Friday 5 February 2016

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainty




Year Planner Cover remake

Every year, at the company I am working for, they provide us with the business year planner / daily agenda, to keep us organized. I do use it daily and every year, around December, I look forward in receiving the agenda for the new year to come.
This year, for the first time, it wasn't a strictly professional single-colour look. It's light colour, with a heart and the new moto we have.... It wasn't boring but after a couple of days I realized that I am not a big fan of this either, and then I started thinking..... if it doesn't have to be single colour, boring, professional looking, I can might as well redo it my way!!!
I am working in Research and Development after all, creativity is at least 50% of my job and being inspired is important. It is also not something you learn. No matter now well educated one might be, with strong technical knowledge and capable enough to understand the business strategy, these still are not enough to grand creativity and inspiration...

So, as with most of my projects, it all started with a quote:


Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainty.

(I do make searches on the internet with regards to quotes, i got this one from: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/erichfromm151839.html#RLDoElKLG4Tx4hxS.99 )


I also decided that this time i am not going to fight my love for purple. Besides it is my favourite colour!

So I started from this:




and after layers of stamped tissue paper, mat medium, gesso, acrylics in neon pink and purple, removal of colour with baby wipes through stencil, black lava texturing, silver platters, collage, washi tapes, mesh tape, stamping and embellishing... I made this:


So, my quote is stamped and framed in wooden frame which i panted in teal, cause I love the combination of purple with teal. 

And, because "Creativity, requires the courage to let go of certainty" on the back cover, there is this manga girl ( i had to rip it off , of a manga comic that a friend brought me from Japan) who is moving forward leaving something (the "certainty") behind. She was glued on the cover, then covered in gesso and had to re-trace it on top of gesso in order to be able to colour her, using my Pitt markers.

She is looking behind her shoulder (at the "certainty" she is leaving behind) and there is a conversation that Alice had with the Cheshire cat:

- Would you tell me which way i ought to go from here? (cause she has left certainty and doesn't know where to go)
- That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
- I don't much care where...
- Then it doesn't matter which way you go


 And there is the needle of the compass...

On the spine of the book, it says :"Do what you love, love what you do", because, in the end of the day, this is my agenda for work. I feel privileged that I DO love my work! I do what I was dreaming to do while I was studying at the Uni and I have rejected  careers that didn't interest me and focused on getting the job I love.


 At the frond, there is the framed quote, above the frame there is a butterfly flying away, the as she is flying further to the edge of the book, she is transformed into an idea (light-bulb with wings)



I really enjoyed making this and the astonishing part (for me) is that i made it within a day, it took me 2 weeks planning it in my head, but only about 5 hours to execute. For me this is a huge success because normally I tend to spend 5 days or even 2 weeks on a project like that! 


Needless to say, that many of my colleagues are now asking me to remake their cover... hehehe!!

Supplies used: