Category: Creative Living Activity

March 31, 2014

I Made This!

Remember when you were a kid & shared your creations with delight?

Maybe you even got to stick your art on the fridge for the whole world to see!

Let’s bring that joyful “show and tell” feeling back with…

I Made This!

What is “I Made This!”?: Each Monday here in the studio, I’ll invite you to share what you’ve made over the week before. It can be anything – a flower arrangement, a crocheted cap, a painting, a poem, a party, an outfit, a cake! Show what you made and tell us a bit about what the experience was like for you. What inspired you? What did you learn? How were you challenged? What did you love? And hey, if you want to share the inspiration, the pattern, the recipe, the kinds of supplies you used, we’ll all be the richer for it!

To Participate: Create an “I Made This!” post on your blog and add the direct link* in the Mr. Linky below. Be a sunbeam of love as you visit other makers, celebrating their creativity and sharing inspiration along the way. It would be great if you could also link back here as an invitation to other creative hearts to jump in and share. I’ve got a badge for you if you’d like to add it to your blog.

And please know, whatever you made doesn’t have to be perfect or beautiful or even finished – though it might be. I just want us to share what we’re creating with our hearts and with our hands and to remember how much fun it can be to say, “I made this!”

Let’s make this something wonderful!

*PS A direct link is when you share the address for the actual post instead of just your blog (e.g. http://jamieridlerstudios.ca/introducting-i-made-this-monday instead of just http://jamieridlerstudios.ca)

March 31, 2014

I Made This: Getting Over My Fear of Drawing

Drawing intimidates me. In fact, when I go through a list of all the arts I can think of, drawing would top the list as the scariest.

When did I get this fear of drawing?

I can so easily cast back to being a little girl gleefully making the most of my crayons, markers and coloured pencils. Hours upon hours were spent drawing trees and ducks and writing my alphabet. We had a little art table at the back of the family room and I can still feel what it was like to sit there, absorbed in creating.

The turning point was whenever it became clear that “representation” was the purpose for art, that if you drew a dog it should look like a dog, by which I mean, really look like a dog. How did you accomplish that? Nobody told me that part! If you were an artist, if you had talent, you would know.

Well, I didn’t know. And so drawing just dropped out of my repertoire. Forever.

Until this year.

If you follow stART: Creating as We Go, you know that my sisters and I are signed up for Life Book. We’re exploring our way through weekly mixed media exercises and recently did Carla Sonheim‘s lesson, which included drawing. At first I felt that old familiar dread. My body tensed up as I thought, “I don’t know how to do this.” But Carla’s exercises were imaginative and playful and I found myself easing in. After all, who was going to see these little drawings anyway?

Then I checked out Lisa Congdon‘s Line Drawing class at Creativebug* and for the first time since I was a little girl I was excited about drawing.

Drawing is just shapes?

I can do lines and circles and squiggles! In fact, I love doing lines and circles and squiggles! I could do that all day. And this week I did! I spent hours making circles and flowers and stars and having so much fun.

All of this exploration is helping me redefine what “drawing” is and to reclaim the part of it I truly love – the simple pleasure of making lines and shapes and squiggles on the page.

I’m getting over my fear of drawing one line at a time.

I’m sharing this post as a part of I Made This! If you want to share something you made this week, come on by and join in!

Psst… I’m going to be interviewing Lisa Congdon on Creative Living with Jamie. Be sure to keep an ear out for that!