Day 19 - clay

"Buy or make some clay and then use it like you never have before."

I made some clay from flour, salt, and water (actually more like play-doh, let's be real here), and made this:

clay flower, unbaked. 24 petals.

I love clay/pottery. Doing today's project reminded me of that love. I took a very short-term pottery class a couple of years ago. During that class, I discovered that I am crap at the potters' wheel; but also how amazing it is to form something out of clay. You get to beat the crap out of this hard, yet pliable, piece of earth, and then mold it until it becomes something beautiful. Even if it doesn't go the way you meant for it to go, sometimes it works itself out...or other times, you just smash it down again and start over. You usually end up with something decent, if not beautiful, if you just keep working at it.

Maybe it's about time to sign up for a pottery class again......

Day 18 - floating?

"Create something that floats on water. (It doesn't have to be a boat.)"

 

first try: tissue paper flower with a clothespin base = fail.

that tissue paper was waterlogged after less than 30 seconds. should've known.

 

next try: i fashioned this out of a dead ivy vine in my yard.

 

does it float? maybe. it was sort of resting on the edges of the birdbath, but i like to think that it would float. i didn't feel like wasting enough water to fill up the kitchen sink to test it out fully. 

Day 17 - jumper cables, et. al.

 "Work with the things you find in your car."

 

jumper cables, some tools, and, for some strange reason, an ethernet cable.

 It reminds me of a poppy.

Day 16 - eyes

"Make something inspired by and/or that goes over an eye (yours or someone else's)."

 

eye flower.

Hey, I never said these creations would actually be good! This one is a little creepy.

Day 15 - sponge stamp

"Make a unique print by cutting up a potato or sponge, and use it to stamp on a material of your choice."

 

stamped from a sponge. 

sort of a flower; sort of a star. 

my lunchbag is becoming more decorated.

Day 14 - one dollar

"What can you do with just a dollar? Use a dollar bill as your medium or inspiration today."

Is it illegal to deface the legal tender of the United States of America? If so, oh well...

not very creative....but i didn't have much time to think of anything better today.

Day 13 - microscopic

"Make something microscopic. How small can you work? Can you make something that requires a magnifying glass or microscope to see?"

I don't think I have the proper equipment to make anything quite that small. But, here's what I got...

one grain of rice. painted with an orange flower.

perspective.

fingerprints.

Day 12 - tea leaves

Soo, I am going to have to go off the books a little bit again. I have a really good idea for the book's guidance for "Day 12", but it's going to take me a lot more time (and I will have to gather a few materials) than I have tonight. So, I'm going to skip ahead, and then come back to it, hopefully this weekend.

For today:

"Use tea leaves or tea bags (used or unused) or even just liquid tea (in a cup or not) to create something today."

earl grey lavender tea leaves. yum.

Day 11 - lefthanded

"Work on the other hand. Pick a medium you're comfortable with, then work with your non-dominant hand."

i am pretty much right-handed, although i can do some things well or better with my left hand. like card-dealing. i never knew that i dealt cards left-handed until, i think i was in college, when someone asked me why i was dealing left-handed. i never knew i was doing it left-handed. anyway, most things, like writing/drawing/etc., i do with my right hand.

so here is a drawing made with my left hand...

 i'm glad i didn't stop here. i wasn't sure how the shading would come out with my left hand, but i think it looks so much better with the shading.

Days 8, 9, 10 - book pages / ripple effect / breakfast

I was out of town camping for the past couple days, so I got these days a bit jumbled up, based on what I could do where I was.

"Transform an old book into something new by cutting, folding, gluing, and so on."

i reprised the folded flower that i made in day 3, but used pages from an old "atlas of american history" that i was going to get rid of. i guess i will have to find some other projects for the rest of the pages in the book now!

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"Use only water as your medium/inspiration today."

ripple effect. 

Little Niangua River, Missouri

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"Make something with your breakfast before you eat it."

camping breakfast on the picnic table.

eggs + cheese + pancake + syrup = flower

Day 7 - stencil

"Today, make a stencil and use it in your work."

now there is a yellow flower on my lunch bag. it kind of looks like the sun. i'm ok with that.

i will probably post my next 3 days all at once, because i will be out of town camping this weekend!

 

Day 6 - cherries

"Look in the kitchen and work with the first fruit or vegetable you spot. It could be in the form of juice, jam, or even canned."

  cherries, a cherry pit, and 2 cherry stems.

Day 5 - music

"What do you collect? Work with a collection of objects you have in your home (or borrow a friend's if you like.)"

I don't collect musical instruments, but a friend of mine who is moving into my house brought over a couple of instruments today. She had the idea that we should create some music using this "collection". Neither of us actually play the instruments we had in possession, but we tried it out. We had: a guitar, a "kalimba" (which was in a very old looking box that says, "a new musical instrument from Africa"), and an egg shaker (which was actually left at my house from a previous housemate). I also have a harmonica, but unfortunately, we couldn't work that one into the song.

We made a little recording of a very old song, "Wildwood Flower", in GarageBand. I played the guitar and the kalimba (recorded on separate layers), and my friend sang and played the egg shaker. Unfortunately, though, I can't figure out how to upload a music file to this thing! So, here is a link to the song that we covered.

If anyone has any sage advice on how to upload an AIF music file, please do share.

Also, if anyone would like to teach me how to play the guitar (or the harmonica), please do share that as well! I regret having given up the guitar so hastily when I was a rambunctious 14-year-old.

Day 4 - folded napkin

"Take a five-minute walk, then make something using whatever materials are available where you've ended up. Leave it there for someone else to discover, but be sure to document it first!"

sooo, i kinda had to bend the rules again today. by the time i looked at the instructions, it was about 9 p.m.  that's a bit late to take a walk around the neighborhood. so, i had these cinnamon rolls that i will be leaving in the kitchen for my roommates to discover tomorrow morning. and, i saw a cloth napkin sitting on the table, so i made a flower out of it. here it is. maybe i'll remember to look at the book earlier tomorrow.

Day 3 - folded paper

"Make something out of paper, but don't use scissors or glue or draw on it."

so here is a little flower. it's made out of 6 pieces of square paper, so it's not actually origami. also, i later realized that i used scissors to cut the 8.5x11 paper into a square, AND i used a glue stick to stick the pieces together. oops. fail. oh well - i do what i want.

so...i couldn't find my old origami book - maybe i gave it away, or it got lost along the way during one of my many moves. but i found the pattern from this website.

i like that this is made from many parts, though. one piece of the flower by itself isn't that attractive or special. but when you put them all together, they make a lovely flower. maybe it is a lesson along the lines of "no one is an island", or our innate need for community and interdependence. i don't know, these are just some things i've been thinking about lately.

anyway, here is today's creation....

see? just one piece. not very special.

but when you put them together, this is what you get.

Day 2 - hat for a cat

"what's your favorite animal? use it as your inspiration today."

my favorite animal is this crazy cat that lives with me. her name is penelope pepper pennyworth, or just penny. so, i decided to make a little flower hat for her to wear. here's what happened...

flower made from ribbon.

doesn't she look lovely?

  i don't think she liked it.

Day 1 - rice flower

The guidance today is to "make something that fits in the palm of your hand using only the materials in your immediate environment".

Beginning

This is me, beginning a 365-day creativity project. I will be using Noah Scalin's book, "365: A Daily Creativity Journal" for guidance. The subject I've tentatively decided on is blooms...although I will keep it fairly liberal and open to interpretation. Basically what I'm going for is anything conveying growth or change in a natural environment. I've chosen "bungling blooms" as the title to convey my trepidation about launching into a creative project. My creativity has not been tapped for some time. Merriam-Webster defines the verb "bungle" as: "to act or work clumsily and awkwardly". I am sure that this will be an awkward and clumsy process, albeit one that I think will help me grow in some way. Here goes...