Fast Water part 2

February 2, 2010February 2, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 6 Comments

Yesterday, I shared the first part of my weekend hike along the Cowichan River near Skutz Falls. Today’s photo journal entry focuses on building and using stretchers in the wilderness. I hope you enjoy this creative adventure that is also an applied survival skill.

First, let’s take a look up river. While I am taking this photo one of the coaches is explaining that next term if the students choose they will jump in up river (with life jackets and helmets of course) and be rescued just below the bridge we are standing on at the moment. They don’t have to go in but it is a prerequisite for learning to whitewater kayak.

The senior students met us at the bridge and lead us back down the river on the north side to where they had made stretchers by cutting poles and stringing them with coats, backpacks and one with a tarp. There was also stretcher made with webbed rope made and a foam sheet used in kayaking – this showed what could be used when sea kayaking and poles may not be readily available.

Everyone formed teams and the senior students lead the groups through a series of off trail maneuvers as directed by the coaches.

Down the trail they come…

Stopping to check on how the patient is doing (a very vulnerable ride)

It’s getting dark and I have to use my flash as they go through the brush…

And on the home stretch(er)

Creativity is related to much more than the arts. Creativity is the product of our ability to imagine. Our imagination allows us to find connections and ways of doing things that we have never seen or experienced before. I can tell by the smiles of these students, as they take on what is actually a difficult task to carry someone through the brush on a homemade stretcher, they are creative beings and loving it – lucky them and lucky us. I feel very privileged to have been able to share their company for this one afternoon on the Cowichan River.

Sprout Question: Have you ever had to use your creativity to save your life or save someone else?

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

Stuck

January 27, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 19 Comments

I’m stuck. The painting above is about half to three-quarters finished and somehow I have become attached – invested. The arbutus driftwood, sandstone and tide pool have drawn me into a deadly web of “don’t touch it!” When I’m painting with watercolours, more than with any other of my creative processes, I must work from a place of detached emotional clarity. Watercolors are transparent like steps in the sand. Every move shows until you start a new sheet (or the tide comes in).

Sometimes, if I wait for a few days the next step will become clear and release me from the fear of “ruining everything.” I’ve waited two weeks. Nothing. Sometimes, if I move the painting to a new location and see it in different light I can decided what is next. Still nothing. In fact, I’m even more attached than before I took the darn thing out of the studio. Yet, I know the painting is not finished. This means only one thing. I must push through allowing my intuition to guide me into new learning.

I must firmly say to my self: “It is water, colour pigment, and paper. That is all.”

If a muddy puddle of coloured water with mushy paper is all that is left by tomorrow, I shall compost it in the flower bed. If I end up with a finished painting, I will consider it the first in an exhibit I’m building about the arbutus tree. Either way, I shall take a photo of the results and share them with you.

Sprout Question: Has there ever been a time when you were stuck and finding it difficult to finished a creative piece? What did you do?

p.s. If you hear little from me until late tomorrow, I’m painting…or possibly composting.

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

Good Luck Creativity

January 26, 2010January 18, 2011 / Terrill Welch / 10 Comments

View image and purchase of “Arbutus in the Fog” here.

My partner of many years (and the lovely man who has recently become my husband – December 10, 2009) and I have a banter that goes something like this…

I ask with raised eyebrows and a tone of dismay “how did you ever end up with a wild and crazy woman like me?”

With his eyes snapping, he responds “just lucky I guess.”

The truth is my wildness is not of the usual kind – having mostly to do with my vivid imagination and free spirit. And his “good luck” has mostly to do with acting on his preparedness when the opportunity presented itself. But we shall not be entertaining you with our love story today.

What I want to talk about is good luck and creativity. Some time ago, I read Deepak Chopra’s definition of “good luck” in The Seven Spiritual laws of Success (1994). Every since reading his description, it has embodied much of my perceptual understanding about what constitutes good luck. His exact passage reads:

You can look at every problem you have in your life as an opportunity for some greater benefit. You can stay alert to opportunities by being grounded in the wisdom of uncertainty. When your preparedness meets opportunity, the solution will spontaneously appear. What comes out of that is often called “good luck.” Good luck is nothing but preparedness and opportunity coming together.

So there you have it. Now what does this mean when it comes to our creativity? If we are writing, drawing, painting, taking photographs and enhancing our skills daily we are more likely to be prepared when the opportunity arises. When we have “good luck” by this definition we are overjoyed by the unexpected success that befalls us. This is certainly the case with these two images (one above and one below) that I share with you today. In each of these photos the exact coming together of the elements in the images are not likely to repeat themselves readily. In both cases I was prepared. I had my camera with me on my daily walk. I was watching, searching the beauty and the mundane around me. Then as if by magic the image was there – waiting for me, inviting me to capture it.

View and purchase “Holding the Moon” here.

Sprout Question: What part does “good luck” play in your creativity?

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Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

Reflect

January 24, 2010January 27, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 14 Comments

View image in full resolution here.

To reflect or “cast back from a surface” is a large part of my photography, writing and painting. As a self-proclaimed storyteller, it is the art of reflection that is “the brand” of my creativity. My desire is for you to be with me – seeing what I see. I want you to smell the damp earth as you look at the trees reflected in the pooled water from resent heavy rains. I want you to hear the small winter birds and feel the sun as it finds its way through the forest canopy. I want you to notice how blue the sky is through the trees in the image reflected on this surface.

My desire is to be with you in this sharing. This is what motivates me to post, to have a blog and to specifically have the Creative Potager blog. It is my kitchen garden of creative thoughts and moments for us to enjoy. I am thrilled when you stop by to plant an answer for the Sprout Question or add an idea or appreciation in the comments. I love the easy gathering that happens with each of these posts. I am fed and nourished in ways I find hard to describe by our shared reflections.

For this I thank you.

Sprout Question: What are you casting back to the world from your creative surface?

Note: I am traveling on Monday so posting today, Sunday, before I leave.

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Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

Fan Your Creativity

January 22, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 8 Comments

When we live a creative life, we create, we manifest and we pour out our inspirations day after day. In the language of Julia Cameron the creative well needs to be refilled – an “artist’s date” is what she prescribes.

We need to fan the flame of our creativity with cushy pampering. My “artist’s dates” often include enjoying the creativity of others.

Going to the city is a great place for tapping into rare creative gifts. We dined at Café Ceylon. Chef Tamara Bailey, a native of Sri Lanka – uses principles of Ayurveda in her cooking and prepares the most delicate dishes I have ever tasted. We seldom get to take in Chef Tamara Bailey’s masterful art work because of ferry schedules. Last evening I feasted under her talented palate on blackened coconut curried prawns – the sauce takes five hours to prepare. My creativity is stoked.

Later back at our room in the Humbodlt House Bed and Breakfast, following a lengthy lounge in an oversized soaker tub (we only have a shower at home), I browsed through my blogroll to see what other creative souls had been doing. Leah Piken Kolidas of Creative Every Day is featuring creations by amazing CED participants.

Ahhhhhh! See you back at the studio next week. Friday happy dance to you.

Sprout Question: How do you pamper and fan your creativity?

Note: I have limited computer access today but shall be on-line again this evening.

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Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

Path of No Return

January 13, 2010January 13, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 8 Comments

View image in full resolution here.

Yesterday I wrote about redefining the concept of “underpainting” and “overpainting” to include moving from a digital photo through digital processes leading to depicting other art forms such as oil painting and ink drawing.

Today, the image I share with you has little resemblance to the original digital image. Yet it feels more like what I experienced in that moment than the original photograph. With rising tension, I digitally worked to create this image, changing one thing, then another and yet another. Like the children in the fairy tale, I was so delighted and excited about what I was doing that I place no marks on the path for my return. Yes, I have the original photograph. But the here-to-there is lost in the same mental processing as happens when I physically paint.

In the image above, Cedar in oil, I now have only the one image left that is the voice of what I want to express.

Dr Bob Deutsch states “The creative communicator is an alchemist of thought, attending to the reasoning of emotion” in “Marketers Need to Better Understand Creativity” This statement seems right – validating. (Note: this reference is to incredible well-written article about creativity published today January 13, 2010)

Sprout Question: Accepting that you are a creative alchemist, what do you want to express in your art that isn’t available before you start?

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

Hidden Things

January 8, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 4 Comments

View image in full resolution here.

Have you ever been editing your photographs and found “hidden things” that you didn’t know where there when you took the photo?

In the photo West Coast Winter above, I discovered that I had unknowingly captured two bald eagles on the crest of one of the fir trees. I had heard the eagles calling when I was shooting but I hadn’t seen them. To see them you will need to go to full resolution image and click large view – and even then they are small and blurry. But they are there. Also on the left of the image about ¼ of the way down there is an eagle nest.

Because these hidden things are not the focal point of the image, I don’t usually tell people about them. I leave them to discover (or not) on their own.

Sometimes hidden things are in my writing, painting as well. These are often patterns, colour or word usage, and perspectives that others have observed. I might not even be aware of these elements. I find it useful to ask what others have noticed in my work to discover aspects of my creative process that I might be hidden things to me.

Sprout Question: When was the last time you asked someone whose opinion you value and trust what they notice in your work?

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Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.