Dear Creative friends,
Hello again.
Please send me any comments
or suggestions that you have.
Pleasant reading,
Amir
In this issue:
(a) Announcements
(b) Creative ideas
for...
(c) Creative tool - Fishbone
(d) Recommendation of the
month
(a) Link Exchange
For those of you that have websites related to creativity or on other interesting subjects related to the Best100Ideas.com website - I am now opening a web page with links to related websites.
Do you have a website on one of these issues?
Creativity, Innovation, Management Training, Thinking and Philosophy, or any other interesting subject.
If you do - send me a link and a description of the website, and a page where you can place a link back to my site.
yours
truly,
Amir
(b)
Creative Ideas for Art Paintings
My wife is a painter, or more accurately - an artist. Her interest and talent have given me the chance to learn and be exposed to the rich world of art and paintings. The world of art has seen so many innovations and breakthroughs that it seems difficult to come up with new ideas for artistic creativity.
I will attempt, however, to offer some ideas for artistic creativity in this section.
I will focus on exhibitions of paintings on canvas, as the forms of expression in art are too many to discuss here.
Still you can easily adapt these ideas to other formats as well.
The ideas I suggest will be related to different aspects of the art - the process of making it, its display, its content and its style.
By the way, you may take a glimpse at some of my wife's work in this small online gallery: Artwork by Paula Elion.
- "Multi-titled": Many of the paintings you see in exhibitions are 'untitled'. Instead, I suggest that you give a painting several titles. You may then put a different title each day or even every hour (perhaps by using a sort of automatic mechanism to change the title). The title might change the interpretation viewers have of the painting. Another option is not to change the titles but to actually have many titles to the same painting at the same time - perhaps 'confusing' people regarding what you meant.
- "Opposites of Painting Styles": Art history has seen very different styles of painting. You may show the contrast along with similarities of these styles by combining them onto the same canvas. Thus, paint a portrait which is half realistic-style, half cubistic-style, or a landscape painting which is part impressionistic, part abstract.
- "Interval Painting": Paint a quarter of the canvas on one day, then put that canvas aside for a set period of time (one month, 3 months, a year). Then go back to the painting and paint another part of the canvas, and wait again. Leave the parts that you painted before as they were when you work on the newer parts. This type of creative process may demonstrate the changes and development you have made during the intervals.
- "Communal Painting": Normally, one person is the artist creating the painting. You may break this accepted norm by letting a group of people participate in your creative process. Have family or friends add lines, colors and drawings on the canvas. A wilder option is to let them do it with a more unconventional media - maybe let them chew colored bubble-gums and stick it on the canvas.
(c) Creative Tool: Fishbone Technique
The Fishbone technique is normally used to analyze and define a situation or a problem or to consider the possible decision-making options that are at your disposal. In this section I offer a variation on this technique focused on helping you come up with creative ideas.
Here is what you can do with the Fishbone technique for Creative Ideas:
- Major Issue Identification: Draw a long arrow across the middle of a page pointing to one side.
At the head of the arrow you need to write a short but accurate description of the problem you need to solve. You must discuss and agree on this main issue as often you might be diverted from the main problem by its symptoms. This would symbolize the major issue or the backbone of your problem.
- Title: Draw diagonal lines coming into the backbone. Use each of these 'smaller bones' to represent
one of the possible causes of the problem. There are often types of causes for that appear in many different problems of various fields. These can include - technological causes, human and communication factors, causes related to lack of resources or time, or issues that are related to underlying structure or concepts.
- Drill Down: Continue investigating the and classifying the causes and sub-causes, adding ever smaller 'bones' as you go. As you continue, you should have a complex graphical description of the problem and its causes.
- Look for Links: Now the you have the entire fishbone laid in front of you, look for causes on different branches that may be linked together. Often - a technological problem would reflect or be affected by a human factor. Group these linked causes - perhaps by circling them with them same color or by writing the on a clean sheet of paper in groups.
- Group Solutions: You have groups of causes that may be addressed together. Instead of tackling just one of the causes this forces you to be more creative and find a complex and complete solution that would best deal with all the causes you grouped together.
Mycoted.com has a wealth of information regarding Creativity, Innovation and Creative Techniques. It is well written and the techniques are explained and demonstrated with clarity. You may fine creativity techniques with their history and description, some interesting and inspiring creativity quotations, as well as puzzles you may use in a creativity workshop or just for fun.
For instance - here is a nice
description of the (in)famous nine dots puzzle - with some interesting solutions suggested.
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