Creativity Challenge - Week 1

Blog 1

Happy New Year! I hope you had a good start into the new year. As for the past two years, I started my Creativity Challenge again on January 1. My goal is to create something every day, even if it is just for a duration of 15 minutes. I will share my journey in my blogs. As I had this week off, I was able to go to my studio every day. I made quite some progress on my double dog portrait. The portrait of Alex and Candy is my priority right now. I am eager to finish this painting that has been standing in my studio for years.

Here are this week’s art projects:

January 1

Due to the lazy day after celebrating New Year’s Eve, I almost forgot about my Creativity Challenge but managed to felt for two hours. As I have all the petals of my flowers, I worked on defining the shape the petals. I am not sure you will be able to see the difference until all the petals are finished and put together in the right order to create the water lily. As much as I love felting, it is time-consuming, but at the same time very relaxing.

January 2

I finally made it back into my studio for an hour and a half. I knew that I had to work on Candy’s face again. I changed the position of the eyes and nose. It felt strange to work on the painting again after such a long time. It has been at least three months since a worked on it the last time, and it always takes a while to get back into the painting. Therefore, I hope that I will have a chance to work on it now at least twice a week until it is finished.

January 3

A person close to me needed support, so I decided to make another felted heart. Unfortunately, I was so eager to get it mailed that I forgot to take a picture. Here is a similar heart that I created before Christmas.

January 4

It was a very frustrating day due to the fact that I worked for four hours on Candy, but made little progress. After two hours had passed, I was ready to throw the towel. However, I persisted after a good walk with Alex and can see that I am closer to my vision of Candy. I just wish that I could have finished her portrait while she was still alive. It is a lot harder when you do not have a living reference to check for details. I am confident that the progress will get smoother when I do not have such big time gaps between painting sessions.

In the evening, I also continued my work on the water lily.

I hope my Creativity Challenge will encourage you to pick up a brush, pencil, needle, or whatever intrigues you to start creating. You will be more relaxed, have fun and increase the balance in your life. It would be wonderful if you shared your projects with me, either by email or by commenting to this blog. Let’s make 2018 a productive year!