It's funny to me that as I grow older, and busier, I leave out the art, music and crafts that I always did for fun, relaxation, and production of gifts. I just haven't taken the time. So recently, Rebecca and I decided to have "painting" sessions. Since I rarely use my kitchen table, we set out all sorts of materials and started to work.
Rebecca has had a long-standing desire to paint pictures of grass. Don't laugh, I don't get it either, but she finds pictures that have varieties of grass, fields, trees, sky and sometimes a flower or two. I bought several containers of green paint and she has now produced four or five paintings. They are good! Interesting!
I have concentrated on a recent find - Zentangles. Basically rough shapes or outlines of objects which I fill in with a variety of simple designs - as many designs as possible. I don't like them as I'm doing them because I see all the flaws, missed parts, etc., but later I do like them. Doing something creative - even when I don't appreciate the outcome much is having an excellent effect. How can a person forget to do this? it is important to be free to create!
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Monday, September 23, 2013
Crayola Attractions
After going to a wedding in New Jersey (my Taiwanese "daughter" Dao Wen and Paul), my daughter, Rebecca, and "daughter", Emily and I were driving back through Pennsylvania when we saw a sign for Crayola Attractions. We had to go. It's in Easton, PA where crayons were invented and are made. Easton is a lovely little town with a town square, interesting restaurants and music.
We weren't sure at first whether we would regret the $16 entrance fee, but soon recognized it was a bargain even for so-called adults. We had a great time. We were able to name a crayon color, make our own, multicolored markers and play with Model Magic. And that was just the first of 4 floors of attractions. We colored and constructed treasure boxes and pictures with every crayon color imaginable. We melted crayons and molded them into shapes such as dinosaurs and worms. We painted with melted crayons and also made spin art pictures with melted crayons. We took black-and-white outline pictures of ourselves which we could then color or have put on a puzzle or a t-shirt. We crayoned pictures on cardboard which were then cut into puzzle pieces. We drew on large light-bright boards and on a computer screen from which we could email the results to ourselves. There was a giant climbing playroom and some other toys we didn't use, but we played with the boats in the replica of the Erie Canal to see how the locks and other systems worked. There was a virtual step-on piano keyboard, which later became a step-on xylophone, and later still a game where balls would appear which exploded when stepped on. There was a wall of virtual crayola men caricatures and if you stood on the rug in front of one, it would do everything you did - wave, jump, bend, etc. Rebecca, of course, had to challenge it and finally the head of hers popped off and he looked destroyed - only for a minute or so.
In short, it was worth the side trip and the two hours we added to our journey. The only regret is that we didn't have some little people of our own to play with us.
We weren't sure at first whether we would regret the $16 entrance fee, but soon recognized it was a bargain even for so-called adults. We had a great time. We were able to name a crayon color, make our own, multicolored markers and play with Model Magic. And that was just the first of 4 floors of attractions. We colored and constructed treasure boxes and pictures with every crayon color imaginable. We melted crayons and molded them into shapes such as dinosaurs and worms. We painted with melted crayons and also made spin art pictures with melted crayons. We took black-and-white outline pictures of ourselves which we could then color or have put on a puzzle or a t-shirt. We crayoned pictures on cardboard which were then cut into puzzle pieces. We drew on large light-bright boards and on a computer screen from which we could email the results to ourselves. There was a giant climbing playroom and some other toys we didn't use, but we played with the boats in the replica of the Erie Canal to see how the locks and other systems worked. There was a virtual step-on piano keyboard, which later became a step-on xylophone, and later still a game where balls would appear which exploded when stepped on. There was a wall of virtual crayola men caricatures and if you stood on the rug in front of one, it would do everything you did - wave, jump, bend, etc. Rebecca, of course, had to challenge it and finally the head of hers popped off and he looked destroyed - only for a minute or so.
In short, it was worth the side trip and the two hours we added to our journey. The only regret is that we didn't have some little people of our own to play with us.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Read the directions
Reading the directions is not something I normally do. My family always says "When in doubt, read the directions." And we aren't in doubt much - we just barrel into new computers, subjects, and adventures until we have questions. Seems good from my POV.
But, then I see posts in many groups about creativity and realize that the same things I do are annoying when someone else does it - on one of my subjects, like creativity. There have been many articles, books, and comments about brainstorming not working, for example. And the latest is that creativity can't be taught. I want to rise up and announce that brainstorming has been working for me and my family for more than 30 years - that's how we figure things out when we have those doubts. And I've been teaching creativity for more than 30 years also. Student feedback is really rewarding - they change from thinking they are not creative to thinking they have ideas and methods to implement solutions they never had before.
Some of those people are still in the 1980's mode of thinking that creativity is about music and art - which addressed in a previous blog. Creativity includes evaluation. Ruth Noller's (one of the founders of our program at Buffalo State in the '60's) definition is that creativity is a function of your attitude toward Knowledge, Imagination and Evaluation. Yes, we accept that some ideas are wild at first. Wasn't the airplane? Alex Osborn, who first wrote about brainstorming in the '50's said, "It's easier to tame a wild idea than to invigorate a weak one. "
Sid Parnes, along with Ruth, did an intensive study, published in the Journal of Creative Behavior in the early '70's showing that, not only could creativity be taught and learned, but that students who were taught creativity also did better in other subjects and graduated more frequently than a control group who were not given the classes.
This stuff has been out there for a long time. And more has been reported since in 7 refereed journals on creativity since then. So please, read the directions before you sound off on this.
But, then I see posts in many groups about creativity and realize that the same things I do are annoying when someone else does it - on one of my subjects, like creativity. There have been many articles, books, and comments about brainstorming not working, for example. And the latest is that creativity can't be taught. I want to rise up and announce that brainstorming has been working for me and my family for more than 30 years - that's how we figure things out when we have those doubts. And I've been teaching creativity for more than 30 years also. Student feedback is really rewarding - they change from thinking they are not creative to thinking they have ideas and methods to implement solutions they never had before.
Some of those people are still in the 1980's mode of thinking that creativity is about music and art - which addressed in a previous blog. Creativity includes evaluation. Ruth Noller's (one of the founders of our program at Buffalo State in the '60's) definition is that creativity is a function of your attitude toward Knowledge, Imagination and Evaluation. Yes, we accept that some ideas are wild at first. Wasn't the airplane? Alex Osborn, who first wrote about brainstorming in the '50's said, "It's easier to tame a wild idea than to invigorate a weak one. "
Sid Parnes, along with Ruth, did an intensive study, published in the Journal of Creative Behavior in the early '70's showing that, not only could creativity be taught and learned, but that students who were taught creativity also did better in other subjects and graduated more frequently than a control group who were not given the classes.
This stuff has been out there for a long time. And more has been reported since in 7 refereed journals on creativity since then. So please, read the directions before you sound off on this.
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