Creatively Challenging Oneself / Always Growing

How far can someone push themselves?  Does creativity have a limit?  What makes a great work of art?

These are all interesting questions and they are all relevant to only the individual artist.  When artists might feel that he never pushes himself hard enough yet he is working diligently at his creative endeavor.  While another artist feels he has pushed himself to the limit, a limit that is only a self-imposed illusion.  So is there any limits?  My own personal feeling on that, is that all limits are self-imposed illusions.  If a deaf man could make music, then I see no imitations.  The average artist (including myself) finds a certain way to see the world and express it in his work, and this alone is limiting.  I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have a certain way to see the world, because I definitely believe we should.  I’m saying that we should always try to expand our view and incorporate more and more.  Adding new elements and expanding your repertoire, allows you to constantly give something new to your creative process so you and the audience adores your work can have more to express and experience, like an ever expanding story.  As for what makes a great work of art, that one is very personal.  I have seen amazing skill and craftsmanship, and yet it was lost in a sea of works just like it.  I have seen average skill and craftsmanship, and yet it stood out because of its unique vision.  I am actually taking a survey on my DeviantArt gallery website, just to find out what other artists feel about great artwork and what makes it.  I myself feel that if you can express and stimulate emotions in your audience, you are on the way to creating pieces that stand out.  But on the website, the majority of artists (not that many voters yet) have sided on the unique personal vision of an artist.  I guess only think that a unique personal vision is important, but his position does not stimulate thoughts and emotions, I think it still lacking its fullest potential.  Of course this is all only my personal opinion (not that my opinion means much, LOL) and no one has to take it as the gospel.

So why all this talk, and battle about great works and limitations?  My girl recently told me that she was getting bored with the fact that I was starting most of my new pencil surrealism’s with an eye, so I asked her what I should start with.

The following pieces have all been started with Stephanie’s ideas (my girlfriend), and these are things that I normally would have never thought of starting by.  The images are accompanied with a progression side panel that shows what I started with and how I continued.

This first one was started with her idea of using either a box or square.

This second piece was started with the idea of using a bucket.

This third piece was started with the moon.

Because of this discussion I had with Stephanie, I have also read thought my life model surrealistic self challenge.  I am back to my life model sculpting, but now I am going to collect a number of them to create a larger unique piece incorporating them all.  Here’s the first one I have done since taking a break with my son from my classes.  I will show these every week like I have done in the past but I am not going to alter them until I have collected a large number.  So these pieces will all be on altered sculptures of different sections that I have chosen to create from my model.

Thursday’s life model section.

Like always, please feel free to comment.  You can leave your comments on the blog for others to see and for feedback that I can use to possibly grow in my creative process.

Keep on creating,

Ken

imagination expansion/the lessons continue

For everybody who’s been waiting, here’s the new installment of “Imagination Expansion”.  Help you enjoy it and maybe even learn a little something from it.

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Flexibility was gained by having to change my creative direction to work the mistake into the peace and make it look like it always belonged.

Spontaneity was gained by working with the mistakes and having to come up with new ideas to make mistakes no longer look like mistakes.

The following is a philosophy to live by and some exercises that will help you in becoming more patient, flexible and spontaneous.

Philosophy

Mistakes are gifts, something new that any other way you might not have thought of.  Mistakes are doorways, doorways to new possibilities, and a new direction in your work.

Exercise 1

Take a blank piece of paper and with a pencil draw a random squiggle line on it.  Now use this squiggle line to create a drawing.  Repeat until comfortable.

Exercise 2

Repeat the previous exercise but use different tools each time you do this exercise, such efforts — tends, paints, pastels, etc., etc.  Creating a difference image each time.

Exercise 3

Starting a project do with no means of correcting any mistakes.  Whenever you make a mistake change the direction of your work to include the mistake as a tangible part of the work.

Tip

For a better free flow in your creativity the habit of not planning everything out and allowing nature to take its course, or should I say your imagination to take its course is just what this particular exercise will accomplish.  When mistakes are made and you are not allowed to change them, in this way you force your imagination to work harder and becoming more expanded in the process.

chapter 2 page 2

chapter 2 page 3

Like always, please feel free to comment, I appreciate all feedback.

Keep on creating,

Ken

Capturing the Evolution of a Piece of Art/How It Grows in Where It Goes

I thought it would be interesting to show the progression of my pieces, so I’m going to chronicles all my work in each of my mediums.  This first piece, I decided to start with the eye and develop the peace in their.

With these little drawings, I only work on a few minutes tonight, before bed.

I’ve been scanning them into my computer the next morning before I continue working on again.

I have no plans or ideas where these pieces will go and with the waiting time between stages, it allows me to see the piece differently.

Sometimes seeing the piece differently the next day is the most important step.

There have been times where I thought the piece was going nowhere and about to end up in the garbage and then all of a sudden the next day I found its new direction.  This feeling that I’m going nowhere and that the piece is garbage has actually happened a few times, and I’ll always surprise how it turns out and that I actually end up liking it.

I would love to see other artists doing this also, because it is interesting to me to be able to follow the progression a work of art takes while being created.

I hope you enjoyed seeing how I created this particular piece and I look forward to showing you more of my progressions.

Keep on creating,

Ken

“Imagination Expansions” Installment Part Three

Here’s another two pages from my book I’m writing in both the illustrated form and the text form.  Hope you enjoy the reading, and like always please feel free to comment.

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chapter to cover art

Chapter 2 page 1

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text version

Chapter 2 Mistakes

(Image)

“There is no such thing as mistakes, only likes and dislikes”

What is a mistake?  A mistake is a disliked directional change in the particular endeavor at hand.  Mistakes are also a learning experience, what not to do again.  Mistakes can be one other thing, and that is, a much-needed change of direction.

At 17 I was enrolled in a commercial art school.  One day I witnessed something that changed my life.  It was the most valuable lesson I learned from the entire course and it wasn’t even one of the lessons they were teaching.  One of my professors was fooling around with pen & ink when he bumped his coffee cup and some coffee splashed onto his work.  What do you think he did?  Well at that time in my life, I would have responded like most people and thrown it out.  But he on the contrary continued to work on it and work the coffee stain right into his work as though it always belonged there.  This was not his normal practice but since the peace he was working on was just to kill time he continued to work on.

So, what I did learn from the experience?  I started experimenting by starting projects with no means of correction; I just let the project direction change with the mistakes.  I also started projects by first randomly marking the paper or canvas and then starting from that point.  I learned three great skills from this experience patients, flexibility, and spontaneity.

Patients was gained by having to wait and continue my work to see the end result and not just starting over again.

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To be continued.

Keep on creating,

Ken

Imagination/ The Possibilities of Expanding

I’ve been writing a small e-book I call “Imagination Expansion”.  The book contains ideas and exercises I use to increase my own imagination.  I thought I would let you see it as I’m working on it, and maybe you would give me some comments, so that I might improve it.

I’m trying to keep the look of the book as though it is my own personal notebook.

“The cover”

“Table of contents”

“Chapter 1 page 1”

To be continued (LOL)

Don’t forget to tell you what to think.

Keep on creating,

Ken

What Is Creativity? / Searching for the Whys

I have questions that I’m looking to understand.  I don’t know if the answers are important to anyone including myself but still I’d like to know.  Will the answers make a difference, will they give me a better understanding, will they do anything at all for me?  I can honestly say I don’t know, but I’m going to ask the questions anyway and I would love to hear what you have to say.

1.  Is creativity a form of madness, some kind of psychotic expression?

2.  Do we choose to be creative or is it a disease?

3.  What does a particular creative expression really expressed about the creative individual?

4.  Is it important to understand the meaning of a particular creative expression?

5.  Is it important for the viewer to understand the creative individuals meaning of his or her creative expression?

6.  Does a creative expression have to have a meaning

7.  What exactly is a creative individual as opposed to other individuals?

I create artwork because I love too, or do I?  In myself I see there’s a difference between my career and my creative expression.  In my career (plumbing contractor) I go to work and perform my tasks to the best of my potential and it stops when the job is finished.  But with my creative expression, performing my task is just a minor aspect of it.  My mind always seems to desire to express its creativity in some form or another.  From the moment I wake up to the moment I finally fall asleep, my mind is working, thinking, pondering new ideas, new possibilities to create.  It seems to be beyond my choice when or where the creative process will lead.

“strange seed”

“observing the details”

There are some that say I am limited, that my view of the world is small because I see everything through my own personal creative filter.  Maybe they’re not filters, maybe their lenses to help us see things that we would not normally say like a nearsighted person wearing glasses to see things further away or an astronomer and his telescope.

A would love to hear what your opinion on this is, maybe it will help myself and others understand more about the whys.

Keep on creating,

Ken

Another Week Another Piece/Number 11 in the Self Challenge and More

I finish this one earlier this week, so it’s all zipped up and out of the way for me to start another one and also do some other work.

before

after

I created another one of those strange little pencil drawings as you can see below.  I don’t know if you realize this from the picture, but the drawing is only 4 inches tall.  This particular piece is called “misery has company”, don’t ask me why, and named just kind of came to me after it was done.

“misery has company“

I’ve also been working on a sculptured self-portrait, it’s almost complete so I’m showing you it to ask what you think.

I know it still needs a little tweaking, but it’s getting there.

I know I’ve taken a little while in creating my new blue Man painting, but I am starting it at last, so hopefully I’ll have the new painting up by next week.  Sorry I’m taking so long.

Keep on creating,

Ken

Seeing the Possibilities/Holy ^%^%$# There’s A Lot Of Stuff Here to See

I’d appreciate some of you doing me a favor, a before and after comment.

Please look at the drawing “bad relationship” and tell me what to see.

Now after you tell me what you say, I want to look again, but with a different focus point.  There are six mouths in this drawing and I found five of them to be very interesting.  When I focus on a mouth and a spot between the mouth and the eye, the image totally takes on a different personality giving the whole drawing a deeper meaning for myself.  Just remember that I did not plan this piece out, it just kind of happened on its own as I was drawing it, and it’s only 3 inches tall (viewing the full vision of the image is many times larger than the original).

I look forward to what you have to say.

Keep on creating,

Ken

Number 10 on the challenge and counting/still no end in sight

Thursday again, and I finished another one.

 Before

  after

I’ve been a little on the busy side these days, I been scanning in an old drawing pad of mine. I had this particular pad since 1988 (my precious little baby) and I thought I ought to digitally save my images and finally let this keepsake go for others to enjoy. By the way, this was a little on the difficult side, because I really loved this pad (so so sad to see it go). I scanned in over 40 drawings and digitally clean them up a little, I’ve been uploaded them onto deviantart.com (don’t let the name scare you). Deviantart.com is a place where you can look at all kinds of art, and if you like it, you can purchase fine art prints of it. Their prices are good and they’ll even frame the piece if you want. Well, it took me three days to scan and clean everything, but I do say they came out pretty good (if I say so myself).

Here’s a sample of some of the drawings I scanned, but if you want to see more, just click on any one of the deviantart.com links to see more of my works.

Well, I’m getting ready for another Thursday night like session, and of course we’ll have to see where this one goes.

By the way, for those who know me a little closer, when I say my life has been a little busy, it’s not just the artwork and the blogging. I’m also trying to expand my new plumbing company (you do remember I’m a plumber too), and also getting ready for my son to come visit for a month with my mom. So when I say busy, I mean busy. Anyone need a good plumber (LOL).

No matter how busy I get my promise to keep adding more artwork (for your viewing pleasure) to my blog and answering e-mails for all of you who are interested. If you have any questions, critiques, or ideas you might want to see how I visualize, please feel free to send me an e-mail me at: ken@kscreation.com. I would love to hear what you have to say, and may be others would too, so please keep on writing.

Keep on creating,

Ken

surrealism has a life of its own/where am I going, I can’t see anything

I really love doing these free flow designs.  I don’t had any idea how or what could turn out to be, and when I’m done it’s the first time I get to see.  I just start drawing, say like a circle and just go from there adding things as they pop into my head until I feel it looks done.

Beautiful shoes was actually created because my girl, her daughter and I were driving through Victoria Gardens and my girl noticed a woman wearing really nice shoes.  I went home and had the idea of shoes in my head, and this is what came out.

“beautiful shoes”

They’re not large drawings, usually between 2 and 4 inches tall and they use a 5 mm mechanical pencil with HP standard lead. They take about an hour to draw and I usually try to draw them in one sitting. I really like to draw them because they get my creative juices flowing, due to the fact that I have no planned direction.

I hope you like them as much as I do, but if you don’t, that’s okay, not everyone likes everything.  But I’d still like to hear your comments on them.

keep on creating,

Ken