Creativity?

Though I'm not the greatest artiste ever, I can draw a little. I've never really tried painting. The problem isn't that I believe I'm untalented, because I do believe that I have some talent. The problem is a lack of motivation and inspiration. But lately I have felt like both writing and drawing. My ideas for writing have been various and unrelated, but lately I keep thinking about drawing vaguely abstract night-driving scenes, based on photos I take, like the one above. (I promise, I take the photos without looking the camera, with my eyes on the road, with no flash, not when other cars are close, and only on straightaways, for the most part.)

I'm thinking that the drawings should be even more abstract than the photos, on larger paper than I'm used to, with oil pastels. My adolescent medium of choice. I have the pastels, but I need the paper... luckily, I live next door to an arts supply store, and HEY! I have time on my hands!

Speaking of projects, tonight I finished a new journal for myself. Long ago, my mother had found a rather ugly journal at a dollar store, which she bought for me. She figured that I could do something with it, and so did I, but I just wasn't sure what I'd do. Several years later, I found a beautiful but rather out-of-date mesh shirt in my closet, purple flowers and green leaves on a white background. I decided to cut up the shirt and cover the journal with it, and today I did two simple drawings for the front and the back.

The front:















The back:















I wouldn't say that it's the most beautiful journal ever, but it is definitely me, and it made me happy to make it. I especially enjoyed the glossiness of spray fixatif over the oil pastel, made even more shiny by the fact that it was all on stiff, rather slick paper.

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I have been walking more lately, and yesterday I was caught in another Buffalo monsoon. It made me so happy to get so drenched, even though my camera did get wet, and my feet did get a few blisters from my sneakers, and my clothes were completely plastered to me. Even though people kept looking at me like I was crazy. I haven't gotten caught out in such a hard, warm rain for a really long time, and so what if I looked slightly crazed?

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You know what makes me really crazy? Whenever I'm more poor than usual, I want to buy everything in the world. Today I went to the mall with my friend Ami, and I had enough money to buy one small thing at Sephora - I got OPI for Sephora nail polish in Metro Chic, which is a lavender-grey, just gorgeous.

Ami wanted to go into a few other stores, and I was happy to oblige. The only stores that really made me feel my lack of funds were the shoe stores, and I was specifically in love with all of the ankle boots I saw. These were my favorite.

Well, I'm sure someday I'll have a job again.