Creativity Challenge - Week 1

Blog 1

I wish all of you a happy, healthy, creative, and successful 2017. I will do my best to entertain you again with my weekly blogs, monthly newsletters, new artworks, and workshops.

Last year, I dedicated the majority of my blogs to writing about the time from my move to Canada in the spring of 1995 until my acceptance as a landed immigrant in the summer of 1996. This year, I will write my blogs following certain topics related to the seasons or events in my business.

Every year, many of us make a lot of new year’s resolutions. Although I was quite creative in 2016, I spent a lot of this creativity on creating new content for my classes and workshops. In 2017, I would like to spend more time painting and felting.

To get back into a routine, I will start my blogs for 2017 with another Creativity Challenge. During the month of January, I would like to keep practicing my drawing, felting, and painting skills by creating art every day. I did the same creativity challenge two years ago. I am not focusing so much on the result as on the process of creating. I will publish my creations every week, journaling about my challenges, surprises, and successes. Hopefully, this will inspire you to bring more creativity to your life. As I always like to have my posts ready and scheduled at least a day before publication, I only had five days to create artworks for this week’s post.

Day 1:

This small sketch is from the evening at the National Arts Centre, where my husband and I saw “Kinky Boots” on January 1.

I always have a small sketch book in my purse. Drawing at the NAC was tricky because we sat in one of the last rows very far up. There was hardly any light. When I am in my first row seat at the Ottawa Little Theatre, I can often sketch during a performance. Sketching helps me to remember an event much more vividly.

Day 2:

I have nothing to show for January 2 as I spent a big chunk of the day reconnecting with one of my good friends who works during the day, while I usually teach at night. We had a lot to catch up on.

Day 3:

I continued felting the squirrel I started in late December. I did not take a picture of the previous step because it consisted of a pear shaped head and an oval body. This is how my squirrel looked Tuesday night.

Day 4:

Last semester, I had two young boys with autism in my courses. One of their fathers has created a computer game for his son to teach him multiplication with the help of colours, rhymes, and images. He asked me if I could help him with the artwork. I am quite happy with the first eight of the ten images. I hope that he and his son like them. 

Day 5:

I finished the last two images for the multiplication programme. For all images I used watercolours, and watercolour pencils for the small details.

I hope my example got you in the mood to get more creative yourself. If you would like some help, I encourage you to join us for some of the workshops I offer. On January 12, from 1:30 to 3:30pm, I offer “Drawing with a Twist”, a drawing class for beginners. For more information please contact me at kpeters@domingoinformatics.ca or go to my website www.KerstinPeters.ca. The registration deadline for this workshop is January 9, 2017.