Category: Creativity

Did you know that if you say to yourself “Saturday after breakfast I’m going to go and paint.” you are way more likely to do it than if you just say, “I want to paint sometime this weekend.” Giving it a time and place in your imagination makes what is called an “Action Trigger”, and people tend to follow through on those. I just finished reading a fascinating book called, “Switch – How to Change Things When Change is Hard” by Chip & Dan Heath. I learned a lot about what motivates people to change. I recommend the book if you are curious about people’s behaviour. Lots of interesting studies with surprising results. I found a number of suggestions that I want to apply to myself too! Here’s a brief excerpt from the chapter ‘Rally the Herd’ – and I think it will make you smile. – “In ambiguous situations, we all look to others for cues about how to behave. Maybe you’ve had the experience of scanning the table frantically at a fancy dinner, trying to figure out which fork is for dessert. (If you haven’t had that experience, we hope you know your forks, because the rest of us copied you.)” – Painting Saturday after breakfast sounds good to me! How about you? 

It may seem like an oxymoron to you, the idea of creative restrictions, but it’s actually not. The imagination, to be at full power, seems to require some parameters or restrictions. For example: if I tell a class of art students to paint anything at all on their blank canvas, the results are not as interesting or dynamic as when some sort of guidelines are given. These restrictions can be as simple as: use only 2 colours, or express in paint the emotion of joy. These minimal parameters become a spark to the fuel of creativity. Of course too many restrictions are not good either. Like too much salt, they can spoil the creative stew too. What kind of restrictions spark your creative mode? 

There is something excellent to be said about being in the moment. Certainly for many folks, the creative mode is the best way to be fully alive and in the ‘now’. Hopefully we have learned something from the past, but not in a way that we are afraid of new adventures. Hopefully we look forward to the future, but not so much that we can’t appreciate the wonder we are surrounded with right now. All you really have to live is today – and there’s freedom in that thought! Hope yours is a glad life, one day at a time. 

For a very short list, this feels pretty comprehensive to me. What do you think? “A Big Creative Yes” by Dan Goodwin. 

Setting aside the search for great composition, colours, and all that goes into a well created painting, at times I stop and ponder the larger meaning behind my art. I think it comes down to this for me – I hold beauty in high regard. Beauty has been a long time theme for me, and one that can be applied to any subject. I hope to delight the viewer with lovely lines, shapes, and colours. More recently, I have also wanted to include a sense of mystery so that the viewer’s imagination can participate in the art. This is accomplished by leaving some things within the painting in an unfinished state; soft edges, understated colour, layers of shapes that merge and re-emerge. You can watch for this theme in my art as I plan to work on this aspect of painting more this summer – beauty plus mystery. Since art is a language, there are as many different potential themes as there are different individuals. What about you? Do you have any overriding themes for your paintings or for the art that is on your walls? 

Painting at beautiful Brentwood was sooo good this weekend. The weather was perfect – only a bit of rain first thing Saturday morning but it cleared up beautifully and we had lots of sunshine and a gentle cool breeze off the lake. As well as lots of creative painting time, we simply had a lot of fun together! We had a campfire at the beach under the brightest stars ever, and fantastic food at every meal. Thank you, Brentwood, for hosting this art retreat. What a delight – we’ll be back! 

There’s an entire world of you waiting to be discovered. Very brief post here, in a Big Creative Yes by Dan Goodwin.  

Looking forward to the painting retreat this weekend June 8 to 10! Room for a couple more if you would like to join us for this creative and relaxing get-away at beautiful Brentwood on the Beach. More information here: Lakeside Painting Retreat with Cheryl O – you can check out the video on that page too. 

I discovered this principle in Grade 9 while learning to play in the high school Junior Band. When you really love a piece of music, by the time you’ve practiced it enough times to play it really well, that initial passion can be growing a bit dim. In order to keep that spark glowing, I learned to concentrate hard on what I first loved about the music, in order to try to express that on the 500th rendition. The very same principle can be applied to painting. When you are first attracted to a subject or even an abstract idea, the excitement is high. Then comes the discipline of trying to express that with paint, and the truth is, sometimes that’s just hard work. So the suggestion is: pay attention to what got the spark of passion glowing in the first place. Hold that thought close as you work. The hope is that this glow will guide you through the creative process, and even catch fire in some viewer’s heart when they see your finished work. Shine on!