Using Amy Tangerine's Creative handbook -Blackout poetry x

So we are now on the home leg of this look at Amy Tangerine's Creative Handbook and I have had so much fun and creative joy from completing this project. I never thought that something so simple could really help engage my creativity again.

So Project 4 in the handbook is to create your own Blackout poem. I have seen this idea used before on the Internet, obviously, and primarily by this man, Austin Kleon. He has produced a book full of poems he created by choosing words within newspaper columns and then blacking out the remaining text to make a poem like this.........

Photo Austin Kleon

If you want to hear more about this method of creating poetry, this video is excellent in explaining how many other writers like Austin have used similar ways to create their own art.



For my project, I chose 2 pages of prose from a women's magazine and basically chose words or phrases that jumped out at me. I didn't want to make it complicated so I simply played around with words I really loved or which pulled me in and then blacked out all the surrounding text. This is what one of my final pieces looked like once I'd blacked it out.......

I was quite amazed when I wrote out the poem at how lovely it was and i really seemed to convey some of how I feel about creating things. So here is my poem............

Began with intrigue

once past loved the smell of paint

I loved how it made me feel

Something fresh and brave

Embrace new things

Enthusiasms - the moment, excited

Once big world learning

Indulgent, announced photography

Pictures?

Just go -working, hooked, illustration

Reminded me, unexpected benefits,

Recipe - friends, ballet dancers favourite warm-up

Listen to the silence - creativity and emotions

Transformed into joys

Do the unexpected thing

Surprise yourself

Curious woman

Amazing

So what do you think?

Amy Tangerine's Creative handbook - post 2 x

Today I would love to share with you some more details from Amy and Jamie's creative handbook. The first post can be found here.

The next few pages in the creative handbook are focused on on finding inspiration for creativity and actually doing something with the things which inspire us. For me that may be a picture I take, words I hear or see as in a quote or music lyrics, a class I do or finding inspiring creative people across the web.

The first page, practice 3, I am sharing is all about getting those little bits of creativity off Pinterest boards and into the world. I am one of those people, I bet some of you are the same, who find amazing things to pin on those boards but never actually do something with them. Go on hands up who's done that?

SO this first page focuses you onto putting some of those ideas into actionable ideas. Here is an image of the whole page completed.

So the top section of the page is an area for putting down those inspiring images you've found and pinned or you may have cut them from magazines. I chose a few images from my boards which would focus my planning. The first image on the top left is a scrapbook page by Rukristin. She blogged about this layout here and I absolutely loved her idea of stamping speech bubbles as a background feature and then stamping further coloured bubbles with journalling inside. I really Kristin's scrapbooking style and follow her work avidly. The next few pictures are of patchwork quilts, or segments of them. I am so, so wanting to try my hand but I get put off by the mammoth cutting and stitching sections  and just wish I could go straight to the finished quilt. I truly want to give it a go so I thought it would be a great start to have these images there in front of me. Next I found a minibook image to keep me inspired on the one I am making at the moment about my trip to Lacock. I love making minibooks so I wanted to maintain my focus there too.

The lower section is all about quotes. I have pinboards full of them and I do actually use them alot in my personal journal. I chose just a few I really, really love. I get so much inspiration from painting and art and the quote from Henry Matisse is simple but effective.......

Creativity takes courage

Yes sometimes it does and I wanted to make a point of letting it out there.

The larger poem by Emily Dickinson is one not so much about creativity but about being an individual who feels and can be buffeted by life but has the hope and strength to keep going no matter what. I often think that creativity comes in waves and for me that is ok. I can't be creative 100% of the time, however I can still be a creative soul. The small quote at the bottom is a reference back to my OLW 2015 Light and keeps me thinking about that as I move through each day.

The next page in the handbook is quite an emotional one....................

This page explores all the negative things we all think about ourselves as creative people but also the positive and empowering ideas of creativity. For this page, Amy and Jamie encourage you to write down or doodle all those issues which may impede our creativity and all the things which encourage it.
I wrote down on the negative side ideas like:

• I have no originality
• I'm not good enough
• lack of time
• not having talent

Then the very therapeutic part is you cross all those ideas out, in my case in big red paint. I also found a lovely quote which said:

No matter what they tell you, you don't have to 

stay within the lines

I thought this was a perfect thing to cover up all that negativity, don't you?

Now for the positive side. Here is your chance to really sell yourself as a creative person. I wrote out lots of inspiring words like amazing, incredible, inspiration just to lay on that positivity thick and fast.

I also found a wonderful definition for a word called Meraki meaning to do something with soul, creativity and love; to put something of yourself into your work.

Isn't that beautiful? I genuinely do put alot of myself into the scrapbooking layouts I make, not just the thought, time, taking pictures, choosing the items but the journalling which is often so personal and intimate.

I really went to town on the positivity using alot of bright colours, some lovely quotes and images and I genuinely think this page is going to maintain me through alot of life, not just my creativity.

I wonder if any of you were inspired by my first post to get Amy and Jamie's handbook and have a go? What do you think of these pages and what negative and positive ideas do you have about your creativity?