inspiration Archives - Page 44 of 60

Sponsor giveaway: Draw your own alphabets!

I love drawing alphabets. I don’t think I’m very good at it, but I try anyway.

So when there’s a book out that tells me that there’s a way to draw different types of fonts – I’m sold. I mean, why wouldn’t I want to add the ability to draw hand-drawn fonts to my drawing repertoire? I’d be silly to toss that idea aside! While my copy is making its way to me in the mail (and I saw great previews of the book via Amazon), I just couldn’t wait to let you know that you can win a copy of this book right now!

One of my sponsors for this month, the lovely Princeton Architectural Press is giving away FIVE – I repeat – FIVE copies of Draw Your Own Alphabets: Thirty Fonts to Scribble, Sketch, and Make Your Own by Tony Seddon worth USD$19.95 each to five different readers. No matter if you’re in Kuala Lumpur (like I am), in South Africa, or in Australia, you can be in the running to win a copy!

So what you need to do is this: share with me your favorite font in the whole wide world (it can be hand-drawn, or not, it doesn’t matter!) in the comments below, and you’ll be entered to win a copy of the book. Deal?

Be sure to have them in by Tuesday, 30th April to be in the running! We’ll email the winners after that, so if you snooze, you lose!

UPDATE:

Thank you all for participating! The winners, generated randomly is Elisa, Ana Pina, Julia Levis, Ellen and Terina! I’ll be sending an email out to you guys shortly, so watch out for it! In the meantime, to make sure you don’t miss out on future cool giveaways, sign up for our mailing list!

How we see ourselves

Watch how women describe themselves to FBI trained sketch artist Gil Zamora, and then watch how others describe them. And it’s true – we need to be kinder to ourselves . How we see ourselves may not necessarily be how others perceive us, and it’s definitely something to think about.

Also, a personal note: you’re better off not reading the comments on the website and on YouTube. There’s just a whole bunch of negative (and not to mention unproductive) comments out there, along with people who can’t seem to enjoy the experiment for what it is. Here’s my thought process: if it’s any other person or company (for example, a small indie film company) who’s making this video instead of Dove, they’re going to get accolades and pats on the backs. People need to calm the heck down and stop blaming corporations for the choices that we’ve made as a consumer and as a society.

Breathe Out

I was directed to Derek Sivers’ article about seeking inspiration this morning. It’s about taking in inspiration, and the fact that we’re taking in inspiration everyday. He likens it to breathing in. But we can’t just breathe in to survive. We need to breathe out – and the act of breathing out means that we have to process that breath we just took in, and put it back out in the world. We can’t hoard inspiration and hope that it will enrich us. The fact that we should be utilizing what we were inspired by and to put it back out in the world, now that’s where things can get really interesting.

Catherine’s comment after the article really resonated with me:

[quote] The term for breathing out is expiration. We inspire, and then we expire. The other meaning for expire is “to run out”. Or “to die”. And making things IS a tiny death (not the one the French talk about. Well, generally). It’s the death of our perfect vision, to be replaced by a less-than-perfect reality. [/quote]

We open up just a little bit more of our hearts when we create. We allow ourselves to get hurt when we invite others to see what we’ve been shielding for so long. To be able bring out our fears and dreams and hope; we have to allow ourselves to feel pain, to heal, and we grow stronger as a result. And that’s what art is – no matter if you’re producing a painting, an illustration, a new book, or a new community.

Perhaps that’s why I have greatly reduced the amount of blogs on my reading list. It’s not because they weren’t living up their end of the bargain of providing me with inspiration, but I felt that my well was already full. And it was time for me to make something of the things that I’ve already breathed in, before I’m allowed to breathe in some more.

It’s time to exhale.

I’ve been holding it in for too long a time.

Have a brilliant Monday folks!