Creative Spark 6 — critters

Today’s creative spark is building on your homestead dreams.  You are going to pick a critter on your homestead that is giving you some frustration and draw it in a pleasant, idealized way.  Remember how you thought about that animal before you brought it home.  Think about how delighted you were as you anticipated adding it to your homestead, or awaiting its birth on your homestead.  This will be the focus of your creative spark today. 

Sometimes we get hung up on the frustration, the road block, and the foiling of our expectations.  This can block us from imagining those creative solutions to the problems that come up.  And then the problems get bigger and more complicated.  And we avoid them.

Today’s creative spark is going to release you to imagine good things once again, and allow the flow of creative solutions that have eluded you till now.  Take 15 minutes, grab a cup of tea or your favorite hot drink, paper and paints, or pencil crayons.  The medium doesn’t matter as much as how you feel as you are playing with colours and textures on  your paper.

Note: If you don’t live on a homestead, pick a critter you’ve had dealings with or encountered at a petting zoo.

Creative Spark 6 — Critters

Materials:

Here’s what I used:

Water colour paints and paint brushes

Artist Trading cards for water colour paints

Gold and Copper Sharpie markets for highlighting and outlining

Feel free to substitute pencil crayons, water colour pencils, regular paper or whatever medium you like best for this one.

Directions:

Think of that one animal that has brought you frustration on your homestead this summer — not a wild predator that you have no control over, but one of your own livestock or pets.  Remember the way that you felt about that animal when you were first anticipating bringing him/her home.  If the animal was born at your place, consider the emotions you had as you were anticipating its arrival.

Make a picture of that idealized animal that you thought about before the frustration came.  Capture that feeling in your picture, with your pencil/brush strokes.  I picked a rooster with a chick because the chickens have been getting into my garden all summer, digging out my newly planted strawberry bed, and destroying my lettuce plants.  They even ate the strawberries! The roosters wake me up daily at 5am.  This isn’t bad as long as I was able to fall asleep before 2am.   You get the idea.

My picture isn’t of the rooster as he actually is, but is an idealized version of the rooster in my mind’s eye.  Aim for that feeling in your picture.  You’ve got 15 min.   Go!

When you are done, head over to my Facebook wall and share your creation.  Feel free to tell me why you chose the animal you did, if you want.

Visit this page to find all the Daily Creative Sparks in one place.

You don’t need to buy special art supplies to do the daily creative spark. You can get inexpensive art materials from your local dollar store, or online from Amazon.