For 2016. Creative Tiles for Creative Ideas.

Hey everybody!
If you watched my LIVE broadcast Thursday morning (on Periscope) or later on my YouTube Channel, you saw my new idea to boost my creativity for 2016.

In case you missed it (it's up on my channel, so you can give it a peek) I'll recap for your here.

The Backstory:
I have been fascinated lately by black and white drawings. Simple lines and shapes. I find it is making me pay attention to space, negative space and pattern in a lot of things I see everyday. It's inspiring and distracting all at once.

It started a few weeks ago when I got out my Spirograph that I got as a gift last year and started to experiment.

I began with color pens, but noticed that the color was kind of getting in the way of the shape. What was drawing me in were the lines and patterns. So better to see them, I thought I would switch to a black pen. WOW! I loved how the shapes came to the fore. They were almost 3D.

That put me in mind that I really have been wanting to investigate the B&W doodling sensation- Zentangle! The simple lines, shapes and shadows of the drawings really spoke to me.

Luckily my friend Andrea, owner of A Work of Heart Studio in San Jose, CA is a certified Zentangle instructor. I checked her schedule and took a class on Wednesday. It was really fun and meditative. Which I guess is the whole point. The idea is to let go of perfection and just DO and DRAW using the simple basic shapes that all of the designs are made of. It made what looked complex actually very simple. I didn't fuss or fret and just DID. It was awesome.

So it got me to thinking. Those paper tiles have a lot in common with the sampler tiles in my book Simple Soldering. You learn the basics of soldering and metalwork on simple, inexpensive 1x1 metal tiles and create a sampler. I tell my students to let go of perfection and just learn and make. It removes the fear of messing up and make way for learning and skill to creep in

I have been doing a lot of designing lately for classes, projects, and demos and really want to keep my creative flow going. I have been making notes everywhere... my notebook, napkins, envelopes... so I thought, why not use paper tiles to jot down my ideas so I can keep track of them. Just quick B&W drawings, with notes and ideas on them. Then at the end of each month, or whenever I need a bit of creative infusion, I can pull them out and look 'em over.

Here were my guidelines for what I wanted to use:
Inexpensive and easy to find supplies. Maybe with a reuse or re-purpose element.
Simple to use.
Portable.

This is what I came up with:

I call it my Creative Tiles Kit. It's small enough to toss into my bag with simple supplies that can be found just about anywhere.

Here is what's in it:

I make some tiles by cutting 3x5" index cards into two pieces.

Then I cut the smaller piece into two pieces.

Ending up with three tiles to use for my creative drawings and ideas.

Like this.

I used three black pens from my gigantic stash of pens (c'mon... tell me I am not alone here. I'll bet you have a pen stash or covet a pen stash.)

A Fine Line Sharpie. A 01 Micron Marker and a 03 Hybrid Technica by Pentel. I stashed it in a little mesh bag that I got in a holiday gift and my kit was complete.

So I am committing to making one creative tile a day for an average of seven separate tiles for each week. They can be for anything creative that I want to work on. Notes on ideas. Quick project drawings. Inspirational quotes. Anything that helps me on my creative journey for 2016. Jewelry. Knitting. Mixed Media. Maybe even a recipe.

I hope you like the idea and I'd love it if you want to play along. If you do make your own Creativity Tiles kit, send me some photos if you'd like and let me know if I can share them. I'd love to see how you use this idea. Tag it on social media with #CreativityTiles. I'll check in every month or so with a report on how they are working for me.

I have embedded the Periscope broadcast below. You can catch me LIVE every Friday morning or later on my YouTube channel.



Happy New Year to you all! May 2016 be the best yet.