Categories
practice

How To Be More Creative

Categories
practice

Create to Create

Art begets art.

Creation creates more creation.

I’m learning that as I get on a regular routine of creation, or practice, I tend to want to create more. I’m developing confidence that I can create. I am a creator. Look, I do it every day. Oh, you want something else created? I can do that.

Of course, that’s my mind speaking to itself. When you’re doing it a bunch, and often, you know you can do it. And you can do more.

This is the real value of the practice.

Create, so you can create more.

Categories
Consultants

Non-Commissioned Work

http://talkingshrimp.com/blog

Categories
Thoughts

Young Authors

Craig Orback, Illustrator
Craig Orback, Illustrator

This week I had the priviledge of attending a Young Authors Conference with 2 of my daughters who are in 4th and 5th grade.

It was a wonderful event where children from elementary schools all over the area converge on a community college (which happened to be on Spring Break) and get to learn from and interact with real authors and illustrators.  There were several presentations throughout the day and also a bookstore where you could buy the authors’ books and get their autograph.

This year’s theme was poetry, so we met two excellent poets, James Bertolino, and Lorraine Ferra (snagged their books and signatures) and also a very talented children’s book illustrator, Craig Orback – who is a real artist that can create art in a variety of mediums: oil and canvas, pen and ink, water color, pastels, chalk, pencil sketch, etc.

The point I’d like to make is that true scarce skills are still valuable.  These people actually make their living by being very good poets and artists.  Even though the publishing world is changing because anybody can publish a book online these days, and all the new digital tools for creating graphic arts allows almost anyone to become an artist, the fact remains that you still need to have skills to produce high quality material.

Craig told me that work hasn’t slowed down for him at all, just because of the digital age.  And these older poets we met have written many books and their poetry is used all over, in a variety of places.

James Bertolino, Poet
James Bertolino, Poet

So even though the world is changing, and the kids need to learn new skills these days, if they can be the best (or one of the best) in whatever skill they choose, people will want to experience what they produce.  And they’ll always have something to do.