I have completed another exercise from Caffeine for the Creative Mind. The assignment is to look into any cluttered compartment you control, like your desk drawer or briefcase or purse, and choose three items. Put the items on a piece of paper in some random composition and trace them. Remove the items and flesh out the drawing to create something else entirely. You can turn them into one larger item or three smaller ones.
My purse is crazily cluttered. I have never been one to carry one around unless I have to, like in cases when the stuff I want to have with me doesn't fit in my pockets. But when I need to carry a purse, I prefer this one. I have had it for years--a small, warn leather thing that feels like an old saddle bag. Once, while staying out in the dunes in Michigan, I left it out in the rain overnight, and in the morning, I had to dig it out of inches of wet sand. I think the rough treatment only served to give it more character.
Anyway, this purse of mine is quite often filled with handsful of change, wadded up one dollar bills, old receipts, paper clips, various odd things. I dumped it out on the floor to choose just three items. Here they are--my wallet, a pair of sunglasses, and a sour apple Dum Dum sucker I picked up at the dry cleaners.
After tracing these things and filling them in, here is what I came up with--three unrelated items--an open laptop, a stringed instrument of some kind which I don't believe exists in reality, and two cheeseburgers side by side with a few fries behind them.
Not a bad creative exercise, I think. Maybe next time I'll try to create something out of the tin of mini Altoids, the lipstick, and the old shopping list folded again and again so it's close to becoming origami. Or maybe next time I will pull three random things from the junk drawer in the kitchen, if I am not too afraid to open the thing.
My purse is crazily cluttered. I have never been one to carry one around unless I have to, like in cases when the stuff I want to have with me doesn't fit in my pockets. But when I need to carry a purse, I prefer this one. I have had it for years--a small, warn leather thing that feels like an old saddle bag. Once, while staying out in the dunes in Michigan, I left it out in the rain overnight, and in the morning, I had to dig it out of inches of wet sand. I think the rough treatment only served to give it more character.
Anyway, this purse of mine is quite often filled with handsful of change, wadded up one dollar bills, old receipts, paper clips, various odd things. I dumped it out on the floor to choose just three items. Here they are--my wallet, a pair of sunglasses, and a sour apple Dum Dum sucker I picked up at the dry cleaners.
After tracing these things and filling them in, here is what I came up with--three unrelated items--an open laptop, a stringed instrument of some kind which I don't believe exists in reality, and two cheeseburgers side by side with a few fries behind them.
Not a bad creative exercise, I think. Maybe next time I'll try to create something out of the tin of mini Altoids, the lipstick, and the old shopping list folded again and again so it's close to becoming origami. Or maybe next time I will pull three random things from the junk drawer in the kitchen, if I am not too afraid to open the thing.
Comments
You really have a lollipop in your bag?
Do you carry a purse, Dive, or will you be searching through a drawer?
Over here, a purse is a little beaded thing that old ladies keep their pennies in.
If I were looking for really strange crap to draw, I suppose the most cluttered place I have is my head.
I love dum dums. We used to get them after dancing lessons.
Fro a normally organized person, my purse is a complete mess. I blame the four year old. It is he that causes me to haul around extra toys and wipes and all sorts of other crap.