Places I´ve Lived At (100 Ideas 37)

Finally I´m back to doing more ideas of the 100 things project by Keri Smith, which I´m doing with Mim and Casey.

37. List all of the places you've ever lived.

I have moved very often in my life. I think around 17 times. So I have lived in 10 different cities so far:

• Altenstadt, Germany
• Alwar, Rajasthan, India
• Birmingham, UK
• Kottayam, Kerala, India
• Los Angeles, USA
• Munich, Germany
• Peiting, Germany
• Schongau, Germany
• Stuttgart, Germany
• Vaterstetten, Germany

100 ideas
Link to Mim´s Post

Speed Shopping (100 Ideas 26)

Mim and Casey already completed this task, so I hurried with it too. Yesterday I only had 30 minutes to got to 3 stores before the shops closed. I hastened through the aisles of the supermarket and just took everything which looked appealing to me. Illustrated are not only the groceries, but everything I bought on Saturday.

26. Illustrate your grocery list.

This sketch is inspired by the blog Obsessive Consumption. Everyday Kate Bingaman-Burt posts a quick sketch of her daily purchase. I think she´s been doing that for the past 3 years.
I did everything in a quick and fast style too, but the boots were very pretty difficult to draw fast. (I remember my last drawing of shoes. These high-heels took a long time.)

Link to Mim´s post
Link to Casey´s post
100 ideas

Hidden Message (100 Ideas 34)

Boy, this task really made my hand hurt. But it was a good excercise for being more patient. There is a secret message hidden in the pic, but it is hard to find. But once you see it, it is obvious.

34. Fill an entire page in your journal with small circles. Color them in.

I admired Mim´s and Casey´s colorful circles, but then I used my favorite color combination (red & black) again (though I had planned to do something more colorful). Strange!
BTW: Casey joined the 100 ideas project. Welcome! (3 people are even more inspirational.)

Link to Mim´s post
Link to Casey´s post
100 ideas

Four-Letter Words (WTJ)

This one was an interesting task. The results somehow show the way I am and the way Benjamin is imo. My pages are filled with simple fun little pictures. I just enjoyed doing them. And Benjamin thinks a lot more about the things he does and is a lot more complicated. At least that is my opinion. Any thoughts, Benjamin? ;)

"A page for four-letter words (WTJ)"

Mine:

I didn´t write down words, but drew four-letter words in German. I´m surprised how many of them are four-letter words in English (marked in red) as well.

"Glas (Glas), Herz, Dach (Roof), Ofen (Oven), Rose (Rose), Wein (Wine), Auto, Nuss, Salz (Salt), Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier (Four), Acht, Neun (Nine), Zehn, Mann, Frau, Kind, Mond (Moon), Erde, Welt, Ball (Ball), Igel, Hose, Buch (Book), Mars (Mars), Baum (Tree), Nase (Nose), Boot (Boat), Hemd, Rock, Hand (Hand), Fuss (Foot), Mund, Cola (Coke), Fass (Cask), Topf, Bart, Auge, Kamm (Comb), Maus, Geld"

Benjamin:

Benjamin: "When I opened up this page for the first time I immediately knew what I would have to do. I would have to fill it with letter combinations of one particular four letter word. This four letter word is actually a name, and it is a name that nobody can articulate. There are two reasons for this mystery. First: It is a hebrew name, written without vocals. In order to vocalize the word you would have to know how it has to be pronounced. But second: For thousands of years it has been deemedinappropriate to pronounce this name aloud in order to obey the biblical commandment Nr. 3.

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

If you don't use the name - the four letter word Y''H''W''H - at all you cannot make wrongful use of it. That's why only synonyms where used, and the real vocalization got lost.

Making use of the divine name has nevertheless always been an integral part of mystic exercises. One of the most influential books of jewish mysticism - Sefer Yetzirah (Book of the Creation) - "explains" the meaning and powers of every of the 22 letters in the hebrew alphabet believed to be the very source of the creation. The three letters within the divine name are special in many ways. And the mystics committed to the exploration of the powers within the letters would sooner or later try write down all possible combinations of those 3 letters in four letter words - all of them names, all of them unpronouncable. And they would do it in order to connect to the strong powers of the creation and in order to feel close to the creator of their longing souls.

I'm not in a state to make an exercise like this. And if I would, this page of the journal would have to be buried afterwards like everything holding the divine name. In fact: I did make the exercise and I felt connected and inspired. But it all happened inside of me. I did not touch the page. I did not take the pen. I did not write. And that's why this page in my journal is intentionally left blank."

The Gulmohar Tree

Mim´s favorite tree is a pine, but she lists a lot of different trees she liked at the place she used to live before. And suddenly all these trees popped up in my mind which I always looked at in awe. So beside the Weeping Willow you can count the Gulmohar tree (Flamboyant tree), Orange trees, Magnolia Trees, and Neem to my list of favorite trees. Except for the Orange tree, I remember all of them as a common sight in India.

The last 5 years of our stay in India we lived in a very dry place along the border of the Thar desert. Except during the short Monsoon the landscape used to be brown and dry. So imagine driving hours along the road, barren earth, scarce vegetation, scorching heat... and suddenly this bright tree flames up right in front of you. It´s amazing!

A Letter For The Future (100 Ideas 2)

Of the first few tasks Mim and I agreed on doing, I kept postponing this one. I had an idea what I would like to do, but didn´t feel like starting it. But I did buy a nice red envelope and two beautiful sheets of paper with a watermark.
Today I finally wrote the letter. It was easy once I started writing.

3. Write a letter to yourself in the future.

I plan to open it on New Year´s Eve 2009. The content means a lot to me. Of course I had to blur the text. It is too personal to show it to everybody.

Link to Mim´s post
100 ideas

EDM #145 - Weeping Willow (100 Ideas 18)

My favorite tree has always been the weeping willow. The curtains of drooping branches that sweep the ground are beautiful and make the tree a great hiding place. They are pretty common here in Germany, but I have only once been under one. In Autum they have a special golden glow due to the then yellowish leaves.

34. Draw your favorite tree.

At our last parting
bending between
boat and shore . . .
That weeping willow

by Masaoka Shiki (1866-1902)

Link to Mim´s post
100 ideas

Burn! (WTJ)

Today, I´m not adding anything to this post. It is Benjamin´s text, who is doing the project with me.

"Burn this page (WTJ)"

Benjamin: "Many years ago I also burned a page. It was a love letter and the burning was part of a ceremony. I was sure by burning the letter my words would find their way straight to the addressees heart. Sending it, getting it read - that's at least what I thought - wouldn't transport my feelings in an adequate way.
I used a glass ashtray and lighter petrol. I put it on a small metal plate on my bed and set the letter on fire. It was a light blue sea of flames. And while the paper turned brown then black I was still sure I would have done the best thing I could. Until - the fire made the ashtray burst into two pieces. The rest of the petrol flew onto the plate. It got hot, so hot, that the quilt on my bed started melting. I panicked, tried to extinguish the fire. But it got worse. The plate slipped from the bed and what was left from the fire burned a serious hole into the carpet.
I thought that being sick from love would be a disaster. In fact it was. But the marks of the fire left on my bed and the carpet were disastrous, too. I didn't even try to make up a story in order to explain the clear signs of my voodoo game to my mother. I've played with the fire, I said. And that was exactly the truth - before and after I had lit the match.
This time I took more caution not to burn down the flat. But what I thought, when the journal page burned down was exactly the same as those twenty something years ago: Burn my love right into her heart!
Looks like I don't grow up. She was standing right next to me. But I lit a fire instead of turning my head and telling her: I carry your heart, would you carry mine?"

This is how Benjamin burnt his page:

And this is my result:

Sushi (100 Ideas 4)

Dinner time is always very busy, specially with the kids around. No chance of being able to draw my dinner then. So I decided to draw my lunch. Usually I only eat something small at home. But yesterday I saw this delicious box full of sushi waiting for me right there on my way back home from an appointment. I decided to treat myself as I love sushi and haven´t had it for about 5 years! I´m sure I was also inspired by a sushi drawing done by The Renaissance Chameleon. I saw it the first time about 10 months ago and I really like it very much. It also got me to do more Moleskine drawings.

4. Draw your dinner.

You can´t imagine how difficult it was to draw the sushi instead of eating it. So I had to do a quick illustration... always eating the parts, which I had already completed drawing. Give me more!



You can find a lot of sushi drawings in Moleskines at flickr. I guess, it is easier to draw your food when it won´t get cold while doing so.

Link to Mim´s post
100 ideas

Pour, Spill, Drip, Spit, Fling Your Coffee Here (WTJ)

Last week finally I started Project 1 "Wreck this journal" (WTJ), which celebrates creative destruction, with Benjamin. I was surprised he wanted to do this with me as it takes some time and who´s got spare time?
But then we did the first few pages of the journal together and I could see how much he enjoyed destroying his copy of the journal. You can´t imagine how much fun it is to fill/destroy the book in a messy kind of way.
Before we started I had to get a third copy - just because it looks lovely without our messing around and because I really felt sorry for this wonderful little book. So now I have got a clean and empty copy of the journal and one which is already brown and messy after filling the first page.

"Pour, Spill, Drip, Spit, Fling Your Coffee Here (WTJ)"

Benjamin made his stains this way:

Benjamin: "I hate those unavoidable coffee stains on my white office table. So I decided just to sprinkle some tea onto this journal page. Stupid me: Those sprinkles were hard to notice.
Well, if you really want coffee stains you'll get them. I brewed my coffee making sure to spill a lot all over. Nice result after all. Like it."

And I made myself a very strong cup of instant coffe and just could not stop...

dripping the coffee with a straw...


on to the page. The whole book smells of coffee now.

100 ideas 1 - part two

Covered:


Partly Uncovered:


Uncovered:

Link to Mim´s post
100 ideas

Collecting rubbish (100 ideas 1)

The next assignment was to collect stuff from the sidewalk. I did this together with my kids on the way to the kindergarten and back. It was strange walking all the time with the head down on the ground and at first it was also very strange to pick up all the rubbish (specially cigarette stubs or dirty stuff). But you can´t imagine how happy the kids were to pick up all these colorful bits and pieces. It´s going to be hard to get them away from this again and they still keep finding wonderful things.

1. Go for a walk. Draw or list things you find on the the sidewalk.

What a variety of things we found! Usually I don´t see so many different kind of colors when I rush along.

Full page:


Right side:


Left side:


When I completed the drawing I went to have another look at andrea joseph´s sketchblog.
She has a picture showing stuff she found at a church yard. I was surprised how many similar things we found. You should take a look at her blog. Her crosshatching is just amazing.

Link to Mim´s post
100 ideas

100 Things By Keri Smith (Project 2)

Here´s a list of 100 things I would like to do which I saw on Keri Smith´s site. It could be fun to do this with a partner or maybe in a group and everybody can share their experience in their own blog or in the comments here on my blog. Anyone interested?

1. 1.Go for a walk. Draw or list things you find on the the sidewalk. 2. Write a letter to yourself in the future. 3. Buy something inexpensive as a symbol for your need to create, (new pen, a tea, cup, journal). Use it everyday. 4. Draw your dinner. 5. Find a piece of poetry you respond to. Rewrite it and glue it into your journal. 6. Glue an envelope into your journal. For one week collect items you find on the street. 7. Expose yourself to a new artist, (go to a gallery, or in a book.) Write about what moves you about it. 8. Find a photo of a person you do not know. Write a brief bio about them. 9. Spend a day drawing only red things. 10. Draw your bike. 11. Make a list of everything you buy in the next week. 12. Make a map of everywhere you went in one day. 13. Draw a map of the creases on your hand, (knuckles, palm) 14. Trace your footsteps with chalk. 15. Record an overheard conversation. 16. Trace the path of the moon in relation to where you live. 17. Go to a paint store. Collect 'chips' of all your favorite colors. 18. Draw your favorite tree. 19. Take 15 minutes to eat an orange. 20. Write a haiku. 21. Hang upside down for five minutes. 22. Hang found objects from tree branches. 23. Make a puppet. 24. Create an outdoor room from things you find in nature. 25. Read a book in one day. 26. Illustrate your grocery list. 27. Read a story out loud to a friend. 28. Write a letter to someone you admire. 29. Study the face of someone you do not like. 30. Make a meal based on a color theme. (i.e. all white). 31. Creat a museum of very small things. 32. List the smells in your neighborhood. 33. List 100 uses for a tin can. 34. Fill an entire page in your journal with small circles. Color them in. 35. Give away something you love. 36. Choose an object, draw the side you can't see. 37. List all of the places you've ever lived. 38. Describe your favourite room in detail. 39. Write about your relationship with your washing machine. 40. Draw all of the things in your purse/bag. 41. Make a mini book based on the theme, "my grocery list". 42. Create a character based on someone you know. Write a list of personality traits. 43. Recall your favorite childhood game. 44. Put postcards of art pieces/painting on the inside of your kitchen cupboard doors, so you can see them everyday (but not become deaf to them.) 45. Draw the same object every day for a week. 46. Write in your journal using a different medium (brush & ink, charcoal, old typewriter, crayons, fat markers. 47. Draw the individual items of your favorite outfit. 48. Make a useful item using only paper & tape. 49. Research a celebration or ritual from another culture. 50. Do a temporary art installation using a pad of post it notes & a pen. 51. Draw a map of your favorite sitting spots in your town/city. (photocopy it and give it to someone you like.) 52. Record all of the sounds you hear in the course of one hours. 53. Using a grid, collect various textures from magazine and play them off of each other. 54. Cut out all media for one day. Write about the effects. 55. Make pencil rubbings of six different surfaces. 56. Draw your garbage. 57. Do a morning collage. 58. List your ten most important things, (not including animals or people.) 59. List ten things you would like to do every day. 60. Glue a photo of yourself as a child into your journal. 61. Trasform some garbage. 62. Write an entry in your journal in really LARGE letters. 63. Collect some 'flat' things in nature (leaves, flowers). Glue or tape them into your journal. 64. Physically alter a page. (i.e. cut a hole, pour tea on it, burn it, fold it, etc.) 65. Find several color combinations you respond to in public. Document them using swatches, write where you found them. 66. Write a journal entry describing something "secret". Cut it up into several pieces and glue them back in scrambled. 67. Record descriptions or definitions of subjects or words you are interested in, found in encyclopedias or dictionaries. 68. Draw the outline of an object without looking at the page. (contour drawing). 69. What were you thinking just now? write it down. 70. Do nothing. 71. Write a list of ten things you could to do. Do the last thing on the list. 72. Create an image using dots. 73. Do 3 drawings at different speeds. 74. Put a small object in your left pocket (or in a bag), Put your left hand in the pocket. Draw it by feel. 75. Create a graph documenting or measuring something in your life. 76. Draw the sun. 77. Create instructions for a simple everyday task. 78. Make prints using food. (fruit and vegetables cut in half, fish, etc.) 79. Find a photo. Alter it by drawing over it. 80. Write a letter using an unconventional medium. 81. Draw one object for twenty minutes. 82. Combine two activities that have not been combined before. 83. Write about your day in an encyclopedic fashion. (i.e. organize by subject.) 84. Write a list of all the things you do to escape. 85. Cut a random shape out of several layers of a magazine. Make a collage out of the results. 86. Write an entry in code. 87. Make a painting using tools from the bathroom. 88. Work with a medium that is subtractive. 89. Write about or draw some of the doors in your life. 90. Make a postcard that has some kind of activity on it. 91. Divise a journal entry using "layers". 92. Divise an entry using "layers". 93. Write your own definition of one of the following concepts, sitting, waiting, sleeping (without using the actual word.) 94. List 10 of your habits. 95. Illustrate the concept of "simplicity".

Wreck This Journal By Keri Smith (Project 1)

Today I finally received my copy of "Wreck this journal", which celebrates creative destruction: "To Create Is To Destroy". She encourages the reader to fill the book in a messy kind of way and then to destroy the pages to experience the true creative process. The book is wonderful and I already find it difficult to destroy the pages, to poke holes into them and to crumble it - as suggested. Even writing in it seems hard to do, as I really consider books to be treasures and like to take care of them.

Still I wanted to start right away, but then I had this idea: It would be so much more fun to do this together with someone else. Then we could compare the pages. I think this could be fun to do and inspiring. Maybe we could also blog about it.
I´m looking for someone who would like to do this with me. In exchange for the time you need to invest I would send you one copy of the for free. I had a look through the book. There is no need to be an artist. So, if you drop by my blog from time to time, can read and write English and would have fun doing this, just send me an email.

BTW: In case you want to have a look inside the book, watch the video on Danny Gregory´s blog. He reviews some books and "Wreck This Journal" is the first one.

Want To Become My Partner? Please!

What do I need a partner for? Read on...

Another blog I have been following for some time now is Keri Smith´s Wish Jar Journal. She´s one of the most creative persons I know. Considering my own future (I need to get out and start some creative work) it helps reading her phantastic advice. She´s got wonderful books and you should take a look at them: Wreck this journal, Living Out Loud, The Guerilla Art Kit.

Her site inspired me to start 2 projects (project 1, project 2). And I will need one or more partners to have more fun. Check out the next two posts for more information.

In case want to know how to feel miserable as an artist, Keri Smith will help you out. And for the really bad days she´s got an artist´s survival kit too.