Creativity

A simple definition of CREATIVITY is the use of one's imagination to come up with new/original ideas, especially in the creation of an artistic work.

Everyone has their own way of reaching into themselves to find their creative soul.  We all see things differently, so what seems creative to one person may not to another.

I was fortunate to  learn, a number of years ago, how to increase one's ability to think outside the box.  My friend, JoAnn, had gone back to school to get another degree, this time in Product Design.  One of her professor's projects was to have the class pick an object and then see how many uses they could get from it.  (For example:  a brick...could be used to build a building, used as a paperweight, a hammer,  a doorstop,  a base for something, used to prop up a table or it could be ground up for other uses.  How many uses can you add to this?)  Practice this and it will become easier and easier to come up with new ideas.

When doing my own work, I have found that the amount of difficulty involved with what I am working on makes the process more interesting to me and gives me great satisfaction when it is finished.

The charcoal drawing that you see was done by taking a number of images of flamingos and super-imposing over over the other and then adding and subtracting charcoal.  The test is to be able to keep each image in mind while adding the others to the drawing.

My photography is also complicated.  The technique came about by accident and I continue to develop it, but I do not share how I do it.  What I will say is that I create the image before it's photographed and then put it into the computer to be cleaned up and tweaked.  Many, many shots are taken before I find one that I like.  Lots of surprises!!