Staying creative

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Staying creative

I think one of the toughest parts of being creative for a living is keeping things fresh and new and interesting both for me to do and for my viewers.

Its a daily struggle for all creatives. To come up with something that people aren't sick of looking at, to make art or photography or music that gets away from the usual and grabs people's attention.

In an effort to keep myself creative I've started drawing here and there. I really suck at drawing. I mean it. I can do stick figures and that's about as far as I go - which is precisely why I'm challenging myself to draw more. It keeps me looking at things in new ways.

To facilitate my terrible drawings I've done a few things.
First I went to the craft store and bought a big ol' sketch pad thing. The paper is newsprint so its cheap and durable enough for much erasing.

I work with sharpie and pencil, sometimes a combination, just to mess around and sketch the world around me. No, you don't get to see these sketches. I really do suck.

The sketchpad wasn't enough though. I've always loved drawing on walls and tables and anywhere that I'm not supposed to draw (just ask my parents). Rather than drawing all over my walls though, which would probably piss off my landlord, I bought a 10'x4' sheet of some material from Home Depot. It isn't designed to be a whiteboard, but with some dry-erase markers it does a great job.

I can draw on it, do hw on it, use it as a giant reflector... and then erase everything and start over. Awesome. Cost me all of $12 at my local Home Depot. Getting it home was a pain though; it didn't come even close to fitting in my car.

My third and final drawing outlet is a program for the iPhone/iPod Touch called iDoodle2lite.

It's free and gives you a bunch of options and tools with which to doodle.