enhance the look of your image, or use them just as they are. They look wonderful framed or in a scrapbook. Have fun and enjoy!

More Information: Polaroid.com
Essential book:
Polaroid Transfers: A Complete Visual Guide to Creating Image and Emulsion Transfers by Kathleen Thormod Carr

Supplies:
Daylab - a Polaroid company that produces everything for image transfers; the slide printers, copy systems, film - daylab.com

B&H Photo (has the best prices) - bhphotovideo.com
Freestyle Photographic Supplies (Excellent source for those readers on the USA West Coast)- freestylephoto.biz

Dick Blick – they have the best art supplies at the best prices (the only place I use for buying different kinds of papers/receptors) - dickblick.com

Definitely search for supplies on line auctions as well. A slide printer or copy machine (the basic models) is going to cost about $200 new. You can get them off of Ebay for half that price, and every week there are at least 5-6 listed.

all words and images by Angela Petsis - © 2006 - 2007 all rights reserved

See more of Angela’s Polaroid transfer artistry here.
Angela wrote this and took the images for The PCQ. Thanks so much, Angela! We appreciate the great tutorial!

About the author/artist:
Angela is an artist/photographer who has recently relocated from Florida to Washington state. Please feel free to direct your Polaroid transfer questions to Angela at venusthemuseatyahoo.com. Her beautiful new website: angelapetsis.com

Originally published in the April 2006 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: alterations

[-poetry, how-to-]

by Nancy Waldman

detail, Genji Scroll, Goto Museum, Tokyo, Japan

I recently returned from a Writing Retreat planned and presented by the members of my local writing group. One of our participants, Krista MacKeigan taught a wonderful workshop on poetry and inspired me to try some found poetry.

I chose the words for my poem from The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, translated by Ivan Morris.

The process is, on the surface, simple.

Find a piece of prose and turn it into a poem. Use every word as it is found in the original. Krista suggested first trying non-fiction rather than novels or short stories. Newspapers, she found, were generally lacking in enough figurative language to make it interesting.

My suggestion is to choose a piece of non-fiction prose not for its subject, but instead for the language and imagery. Find words that interest you about a subject that you wouldn’t ordinarily write about.

Remember it is ‘found’ art, so don’t agonize over this part of the process. Play with it. Choose *lightly* and see what develops. In that way, you can be surprised by the results.

I found that this kind of exercise was instructive in the areas of line breaks and overall pacing of the poem. Because I was using “ready-made” words it took away that pressure of choosing the right ones and allowed me to focus on other parts of the process. This is very much like learning about composition by using magazine scraps for collage or even painting by numbers or tracing which –while perhaps not an artistic goal–can be instructive about how artists achieve certain effects.

Once you have done several, choose one to take a little farther by rearranging, removing and adding words. You can also experiment with doing a Parallel Poem.

Parallel Poems are derivations of existing poems rather than prose. The result is a poem very like another the original but using slightly different words, images or subject matter. See below for links to some examples of parallel poems. Use can one of your found poems, or take a poem you admire and make it your own while always, of course, giving credit to the original poet for his or her work.

Other online links:

- Parallel Poetry Workshop
- Found Parallel Poems
- an online word rearranger
- See another PCQ Found Poetry article
- Our Poetry links

about The Pillow Book:

Sei Shonagon was born in approximately 965 and served as lady-in-waiting at the Court of the Japanese Empress during the last decade of the tenth century. The Pillow Book was a kind of diary or journal, though whether only for herself or written for a contemporary or future audience, no one knows.

Here is another Found Poem from the same source:

30. Insects

The bell insect
and the pine cricket
the grasshopper
and the common cricket
the butterfly
and the shrimp insect;
the mayfly
and the firefly.

I feel sorry for
the basket worm.
He was begotten
by a demon,
and his mother,
fearing
that he would
grow up with his
father’s frightening
nature,
abandoned the
unsuspecting child,
having first wrapped him
in a dirty piece of clothing.

“Wait for me,” she said as she left.
“I shall return to you as soon
as the autumn winds blow.” So when
autumn comes
and the wind
starts blowing,
the wretched child hears it
and desperately cries,
“Milk! Milk!”

The clear-toned cicada

The snap beetle also
impresses me.
They say the reason it bows
while crawling on the ground
is that the faith of
Buddha
has sprung up in its
insect heart.
Sometimes one suddenly sees the
snap beetle
tapping away
in a dark place
and this
is rather
pleasant.

The fly
should have been included
on my list of hateful things
for such an odious creature
does not belong with ordinary
insects.
It settles on everything
and even alights
on one’s face
with its clammy
feet.

I am sorry
anyone
should have been named
after it.

The tiger-moth
is very pretty
and delightful.
When one sits
close to a lamp
reading a story,
a tiger moth
will often flutter
prettily
in front of one’s book.

The ant
is an ugly insect;
but it is
light on its feet
and I enjoy watching it
as it skims
quickly
over the surface
of the water.

Originally published in the April 2006 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: alterations; edited for re-publication

[-photography, poetry-]

by Nancy Waldman

Ljubljana arches

Originally uploaded by daerice.

This morning I spent some relaxed time viewing a slideshow of the images that have been put in the Practically Creative pool. The variety, the color, the sense of play and humour, the emotions, the places, the depth, the creativity are inspiring. Viewing these images in thumbnail as they are in the sidebar of this site doesn’t do justice to any of the images. Sometime take some time to delight your eyes and your soul with a slideshow of them.

I chose daerice’s photograph from Ljubljana, Slovenia because my posts have been focusing on the alteration of our world by natural elements. Here is a beautiful part of our world that is showing signs of age. The arches have a rich patina of flaking and peels and cracks and discoloration.

This image and my time[lessness] spent in looking at the others inspired me to bring up this, an excerpt from Winter Hues by 19th century Canadian poet Archibald Lampman,

Life is not all for effort: there are hours,
When fancy breaks from the exacting will,
And rebel thought takes schoolboy’s holiday,
Rejoicing in its idle strength. ’Tis then,
And only at such moments, that we know
The treasure of hours gone—scenes once beheld,
Sweet voices and words bright and beautiful,
Impetuous deeds that woke the God within us,
The loveliness of forms and thoughts and colors,
A moment marked and then as soon forgotten.
These things are ever near us, laid away,
Hidden and waiting the appropriate times,
In the quiet garner-house of memory.
There in the silent unaccounted depth,
Beneath the heated strainage and the rush
That teem the noisy surface of the hours,
All things that ever touched us are stored up,
Growing more mellow like sealed wine with age;
We thought them dead, and they are but asleep.
In moments when the heart is most at rest
And least expectant, from the luminous doors,
And sacred dwellingplace of things unfeared,
They issue forth, and we who never knew
Till then how potent and how real they were,
Take them, and wonder, and so bless the hour.

thanks, daerice, for giving us this view of your world.

See all our poems and poetry articles

Originally published February 2006 in the Practically Creative blog.

[-art, alterations-]

The TIDE Series by artist, Mary Bogdan

All images copyright © 2003, Mary Bogdan; 12.125″h x 11.5″w x 6.5″d, mixed media on abandoned Tide laundry detergent box

All about this series in Mary’s own words:

TideRed -© 2003 - 2007 - Mary Bogdan - all rights reserved

TideRed (open)- copyright © 2003 - 2007 - Mary Bogdan - all rights reserved

TideYellow © 2003 - 2007 - Mary Bogdan - all rights reserved

TideYellow(open) © 2003 - 2007 - Mary Bogdan - all rights reserved

TideBlack - copyright © 2003 - 2007 - Mary Bogdan - all rights reserved

TideBlack (open) - copyright © 2003 - 2007 - Mary Bogdan - all rights reserved

Mary - painter & assemblage artist - says of herself:

I am a “glaneuse”, a gleaner… In scrap heaps of abandoned or demolished buildings, alleyways and flea markets, I find rare treasure. Garbage. Remnants of wood and metal, books, boxes, old paintings, all that have been discarded are interesting to me. My work deals with obsolescence. Each “found” object has out-lived its time and has therefore been scrapped. Dead. I rescue and assemble them with collected items from my own past. I sense the object’s energy guiding its reincarnation to a higher purpose. Art. These artifacts that have chosen me, tell stories of where they have been, where I have been, where I am and where I am going. Stories of passion and anger, strength and weakness, love, hate and fear. Revealing me to me. Mary and her husband, artist Sol Lang, were exhibited recently in New York City at the M!WAA @ NEW ART CENTER ; her images can be seen at flickr.com/photos/marybogdan/

Originally published in the January 2006 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: alterations

[-photo essay, art, alterations-]

images and words by featured artist, Cynthia Korzekwa

That is, the formation of taste comes from the home. From homemakers. From our mothers. The way they feed us, the way they dress us, the way they decorate our homes. The way they care for us. Housewives are our first trendsetters. Because our childhood follow us throughout our lifetime, like Proust’s madeleines.

The domestic arts, the so-called applied arts, were really the first arts.

beer can purse, © 2004 - 2007 cynthia korzekwa

soda can purse, © 2004 - 2007 cynthia korzekwa

When art was based on everyday objects, art existed every day.

“la seine” - recycled box and paint brushes cynthia korzekwa © 2005-2007

Domestic habits have changed and so have we. Art for housewives is an eulogy to the housewife and to the aesthetics she’s helped us create.

plastic bag crocheted table covering, © 2004 - 2007 cynthia korzekwa all rights reserved

Transformed by need

magazine roll trivet, © 2004 - 2007 cynthia korzekwa

bathroom pockets cynthia korzekwa © 2005 - 2007

Bricolage is taking something old and, via context, turning it into something new.

recycled bucket decorated with paper rolls, © 2004 - 2007 cynthia korzekwa

Bricolage, a form of recycling, is thus about transformation.

“kadette”- embroidered photos framed with plastic bottle rings © 2004 - 2007 cynthia korzekwa

Bricolage is a creative response to changing conditions which recycles elements to adapt to their new circumstances.

pizza box bead necklace, © 2004 - 2007 cynthia korzekwa

Thus bricolage is, in some ways, a form of evolution. It assembles and constructs that which is needed from that which is available.

iris, “they had secrets to share” -painted embroidery with crocheted frame © 2004 - 2007 cynthia korzekwa

“sometimes you catch, sometimes you throw”
ball point pen drawing with a paper bead frame
© 2004 - 2007 cynthia korzekwa

all images copyright © 2004-2007 cynthia korzekwa - all rights reserved

You’ll also like:
Cynthia on Colour

Cynthia says of herself:

Visit Cynthia’s sites,
korzekwa | flickr site: los ojos | art for housewives | blog: paros | blog: ikastikos | email: cynthiak at tin dot it

Originally published in the January 2006 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: alterations