For this activity, I decided to finally make the painting that I have wanted to do ever since I was inspired by one that my friend made when I went to visit her in Vancouver last year. The Homer quote I included was the inspiration, and I took to Pinterest to look at some painted flower ideas. I have attached a photo and video I took of the creative process. The song is called “Flower Child” and was recently released by Kacey Musgraves. When making art, I always listen to music that inspires me and this was one of the tracks on repeat.
I chose to combine three mediums; acrylic paint, embroidery, and colour pencil. I have worked with all three of these separately but never mixed the mediums together. The flowers are painted, the center is the woven wheel stitch, and the background is done in colour pencil. After I had sketched out my design, I realized I had already made an error. I started painting the flowers, when I should have painted the rectangular background first. The result was a lighter looking background, when my intention had been to make it bolder. Seeing that the creative process is all about learning to work with our decisions, intentional or unintentional, I went with it.
I had known that canvas was a very unforgiving material when it came to embroidery. Once the canvas is pierced by the needle, the hole remains. Therefore when I was going in with my needle and thread, I proceeded with caution. In the video I took of my process, you will see that in some instances after I completed the woven wheel stitch, I still had leftover space between it and the flower petals. This was because I had either run out of embroidery floss or the skeleton of the stitch I created should have extended a bit over the petals, in order to cover up the entire center. To fix this, I went in with some paint to fill in the white spaces.
Overall, I am glad that I created this piece that was on my to-do list for a very long time. I learned that I need to make time for more of the “little c” (Gini-Newman & Case, 2015, p. 53), moments in life. It does not necessarily have to be a tactile product, as I mentioned in my discussion post last week. That is what made this activity higher stakes; I knew I was going to display it somewhere in my classroom so it had to be presentable. Being creative is not always about “making something good.” I was on an extremely tight timeframe to make this piece, as I am visiting a friend this week and could not bring these materials on the plane with me. I believe that by intentionally shelling out time in my week to engage in the creative and critical process, proves that all I need is motivation. It made me think about what else I could create if I just sat down and put my mind to it.
“A creative culture in schools depends on re-energizing the creative abilities of teachers.” (Robinson, 2011, p. 267). Engaging in this creative activity reminded me of this past June when I learned bass guitar in two months for our school’s graduation ceremony. That was another instance where I was on a short timeframe and there was something at stake. As I was learning the instrument, I would practice with my students and be open about my learning process. I wanted to showcase to my classes that even teachers are lifelong learners. Sure enough, I saw the positive effect it had on several of their mindsets, through the overall successes of their culminating projects and course learnings. Having a deadline, though it may add an element of stress, often re-energizes my creativity. The next time I do a creative project like this in between more frequent “little c” moments, I will consider putting a timeline in place.
References
Gini Newman, G. & Case, R. (2015). “Critical, creative, and collaborative dimensions of thinking, pp. 45-60, Creating Thinking Classrooms: Leading Educational Change for a 21st Century World. Vancouver, BC: The Critical Thinking Consortium.
Robinson, K. (2011). “Learning to be Creative” pp 245-283. In Out of our minds: Learning to be creative. John Wiley & Sons.
YouTube. (2024, August 2). Kacey Musgraves - Flower Child (official audio). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT-vSQb1qeg
Toronto, November 2022
Comentarios