TsuruBride AKA Meghan Willis has been sewing since the age of 6. Making clothes for her Barbie led to a degree in fashion design and a career in the apparel industry. To keep that creative spark alive, Meghan spends evenings exploring the art of undressing, movement, and sensuality through her embroidery. All of her textile art is stitched on linen unless otherwise noted, while leather appliques are machine stitched before being hand painted with acrylics.
Karnn Bhullar is a Bristol, England-based illustrator who has never met a color he didn’t like. While he does show a penchant for pink, it’s apparent Bhullar uses every hue of the rainbow throughout his body of paintings and digital illustrations.
Don’t adjust your screen! Amelia Millard‘s latest collection reads as if viewed from a dream or veil, maybe even a pair of rose colored glasses. Her fashion-inspired paintings are flawless and modern, sometimes with erotic undertones.
All of the pieces in Danielle “Bhavya” Winter‘s Following the Moon series begin with photos that she has taken of the moon. Through layering and merging Winter’s able to recapture the initial feeling from the moment she looked up into the sky.
French-born, New York-dwelling Franck Bohbot‘s photos all have a touch of the theatrical about them. His past work on film sets lends the formal and aesthetic influences of cinematography to his work, as well as a documentarian feel. The way Bohbot views L.A. in his Angels series isn’t necessarily the way billions of minds across the world imagine the city, but if you’ve ever visited and stepped outside of Hollywood you know it’s the truth.
“Almost everyone has some idea of what Los Angeles is, even if they’ve never been there. Home to Hollywood, the city churns out myth after American myth. Some see the city as a necessary part of a glamorous life — they migrate there to become stars. Others live ordinary lives and work ordinary jobs in this city of spectacle. Here, even the metallic glinting pole of exercise equipment along the shoreline, or a solitary streetlight in neon darkness, or a thrust of power lines cutting across the sky, captures something essential about the so-called “city of angels.” by Sarah V. Schweig
Freelance illustrator and artist Marta Zafra has a very diverse body of work, her art both familiar yet unique in its portrayal of the everyday. The familiar is often transformed into the bizarre, the past often revisited, and the real made unreal.
Creativity tends to show up in my life as a feast or famine – is it like that for you, too? This year has particularly been full of highs and lows and I’m hoping everything will even out soon enough, after all challenging times generally point towards periods of growth.
The latest book from the co-founders and creative directors of Flow Magazine, Irene Smit and Astrid Van der Hulst, and Workman Publishing couldn’t have better timing. Creativity Takes Courage: Dare to Think Differently was released earlier this week. (If you’re unfamiliar with Flow, it’s a magazine that celebrates creativity, imperfection, and life’s little pleasures.) This is a creative book like no other – simultaneously a practical, hands-on guide to stretching your creative muscles as well as an inspirational book that focuses on the pleasure of the process.
Creativity Takes Courage is organized around a series of twelve so-called dares that are intended to break you out of your usual creative habits and provide a fresh perspective to help you step outside of your comfort zone. (And man, do I need that frequently!) It’s a book both about creativity and a book that inspires creativity with tons of prompts, tips, and challenges to complete in your own time.
Most chapters end with an And Now You section of questions, the answers to which can be written directly right in the book. These questions follow the theme of the chapter – reexamining something you may consider a failure that could be seen as a learning process or questions that might help you break down a new project or challenge into more manageable parts for example.
There are lots of pull-out extras throughout the book – probably my favorite parts! Use the daily project notebook for getting started and focused on something as simple as saving your shopping list or receipts, drawing a cloud, or writing something positive on the sidewalk with chalk. Read about the importance of sleep in creativity, then decorate your sleeping space with tear-out inspirational images. Pull out the included Polaroid-style photo frames to use in framing your favorite photos, or use them to help you frame a scene before taking a picture.
Not every single page includes an interaction– there are also essays about and lessons on how to get started on a new project without getting overwhelmed, stepping outside of your comfort zone as a means to unlocking creativity, and learning how to enjoy being alone and doing nothing at all among others.
There’s no right or wrong way to use Creativity Takes Courage! Make your way straight through or jump around among the dares. Tear out pages to put on the refrigerator or mail some to a friend. Keep it by your bedside to work through when you first wake up or before you go to sleep. Dog-ear it, use it to your advantage, and realize what a gift true creativity can be.
This post sponsored by Workman Publishing. All words and opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting our carefully chosen partners that help keep Design Crush creating fresh content!
Perhaps you’ve heard of legendary artist Sol LeWitt, but did you know he has a very talented daughter named Eva LeWitt? Some of her latest work is this installation made from polyurethane foam, latex, and plastic that’s entitled Untitled. Once installed the 13 pieces resemble overlapping curtains with a variety of shapes, colors, and textures giving each its own personality, while the materials they’re made from both hold them up and weigh them down.
UK-based illustrator Rob Bailey‘s art is as lovely to look at as it is flat, which is to say very. Most pieces rely heavily upon great shapes and color choices that will pick up the slack from lack of details.
Who doesn’t need a little bit of perspective now and again? Cards for Perspective is a collection of twenty cards featuring fresh views on life to help you restore calm and clarity.
We mistake what is manageable for a catastrophe; we despair of ourselves too soon; we alienate others by over-reacting; we don’t notice and appreciate what there is still to be grateful for; we forget we’re going to die and that a lot of today’s headache will soon be forgotten. These cards provide eloquent invitations to recover a wiser, calmer, redemptive perspective on our lives.
