Come Draw With Me In Central Park!!

I am conducting a drawing tour this Sunday in Central Park at the Bethesda Fountain, which is located directly in the center of the park. On the tour I will be using a lot of the ideas I teach as an artist's coach and speaker to help the attendees enhance their creativity and deepen their experience of a place. Come join us! There are only 6 spots left! For more info and to register, click here!! A little bit about the Fountain: Bethesda Terrace was constructed in 1859-64. The fountain sculpture was designed by Emma Stebbins in 1868 who was the first woman to receive a public commission for a major work of art in New York City. The bronze, eight-foot statue depicts a female winged angel held up by four four-foot cherubs representing Temperance, Purity, Health, and Peace. The statue is also called the "Angel of the Waters", and celebrated the opening of the Croton Aqueduct in 1842, which provided the city with a dependable water supply for the first time. NYC history is so rich and varied. When I visit a place, I love to take in all the meaning of the things that happened in certain spots. I am looking forward to this drawing adventure and I hope you will join me! Click here to register! Here's to your creativity!

"Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge" - A. Einstein

Professor Einstein is always a special featured "guest" at my "Enhance Your Creative Power" talk for artists and solo creatives. He will be there this Wednesday, June 1, 2011 at 6pm
Linger Cafe and Lounge
533 Atlantic Avenue
between 3rd and 4th Avenues
http://lingercafelounge.com/

Albert Einstein, as we know, was a scientific genius. He was also a very, very creative person. As a youth, he had a reputation as a troublemaker and delved into a variety of careers that included vaudeville comedian and solo symphony violinist! After some meandering, he eventually found his way back to his true path which was science and math. He is known for many wonderful quotes, among which is one that I really REALLY like! "Imagination is more important than knowledge." This is an amazing quote, especially coming from a scientist!

But we're talking about Albert Einstein! He used his imagination to turn science on its head .... I'm sure he had a storehouse of knowledge, from his education and his work and his research. But knowledge alone couldn't have served his purposes for what he was trying to discover. He knew that it would take stretching beyond what was already known to come up with a theory that would explain his hunch about space being curved, thus developing his theory of relativity. He pictured himself riding a light beam through space and this imaginary journey led him along a curved path. He then used his mathematical wizardry to prove how that could happen. Pretty creative, right? At the time, there was no evidence anywhere for such an idea.

Using his imagination and his other skills he found a way to prove something that must have seemed impossible at the time; that reality, on a certain level, exists on a quantum level, and has properties that exist in a very different way than we perceive with our senses!

He was at times a misfit, even a ne'er-do'well in some people's eyes. Someone who, as a child, did not speak fluently till he was twelve years old and had been thought to be mentally impaired and yet became one of the most revered scientists of the past century. Ask yourself, now: What seemingly impossible thing you could start to investigate using your imagination to picture it and your skills to bring it into being?

A Listening Meditation For Artists and Solo Creatives

I've always loved just going into parks and sitting quietly with the elements of nature around me. Even if I was still right next to a busy street! A few years ago, I began to develop a "listening meditation" while sitting in the park that I realized was fun as well as calming. I found it to be a great way to take a breather from intense work or when feeling anxious, tense or in need of a break in general. It is the kind of meditation that can really deepen the more you do it.

Read through it first. This is a long description, because I wanted to describe the subtleties and nuances of it. But the actual meditation is simple and easy to do.

First of all, start by going for a walk. That is always a great way to decompress from tension or worry. Breathe deeply from your belly. Walk to a place where you can be in nature. This can be a park, even a small one...You can actually do this anywhere, even a coffee shop, but it's especially nice out near some trees. Just be sure you can sit quietly without being disturbed. Let your eyes focus in a relaxed way as far into the distance as you can, such as at the sky, down the road to the furthest house you can see, or at the tops of trees. We usually do work that is close up, so this distance-focusing will help balance and relax the eye muscles. Be very gentle about it.

Keep breathing in a relaxed, yet deep way, down into the belly. Whenever you feel ready, start to listen to the sounds around you. Very slowly, and with gentle attention, begin discerning what you are hearing. Use your attention to distinguish the different bird calls you hear. You may be very surprised to realize there are quite a few different birds in the trees around you, all making different sounds. Then focus on what else you hear. Is there a road near you? What sounds are there? Different motors from trucks and cars, the sound of brakes or car doors? How about human sounds? Laughter, babies, women, men? How many dog sounds can you hear? There are also things like tree branches rustling, a paper bag blowing by, a chair being scraped across concrete. See if you can give your attention to actually counting the different sounds you hear (this is just a guide, no need to try to be exact!) Just sit quietly, listening and gently attentive for as long as you like.

This meditation can have a few benefits.
- It quiets the mind (in spite of being about sound!)
- If you feel agitated or anxious, it gives you something specific yet calming to focus on outside of yourself.
- It demonstrates the incredible abundance that is all around you all the time. All you need to do is draw your attention to it.
- It can give you a tremendous appreciation for the subtleties of the sense of hearing.

That's it! I hope you enjoy playing with this "listening meditation." Let me know what you think after you've tried it by leaving a comment. I would love to hear how it worked for you.

Creativity, Taking Risks and Fennec Foxes

This animal is called a fennec fox. And this drawing was part of a talk I gave to artists twice this week. The talk was entitled "Enhancing Creative Power For Artists and Solo Creatives." One of the points of the talk was about the need to be willing to take risks, to maybe even look ridiculous. Case in point: For literally eons, Mother Nature hasn't seemed to worry about looking ridiculous at all when she designed the many incredible, yet real, creatures on this planet. In fact, she seems to throw caution to the wind. Mother Nature seems to believe that, like trying on clothes at the store, you just can't really tell till it's on. So elephant noses, hippopotamus heads and fennec fox ears demonstrate that you just never know. I did this drawing of a fennec fox for my talk, so that the little critter could be a symbol - the poster child, if you will - for taking risks and letting the results stand on their own. Here's to you and your creative experiments. Take risks, climb further out on that limb and give that crazy idea, whatever it is, a go.

I Draw In The Sunshine

We had gorgeous weather this past weekend in New York City and on Sunday I did something that I have wanted to try for a very long time......I set up an easel in front of the Metropolitan Museum and sold some little tiny watercolors. If you want to know how tiny, look at the photo above. You will see a hand holding the watercolor. That is how tiny. It's about 2.5 by 3.5 inches. This one is of a building I could see from where I stood on Fifth Avenue in front of the Museum. It was fun and I met a lot of really great people. I met artists, non-artists, art-lovers, art collectors and various permutations of these. I displayed watercolors that I had already and also managed to do about 4 or 5 new watercolors while I stood there which sold as well.

Had three pieces up at the Dumbo Arts Center Pop Up Fundraiser Show last weekend. They were fairly large for me - all approximately 21 by 24 inches. (Will be posting images soon!)

Also, finished the No Impact Week with Colin Beavan. Well, didn't actually finish it. It was a group of great people and apparently there are plans to meet for a dinner in a few weeks. I can say that my awareness has been raised by leaps and bounds, and in a future post I will talk about some of the changes that have come from that new awareness.