The Challenge - Day 5

Today's One Minute Writer Challenge is a fictional piece of a pivotal moment in a child's life, from the child's point of view. Here is my angle on it....

I lay on the grass, watching sunshine through closed eyes. I could feel the breeze moving my hair and parkland birds were singing. The sunshine, birds, distant sounds of other children having fun and the taste of ice cream merge into a single haze of memory - Summer. My hand reaches out without opening my eyes to check it is still there. My fingers tangle with the spokes of my beautiful new bike and I am filled with the joy of my first taste of independence.

I really enjoyed this one and was surprised how quickly an image I wanted to explore came to me. This is becoming less of a challenge and more of an addiction!

My ATC today is a little different, a more abstract approach using stamping ink and water to get a sort of 1970's lava lamp effect.

More tomorrow!

Punishment Challenge Day 3

What happened to day 2 I hear you cry (or is it just the voices again). Well, work work work is all I will say. I will have a good catch up at the weekend and do some proper posting, but in the meantime. The challenge is to submit to the One Minute Writer every day and to create a new ATC every day for a week. Failed at the second fence yesterday, but plan to double up at the weekend (hope that's allowed).

My OMW submission on protecting children from on line predators:
"This is a difficult one, if you are over protective children can feel stifled, but there are some basic precautions. The key one is don't let them surf in private. The sheer fact of having them in a shared family space will limit how much freedom their curiosity gets. But mostly, talk to them, love them and regularly check their browsing history."

Today's ATC was created by stamping an image onto textured card and then creating a gloss with clear embossing powder. I am having trouble uploading at the moment, but will upload to Twitpic in the meantime.

Punishment week challenge

Tonight's post is in response to Creative Machine's challenge to join her in attempting a daily task, this week being to produce an ATC (see earlier posts for info) and to submit our thoughts to the One Minute Writer every day. Well, as she is in Australia and I am in England, I will always be 10 hours behind and playing catch up, but I have determined to try.

The One Minute Writer topic today was "I think the world would be a better place if students learned more ___________ in school". Here is my response...

Freedom of Thought - in every subject, being given the opportunity to use imagination and think out of the box would be of benefit. In English allow children to create poetry, not learn the rules of iambic pentameter. In mathematics, being given the opportunity to use maths to create a structure or solve a problem. In science - being allowed to imagine a better future or a fascinating past, not just making sure chemical equations balance. It is not enough to just know, children must be allowed to think, understand and imagine.

The second challenge of the day is to produce an Artist Trading Card (had a technical problem so you will have to see it on twitpic until I sort it out - it's a bit rubbish). Time is short so I have gone easy and geometric, but hope to be more impressive tomorrow.

If anybody reads this and wants to join in - feel free!

A convert!

No time to post properly today, but go here  to see Lucy's first ATC! 

Art in your Pocket

Today I am feeling creative, but today like most days, I don't really have time. (In fact I shouldn't even be blogging, I am supposed to be working). Do you ever get that urge to make/create something but daily life intrudes and there is no time to work on that project that has been down the side of the sofa for 6 months? Well I do and one of the ways I satisfy that need is by paper crafting, I dabble in card making (often featuring my photography - so I get a double creative hit), scrapbooking (but not as often as I would like) along with various other handicrafts. But there is one papercrafting activity that can really give you a creativity hit without making a big mess or taking much time. ATCs or Artists Trading Cards are little miniature works of art that you can make out of pretty much anything. This link will take you to the original ATC site in Switzerland, set up when the form was first established in 1997. Above you will see one of my efforts (in fact the first I ever made). The key thing to know about ATCs is that they must not be any bigger than a playing card and they must be exchanged not sold. Other than that there are no rules.

This link will tell you the more about the history of how this art form developed and has a gallery of contributors from all over the world.

So next time you get the urge, but only have 10 minutes to spare, give it a try.