Cyanometer revisited

In July 2008, after reading about Horace Bénédict de Saussure and his cyanometer, I decided to build a simple one. A cyanometer is an apparatus that allow you to determine what shade of blue is the sky. It turned out that the cyanometer had no scientific usefulness. But I thought it would be a good observation tool, as the sky is not just blue — it is made of many blue colours.

I even suggested that painters could use a model of cyanometer with more hues to analyze and mix accurately the blue colours of the sky they paint. You can read my two earlier posts: Blue sky research with a cyanometer and How to build a cyanometer.

I had forgotten everything about the cyanometer when Cathy FitzGerald who was preparing a radio program for BBC3 titled “Skylarking” (documentary to be broadcast shortly) contacted me. She wanted me to make the larger version of the cyanometer I had dreamed of (my original attempt only counted 12 shades of blue)… and I accepted the challenge.

Building the cyanometer

I started with an A4 size (21 cm x 29.5 cm) piece of plywood, which is a good size to carry around in a bag. I was looking for a light sturdy material I could paint on and plywood became an obvious choice.

I traced with a pencil the margins and then 6 rows of 9 squares (1.5 cm x 1.5 cm each). I then added all the diagonals to pinpoint the centre of each square. I drilled 54 holes with a power drill.

Why holes rather than square windows? I thought first about cutting out small square windows as I had done in the 2008 cardboard version of the cyanometer. However, cutting out these windows in plywood would have been complicated and time consuming; I also feared the wood would split in the end. This was when I thought about the Camera obscura and how a whole image could go through a pinhole. If did not need a large window after all. By drilling holes, I could have larger samples of each hue because the space taken by the window was minimal. But there was more to it — the result was aesthetically more pleasing: the colours formed an uninterrupted patchwork of 54 blue hues; the holes were evenly spaced; and I would have a nice contrast between the shape of the squares and the rounded windows.

As the power drill damaged the wood at the back of the board, around the holes, I had to mend the surface with wood paste. When the wood paste was dry, I sanded the whole board.

I applied a light coat of acrylic gesso on both sides of the board and its edges to prepare the surface for painting. I painted the margin with several coats of white acrylic paint.

Just for fun, I painted a blue sky with clouds on the back of the board.

For the cyanometer colours, I worked with a selection of blue hues from the Winsor&Newton Griffin range (plus a Cobalt Turquoise, which is only available in classic artist oil paint). The pigments are in oil modified alkyd resin and the paint dries faster compared to traditional oil colours. As I painted on wood with a thin layer, the paint was touch-dry in one day.

From left to right, the base colours at the top of each column are:

• Column 1: Prussian Blue
• Column 2: 1 part Prussian Blue + 1 part Phthalo Blue
• Column 3: Phthalo Blue
• Column 4: French Ultramarine
• Column 5: 1 part French Ultramarine + 1 part Cobalt Blue
• Column 6: Cobalt Blue
• Column 7: 1 part Cobalt Blue + 1 part Cerulean Blue Hue
• Column 8: Cerulean Blue Hue
• Column 9: 1 part Cerulean Blue Hue + 1 part Cobalt Turquoise

 Each colour or mix of colours is then lightened with Titanium White to get lighter and lighter shades down each of the 9 columns. The final result is a beautiful patchwork of blue hues in different tones.

How to use the cyanometer

To work out the shade of an area of blue sky, you hold the cyanometer in front of you and peek through the holes. Move it around until you find a close match between the bit of sky you see through the hole and the blue hue painted in the square around the hole.

Related articles

• Blue sky research with a cyanometer 
• How to build a cyanometer

Creative Exercises eBook among the top 1% most viewed on SlideShare in 2013

This was a nice email to receive at the start of 2014. My free eBook Creative Exercises for Artists and Everyone Else has been viewed by 30,556 people in 2013. And it has been viewed by 85,166 people since its publication.

Thank you to everyone who read it and passed the link to their friends. Here is the direct link to the Creative Exercise for Artists eBook on SlideShare.

I have been working on a expanded version of this book with many more creative exercises... but more on this later.

Fire-up your imagination (the video)

If you do not see the embedded video, you can watch it on YouTube.
Last July, I published a post Creative exercise: Inspired by nature’s marks and I wanted to make a short video of the process, but did not get around to do it… until now.

Making a Christmas gift and madeleines recipe

Creativity is about doing and making. It does stop when you leave your studio. So why not infuse some creativity into your Christmas presents?

It’s not just about saving money, but more about spending the time to create something unique that you won’t find in high street shops. And time is a currency in short supply these days, so you are making a real present to whoever receives it.

The little black box

I wanted my gift to look good and professional. I had a tall square black cardboard box that gave me a good start. I cut the sides to 6 cm high.

I kept the extra bits of carboard and folded them to make two dividers inside the box.

I composed the image I glued on the top of the box with Adobe Photoshop Elements 11. The photo of the notebook cover is one of an actual notebook Proust wrote in.

For the side of the box, I created a label with all the ingredients.

To increase the “professional” effect, I cut some transluscent baking paper that looks just like the crystal paper you find in luxury biscuit tins. I rounded the corner for a smoother look. Et voila!

Madeleine recipe

I found this excellent recipe on the French blog: « Aux Portes du Paradis » blog. It is a recipe from the French chef Gaston Lenôtre.

Below is an English translation of the recipe, in case your French is a little bit rusty.



Ingredients for around 20 madeleines:

• 3 eggs
• 130 g of sugar
• 20 g of honey
• 150 g of flour
• 125 g of butter
• 1 pinch of salt
• 5 g of baking powder
• Zest from 1/2 lemon or orange – or vanilla

Preparation


1 - Soften the butter in the microwave. Beat the eggs with the sugar, the pinch of salt and honey until the mixture is pale and has doubled in volume.


2 - Add to the mixture the flour mixed with the baking powder. Finish by adding the softened butter and the lemon zest (or orange zest or vanilla). Put the dough in the refrigerator at least 2 hours or overnight (best).

Note: It is the thermal shock (temperature difference) that will allow you to get a nice bump on top of the madeleine, so you absolutely need to let the dough rest in the refrigerator.

3 - Preheat your oven at 230 ° C. Grease and flour the mould for madeleines (even if the silicone one). Fill the cavities of the mould for madeleines with a tablespoon of dough, without spreading it.

A metal mould for small madeleines and a silicon mould for normal size ones

4 - Put in the oven and immediately lower the temperature to 200 ° C.


After 3 to 5 minutes, the centre of the madeleine forms a small depression: further turn down the oven thermostat to about 180 ° C and leave the madeleines to cook. Instead of depression, the famous "bump" will form on top of the madeleines.

When the madeleines are golden (4-5 more minutes), remove from the oven and immediately unmold onto a rack to let them cool.

18 madeleines in the box

Related resources

Book with Gaston Lenôtre's desserts recipes on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk (affiliate lins)

Painting childhoood memories – Proust’s madeleines

Do you remember how, as children, a teacher would ask us to draw a scene from our last holidays? But then, we grew-up and we stopped drawing our memories. Why?

Smell and taste are fairly untapped senses compared to sight, touch or hearing. Yet, creativity can feed on all senses.

Creative exercise

Find an object with a particular smell (perfume, bottle of ink, dish, fabric, etc.) and paint what the smell evokes for you.

Proust’s madeleines

The French writer Marcel Proust is well-known in France for its evocation of a particular childhood memory in his novel “Swann’s Way”:

“And suddenly the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before church-time), when I went to say good day to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of real or of lime-flower tea. […]

But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.”

Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way (Translated from the French by C. K. Scott Moncrieff) - New York Henry Holt and Company 1922 - Project Gutenberg EBook-No.7178

In my next post, I will give you the recipe to bake some madeleines… This way you will be able to enrich your own sensory memories






Related resources

The Proust Questionnaire 

Creative exercise: Inspired by nature’s marks

I described this exercise in my post Fire-up your imagination. Our bathroom is tiled with stones, which bear a few interesting marks. I took a picture of these marks and worked with the first one.

And this is the cartoon monster that the first mark inspired me to draw.

The pink monster in our bathroom - by Benoit Philippe.

(Copyright 2012 - Benoit Philippe)

I worked with tracing paper. After that, I scanned the image and added colours and textures with Photoshop Elements.

The interest of the exercise is the randomness of the initial shape triggering a design that is different to one I would have created without any constraint. It is an interesting thought that nature can help us to be creative in many ways.


Related resources

Fire-up your imagination is one of the the 17 exercises in my free eBook “Creative Exercises for Artists and Everyone Else”. Check it out on this page if you haven’t read it yet.

The blank canvas syndrome

This article was first published in "Frequency Magazine" – December 2011.

Writers have blank page issues and painters may encounter the blank canvas syndrome: a dry spell where we lose the energy to paint, the appetite for creating or the habit of drawing. We become too busy with our life or feel in a rut, making again and again the same painting.

A period of rest from the easel is not a bad thing if it’s not for too long. I find pauses necessary to incubate ideas or assimilate new explored territory. However, there is a risk that you break your good habit of creating daily. One way to take a break without really stopping is to explore a different medium or a new technique.

If you have stopped painting for some times and you feel down because of it, the best way out is not to ask yourself “why?” but just to take small steps to get back into it. Artists are “makers” and it’s by making that we find again our artist way. Here are five suggestions to end a dry spell:

1. Start small: do a small sketch or a small study in oil, watercolour or acrylic. It will only take you ten minutes to an hour – not much time really. The main obstacle is often to get started and if you tell yourself “I am just going to make a small study, nothing much really”, your brain stops worrying about it and you passed the first hurdle.

  

2. Go plein-air. Painting plein-air (i.e. on location) offers a different sensation. As you are outside of your house, distractions will not get on your way. As you go on your painting expedition, you carve out painting time in your schedule. The change of scenery is also good for your morale and feed your inspiration.

  

3. Visit a museum or an art gallery. Looking at art always gives me the urge to paint. Seeing art works “in the flesh” is different from browsing mere reproductions. You can see the texture and feel the touch of the artist.

4. Read art books and art magazines. Read widely: artists’ biographies or correspondence, artists’ writings, art instructions books and articles. Read for 30 minutes and then start a small work.

5. Consult your idea file. If you don’t have an idea file, it’s a good time to start one. I have a notebook that I carry around and make notes of ideas for future paintings. It can be anything from subject matters, a particular location where I could paint on site, a quick thumbnail of a composition or a possible title for a future piece. Going through your old paintings may also prove a valuable exercise, by bringing you ideas on where you want to go next.

Related articles

Lateral reading

Fire-up your imagination



 

Technorati Tags : Blank page inspiration creative rut creative habit

Helping out the next generation

his is a slightly off topic post, although it is about creativity.

One of my nephews, Antoine Philippe, expresses his creative side by designing furniture. He currently has two of his prototypes on a site named "L'Usine a Design" where you can vote for them. The site is in French and you have to register to vote...

The DONNA Chair - follow the link to vote.

The ELIPSE table - follow the link to vote.

The website of 1pulsif Design, the company that sells Antoine's creations.


Let's give a helping hand to the next creative generation!

Children more creative than adults

“Many psychologists have concluded that children are more creative than adults. One explanation for this is that the adult is so much more aware of practical constraints. Another explanation, which I believe, is that our culture trains mental playfulness, fantasy, and reflectiveness out of people by placing more stress on the value of channeled mental activities.”

James L. Adams - Conceptual Blockbusting: A Guide to Better Ideas, Fourth Edition

 

Out of our minds by Ken Robinson – Book review

This is a big book, not because of its length (200 pages), but because it contains large ideas. If the style makes it easy to read, the ideas developed in this book will make you pause and think.

It is less a “how to” book than a “why” book on creativity. Although Ken Robinson’s interests lie in education, this book will captivate anyone interested in creativity. It will give you a framework to think about creativity in our society and in your life.

Ken Robinson gives his definition of creativity: “imaginative processes with outcomes that are original and of value.” He rightfully insists on the fact that “Creativity is a process, not an event.”

The book contains some interesting developments on the difference between art and sciences.
For the author, art should be recognised as a legitimate intellectual process. He denounces the “academism” that promotes core subjects such as sciences, mathematics and English as the only serious subjects. The other bias of academism is to give more value to analytical studies of art than practical experience of it when it comes to judge the value and experience of university professors (see: Art, another form of intelligence)


Favorite quotes

There are so many interesting passages in this book that it is difficult to just pick a few quotations. I selected some more relevant to artists.

“Creativity can be as much a process of finding problems as solving them.”

“Pictures give the whole pattern of ideas simultaneously. In these forms we can express thoughts that do not fit the structures of words.”

“Creativity is often a dialogue between concept and material. The process of artistic creation in particular is not just a question of thinking of an idea and then finding a way to epxress it. Often it’s only in developing the dance, image or music that the idea emerges at all.”

“Creativity is not purely intellectual process. It is enriched by other capabilities and in particular by feelings, intuition and by a playful imagination.”

See also my previous post: Art, another form of intelligence.


The Book


Out of our minds by Ken Robinson
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Capstone (5 April 2001)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1841121258
ISBN-13: 978-1841121253

• If you are in the US (Amazon affiliate link): Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative
• If you are in the United Kingdom (Amazon affiliate link): Out of our Minds: Learning to be Creative

Videos of Ken Robinson speaking at TED conference


Ken Robinson is an excellent presenter, so I recommend you watch some of these videos. They are as informative as they are entertaining.

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity






Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!





See also Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms.

Technorati Tags : Ken Robinson Creativity Education Out of our minds Creativity quotes Creativity books

Art, another form of intelligence

 

"A Picasso scholar – but not Picasso himself – may be given a PhD. Doing the arts should be recognised as being as legitimate an intellectual process as critical inquiries about the arts. The heart of this argument is that knowledge can be generated in many ways other than in words and numbers. Not all that we know can be put into words and numbers, nor is what can be put into words and numbers all that we do know."

 

Ken Robinson (“Out of our minds – learning ro be creative”)

 

 

Resources

• If you are in the US (Amazon affiliate link): Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative
• If you are in the UK (Amazon affiliate link): Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

 

  

Ken Robinson Out of our minds Creativity Art quotation

 

 

10,000 views and counting

Less than a year after its publication, my free eBook Creative exercises for artists has been read by more than 10,000 people and downloaded almost 600 times.

Do you know a good creative exercise for visual artists? share it with other readers by leaving a comment.

Summer read - how to be creative by Hugh MacLeod

I read "How to be creative" by Hugh MacLeod on his website Gapingvoid a long time ago and read it again recently. This is not new but it is still good and summer is the ideal time to catch-up on reading.

The drawings are very good and funny too.

The author expanded upon this article and it became a book titled Ignore Everybody.

Should you work with a brief?

This article was first published in my newsletter "Notes From My French Easel".

In his book “Hot-wiring Your Creative Process: Strategies for Print and New Media Designers”, Curt Cloninger gives the following definition of a brief: “The creative brief is a short written document outlining the problems, goals, strategies, and challenges of the project.”

Sometimes, we get some boundaries that act as a brief: when we paint for a themed exhibition, enter into some competitions or accept a commission.

Even if nobody gives you a brief, it is still a good step to draft your own brief, understand what you want to express and why a particular subject grabbed your attention. As artists, we often skip the pre-design phase and go straight to our canvases because we are so eager to paint. But creating a mental brief or jotting notes on paper is like taking a deep breath before you dive.

The central question is “why am I painting this?” There is no unique answer:

• I like the subject (but why the subject appeals to me?) – You have to keep asking until you get a specific answer.
• I want to perfect a technique (painting with knife, glazes, etc.)
• I want my work to be inspired by an old master’s work
• I want to create a particular effect.

When you identify the area you will concentrate on, you make each painting an exercise, a stepping stone on the way to continuous learning. Focusing on a particular aspect of your practice and regarding each painting as an exercise will take the pressure off - How would feel you if you were asked to paint a masterpiece (who would be judge?) and your life depended on it? The second benefit of seeing each painting as an exercise is that you will stretch your limits. By going in “exercise” mode, you grant yourself permission to take risks and experiment. You are more likely to end-up in an interesting place.

Finally, knowing where you go means you know when you get there. So, thinking about what you want helps you to determine when your painting is finished.

Related articles

Book review : Hot-Wiring Your Creative Process: Strategies for Print and New Media Designers by Curt Cloninger.

Creative process Art brief

Book review: Hot-Wiring Your Creative Process: Strategies for Print and New Media Designers

Hot-Wiring Your Creative Process: Strategies for Print and New Media Designers by Curt Cloninger is one of my “lateral reading” books.

According to the author, this book is not a graphic design primer but rather a “sourcebook for creative approaches” using the design principles. This means that its interest goes beyond the boundaries of the designers’ community.






As you can expect from a designer, the book presentation is engaging and the layout makes reading it a pleasure. The style is good and easy to read and the text completed with inspiring quotes. There are also plenty of visual examples to illustrate the different points discussed and some interviews with designers talking about their approach.

The first three chapters (“A Process Primer”; “Basic Creative Wisdom” and “Four ways to bypass inertia”) give some detailed and practical way to get your creativity in motion. I liked the part on “exploratory sketching” as a way to come-up with new ideas.

For me, the most interesting chapter was chapter 4 on “Mining art and design history”. I can’t agree more with the general advice the author gives: “Fall in love with a master: Find someone whose work resonates with you and learn about his history and practice.”

The author goes on to explain that you have two basic ways of mining art and design history:

• First, you can mine the visual forms (the surface, style and mechanical methods



• Secondly, you can mine the conceptual approach (conceptual theories and principles).

Your goal is to internalize these influences and make them part of your visual vocabulary. And if you are worried about not being totally original, meditate on this humorous way Cloninger debunks what he calls “the Myth of Scratch”:

“The truth is, no human ever created anything from scratch. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth”, Genesis tells us – and we’ve been remixing His work ever since.”

The book also contains a good analysis of the formal elements used by the Bahaus, in particular Paul Klee and Kandinsky.


Favourite quotations

Apart from the quotations above, I liked some of the quotations selected by the author. There is the one from Paul Klee on the dialogue between artists and nature already published on the blog.

Another one is a saying by the craftsmen of Bali that reads: “We have no art. We do everything as well as possible.”

Overall, this is a very good and instructive book.


Additional information


Hot-Wiring Your Creative Process: Strategies for Print and New Media Designers by Curt Cloninger
Publisher: New Riders

Year of publication: 2006

Hot-Wiring Your Creative Process Curt Cloninger Design book Art book Creative process Creativity

The creative Process

This article was first published in my newsletter "Notes From My French Easel" – March 2010. Follow the link to receive this free monthly newsletter.


In the expression “creative process” the important word is “process”, because the best way to get creative is to practice you art regularly. You may not realise in the moment of creation that you are being creative and it is only after, when you reflect on a particular work, that you see its creativity. You don’t want to have to think “Am I creative?” in the fire of the action. You just want get started and be “in the flow” and keep going as long as you can.

Colorful Pencils by Petr Kratochvil

The best way to increase your chances of hitting the creative spark is to ensure a regular output. There is always the possibility to edit out your work and keep your experiments to yourself. As Curt Cloninger explains in his book “Hot-wiring Your Creative Process: Strategies for Print and New Media Designers”: “Intentionally following a clearly defined (or even loosely) defined process may be the single most useful practice in any designer’s arsenal.” This statement remains true when you replace the word “designer” by “artist”.

Twyla Tharp, the author of the book “The Creative habit”, also insists on the importance of the process: “Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits. That’s in a nutshell.” She also stresses the power of rituals to get you started: “It’s vital to establish some rituals – automatic but decisive pattern of behavior – at the beginning of the creative process, when you are the most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving-up or going the wrong way.”

Related resources

Hot-Wiring Your Creative Process: Strategies for Print and New Media Designers

The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

Creative process Creativity Curt Cloninger Hot-wiring Your Creative Process Twyla Tharp The Creative habit

eBook review on Making a Mark

Artist and author Katherine Tyrrell from Making a Mark has reviewed my eBook “Creative Exercises for artists and everyone else” on her blog.

I am sure Katherine’s article “Does your artistic creativity need a stimulus?” will help to spread the word and it’s a real privilege to read that this book “has all the makings of a 'standard' for those wishing to develop their artistic skills and creativity.”

Make sure you subscribe to Making a Mark. It is still the most complete source of information on art on the web.

At the time of publication of this post, 625 people have viewed the eBook and the number is still growing.

Creative Exercises for artists Creativity Free eBook Making a Mark Katherine Tyrrell

Free eBook: Creative Exercises for Artists and everyone else

It's here, it's published and it's FREE!

This 36 pages free eBook is a collection of 17 practical exercises for artists. I have learnt some of them over the years and designed some to fulfil my own needs. I am a painter, so most of these exercises are visual ones. However, many of them do not require specific artistic skills and are suitable for anyone regardless of their age or level of artistic ability.

These exercises are varied and you probably already own most of the required materials. You can use them as warm-up before you start a new project or as a way to explore new avenues.

I also hope teachers will use these exercises in their classes as they are great fun.

Go to this page to read it or download your PDF copy now.

Coming eBook on creative exercises

I am working at the moment on finishing an eBook titled “CREATIVE EXERCISES - for artists, painters and everyone else”

There are excellent books on creativity, but they are mostly aimed at words and ideas rather than visual expression. This is about to change.

This eBook will be 36 pages long and will offer 17 creative exercises with the visual artist in mind. Some of these exercises were taught to me years ago and I created others to fulfill my own needs.

I already described a few of the exercises on the blog, but others are unpublished.

The target date for publication is Friday 5th March 2010.

And… I almost forgot: It will be FREE.

Call to action

• Pencil in the 5th of March to get your free eBook


• Keep an eye on the blog


• Pass the word around and let your friends know

Creative exercises Creativity Exercise for artists eBook Free eBook

What scientist and artists have in common?

"I think the scientific and the artistic spirit have something in common. The scientist wants not only to learn the facts, but to understand how they cohere, fit together and make a whole. He even uses criteria such as beauty and symmetry to help decide which theory he wants.

The scientist cannot capture the whole cosmos in thought. In his mind he makes a kind of microcosm, which we see as an analogue of the cosmos. In this way we try to get a feeling for the whole. The artist, I suppose, gets a feeling for the whole some other way.”

David Bohm in “Art, Dialogue and the Implicate Order”, published in On Creativity RC (Routledge Classics)

Art quotes David Bohm creativity