Day 16: Potato Print

Task: Make a unique print by cutting up a potato and use it to stamp on a material of you choice.

New potatoes (potatoes that have been grown this summer and are just off the ground) have been in shops for just a couple of weeks now and I´ve eaten tons of them with butter and herring. Gotta catch them while they´re fresh! I put one aside before boiling to make my stamp.

Paper, paint and a potato, the p-trinity of potato stamping.

Nananananananananananana - Batman!

This was more tricky and more fun than I expected. But next time I´ll use a bigger potato!

Day 15: Strawberries

Task: Use a dollar bill as your inspiration/medium.

Didn´t have a dollar, actually I haven´t ever seen one live. On the other hand I did have strawberries, those I see every summer, a brief sighting while they travel from the bowl towards my mouth.

I know I´m deserting the day´s task again, but the best thing about self-appointed rules is that you can break them.

 

Steve likes strawberries too, but since they´re almost as big as he is I get to eat almost all of them.

Day 14: Tiny Stitches

Task: Make something microscopic.

Ok, this isn´t exactly microscopic, but it´s the smallest I´ve worked with a crochet hook.

I used sewing thread doubled and 0,75 mm crochet hook. Very fiddly at first but it got easier very quickly.

The pin is normal size, just for measure.

 As I was photographing my work Steve grabbed the hook.

A hunter with his catch.

Day 13: Tea in Motion

Task: Use tea leaves or tea bags to create something.

During winter I drink huge amounts of tea so I had a supply of both tea leaves and tea bags. I have noticed that mate tea has a funny quality when left sitting in the tea pot: it turns darker and darker as time passes. So my experiment today was to make some mate and take a photo every half hour or so.

Since there was a huge pile of photos I also learned how to do gifs so I wouldn´t have to flood the page with photos. 

So I started with some mate tea.

  Add some hot water..

 And you´ve got tea.

And yes, Steve was there too, at least for the first five minutes before wandering off.

And here´s the final result of six hours of photographing:

P.S. I had a tough few days so the undone days piled up. I´m so proud of myself for picking things up again, I guess I got through the first hurdle of this project.

Day 12: Camouflage

Task: Create something so that it disappears into its background.

Again a beautiful day and an another stroll around the neighborhood.

Since I already know someone who is the same color as most of the environment I decided to use that to my advantage.

If it wasn´t for the rustling of leaves I might have had hard time finding him in the undergrowth.

Like a green tiger, ready to bounce!

Day 11: Midsummer

Task: Work with a familiar medium but with your non-dominant hand.

We decided to skip today´s task. Since it was an absolutely gorgeous day we went for a walk instead.

I absolutely love summer. I guess when you spend half of the year feeling cold and in darkness you come to appreciate the time when it´s the total opposite.

Steve wanted me to include this picture of clouds. I agreed, today the sky was beautiful too.

It´s the first Finnish summer for Steve so the nightless night is new to him. A bit after midnight we went outside to look at the sky. We are not north enough for the sun to shine at night but it doesn´t get dark either, as you can see.

Today´s the Midsummer here in Finland, the celebration of summer and summer solstice. Steve and I wish you all a beautiful day!

Day 10: Reflections on an Octopus

Task: Use only water as your medium/inspiration.

I tried photographing water. Sounds easy, doesn´t it?

 

After some initial difficulties I slowly I started to get a hang of it. I found out that water can be a beautiful, though somewhat uncontrollable, medium.

A wine glass, a cherry tomato and an inquisitive octopus.

 

He soon ventured back to the puddle to look at his reflection. I noticed it might make a good shot and asked him to pose a bit. And then a bit more. And still a bit more. His patience surprised me, though I suspect it was just because he knew I would be the one who would be left to do the cleaning up.

 

Day 9: Breakfast Foam

Task: Make something with your breakfast.

Yesterday I noticed Steve climbing into the spice cupboard. At the time I didn´t think much of it, I though he was just exploring.

This morning I was making milk foam for my morning cappuccino when I heard something fall over in the other room. I went to check that nothing had been broken and when I came back I found someone had poured blue food dye into the milk.

I noticed the culprit lurking nearby.

Soon Steve confessed. I told him I liked my blue cappuccino and we decided to try out green next time.

And you should´ve seen my tongue afterwards!

Day 8: Bookworm

Task: Transform an old book into something new.


This is the oldest trick in the book (no pun intended), but I´ve always wanted to try out the "book into box" feat. It was much more simple than I had thought, but man, did the page cutting take a lot of time. I will decorate the covers too, but that will be a task for some other day.

Since Steve tends to get messy when there´s glue around I didn´t show him the project until it was completely dry.

He asked what I was going to put in my new bookbox. I told him I didn´t know yet. He told me there was no hurry..

Day 7: Fishy Cappuccino

Task: Make a stencil and use it in your work.

I made a stencil to make cinnamon shapes in my morning cappuccino.

Steve held out the stencil and I operated the cinnamon.

It´s like a little fish tattoo on my milk foam.

Day 6: Tomato Way

Task: Work with the first fruit or vegetable you spot in you kitchen.

I had some delicious cherry tomatoes in the fridge.

Steve picked out the best ones for the the work.

We decided to make the Milky Way out of tomatoes.

I didn´t have enough cherry tomatoes to make it 1:1 with the real one, so we had to settle for a miniature version.

Day 5: Woolly Terrain

Task: Work with whatever you collect.

Today I did some organizing in my yarn stash.

Steve wasn´t much of a help, but he certainly had fun.

A self-portrait?

At some point I noticed Steve gathering up all the green skeins.

Turned out he wanted to make another yarnopus. I wonder if octopi are colorblind. Or maybe he just wanted to be artistic.

Day 4: Smile

Task: Take a walk and make something using materials you find in your immediate surroundings, leave it for someone else to discover.

The moment I stepped outside it started to rain so I had to make the walk a short one and come up with something fast.

Steve helped me with collecting pine cones, he wanted to get out of the rain too.

We made a pine cone smile. I hope it´ll make someone else smile too.

Day 3: Swing!

Task: Make something from a piece of paper without scissors or glue and don´t draw on it either.

Steve likes swings. Unfortunately this one was built for someone a tad larger.

Therefore I made one just for him.

 A piece of paper folded into a rectangle and another two twisted strips, that´s all it took.

Take this advice from an octopus having a really good time: Go, swing some and enjoy!

Day 2: Chipus

Task: Make something inspired by your favourite animal.

I have so many favorite animals. Cow, hedgehog, octopus, chicken, penguin, beetle, I couldn´t decide. But then I remembered this episode from Wallace and Gromit. After showing Steve a picture of Feathers McGraw he just couldn´t be convinced otherwise. Oh, and in case you haven´t seen the episode, Feathers McGraw is a penguin who disguises as a chicken by wearing a red rubber glove on his head.

Chicken + Octopus = Chipus

Look at that posing! Where´s that shyness now?

Steve insisted on climbing a sapling for this shot. Being young and male, safety isn´t always his first concern. I made sure he didn´t fall.

Day 1: Introduction

Last Christmas my friend gave me Noah Scalin´s book "365: A daily creativity journal". This will be my 365 daily creativity project.

What is this?
- 365 little projects in 365 days, mostly following the book, but not necessarily always
- 365 blog posts about those 365 projects

What do I hope to accomplish?
- Learn to think creatively about my surroundings
- Learn to use my brand new digital SLR camera to take better photos
- Better my English by blogging in English
- Have fun!

Long-term projects requiring patience aren´t a strength of mine, so I thought I´d be more likely to finish if I had a friend to help and encourage me along the way. So let me introduce you to my friend Steve:

"Steve? Where´d you go?"

"There you are! Don´t be shy now, I´m sure they´re all very nice people."

 

So this is my friend Steve. He´s a very friendly and playful octopus and we´ll be taking this journey together.

P.S. This was also the task for day one, to make something small that would fit in the palm of my hand. That´s Steve allright.