Lessons from the art lesson.

I regularly volunteer as an art teacher for a second grade class. And sometimes, I think I learn more than the kids I am supposedly instructing.

A recent lesson was about the color wheel. We started out with the primary colors – red, yellow and blue – and then proceeded to mix secondary colors. Then the kids quickly sketched out ceremonial masks and then painted them. Some of the kids could have spent the entire sketching their masks but we gave them only three minutes so they could spend most of their time painting.

In class I find myself repeating the same phrases over and over, from lesson to lesson – many are applicable to my work.

“You guys, just go for it. Just get something down on paper, you have to start somewhere.”

“It’s art. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just wing it.”

“Don’t worry if you make a mistake, work with it. Make it part of your piece.”

“Coloring in between the lines is way overrated.”

Lessons to take to heart.

Collaborating during Friday Morning Brew

On Fridays, theHIVE hosts Friday Morning Brew, a time to get to know fellow HIVE mates better. Recently, Lauren Walsh of Citrus PR and I were talking how our writing has changed in the interactive realm and how our approaches were different coming from PR and copywriter backgrounds.. That lead to us working together on a blog post for SoCalPRBlog.com entitled "Pitching in an ADD-Friendly World.

You can read it here.

Girl, You’ve Got Cojones: Life Lessons Learned Surfing.

During a surf session out in the big and mushy waves last week, a crusty old fellow gave me the best compliment I could ever receive:

“Girl, you’ve got cojones.”

On my previous wave, I took a late takeoff and went straight down the face for Mr.-Toad’s-Wild-Ride. I barely made it. But sometimes, barely is good enough. That’s one of the valuable lessons I learn over and over surfing.

It always amazes me how much the ocean and surfing can teach me:

Live life. Now. Surfing isn’t like tennis or basketball where the courts are always available for a practice session. Wave conditions are a temperamental thing. When there are waves, you surf today. They may not be there tomorrow. The takeaway – don’t live life in the future, waiting for the time until you graduate, get that job, get that promotion, get that house. Life happens right now.

Live on the edge. A wave is a precious commodity. Yet, if you don’t push yourself, you’ll never get better. So when the board is locked in the face, it’s time to cross step and make your way towards the nose. (Guess what my New Year’s resolution is.) What’s the worst that can happen? I’ll fall and waste a perfectly good wave. But there’s always another wave coming.

Let it roll over you. A big holy-mother-of-god mountain of water appears right before you. What do you do? Turtle roll you and your board over and let the wave pass over you. Then you paddle like hell to get out of the way before the next one hits. Things in life don’t always run smooth, but the ability to let things roll by, then try to improve the situation is a nice skill to cultivate.

Sometimes you just have to go for it. If you think too much, you’ll miss out. A moment’s hesitation on the paddle and the wave can pass you by. Yes, it’s advisable to put a little forethought into things like having a kid or starting a business. But if you waited until you were 100% sure, nothing would ever happen.

Don't be afraid to look like an idiot. Perhaps one of the most valuable lessons I've ever learned. If I was that self-conscious, I would have aborted at my attempts at surfing years ago. It’s taken me years to become socially mediocre at the sport. And usually, people are encouraging. (Just don’t get in the way of their waves.)

Enjoy the downtime. Sometimes when you’re in between sets, you just have to sit, watch the horizon and wait. This is when the magic occurs. A young inquisitive seal may pop his head out of the water for a closer look or a pod of dolphins may swim by. You never know what might happen.

Savor the bliss. Feeling the wave behind you, carving down a face, it’s 10, 20 or 30 seconds of sheer heaven. After a wonderful morning session, I never feel more alive, more joyous or more blessed. And that’s the attitude I try carry with me throughout the day.

Deck the Billboards

It's the holiday time of year (and it has been since Halloween) when our favorite brands spread yuletide cheer with seasonal billboards. With a rich source of carols, stories and traditions to play off of, it can make for some interesting concepts. Here are some of my favorites around town. (I never realized that you can take your life into your hands when shooting a billboard.)

San Diego Zoo has a tradition of doing great billboards. I love the simple visual pun here.

Another favorite billboard that ran for a couple of holiday seasons was by Wells Fargo Bank. It was a simple classic shot of their stagecoach pulled by a team of horses. At night, the nose of the lead horse was lit up red. But this year they went for cookie cutter horses pulling a stage coach which was sort of cutesy.

Patron Great copywriting as always: "Eliminate regifting." Visit their site for more wonderful words.

This is a three dimensional billboard by IKEA where furniture spells out joy. The headline "Decorate for the holidays" refers to more than just putting up a tree and lights for the holidays. I would just hate to be standing below this billboard during an earthquake.

A novel idea.

I remember once for an ad assignment coming up with a concept involving a dress made out of paper. Here's the shot I was dreaming of.

Jolis Paons, is an amazing artist, just 21 years old. She designed a couture dress made purely out of phonebook paper.

Paons says of the paper dress she designed and created for her Creative Processes class, “I pleated, stuck, sewed, and glued everything by hand.”

Starbucks Via

I am a lazy coffee drinker.via_package

Face it, I’m not going to make coffee. At home I would have to clean up. At work, I would have to clean up after myself and somehow feel compelled to clean up the rest of the mess in the communal kitchen.

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So I thought I would give Starbucks Via a try. It’s packaging isn’t much more earth friendly than disposable cups. But it comes in these convenient little tubes like Pixie sticks and you can pour it into a cup of hot water or hot milk.

Works for me, even camping.

ALL CAPS DAY

emailcap I was going to applaud Zazzle for making up their own holiday and excuse for a sale.

But what do I know? October 22 was ALL CAPS DAY and I find out it's real holiday! The one day when it's okay to write email subject lines and SHOUT OUT YOUR OFFER.

Pretty cool anyway. (I wonder what they did for Talk Like A Pirate Day, my favorite holiday.)

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With flying colors

Pantone, the esteemed purveyor of color released new color trends for 2010. All I can ask is, who names this stuff? (I always thought it would be fun to name lipsticks and fingernail polish shades.) Greenmarket The need for healthier and more artisanal foods has grown from traditional farmers’ markets to greenmarkets.

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Gatherings Inspired primarily by the continent of Africa with its vastness and complexities, Gatherings brings together a compilation of colors that demonstrate the uniqueness of the region.

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Galaxy Purveyor and source of light, the mysterious Galaxy is well reflected in a palette that truly illustrates the harmony of hue found in the nocturnal sky.

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Images from Pantone

Little Picassos: What Kids Can Teach Us About Creativity

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."PABLO PICASSO

As adults, we often talk about unleashing our inner Picassos. But with kids, their Picasso hasn’t been buried yet. And in their enthusiasm they can teach us about creative problem solving.

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I had the pleasure and delight of teaching an art lesson to my daughter’s second grade art class as part of a volunteer group that brings art into the classroom. At this age, the kids aren’t self-conscious yet and just let the creativity flow out of them. This lesson dealt with the graphic importance of line and shape and the contrast between geometric and organic lines.

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For this project, we were drawing monsters in black and white. Now if I had asked the kids to just begin drawing a monster, I would have ended up with a class of kids staring at a blank piece of paper. (And as we’ve all experienced at one time or another during the creative process, that blank piece of paper, screen or canvas can be the scariest monster we ever have to face.)

string

To jumpstart the process, the kids dropped a string on the paper, traced it and “found” their monsters. The organic shape of string on paper provided a great springboard for the kids. They needed very little encouragement as they located the mouth, teeth or various body parts of their monsters. The kids added tails, feet, antennae, feelers, scales, a multitude of eyeballs and other body parts that defied description. As you can see, one kid drew a monster truck instead of a monster. (Kudos to that maverick for making the assignment his own.)

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As creative professionals, we make a living being creative on command. While creativity can’t exactly be learned, there are ways to foster it. And often, the hardest step is taking the first step. So the trick is developing an arsenal of “strings.” What can you use as inspiration or a starting point? One of my favorite ways to begin a project is walk away from the computer, take a stroll to a bookstore and enjoy an hour of browsing. One art director I’ve worked often looks a problem from a reverse point of view, which is an excellent way to get a fresh perspective once you’ve had time to sink your teeth into a project.

A key is to keep your mind open to additional stimulus and to make connections to problems you are working on. Recently, overhearing a conversation between two programmers during a Jelly co-working session gave me an extra insight when I working on naming a retail project in Texas.

It was enlightening to see how the children’s creativity fed off of one another once they started. One table became very carnivorous as one girl drew the fish that her shark was going to eat. Suddenly, dinner appeared outside the mouths of many dragons, fish and serpents and one child made his monster have an external digestive track. At another table, one boy realized his camel also looked like a map of the United States and drew stars and stripes for his American Camel.

The biggest lesson learned? Have a sense of humor and have fun.

I’ll be teaching more art classes this year, so there’s more to come!

Windows 7: A Time Sucker

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cX4t5-YpHQ&hl=en&fs=1&] Hey, if Ford can create excitement for cars via Tuberware parties, so can Microsoft. Here, they have every demographic covered in this HGTV-style show on how to host a launch party. But time must really drag because the clock behind the cast starts out at 2:00ish, between seconds :46 and :48, the hours pass instantly from 3:30 to 4:10 and the whole video ends at 5:20 pm. Maybe that's how much time it takes to get your Windows 7 working.

Larry Keenan

Some of my earliest memories are trying to fall asleep at night during the summers while the hippie teenagers next door sat in the front yard and played the Beatles, Stones and everything else on their guitars. If those kids had been just a few years older and living on their own, their apartments may have looked like this. This is the work of Larry Keenan, a groovy photographer from the Bay Area who captures the Beats, the Human Be-in and all the wonder before the Summer of Love became mainstream. These shots are excerpts from essays Larry did on interiors of counterculture homes and life in the counterculture with children.

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See more of Larry's timeless work here.