The #CreativeLife 2021 A to Z Blog Challenge: B is for...

 Brush care

While it's fun to paint with all kinds of mediums, we should not forget to take good care of the brushes after we finished. Most mediums, like watercolour and acrylics, are water-based so it takes only a few minutes to clean them.

Oil-based mediums will require a solvent, but it is still a good idea to clean the brushes as soon as possible to ensure the quality of the bristles.

It does not require expensive brushes to produce a painting, but not taking care of them will be a waste of money.

Using ink with a paintbrush can be a particular pain since the ink will not only stain the bristles but can also cause damage if the ink becomes dry. If you paint with ink, like I sometimes do, it is a good idea to have a brush or two specifically for use with ink and to rinse it really well after use.

Comments are most welcome on Twitter, thank you for visiting my blog today.

💙 Linzé 

The #CreativeLife 2021 A to Z Blog Challenge: A is for...

Alcohol markers

An interesting and surprisingly useful medium to use in mixed media projects with other mediums such as colour pencils.

Below is a drawing I did in January.

These posts will also be shared on Twitter, where you are most welcome to leave a comment.

Please share your own experiences with alcohol markers. Which brand is your favourite?

Until tomorrow!

💙Linzé

The #CreativeLife 2021 - review of week 12

Not much of an eventful week, for which I am grateful. Life's ups and downs can throw a nasty spanner into anyone's planning. It was still a good week though and I completed three art projects.

Work is still taking up a lot of time, and with the blog challenge, April is going to require discipline and planning to get everything done every day.

A last note before I end today's short post: it is customary for blog visitors to leave a comment or link to their own blogs during the April A to Z challenge. Since the comments are disabled on my blog, please take a moment to pop over to Twitter to say hi. I would love to hear from you.

Please stay safe and healthy. Until April! 

Linzé 💜

The #CreativeLife 2021 - could boredom help your creativity?

Today I am not going to say anything except that this was an interesting concept for me, and I am going to share it with you.

Enjoy!

💚Linzé 💚

This image will be better understood if you look at the YouTube video. Also subscribe to Adam's channel for more inspirational videos like this one.

The #CreativeLife 2021 - review of week 11

 Planning is a good thing, but sometimes life has other plans

I mentioned in my previous post that planning is part of the creative life, and it is. It should be, and it is a good thing when you plan time to spend doing something creative. Last week life had other plans for me and my creative time did not happen until Friday.

Do I feel guilty about it? I do, but not because I did not draw or paint anything. I felt guilty for letting you down. I did not send out my newsletter and I did not post on Thursday, and that is letting down you, the person who takes time out of your busy life to read my blog twice a week. Even if you are not a subscriber to my newsletter, I respect that your time is as valuable as mine.

So, thank you for coming back today to read this post.

I cannot go back to change what happened last week, but I can only move forward and do my best again this week. The most important thing I have done is to not let last week (and all its issues) hold me back from what I enjoy. So I worked on a colour pencil drawing for a drawing competition due very soon and finished my inktober52 drawing for this week on Sunday.

Today is a public holiday in South Africa, so I will have a little more time to work on my drawing for the competition, but only after I have breakfast with a friend in my art group.

Even though it is a four day work week, I have to do a quotation for a client who requested that I do an evaluation of a new product. Exciting stuff!

I wish you a wonderfully creative week and remember to stay safe. Until Thursday!

︙ Linzé 🇿🇦💚

The #CreativeLife 2021 - review of week 10

This week I will share a little more boring(?) detail of my creative life. So here goes:

On Monday I went for tax training. But while the lovely lady explaining stuff to me went to ask someone else the answer to a question I had, I realised that I simply did not have the time to do the monthly tax calculations for my company. So I decided to let my auditors carry on with the task and just send me the invoice. I know that I can do the work, but I also know that my diverting my focus, is not the best thing for my business. I am an engineer, and I am happy to leave the fax stuff to the experts.

I have to renew my driver's license. Yeah, that pain the butt rolls around every 5 years in this country. So on Tuesday, I had an appointment to have my eye test to get the certificate to say that I can still see properly. Hmmm.

Then the struggle started to get the appointment for the renewal process. I wasted a lot of time on that on Wednesday. Will try again this week.

On Thursday my daily planning shifted because of loadshedding. Yeah, our power supply utility still doesn't know how to keep the lights on reliably. At least we have an app that does help with dealing with this situation to some degree. At the current status, this app will be the most used in the country until Wednesday (we hope!).

Friday was mostly work stuff. And another Netflix series binge started the weekend, ending on Sunday morning just before lunch. This time it had 48 episodes of 45 minutes each. I am nuts, I know, but at least I am getting a few hours of sleep and am not completely useless otherwise.

I finished my leprechaun junk journal page (art group project) and drew a Colonial Viper for the #inktober52 prompt due this week.

So the goal this week is to finish drawing the seashells for the first challenge of the South African Drawing Guild and write a post or two for the #atozchallenge coming in April.

Stay healthy, live creatively and I will see you again on Thursday.

︙ Linzé  💚💚

The #CreativeLife - Keeping up the practice

How do we get better at being creative?

There is a saying that I am sure that you have heard about at least once: practice makes perfect. And then I am sure you will agree that perfection is not attainable, so why should you bother?

If you think back to when you learned something for the first time, was it easy to do it? Of course not. You practised it over and over again, and with every practice session, you became more skilled and improved your understanding of it.

And creativity in any shape or form works exactly the same way. People often tell me that they can barely draw a stick figure, so they cannot draw. I have given up trying to explain to those people that anyone can learn to draw. Instead, I focus my energy on rather helping people who want to learn, because they inherently understand that the skill is developed with practice. Practice learning, practice to improve their skills, and practice to deepen their understanding of the nature of their own creativity.

In my art group, everyone likes to paint exciting subjects and we enjoy playing with new materials. As the teacher, I am more aware of continuing to learn to improve my own skills on top of the fun of new projects. I, therefore, make a point of it to always reiterate that practice improves our skills, and not the new materials or spending 15 minutes to paint the pretty flowers we see in a photograph.

Practice takes time like everything else we have to do in our daily lives. Next time I will share more about how I plan time to practice my artistic skills.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and live creatively until Monday!

︙ Linzé  🇿🇦💚