#4 Practice Thanksgiving

A poster in response to my trip to Haiti (see more pictures from my trip)

These 40 creative prompts are designed the get your creative juices flowing by allowing you to detach from your daily routine whether it is writing, making art, staying at home with children, making art, working, or something else. This prompt is designed to help you continue on in the Thanksgiving spirit a couple more days (and hopefully everyday).

It is often easy to complain especially when...oh never-mind.

Let's practice being thankful today.

Be Thankful – Create a list about things you are thankful for. Include at least 10 items, people, events, privileges or opportunities in your day-to-day life.  If you want to be super ambitions make a list of 100 or more and start a blog or an art journal about what you are thankful for. Journal everyday or week for a set amount of time.

Thankful for....

1. My family - including my husband Jim, my parents and my grandmother
2. My friends - I love spending time with my creative friends
3. My job - I have the best job in the world
4. Food, water and shelter - Life is good
5. Creativity - I love that I have been given the opportunity to learn to be creative
6. My past - good and bad
7. My future - I welcome the challenges to come
8. My pet salamander - and the pets I had growing up
9. That I have found things I am passionate about - I love making art and advocating for others
10. My stubbornness - I have learned a lot by not giving in and standing my ground
11. That I don't need to do it all on my own - I am thankful that I have friends and family as well as a strong faith life
12. The many opportunities I have had - I know how fortunate I am
13. My privileges - Light-skinned privilege, American privilege, etc. I acknowledge that some are more privileged than others and I recognize the things that have helped me get to where I am today.

What are you thankful for?

Black Friday!!!

There have been several people interested in purchasing necklace charms or magnets from The Lily Pad Project. 

Since I am not offering my lily pad paintings, sculptures, and most of the experimental art for sale until my exhibition in April, I decided that I would put these guys on sale for Black Friday and maybe a bit longer (but no promises as to how long).

Click here to purchase some hand made lily pad magnets, charms, or greeting cards.

I am creating 1,500 lily pads (and water lilies) to help raise awareness about human trafficking and the sex trade. Each lily pad represents 10 people who have been trafficked into the US in the past year. To learn why I am using lily pads and water lilies check out my blog posts.

Each magnet and charm is hand painted using watercolors, sized to match a glass bead, and pieced together. The paper back is sealed with diamond glaze for waterproofing. Each piece is unique.

The Lily Pad Project uses lily pads and water lilies to talk about human trafficking. The flowers represent the beautiful women that we often see in the sex industry. What we don't see in the sex industry are the root systems below the surface. The lily pads take resources back to the root system. You can view my blog for more connections to human trafficking.

I am also selling greeting cards. $1 per sale goes to Arts Aftercare.

See who has been talking about #TheLilyPadProject 

40 Creativity Prompts: #3 Draw to Music you Love

Untitled Project Created while listening to music I like and music I dislike

Sometimes we all need a little boost when it comes to creativity and I hope my series of
40 creative prompts can provide that boost for you this winter.  These prompts are designed the get your creative juices flowing by allowing you to detach from your daily routine whether it is writing, making art, staying at home with children or working.

This Sunday I am encouraging you to take out some music and enjoy. 

Draw to Music you Love – Pick a song you enjoy and draw for the duration of that song. This is an exercise for the subconscious mind. Don’t try to draw the lyrics or the musician. Use shapes and color to describe what you feel.

Click here to see all 40 prompts.

Please share your results in the comments below!

Join My Art+ Newsletter and $ave

If you are not currently receiving my Felicia Follum Art+ News you are missing out on several opportunities to $save big.  I send an E-news letter about once a month or every other month.  The letters include upcoming events, special deals, announcements and more.

Follow this link to subscribe to Felicia Follum Art+ News or use the QR code.

Creativity Prompt: #2 Free Write

There is no better way to start off your Sunday that a little writing. The second Creativity Prompt in my series of 40 is free writing. 

Free Write – Write for 10 minutes non-stop. Write about anything. Anything goes; save censoring and editing for later. This is just to get your mind thinking. This is also a good way to draft your artist statement. Don’t be surprised if you only have one or two usable sentences or even just a word here and there. The point of this exercise is not to write a novel or any finished composition in one setting but rather to help your mind start flowing more creatively.

Eden, Watercolor, Felicia Follum, 22x13, $145

Possible free write topics 
A specific piece of art
A favorite pet
Emotions from looking at your art
A city you would like to visit
The next holiday
Other people's artwork
A favorite artist
A gallery exhibition
An ETSY item
Your wish list
Black Top
Glass Bottle
Respond to the painting

What topics did you write about?

Click here to see all 40 prompts.

The Good Mule

Facebook Cover Photo for The Good Mule

The Good Mule Conference on Social Justice is this weekend. I will have my lily pad artwork up tonight at the Bobby Bailey (co-founder of Invisible Children) as well at the conference tomorrow.  I will also be helping with a panel discussion with adults with disabilities from the Cooper Center. 

To learn more about what the events this weekend, check out the Facebook Event Page.

You can see my lily pads art on Facebook or read about the social issues behind my lily pad art here on my blog.

I hope to see some of you there tonight or tomorrow!

Good Mule Poster

Creativity Prompt: #1 Political Promo

GRACE, 24"x36", $150

Alright to kick off my Art+ Creativity Prompts I figured I would start with some election inspiration.  So many people seem to be fueled by the politics surrounding us though we never really step out and look at the 2012 election (or any other for that matter) from the other side or analyze the benefits of the opposition.  Regardless of results we need to learn to honor and support our country/president even if we disagree. Since this post is a little late in the game I am offering a couple alternative options.

1a. Political Ad – Create a political advertisement for the candidate you do not plan to vote for.
 It might help if you try to look at areas where two parties agree or try to keep in mind that all people genuinely want what is best for the country but we all disagree on how to get there.

The reason I chose to encourage the creation of an add opposing your views is to avoid all of the terrible designer work we see on Facebook.  Just take the time to think differently and brainstorm.  That's what creativity is all about.

Obama's Logo: A Change We Can See

Regardless of ones political beliefs Obama's logo and campaign were both revolutionary in the fields of Art history and graphic design.

I remember sitting in my Art History class and my professor getting excited because she knew some of the art historians working on the campaign.  We discussed the Orator's pose and the new concept for logo design.  In my Conceptual Graphic Design and Typography classes we talked about the versatility of the logo design, and the use of image as type, and type as image.

Not only is this the first time I can remember seeing a strong campaign logo, but it is also the first time where an actual street and graffiti artist played a major role in a political campaign with the iconic Shepard Fairey posters (pictured below).  It was, and still is, clear that there was something different.  Obama is about change, at least to much of the art world and counter cultures (but we wont get into that now).

Source: via Felicia on Pinterest

I am a fan of logos that can function as a recognizable image without text (such as Target and Nike).  Obama's logo accomplishes this and I cannot think of another presidential campaign with the same accomplishment (even the 2012 campaign). The Obama flag is a another example of the diversity his logo embraces.  Change was present in the visual rhetoric whether we believe we have seen it in Obama's time served in office or not.

I love this logo more than most anything dealing with the presidential campaigns.  It is a breath of fresh air in the 3 1/2 year long election season.  

What are your thoughts on the design?  Are there other election campaigns that have a srong visual language?

Keep reading for some blogs insights and posts offering deeper insight from the logo designers and more.