Tag Archives: Creativity
Creativity

The biggest creative problem for me is never lack of creative ideas but rather the opposite, too many ideas. Too many ideas and not enough time. After adding another hobby, photography, to my already long list of creative outlets, I find myself even more unable to realize all my creative ideas. Here’s the stuff I’m into (in no particular order):

1. Web design. Making new layouts for my site and updating the blog and galleries of the site.

2. Digital painting. Something which I haven’t had the time to do in a long time.

3. Vectors. I recently got into making vectors and loved it.

4. Photomanipulating. This is something I’ve begun to explore more in the past couple of months.

5. Journal skins for DeviantART. Basically something I call “web design light”. The making of themes for the built in blog function of DA, the art community I hang at.

6. Photography. With my new camera I’ve begun exploring the world of serious photography. This includes stock photography.

7. Writing. I’m doing serious writing again, for a online magazine in Swedish.

8. Oil painting. Haven’t done one of those since I got into digital painting.

9. Sewing. I used to alter clothes but haven’t done that in years.

Things I used to do but have given up:

10. Furniture design. Something I mainly did as part of my art studies in high school. I have built stuff after high school as well but it’s been years.

11. Traditional drawing. I gave up this in favour of digital drawing.

12. Writing poetry. I can’t write poetry any more. I’m to happy. Poems only comes to me when I’m sad.

You see the problem here? There’s simply not enough time to do all of these things.

New layout on the way

I’m working on a new layout for Whirlwind. It’s going to be rather simplistic since I quickly got tired of looking at my messy desk layout. I like it because it’s different from everything I’ve done before but that’s also the reason I dislike it. This isn’t my style.

I have nothing more to say so I’ll leave you with this photo I took today. Autumn in my parents neighbourhood.

autumn street

Battlestars, art and randomness

I’m watching Battlestar Galactica. I’m halfway through season three after having watched the series now and then for a couple of months. I won’t be able to “save” the rest of the episodes though, watching a episode once in a while, making the series last longer. Since I’m in the middle of my summer leave from work and my boyfriend isn’t I’m spending a lot of time alone and watching TV-series is something I do a lot when I’m alone. It’s such a shame only four seasons were ever made of BSG. I want more! I’m not a big fan of Sci-Fi but there’s always exceptions. Star Wars is one, so is X-Files and now also BSG. And oh my god I love Kara and Lee. I’m totally fangirling over their relationship going “aaaaaawwwwwww!!!!” whenever they’re cute together. If I ever did a cosplay I’d do Kara. I don’t look anything like her, except for maybe a similar nose, but it would be a cool cosplay anyway because she’s so badass. If I was into cosplaying that is.

battlestar galactica

Other than that, I’m trying my hands at photomanipulating. I’ve never been all that into photomanips except for the horrid blends I used for site layouts a couple of years ago. Now I’m giving it a serious go though and I think I’m doing pretty well for a total manip newb. If you want to see the things I’ve made look here and here. Obviously I’m still learning but I’m pretty pleased with my learning curve.

Oh look. I’m writing about what I’m doing during my days. I don’t do that often. That’s because I think no one would be interested in what I do. Because this is pretty much it. I don’t go to a lot of concerts or parties, I rarely travel and the city I live in isn’t all that exciting. Provided I had enough food I could easily spend a month not leaving my apartment. I rarely get bored because almost all of my hobbies are indoor hobbies best done in solitude. I can spend days working on art or web design. Or reading a good book. Oh well, not days reading one book perhaps considering I easily finish a book in just one day, but you get the picture. Then there’s TV-series and movies. Not to mention home decor projects and cleaning. Yes, I actually enjoy cleaning. I love a clean apartment. It makes me feel accomplished. What else do I do? Work out on the treadmill, have dinner at the balcony, randomly surf the internet for hours. I do leave my apartment once in a while though. I have a job, I do enjoy geocaching and love shopping. But most of my time I spend at home. That’s why having a nice home is so important to me, with me spending so much time in it.

Oh well, this turned into quite a long entry. Sorry if I bored you. I assure you though, even though my life may sound boring, I’m happy with it. Even when I was a little girl I could spend days in my room working on my own little projects. I’ve never been someone who has to have people around me and things to do 24/7. Anyway, another episode of Battlestar Galactica awaits and then it’s time to hit the sack.

Book spine poetry

I first heard about book spine poetry from Maria and I just had to try it myself. Book spine poetry is simply making poems out of book titles. I translated the poems to English. Just the words, not the titles themselves. If I had done that the poems would have made no sense whatsoever in English.

bokryggspoesi
En gyllene bur
Bakom stängda dörrar
Himmelsbarnet
Solens dotter
Vingklippt
Spårlöst försvunnen

Translation:
A golden cage
Behind closed doors
The child of heaven
Daughter of the sun
Wing clipped
Gone without a trace

Continue reading

Back from Maroc

I’ve been home from Morocco for a week now. I’ll blog more about the trip later though since I don’t have the time for editing all the travel photos today.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how the hell I get nothing done even though most days I’m free to do whatever I want. I came to the conclusion that I spend too much time randomly surfing the internet. I can sit in front of the computer for five hours or more at a time just reading blogs, posting at forums, hanging at DeviantART, googling random stuff, read online magazines etc. I think I’m going to challenge myself to stay off the computer for a couple of days. Not stay of it completely but rather stay off it unless I’m doing something creative, like web designing or digital painting. It would be good for me to focus 100% on creativity for a while. I really want to finish the new layout for my site while I upgrade to the latest version of WordPress and I really want to make a new digital painting.

I think I’ll start this challenge next week. It will be interesting to see how much creative things I get done if I focus 100% on them for a couple of days.

Fluffy

Here’s another photo of my new haircut. I like fluffy hair. After all, I’m an old panda. For you non-swedes, that’s a subculture. Google “panda poppare”. That’s the way I looked when I was younger.

scene hair profile

Other than looking fabulous I’m not doing much. I’m sick actually. The fewer comes and goes and I’m coughing. So why do I look so fabulous when I’m home with the flu? Well actually I’ve barely touched my hair today. The teased style simply lasts surprisingly well. All I had to do today was comb and spray it a bit. Took like one minute. I didn’t want to look like I got straight out of bed when I went to buy dinner.

Other than that short arrend I’ve spent the entire day working on a digital painting. It’s coming out… not like I visualized it. But my paintings never do. I’m not talented enough to make them come out as amazing as I see them in my head. I’m very new to digital painting though so I guess not much else is expected. I’m not going to show you what I’m working on because the only thing worse than a bad painting is a unfinished bad painting. There’s still hope you know. When I’m done with it maybe it’ll look good. I give you this. It’s a portrait and it’s gothic. It’ll probably just take forever to finish. I worked on my last digital painting for a month.

——

* Do join my CONTEST.

* Wanna exchange Christmas cards?

Every day is Halloween

Chai tea, an episode of The X-files and scented candles in a dimly lit room is my way of trying to embrace the darker season. Since I’m into the whole positive thinking and life is what you make of it thing I’m trying hard to find positive aspects in something as horrible as autumn even though all I want to do when I look outside the window is go to bed and sleep until April. I have to admit though, drinking tea in a candle lit room is rather cosy. And not something I do during the summer. Mostly because the temperature in my apartment stays around +30 C for most of summer and hot tea and candles really isn’t what I think of when I feel like I’m melting.

I made a Halloween decoration today. I think I’m going to redo it though, with thicker paper. This one is made of thin glossy gift wrapping paper which wrinkles. The thought is that the silhouette of the bat should be seen through the window from outside in the evening when the lamp in the kitchen is lit. When the blinds aren’t shut that is.

halloween bat window silhouette decoration

I’m not sure if I’ll do more decorations for Halloween. My apartment is spooky as it is all year round. I mean, on one wall I’ve got a plush bat hanging from a candle holder with a black candle and spider crawling on it. In my book case I’ve got a bottle of Tru Blood, on my desk there’s a undead warlock action figure. Then there’s of course the salt and pepper shaker zombies and their coffin, the hip flask with the skull and crossbones, the skull dish brush and the list goes on. Not to mention the overall gothic feel of my living room with the black chandelier and other gothic victorian details. For me, every day is Halloween.

A new home

Hello! It’s been a while but I’m back now. I didn’t mean to take a break from my site. It just happened. Weeks became months and I didn’t have time nor energy for blogging. Like most of you probably know I recently moved from Hultsfred back to Västerås, the city I lived in between 1999 and 2004. Packing up my home and then unpacking it was a tedious process. Then I had to decorate my new apartment which included a lot of shopping and some furniture renovations.

The apartment itself has also been undergoing renovations. When I moved in the place looked kind of shitty. The kitchen was absolutely horrible with sloppily painted purple walls, a ugly beige floor, a tiny stove, a malfunctioning fridge and a dirty ceiling. The rest of the apartment was also very dirty since the last tenant didn’t clean it as well as he should have before he moved out. I know my rights as a tenant so I complained about the walls, the fridge and the cleaning to the landlord who had the fridge replaced, the kitchen walls and ceiling painted and the apartment cleaned. I also got a new stove. And I got all of this for free. With the new floor I paid for myself the kitchen is now almost fully renovated.

Kitchen before renovations.
kitchen before

Kitchen after renovations.
kitchen after

Continue reading