Sense Diary ~ Riddle: We Have Five of These.

     If your answer to the riddle was "senses" then you are correct!  Keeping a sense diary is all about putting the five senses we have been given to good use and these days, we are fed with so much media that I wonder if we stop to smell the roses like we used to?  Do we marvel over the awesome cloud formation in the sky while we are taking a walk in the park, or when we go to the grocery store, do we notice how the grocers display their produce?  


When we are going about our daily tasks, everything can seem common and mundane, but statistics and probability prove that's just not the case.  You can go the same place every day, see the same people everyday, and eat relatively the same meals every day, but there's always something new to notice when you force yourself to see, taste, hear, touch, and smell everything differently than what you're already used to seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting, and smelling. 

from Pinterest

This week's assignment is about finding something uncommon in your everyday tasks and heightening your senses. This will expand your creativity after incorporating it into your craft. I have a feeling that the most creative people look at the everyday things much differently than most people do and that's an amazing thing to know.  Plus, it gives us all something to reach for - coming up with more original ideas and concepts that can help us be more prolific with our craft as well as help grow our business. 




This week's sense diary assignment:


Pick at least three things you do every day or every week and try to notice something you have never noticed before, using all your senses... 


This doesn't mean you have to taste a tree when you're walking in the park, but maybe feel the bark, smell it if you don't care who may see you... and record your observations - the sounds you heard, things you tasted when eating a sandwich that you might usually scarf down because you have to get back to work, etc.

You can record these things three ways, or you can use all three.  Sense diaries are all about what you want to include and how you want to include it.  So you can make a list, write a paragraph or two, or you can make a sketch of the actual thing you noticed.  


Don't forget to have fun... even though I am using the word... "assignment."  *gulp*  ;-)

Sense Diary - Making the Diary Yours.

I hope everyone had fun staring at an object every day and then describing it! I thought it would be awesome to get everyone started on something like that before really getting into any detail about what makes up a sense diary/artist journal.  I decided to take a journey through the internet to search out other artists' journals so those who haven't ever started one can get a little more of an idea on how to approach this tangible way of recording ideas and inspirations on a daily basis.

This stack of journals is a perfect example of how you want your sense diary to look like - you want the journal to look like it's yours.  So now that you've filled some of the pages of your journal, it's time to turn the outside into a reflection of who you are.  What does your favorite room in your house look like? What's your favorite era in history?  Do you have this song that you always have stuck in your head that you actually like the lyrics to? These are all things that you can draw, paint, write, paste pictures of that will make your journal uniquely yours.  Plus, it might actually make you want to pick it up everyday to add something to the pages inside.

* A very important thing to remember:  Everyone who is creative may not draw or paint, or write poetry, but something in you makes you love to create whatever it is that you create, so while keeping a sense dairy may be more difficult for the non-visual artist, I want to challenge you to try it out and not worry about the result - it's all about the process and about bringing out more of how you think and what you see.

So that is the only assignment for this week... isn't that rad?

Some tools to consider (and to get your ideas flowing):

Your journal, of course AND...

- Tape - you can definitely use the pretty tape, or masking tape...  (sometimes I end up drawing on the tape, so I usually use masking tape)
- Glue Stick
- Markers, erasers, watercolors, ink pens, calligraphy pens, pencils, white out pen, crayons, colored pencils, pencils, etc.
- Stamps, stencils, ink pad
- Tissue Paper, newspaper, graph paper
- Images from magazines, photocopies, wallpaper, etc.
- Sheet music
- Ribbon, string, thread, etc.

And anything else you can think of!

I will actually be collecting images of these to share in the next couple weeks, so take your time and I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with. As time goes by, the outside of your sense diary will most likely have just as many layers as some of your entries on the actual pages themselves.

Busy with Frida

Last week I missed my Monday post... It´s just that I´ve been soooo busy! (you wonder what I´ve been doing?) Well... I´ve been making Fridas! Frida dolls!!!! 28 Frida dolls!!!!!  and each one has a lot of work a lot of black thread... because each sweet face and hairstyle of these 28 dolls is "drawn" with black thread in the sewing machine... and then I´ll have to dress them... Frida used to dress in many bright colors and bride her hair with flowers and ribbons... so my dolls also have those (bright colors and flowers in the hair)...

So... it´s been 2 crazy weeks!!!  All these dollies are for 2 special places (it´s a suprise) I will let you know soon!

I guess I just wanted to let you all know I´m SUPER BUSY!!!!!

hope you have a nice week!!!!!

(wish me luck!) :D

In Progress

It's always nice as a customer or fan to see something in progress. I forget this sometimes as the artist, though, and forget to take pictures along the way.

For the last several months, I've been working hard to remind myself that the steps are often just as interesting as the finished piece, so I keep my camera handy for snapping some shots.

Seeing these "in progress" shots helps customers and fans really see what goes into making that oh-so-special piece they have. It also helps them really see that, yes, this is really handmade!

Don't forget to share your "in progress" moments with your fans sometimes too!


**All of the above pieces can be found at TuckooandMooCow's Etsy shop.

Sense Diary ~ A Closer Look.

I am so thankful to have had such amazing art teachers when I was in college and there is a specific teacher (I will be sharing a blog entry featuring her work in the very near future) who inspired me to stretch my imagination and allow myself to draw outside the lines. It's about 13 years since I was going to community college and this year I felt the desire to return to jotting down ideas/inspirations/challenges into an artist journal, but not just an artist journal -  a sense diary.

Keeping a sense diary involves taking the concept of the artist journal a step further, where the artist not only sketches ideas that are milling around in their head, it's a record of making more intentional observations of mundane, everyday things... to always be seeing something different, and taking a closer look to see what makes up an object, or how things change from day to day.

Every week I will be sharing different artist journals/sense diaries from my own diary, other sources online and will be posting a challenge each week that will require keeping your own sense diary that you can write in, draw in, paste magazine clippings, pressed flowers, etc. but there will always be an underlying theme for the week.  I think keeping these diaries will stretch your imagination and help you create with a much larger revelation of everything that surrounds you.

I started my first entry by going through some magazines and finding textures and colors that intrigued me.  I love Anthropologie and was drawn to this gorgeous display so I pulled out parts that my eyes were particularly drawn to and wrote down thoughts of those things.  I also attached a little drawing I had intended to use for a locket, but it didn't work how I wanted it.   I like being able to keep a record of some things that don't work because they may work again some other time when working on a different project, or they may spark an entirely new idea.

This Week's Challenge - Sense Diary for 4/25-5/2:

Pick an ordinary object from your house and place it somewhere where it won't be disturbed.  Each day, observe and write down all that you notice about the object.  Think of everything and don't leave out things you might think are silly.  The small things matter just as much as the larger things.

So go purchase a brand new and fairly large sketchbook (which brings about good excuse to go out and buy one of those, right?) and have fun!  See you all next week! 

To Don't

Photograph by Madden Photography

I've been traveling a bit recently, and one thing (the only thing?) I love about the actual traveling part is that being in an airport or airplane for any amount of time allows me to catch up on reading. I haven't done a great job of setting aside time to read in my day to day schedule, so the flights I used to dread I now look forward to because it means I have some time to get lost in a book.

On my past couple of flights I finished Drive by Daniel Pink (an interesting read), which is all about what motivates us. At the end of the book Pink shares some tools for staying on track and keeping motivated. One stood out in particular, because it is very simple yet I could instantly see how it would be an effective tool. Most of us probably have a good idea of the things that distract us, but have you ever really organized those thoughts and written them down on a to-don't list? I hadn't!

The idea of making a to-don't list (credited to Tom Peters, btw) is so simple and easy to implement, especially if you already write to-do lists. I love that it's a tangible little reminder of the things we know we shouldn't be doing that suck up our time and energy. The next time you're writing a to-do list, why not make a separate column and jot down a few things that you want to avoid that day and just say no! Staying motivated and focused can be tough. Making a to-don't list is a great way to check your distracting habits at the door so you can concentrate and get more done (e.g, stop checking Facebook so you have more time to read besides just when you're on an airplane). ;)

Calm as still water (for the next 3 weeks)

I was not sure about what to write today...  I was looking for some inspiration and suddenly bumped into this photo.  I was so attracted by it.  I`m so like that right now.  I feel exhausted... and with a lot of things around me that need to be done, finished, organized, etc...

I`m reading "A song of Ice and Fire" since a couple of months... I`m starting the fifth book now (A Dance with Dragons) and one of my favorite characters is Ayra, a small girl, who suddenly is alone in the world due to the war that`s going on in the story... Before all her family was killed she used to live in a castle, and she was learning how to fight with a sword.  She is one of those girls who don´t like dolls and dressing with lacy dresses, she wanted to ride a horse and be able to fight with a sword so finally her father gave up and let her take some classes... I`m telling you all this because in the book, the character that was teaching her how to fight (Syrio Forel, one of my favorite ones in the story), he teaches her the following phrases: "Calm as still water", "Quick as a snake", "quiet as a shadow" and when she is all alone and in the most horrible dangers she keeps repeating them to get stronger... 

I`ve been doing that... with these phrases and other phrases of my own...  "you can do it", "balance it out", "time goes slow... not fast" and many others.  And this is just because I get really stressed all the time about all those things I need to do!!!! oh oh oh it`s always an emergency and I`m always doing million and one things at the same time and sometimes I think I don´t accomplish much you see... so why, o why if I was doing all those things at the same time at the end of the day I feel empty, exhausted and with a bunch of things to do still... Plus I always end up doing what I want to do and not what needs to be done, so that`s a problem too.. because I`ll have more thing to do the next day and so on, and on... and on...

Well... this is because my mind is not disciplined.. and this is what I need to do... I need to be "calm as still water", "quick as a snake" and "quiet as a shadow"...  and just right now I need to have something to eat because is midday and I haven´t had breakfast because I`m doing those million and one things I need to do!!!!! so that`s how I ended feeling like the woman in the photo...  (I even need to be discipline to eat and exercise!!!) ouf!

I guess what I really wanted to tell you all is I`m planning to have 3 weeks of hard work, discipline work, away from the computer (at least posting and checking in a discipline way), not taking custom orders until May 12th and focused in 2 big orders I have to finish by the 2nd week of next month (they are a big surprise).  So... I`m starting to feel the stress... and this time... Just this time... I won´t let it happen, I won´t finish like the woman in the photo... I`ll end these challenge in a better way... I`ll listen to Syrio Forel and I`ll keep repeating those phrases in my mind,  (they sooth me... really they do!)  

Have a good week everyone! above all have a productive week!!!

Cara Carmina

photo by: Keith Guy