A Definition of Creativity

Today’s Image

In the Studio

Happy to be spending my afternoons painting in the studio. It’s most relaxing to me when you are finally ‘in the zone’ as I call it—that period in a drawing or painting when you are well into it and know where every object will be placed, what the hues will be, and where the light and shadows fall.

Yesterday I moved into the zone on my acrylic of a backyard scene. With a palette knife I added some dark areas to the wall with Liquitex Basics Raw Umber. I lightened the sky somewhat with Van Gogh Sky Blue Light and added some puffy clouds with Winsor & Newton Titanium White. Then I started working on the foliage. I began with a dot-stipple effect for the closer leaves using Winsor & Newton Finity Olive Green. Then using the same color and a stiffer bristle brush I thinly applied a layer for darker tones near the ground and for darker distant foliage. I smudged it around so that it looks out of focus. Next I used Liquitex Heavy Body Chromium Oxide Green (COG) for leaves that are a shade lighter in green and for grass that is in shadow. I think COG comes closest to looking like ‘grass green’ of many types of grasses that grow in warmer climates-- just the right amount of yellow in it. Finally I mixed COG and Liquitex Heavy Body Yellow Light Hansa for leaves and grass that is yet a shade or two lighter.

Today’s Image shows the progress I made. I’m not sure how many sessions it will take to finish but will show you progress.

Creativity Defined

Somewhat unexpectedly, last blog the Art Blog Orbisplanis took a turn into the subject of creativity this week. I had loosely planned to get into pastels, which haven’t really been discussed much since the blog started. However, as I mentioned I opened a fortune cookie with such a great and timely fortune that it set me off in this direction—somewhat mysteriously, like the way a Ouija Board works.

To recap, the fortune is ‘your creativity takes you to great heights.’ Last blog I talked about my perceptions of creativity, and why I think it should be developed not only in ‘art’ but also other realms in life.

There are probably as many definitions of creativity as there are artists, so that would be a whole lot. I decided to go back to a book I had discussed in a previous blog about learning to draw by learning to see. The book is Betty Edwards’ The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and I wanted to see what she had to say about it.

In the Glossary, she defines it as: “the ability to find new solutions to a problem or new modes of expression; the bringing into existence of something new to the individual and to the culture; writer Arthur Koestler added the requirement that the new creation should be socially useful.” I like it.

Do you see how she didn’t limit the definition just to things ‘art’ but also expanded it to include finding new solutions and modes of expression? That’s what I was getting at last blog when I said, ”You can be creative in a thousand different ways that have nothing to do with art.”

I especially like the part about bringing into existence of something new. That’s about as real as it gets and what you do every time you begin to draw or to paint.

Cheers!