Category: Winter

31 Days of December 2018

31 Creative Days of December

We have made it into the final twilights of 2018. December is filled with short days and the blur of holiday festivities. To mark the month, I have decided to create a 31 Creative Days of December drawing series,and so, I will be creating 31 creatures with holiday themes. The holidays I will address are:

In order of their calendar dates:

  • Hanukkah (Chanukah if you prefer)… Starts the eve of 12/2 goes thru 12/10: It’s known as The Festival of Lights and is honoring the Maccabees’ victory over King Antiochus, who forbade Jews to practice their religion.
  • WINTER SOLSTICE..12/21 at 5:23 EST: The shortest day of the year.
  • CHRISTMAS…12/25: The birth of Jesus Christ. Did you know the word “Christmas” is a shortened form of “Christ’s mass.”-makes sence!
  • KWANZAA…12/26 through 1/1: Commemorates African heritage. Kwanzaa has seven core principles, ranging from Unity to Creativity for the community.
  • NEW YEAR’S DAY…January 1: The first day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. (Yes I realize this is actually January and 2019, but it seemed appropriate to end this series with the bang of a new year.)

Starting December 1st, you can see/follow these drawing on Instagram (find/follow me at botanicalbb), which also populates FaceBook (find/follow me at Botanical Beauties & Beasties) and Twitter (find/follow me at @BotanicalB_B). If you don’t follow any social Media and you would like to see the seasons creatures, just let me know, and I will send you the full series after January 1st. It will be a combo piece, so don’t worry it won’t be 31 emails! In the meantime-Here’s to creativity, imagination, digital art, the closing of the 2018 door and the opening of a new 2019 door. Hope the holidays bring you all some joy, love, and peace.

 

Two Exciting New Workshops with a Secret Ingredient…

Time to change it up a bit?
👀 Looking for a little creative fun?
TWO NEW FUN and EASY NOVEMBER WORKSHOPS!
These are two different offerings and you are welcome to do Easy Peasy Cards as well as the Name Plate Creations they are very different workshops! Want to know the Secret Ingredient? Just keep reading!

Easy Peasy Card workshopWhat: EASY PEASY CARDS 
When: Thursday, Nov 8 or Nov 29
Time: 6:30-8:30pm
Where: Whimsy Cove Framing and Art –
209 Chinquapin Round Rd-Annapolis MD

TO REGISTER FOR EASY PEASY CARDS-
use the below PAY-PAL button ( choose the date you want to attend)
Or email me if you wish to pay by VENMO app
Or by Check –
Click this link for botanicalbb3@gmail.com  Easy Peasy Cards email registration or questions.

Choose a date

 I am sorry – PayPal button not working yet-please use email until fixed.

What: Name Plate Creations
When:Nov 25, 2018
Time: 1-3 pm
Where: Raye of Light Studio –
1818 Margaret Ave-Annapolis

REGISTER  for NAME PLATE CREATIONS-
FOLLOW THIS LINK ( LINK TO COME SOON)		Description coming soonCost $20

~ The “Secret Ingredient” is your imagination!
These are easy and fun classes~

 

Serendipity, the menace of planning?

Serendipity
It a zoo of a world out there – pick your animal and go!

It’s a mishmash, a little of this and a little of that. However, that is kind of what it feels like these days.  There’s drawing, there’s writing, there’s the Beasties, the books, this website: All have components/efforts “out there” in the fields of hope and hard work ….and and and… We all know the feeling. A bit overwhelming. Creatures are expanding and appearing all over the place! So I created the above piece to try to visually express the chaos and the excitement of some of the pieces trying to at least get into the same frame!

We make plans; we use planers-we set out with the BEST OF INTENTIONS! Then-poof-Serendipity happens and our best-made plans at times go kaput. Is that good? Is that bad? Does it matter?  Interestingly enough – the origin of the word  Kaputt is German and means something is destroyed.  The origin of the German is borrowing from the French: être capot, literally ‘to be bonnet’ or figuratively ‘to be defeated’. (At least according to Wikipedia.) Here, in English, it means done, broken, useless, and most probably destroyed. So even the word has serendipity in its flow and the roots of languages.  The paths we take, the roads we follow-they fork and they zigzag; that’s all part of the journey, the fun (hopefully), and ultimately is our individual ‘walk of life.’ The directions may seem obscure at times, but somehow things usually seem to work out.  So if your resolutions have already been ‘adjusted’, unknown/uncharted paths have already opened, new ideas are forming, new friendships are building, and new adventures await you-try to stay open to the possibility that serendipity keeps it all just that much more interesting! Try it out-for really, what have you got to lose?

Can art create vehicles of change?

I was walking with a friend of mine this morning. She has ventured into the world of photography with both feet and her whole heart. I admire that. We were chatting about the statement of: Do you go out with a fixed intent of creating a particular image? Stated bluntly, do you have something in mind when you click the shutter? Do you, as the artist/creator/visionary of the piece, have a focus and do you know what it is? It doesn’t matter what kind of “art” you create, it poses the interesting question of INTENT. As she is growing as a creator, which hopefully we all are in our own ways, she is comfortable not knowing what she wants to photograph yet (?) and goes out and tries all sorts of things. Bravo for experimentation. Bravo for creative growth.

As a creator of anything, how important is the piece/the image/the product? Is there a message? A hidden messages? What are the thoughts you as the creator had/have and what might the spectators views be? What becomes of the piece?  I was back from my walk and was listening to the below TED talk. The title-Can art amend history? caught my attention. I thought it was an impressive 12 mins. and I have placed it below for you. I hope you find it as interesting as I did.

I have pulled this quote out of the talk: You can switch out the words “paintings” or “sculptures” for just about anything you may be working on or thinking about. “I want to make paintings, I want to make sculptures that are honest, that wrestle with the struggles of our past but speak to the diversity and the advances of our present. And we can’t do that by taking an eraser and getting rid of stuff. That’s just not going to work.”

As a new year rolls in the topics of change, unspoken truths, shifting focus in whatever ways/means rings true to you seems like the perfect time to post this idea and/or question of- Just what is your intent?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:  Titus Kaphar · Artist

Titus Kaphar’s artworks interact with the history of art by appropriating its styles and mediums.

( https://ted.com/talks/titus_kaphar_can_art_amend_history?utm_source=tedcomshare&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tedspread–a )

You also may want to check out –https://www.postmastersproject.com – looks pretty interesting too!

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