To My Creative Friends: Please Describe Your Creative Process?

Lewkat said:
I love to sculpt, but sadly, there isn't room where I live to accomodate me.
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I know what that's like. I used to paint. I mostly do (did) large paintings, mostly realistic outdoor scenes and indoor still-lifes, even a few portraits, but when I moved to a 1-br apartment, I didn't have room for it.

Now, almost 7 years later, me and Michelle are in a house with plenty of space, but I've lost that paintin' feelin'. Entirely.

It's weird.
 
My "creative process" begins with me wanting something but not wanting to spend a huge amount of money on it, so I build it myself.

My coffee table is a piece of crap. The woman I bought it from lied to me (people suck) and I've regretted buying it ever since, and I can hardly stand to look at it. So I decided to build a new one.

The first step was sitting on the couch with a pad and pencil and drawing it up. Actually, that was the second step. The first step was to look at other designs to see what I liked and base my design off that.

The next step is to draw it up on a CAD system. I'm just about finished with that step. All that's left is adding the drawer tracks and then it's off to the shop! I'm going to build it out of solid oak.

This is what it's going to look like... (There will be wooden knobs where the little dots on the drawer are.)

CoffeeTable.jpg
 

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Well, I'll start hearing a song in my head, then I'll try to visualize how it's played. If I got stuck learning a cover song, I'd find it online and go from there. With original songs I'd just run them through my head till I'm ready to grab my guitar and see what I've got. Then finally bring it to the band were we'd all put our own personal touches on it.

I pretty much stopped playing when the corona bug lock down put the kibosh on our recording sessions. Plus a very good friend and our old drummer passed away last October due to covid & other complications. That was and still is, very hard for me to deal with. I always very much enjoyed his company, he was a, 'one in a million' person as they say.

Lately though, I have been starting to noodle around with my music and guitars again. I feel good after playing, so I guess I'm on the right track.
 
When I was in my 20's I wrote a couple of songs with lyrics (one I even wrote the score by hand). Someone in the business told me to copyright that one which I finally did. Fast forward to age 51, serendipity pointed me to the digital piano. I was so excited when I got the first one. A Yamaha Clavinova. It had hundreds of rhythms and instrument "voices", as they are called. It became my muse; it inspired me to compose pretty melodies and chords. I experimented with different rhythms and their variations until I found ones I really liked. Those became the basis for my compositions, some of which were on my first album. The melodies just poured out of me. I surprised myself with the things I came up with!

Latin rhythms are one of my favorite genres to work in. I often use vibes, flutes, tenor sax and Spanish guitar in those. But I've worked with other genres including Jazz fusions and Jazzy ballads. The first songs I recorded and produced were New Age, a funky novelty song and one of the songs I wrote when I was in my 20's (sans the words), which was on the album.

I worked digitally using the Logic program for a while starting in 2009, but didn't really like it. I only produced one song for myself using the Logic program and that was released in 2020. My son and I are collaborating on two more. I released a live video for my Logic song last month (produced by a good friend who is also a writer, musician and producer) and have gotten wonderful feedback. Until my Logic program crashed several years ago, I did edit songs from my Clavinova in the program. But I felt trying to compose and the tedium of using Logic to edit took my musicality away. I was on hiatus for a long time before releasing three songs in 2020. My son, who is my studio engineer, wishes I'd work in Logic more but I'm back on my Clavinova. He's not crazy about having to transfer tracks to work on them but he does a splendid job. I will compromise and use our midi keyboard to play some tracks into his Logic program from time to time. We have a target date for the next album to be released, hopefully by the end of September.
 
Thanks @OneEyedDiva for reviving this thread I'd missed.

Creativity belongs to more than just art. There can be much in all manner of engineering, design, and science, and planning. And that was very true in my own electronic hardware career while not performing product design, had to be mostly on my own, creative building test fixtures and test code engineers used for development as well as strategies for troubleshooting complexities. Much oriented for "out of the box" thinking.

With art, have spent 4 decades as a serious landscape and nature photographer. Due to neural plasticity, we are and become what we do. The more one repeats whatever the more such becomes part of what one is. With complexities and science neural plasticity from education and learning is building a growing capable structure. Do creative things for decades and if done well, one can attain amazing skills and abilities.

That is where I am now at age 74 with my photography art form. I can see aesthetic patterns, geometries, and forms in nature that others don't nor did I when younger. For years, I've trusted my vision to mentally "feel" aesthetics at a glance. Often am exploring about and in the moment upon passing, sense something beautiful and after stopping, look about more closely to find whatever made me feel so and try to fit it into a rectangular frame. Just walking about on my urban streets, sans camera, am regularly using my hands with fingers in front of my eyes to rectangularly frame potential photos. I tell other photographers, trust and develop an inner sense of visual beauty awareness and such will flow out from the the right brain subconscious instead of just the left brain executive pilot control.
 
Murrmurr said:
If it's writing, my inner author wakes up not long after my head hits my pillow. Someone told me to keep a pad and pencil on my nightstand and just note the plot ideas or whatever with some key words and phrases and lay back down. But that didn't work out. I kept rewriting my notes. So, usually, I go to my computer and open Word. Problem is, I start setting up the plot idea (or whatever) by writing a preface and wind up spending so much time on that, the idea gets lost.

I was much better at painting.
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A few years ago, I took my grandson to the Rolling Stones exhibition at Darling Harbour here in Sydney. They had little rooms made up to look like their bedrooms in London. In one bedroom Keith Richards voice could be heard on an old tape recorder talking about how they get inspiration to write words to their songs. He said he set up a recorder next to his bed to record all the words he sang. The next morning he jumped out of bed to listen to the tape. He put it on waiting in anticipation and all he heard was 2 hours of snoring!!!! I had a good old laugh at that one.
 
I like carpentry work, but people tend to hire professionals, except those people that know me in my neighborhood will ask me to fix something for them. Before I came down here to Florida, I installed installed a new vinyl storm door on a neighbor's shed, but the frame, which was made out of wood was warped and beginning to rot, so I ripped it apart and built a whole new doorway that was 100% square so the new door would fit right on. Another neighbor asked me to build his mom a wheelchair/scooter ramp into their home and I took care of that. No labor charges. I only ask that they pay for the materials. My dad was into carpentry and although I was only 9 when he died, I don't know how I learned the trade. I helped put a few roofs on in he neighborhood and that's how I got started. I usually will do the sub-roofing using plywood. I can install the shingles, but I don't like to.

I also am pretty good with cars, vans and, light trucks, except now with all the electronic gadgetry, I stay away from under the hood. Mechanically, I can do most of that work, like suspension parts and exhaust systems, which cars today seldom need.
 
David777 said:
Thanks @OneEyedDiva for reviving this thread I'd missed.

Creativity belongs to more than just art. There can be much in all manner of engineering, design, and science, and planning. And that was very true in my own electronic hardware career while not performing product design, had to be mostly on my own, creative building test fixtures and test code engineers used for development as well as strategies for troubleshooting complexities. Much oriented for "out of the box" thinking.

With art, have spent 4 decades as a serious landscape and nature photographer. Due to neural plasticity, we are and become what we do. The more one repeats whatever the more such becomes part of what one is. With complexities and science neural plasticity from education and learning is building a growing capable structure. Do creative things for decades and if done well, one can attain amazing skills and abilities.

That is where I am now at age 74 with my photography art form. I can see aesthetic patterns, geometries, and forms in nature that others don't nor did I when younger. For years, I've trusted my vision to mentally "feel" aesthetics at a glance. Often am exploring about and in the moment upon passing, sense something beautiful and after stopping, look about more closely to find whatever made me feel so and try to fit it into a rectangular frame. Just walking about on my urban streets, sans camera, am regularly using my hands with fingers in front of my eyes to rectangularly frame potential photos. I tell other photographers, trust and develop an inner sense of visual beauty awareness and such will flow out from the the right brain subconscious instead of just the left brain executive pilot control.
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You're welcome, of course. I agree with you that creativity comes in many forms, photography is certainly one of them. Except for creativity used for nefarious purposes (eg: creative new scams, inventions to harm people), we can benefit from all forms of creativity.
 
Back when I was switching over to Jazz guitar from rock (mid-70's),
started working with 6th, 7th and 9ths chords, using charts from famous songs (with the 7th as the go to ones).
It is a process I'll probably never master, just too many for this old brain to keep straight.

Sometimes I'll hear a chord on a record and it will drive me crazy till I learn it.
After I learn it, I try to use it as the main theme of the song.

Most times it works a little, but it sure is fun to try and build around it, filling in the Gaps!

It keeps the juices flowing...
 
I've always been one to have a curious mind and a desire to learn and create things - hence, have had multiple projects throughout the years- needlework - sewing, knitting, crocheting, and tatting: various art work - portraits, drawings and paintings. Did dog portraits for sale when we lived down in Calif. Also dabbled in furniture building shortly after moving into this house and lately writing my memoir and took writing classes at the local college here. LOL that's the mindset that sent me into motorcycling and worldwide traveling by same.
 
Feelslikefar said:
Back when I was switching over to Jazz guitar from rock (mid-70's),
started working with 6th, 7th and 9ths chords, using charts from famous songs (with the 7th as the go to ones).
It is a process I'll probably never master, just too many for this old brain to keep straight.

Sometimes I'll hear a chord on a record and it will drive me crazy till I learn it.
After I learn it, I try to use it as the main theme of the song.

Most times it works a little, but it sure is fun to try and build around it, filling in the Gaps!

It keeps the juices flowing...
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I wish I could hear you play! Do you own what Jazz artists refer to as a Fake Book? It has a ton of songs with their chord progressions written above the notes. I got one when I was studying piano at Jazzmobile, but haven't cracked it in a long time. I also studied Jazz organ privately with the young lady who wound up becoming my BFF of 47 years.
 
Feelslikefar said:
Back when I was switching over to Jazz guitar from rock (mid-70's),
started working with 6th, 7th and 9ths chords, using charts from famous songs (with the 7th as the go to ones).
It is a process I'll probably never master, just too many for this old brain to keep straight.

Sometimes I'll hear a chord on a record and it will drive me crazy till I learn it.
After I learn it, I try to use it as the main theme of the song.

Most times it works a little, but it sure is fun to try and build around it, filling in the Gaps!

It keeps the juices flowing...
Click to expand...
I find the easiest instrument to learn chords on is the piano. Every note can be clearly seen. I like diminished chords.
 
As a youngster my parents sent me off to learn the piano, although we never owned one. I learned from a Nun at our school. For homework I had to take home a keyboard which was printed on the paper. I hated it and the Nun used to often hit me on the knuckles and kept saying "Wrong"? I told my parents I never want to go to the horrible woman again. That was the end of that!!
 
oscash said:
As a youngster my parents sent me off to learn the piano, although we never owned one. I learned from a Nun at our school. For homework I had to take home a keyboard which was printed on the paper. I hated it and the Nun used to often hit me on the knuckles and kept saying "Wrong"? I told my parents I never want to go to the horrible woman again. That was the end of that!!
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:) Old biddy!
 
There was a time, I couldn't sleep at night at all. I took care of munchkins with their home education, while they did their homework and watched Discovery channel for the chosen learning material of the day, I took naps in between jobs.

One night after talking and singing with a friend online, I feel asleep at my desk. When I woke up around 4 am after 2 hour kip, I instinctively opened MS OFFICE and wrote until 7 am. 4 novels were roughly draughted out.

My muse continued to hang around for the remaining of that year to fix it, perfect it and make a great storytelling. Sadly, it had to be deleted after technical problems.

Once again, I was visited by my muse and write a new story anew. Life happened and I put it aside. Last year on the last day of April 2022, I was in the process of creating an e-commerce website as my series was ready to go live.

Due to hubby's death, I've put all off in respect of my beloved passing away. I've now created new title for the series plus each novel. During the Pandemic 2020-2021, I've created a WIP with the return of my muse.

This latest one will be a trilogy with references to real life experiences into fictional fantasy, supernatural and historical. Involving Angels and along the lines of Maiden, Mother, Crone.

Covering childhood, working years and motherhood, finally widowhood and retirement during what was supposed to be the "Golden Years".

The basics are on paper (virtual) for each 3 books. Since May last year, I've jotted down notes that are all over the place. I'll have to gather all in one place for each and print out to re-read the whole thing and correct as I go.

Just don't know when I'll have enough interest to make it worth my while to dare sell copies online. You know: "Once burn, twice shy!"

Eternal Love Series just needs tweaking with covers and titles needing updated. Finally, finding readers has always been the hardest part.

Working at night is when my creative juices are waterfalling (lol!) the most...
 
Supernatural said:
There was a time, I couldn't sleep at night at all. I took care of munchkins with their home education, while they did their homework and watched Discovery channel for the chosen learning material of the day, I took naps in between jobs.

One night after talking and singing with a friend online, I feel asleep at my desk. When I woke up around 4 am after 2 hour kip, I instinctively opened MS OFFICE and wrote until 7 am. 4 novels were roughly draughted out.

My muse continued to hang around for the remaining of that year to fix it, perfect it and make a great storytelling. Sadly, it had to be deleted after technical problems.

Once again, I was visited by my muse and write a new story anew. Life happened and I put it aside. Last year on the last day of April 2022, I was in the process of creating an e-commerce website as my series was ready to go live.

Due to hubby's death, I've put all off in respect of my beloved passing away. I've now created new title for the series plus each novel. During the Pandemic 2020-2021, I've created a WIP with the return of my muse.

This latest one will be a trilogy with references to real life experiences into fictional fantasy, supernatural and historical. Involving Angels and along the lines of Maiden, Mother, Crone.

Covering childhood, working years and motherhood, finally widowhood and retirement during what was supposed to be the "Golden Years".

The basics are on paper (virtual) for each 3 books. Since May last year, I've jotted down notes that are all over the place. I'll have to gather all in one place for each and print out to re-read the whole thing and correct as I go.

Just don't know when I'll have enough interest to make it worth my while to dare sell copies online. You know: "Once burn, twice shy!"

Eternal Love Series just needs tweaking with covers and titles needing updated. Finally, finding readers has always been the hardest part.

Working at night is when my creative juices are waterfalling (lol!) the most...
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I hope you can finally get your series published (and/or posted). Best of blessings with seeing it come to fruition.
 
I mainly made music through out my "creative" years. I like the phrase "listen to your muse." That is the best way I can describe how I got my inspiration for songs, rhythms, leads and improvisation, chord structures, counterpoint, lyrics, bass and drum tracks. I listened to my muse. I created over 3,000 songs, that would play non-stop for 6 days. :) I would estimate that about 60% of the 'songs" were created so that I could experiment with basic parts so that I could practice . I liked to create the basic feel and practice improvisation.

When I worked in the Home Repair business, or when remodeling and taking care of our farm buildings and animal raising the creative process was different. Practical and sustainable were main directives. You do have to be inventive, and know what your doing ( tools, material, and purchasing supplies ).
 
Nature is my muse. I draw inspiration from the color combinations, the textures, the light and dark, the seasonal changes all found in Nature.

It doesn’t matter whether I’m painting, creating a color pallet for decorating, refinishing or repurposing a piece of furniture, I look to Nature for my choices in what to and how to create my finished piece.
 
I can make or repair just about anything, with the help of info on the net, but I do get creative with woodworking. Inspiration comes from needing special purpose items. Kitchen cabinets that fit between 2 walls, 8 foot window seats/toy boxes, sewing table that can fit whichever machine she needs in it. She needs a custom sewing room cabinet. That might be a winter project. I made all the trim for in the house because I didn't like the stock trim in the stores.
My avatar is custom because I didn't like what was available. I put magnets in the frame so I can slide out the glass in the lower unit to make changes.
I like using oak because of the strong grain. Straight grain for the face frames. Wild grain for whatever shows. The wild grain is mother nature showing off her artistry.
I can glance at any piece of furniture and I can picture how it's made from the inside out.
I don't care for the wood stains that are on the shelf. I don't think they make the grain pop. I either use wood dye or make my own dyes. I used very strong coffee to color a lamp table and a hall table that I recently built.
I've used 2000 board feet of white oak, 500 of poplar and 500 of white cedar so far.
When I'm tired of getting greasy, I put away the mechanics tools and drag out the wood tools.
 

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