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Three Things to Share with You

Hi Art Aficionado,
Here are some links I want to share with you:

• A book by Kevin Ashton titled How to Fly a Horse, tackles romantic prejudices about creative invention. (This topic was also examined in an excellent TedTalk by Elizabeth Gilbert). I love everything that dispels the myth that creativity is magic, gifted to a chosen few, when really, creativity is simply conviction to get back to work.


• Stanford University opened the David Rumsey Map Center last Spring. You can peruse the collection of 67,000 maps from the 16th through the 21st centuries, online, and you can download them - in high resolution! Are there any map lovers out there? Brew a cup of something delicious, and have fun exploring the What, Where, When categories here.


• And speaking of topography, a giant iceberg roughly the size of Delaware has broken away from the Larsen Ice Shelf, fundamentally changing the profile of Antartica, which will have to be re-drawn on maps. I wonder what topographic artists think of this re-do? :)


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Clementine Caboose, watercolor (click for details)

When One Fact Can Change Your Mind

I planted a festive yellow milkweed bush on the hill in my back yard. It bloomed profusely, and I loved it. A few weeks later, I took my morning coffee up the path to find my happy golden bouquet transformed into a wicker hamper of stems. I was furious.

Upon inspection, I found two fat caterpillars munching away in the sunshine. Scoundrels! I scooped them up, and trotted downhill to drop them into a full greenery bin, wiping my hands with satisfied retaliation.

A few hours later, still steaming, I searched online to identify the wretched caterpillars glutting my garden like a salad bar.

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The first page of search results revealed the culprit; they were monarch butterflies. I gasped! The population of this iconic American butterfly has declined by 90% in the last twenty years, and I had potentially murdered two of them! The anger I felt shifted instantly to panic.

I dove into the dumpster, and after pawing through geranium and eucalyptus cuttings, I found both of them, unharmed. I apologized, and cradled them back out into the sunshine and up the hill, where I let them walk from my hand back to the milkweed bush.

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On the way back to the milkweed.

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Making art can be similar to my caterpillar experience. What we don't know can send us marching confidently in the wrong direction. We artists think we have a plan, based on self-set perceptions of what we can and can't create. We sometimes gravitate towards familiar, and avoid difficult. But what if one little tip transformed something hard into something easy?

Be ever curious. Take online classes. Read books independant of your specialty. Subscribe to blogs that are focused on something other than your preferred medium. An artistic approach you avoid or feel unsure of might need only one sentence worth of tips or tricks to make a light come on - to make the penny drop into your bank of comprehension. An open mind and a gram of courage could deliver a whole new world to you in the studio.

Have a creative month of July, and keep your inspiration windows wide open!!
See you in the next post,
Belinda
My Etsy Shop
(use the coupon code VISITAGAIN for 15% off)

colorwells

Click the paint to get your free tip sheets: Watercolor Paper 101

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Click the pencil to be notified when this course is available

Do you know an art lover who might like this newsletter? Forward it to them with the gray button at the top of this page. And if you think creative folks on Facebook would enjoy the links & stories here, share this by clicking the Like button up at the top.

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