Making Made

Jeanne Haegele in Chicago, Illinois is doing a yearlong project she calls Making Made.

She explains: "Since nothing makes me happier than making stuff, my project this year has been to make something every single day for 365 days.  The things I make for my blog, Making Made, tend to center on what I like doing the most—doodling, photography, and cooking—but I allow myself to do pretty much anything including craft projects, songwriting, making videos, or whatever else I can dream up"

Why did you decide to do this project? I decided to do this because I enjoy making things, but previously would never get around to creating anything, I guess because I was too lazy, too afraid of mistakes, and too busy doing things that I didn’t find nearly as satisfying. I knew that doing a 365 blog would force me to work on projects, despite my laziness or time commitments, and also help me with my fear of messing things up.

I also hoped that making something every day would help me learn knew skills, such as pen drawing and digital illustration, and help me get better at cooking.

Lastly, I think I just wanted to challenge myself and find out if I could even do something so crazy. Was I determined enough to make something for 365 days straight?

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? I think there are two really important ways that Making Made has affected my daily life. First, it's  forced me to adjust my priorities around my creative projects, which has been a great thing for me. Before, I used to come home from work and do whatever I wanted. Now, when I get home, I have to figure out what I want to create that night, figure out how long it will take, and then adjust what I do in the evening around that. Sometimes I fail at the whole planning thing, though. One night, I woke up with a start around 12:30 a.m. because I hadn't made anything that evening. Ahhh! I hopped out of bed and quickly photographed some fruit (problem solved!).

The second thing that's really changed for me is that I spend a lot more time searching out creative inspiration. Whether it's shuffling through artsy boards on Pinterest, reading some of my new favorite blogs (I love Doodlers Anonymous, Booooooom, and the Jealous Curator), or talking about ideas with friends, I feel like my whole life has been infused with a sort of artistic energy that was never there before. It's really exciting!

See all of Jeanne's projects HERE. 

Rebecca's A-Robot-A-Day

Rebecca Jackson in Lawrence, Kansas is creating A-Robot-A-Day...

Why did you decide to do this project? Due to a mild obsession with robots and a generous stockpile of recycled bits, I’ve been making recycled robots for almost three years now.  I saw Noah’s book and became inspired to try to make something robot-related every day.  I thought it would be a great way to explore new mediums and force myself to actually create every day (not just daydream).   As a mother of four young boys, I’m a professional procrastinator when it comes to doing the things I actually want to do.  This project has given me an “excuse” to do something fun and also allows the boys to join in if they want.





How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? I am terrible about follow-through.  If I’m lucky, I get something 90-95% done, but then end up going on to something else.  So embarking on a daily project has forced me to actually complete my endeavors and, thereby, experience some measure of satisfaction—you know, instead of enduring the guilt-ridden “I-really-need-to-finish-that” mantra of my pre-365-Day life.

I’ve also found that instead of running out of ideas, I seem to be overflowing with new ones.  Finding the time/energy to make them materialize is another matter, but it’s nice to know my creative spark didn’t get entirely doused by the monotony of adult life. 



See all of Rebecca's robots HERE.

Brother and Sister Projects

Helle & Vincente Göransson in Göteborg, Sweden are using my book to create Brother and Sister Projects...

Why did you decide to do this project? I found the book in a store where they sell funny and inspiring things. I thought that it could make my days less boring. And so it did! We've taken the tasks really serious and the outcome have been really funny and great :) me and my brother loves creativity and new thinking so this book is just perfect for us!




How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? This is not a daily project for us but we do it every time we meet. It has become a routine kind of. It's challenging and exciting. It makes the world such an interesting place. Life changes colour for a moment and you can stop thinking of any other problems you may have. I don't do things I don't love on my free time. I love this book. It really makes my life better! Thank you!

One experience was when we went out in the woods, in the middle of the night, to build things out of trees. We built them inside of course :) We sat for five hours creating that night/morning :)











p.s. You can find the Swedish language version of my book 365: A Daily Creativity Journal in many online bookstores.

Colour of The Month

After completing two yearlong projects – Daily Oak ("one tree, two positions from which a photo is taken on every day that I am in town, pictures of ‘guest trees’ on days that I am not") and Daily Mail done collaboratively with Kathy Loomis ("an e-mail per day with a picture of 'something') – Uta Lenk in Southern Bavaria, Germany has a new project: Colour of the Month ("going through the color wheel of primary and secondary colors I take a picture of something of that color on that day")...

Why did you decide to do this project? I loved the regularity of Daily Art as I experienced it in my projects together with Kathy Loomis, and my Daily Oak Project. I would have liked to do another tree after the conclusion of Daily Oak but did not find a different species in the vicinity that fit my requirements (easily accessible so that getting there would not take too long, single tree). I wanted to concentrate on color to increase my awareness of color, color range, color gradation, and “Colour of the month” has certainly been a successful project in that respect.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? The Daily Oak project has taught me a lot about trees in general, old trees in particular, and oaks as such. I believed myself to be aware of issues in nature before, but realized that there is still a lot more to learn. My family was affected in that they learned to accept my daily going to the tree. Sometimes I would ask my husband to take the little detour so I could take the picture of the day. If the sun broke through unexpectedly on a particular day my husband had learned to read the bounce of my step on the stairs as indicating whether I was going to see the tree... The Daily Mail project has heightened my awareness about what we see when we care to look, and what we overlook when we just trod through life. And it was interesting to get to know a person mainly through e-mails and pictures. That was the best art project of my entire life!

See all of Uta's projects HERE.

[BONUS] 180 Days of Art

I recently gave the keynote address at the Virginia Arts Education Association's annual conference and afterwards was given this lovely limited edition book by Roderick Rhodes...

Roderick, an elementary school art teacher, spent the 2003-2004 school year creating a daily art project. For 180 days he created small squares of art in six-piece panels, based on his experiences each week working with over 700 students!

The Daily Tree

Claudia Bear in Torrance, California is creating The Daily Tree...

Why did you decide to do this project? I got your book a few weeks ago based on a recommendation from my daughter's teacher.  As soon as I started looking through the book, I had so many ideas in my head, I knew I had to start a project right away.  I chose the tree theme because I love drawing, painting and photographing trees.  There's something about the branching shape of a tree that intrigues me.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? I'm only on day 12 of my project, but I'm trying very hard to make this a true, DAILY project.  I'm usually such a planner, that my natural tendency would be to make a bunch of projects ahead of time and then stay ahead of schedule for the whole year.  My daughter even asked me "Mom, are you going to make some extras ahead of time, in case you get sick or something?"

Well, sure enough, I ended up getting sick during the very first week of my project, but I still stuck to my daily schedule.  For some people, the discipline of a 365 project might be to avoid "falling behind."  In my case, it's a different kind of discipline - learning to hold back and to wait a day to complete a project!

See all of Claudia's trees on her blog or on Facebook.

Elephant A Day Follow-Up

Sheila Singhal completed her 366 day long Elephant A Day project on October 2, 2012...

What are the biggest lessons/skills you learned from doing your project? I learned that you can power through just about anything if you're determined enough. There were days when I really, REALLY didn't want to make anything, photograph anything, and especially write/research anything, and days when real life definitely got in the way, but somehow I managed. It helped to have a few mini-projects lined up for those days.

I also learned to draw elephants in virtually any pose, any style, and any medium, which was something I didn't really know how to do before. It was also interesting to learn what elephants are really like—not only physically, but emotionally. They're a lot more like humans than I ever would have guessed.

There were also some "helpful hints/lessons learned" in the final post of the blog.

In what ways did the project change your life? It was a real confidence-booster. I had no idea that I could actually draw that well. I had a drawing professor in university who told me I should probably switch to abstracts or art history, so I think I'd more or less decided that I wasn't a very good artist—although that never stopped me from trying.

The project also made me less shy and introverted. By nature, I don't like to be the centre of attention, but a project like this forces you to promote yourself, talk about yourself, and laugh at your own foibles. Some of my projects were spectacularly unsuccessful and/or spectacularly annoying to me, but it was actually fun to describe, to the entire world, just how horrid those projects were.

Most importantly, perhaps, in learning more about elephants, I became a bit of an elephant-booster. I've always supported animal welfare charities, but this project took that interest to a whole new level.

Now what? Hmm...good question. Many people have told me I should do another year of elephants. Let me think...no. However, I don't think I can abandon elephants entirely. Many people have also suggested a book, or an exhibition, or both, but I haven't really pursued anything like that, as I'm still enjoying the luxury of Making Nothing a Day.

I'm probably leaning towards a website devoted to information about elephants, but with a sort of crowd-source vibe. I've seen several outside projects based on my Elephant a Day posts, and I bet there are more out there. I'd like to set up an environment in which others can share their elephant-related art and craft, whether it was made in a day, or over a much longer period. I'd also like to create a forum in which people can talk about elephants and share their own elephant-related stories. And perhaps include some sort of web store with a carefully selected range of elephant-themed products that also have a charitable component.

I also have a couple of ideas for different daily blogs—perhaps not over an entire year, and perhaps not involving so much construction—but we'll see.

In the short term, mostly I'm just enjoying NOT blogging/making/researching every day. But I'm sure that will get boring very soon.

Read Sheila's original 365 interview HERE.

See all of Sheila's elephants HERE.
 

A Silhouette A Day

Helmi Coenders in The Netherlands is making A Silhouette A Day...

Why did you decide to do this project? Relaxation, meditation or a small moment of happiness. I try every day as something "ice cream" to which I happy. It is also a big stick to regularly draw. Not many colors, rather it is black/white. Form is important and also a contour. This creates a silhouette every day. This is a small addition to my existing blog.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? After a graphics program, the A.B.K. Maastricht (fashion) and a pedagogical/didactic training work today in art education. The silhouette is important in the fashion world. In this project I try every day to draw a silhouette. It can be anything and not necessarily on mode. I do this mainly for FUN!

The 365 days project I necessarily need to be fruitless. With a few comments, contacts and happy I am satisfied.

See all of Helmi's silhouettes HERE.

Bicoastal

Kizz Robinson in NYC & Chris Deitner in LA are doing a collaborative 30 day food photo project called Bicoastal...

Why did you decide to do this project? I had done a 365 project and, while I enjoyed it and found it helped me learn a lot about my camera and my creative brain I didn't have it in me to do another one so long. My archiving skills aren't that good.

I decided that I wanted to learn more about my smartphone's photographic capabilities and I kept coming across projects where people on opposite coasts or in different countries were taking photos at the same time and putting them together. I love those projects! I started to think about people I knew who would think this kind of project was fun and I immediately thought of Chris.

We batted around some ideas about how long we should work, what our theme should be, and how we'd archive it and finally decided on 30 Days of Food on Flickr so here we are.

How has doing this daily project affected your life? I happened to start this project at the same time that I partnered with a different friend to try to lose a little weight (I'm far too cheap to buy new pants). Now much of my day is spent focusing, literally, on food. For a day or so I was afraid that having the photo project would make the healthy eating harder, make me more resentful of some of the harder choices. Happily that hasn't been the case. Taking photos and concentrating as much on how I want to look at the food as on what I want to eat has been really fun. A couple of days I've even said, "Wait, I have to eat something so I can take a picture!"

Also, I took a lot of pictures of my hands in relation to food for my 365 Days Project and would sometimes feel like I was getting in a rut. The project was pictures of my hands but wasn't limited in any other way. It's counterintuitively freeing to have a narrower focus. I'm getting a lot of joy out of that.

See all of Kizz & Chris's photos HERE.

Eliza's 365 Illustration Project

Eliza Mária S in Jászberény, Hungary is doing a 365 Illustration Project 

Why did you decide to do this project? Being a student of an art school, I wanted to find a way to practice. I also wanted to train my brain for being creative all the time.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? Besides gaining the original goals, I also learned a few other things. Being an extraordinarily messy person, 365 Illustration Project taught me to be more organized. And since I am also very lazy and I procrastinate a lot... I could say I learned that everything has its consequences. Skip one day, and you'll be obligated to do double the next day. Skip one more and you'll be doing three drawings a day.

But what really surprised me is how my project affected the people around me. Many times when someone said something witty or something extraordinary happened, they said: “I bet that's gonna become a daily drawing too, right?” In fact they sort of started to compete to be featured in those drawings, which I think is kinda cool :)

See Eliza's Illustrations HERE.

365 in Chinese

I'm very excited to finally get a copy of the Chinese edition of my book 365: A Daily Creativity Journal!

It's fun to see how my words were translated...



And most intriguingly there are several new interviews of Chinese artists included!...



If you're interested in your own copy, you can find it on the Chinese version of Amazon.

365 Days of Star Gazing Follow-up

Lena Josfeld in Germany recently completed her 365 Days of Star-Gazing project...
 


When did your project start/end? My year of stars began on September 6th 2011 and ran through September 5th 2012. The date for beginning my project had no significance at all, it simply felt right to start NOW. The end, however, turned out to be perfectly timed without me realising it until it was merely a week away: It sent me off into one of the best holidays of my life, closing the project with one of the best concerts I’ve ever had the privilege to attend.




What are the biggest lessons/skills you learned from doing your project? Never ever would I have thought I could commit to a project like this and actually finish it. So there’s one big lesson for me. I also learned (rather by force) to compromise and lower some standards I had for my own work which were way too high to be comfortable. Lesson number two: I cannot rush creativity and I cannot force it to pay me a visit whenever I want to. It simply is not possible to suit perfectionism every day for an entire year – so I had better forget about it right from the start! ;-)
Lesson number three: It can be so incredibly easy to get people to participate in the weirdest things... Often they would become really enthusiastic to help me with my stars. This came as quite a surprise to me and made me feel incredibly glad and grateful.
I can’t say I acquired any particular new skill. But I did some things I had never done before like carving a pumpkin, making a bead figure, Chinese calligraphy, encaustic, marbling candles, rolling sushi rolls, modeling with papier machée... Basically, this project gave me a very good reason to try whatever I wanted to try – really cool!




In what ways did the project change your life? There were times when it didn’t really matter at all and I almost forgot about the next star. At other times, my days seemed to revolve around those stars and I felt a crazy rush of energy that let me accomplish things I would never have thought possible before. I don’t see any profound changes having happened to my life, but this project did make me a little more bold and daring (out of necessity for some of the ideas I had). It also enforced a kind of playfulness, thinking-outside-the box, and ignorig-the-usual-rules, which I have always liked but tended to lose rather easily during the grey, everyday life. I hope I can keep some of this attitude even without daily stars.



Now what? Now, I definitely need a break. Towards the end of this year of stars, I couldn’t help but consider all kinds of ideas for a potential next project. However, right now is not the time for anything like this on a daily basis. But I have now tasted blood, so who knows...? If I’m going to start anything else soon, it may quite possibly contain a lot of food... my latest obsession. :-)
As for the stars: I really need to give them a little more substance than only the virtual images and writings that might disappear with any server crash or hacker attack or whatnot... I’ve grown way too fond of them to not have them somewhere close to my bedside table. ;-) Still thinking about the best possible way to make that happen...



Read Lena's original 365 interview HERE.

See all of Lena's stars HERE.

It's Time To Go: Letting Go of Stuff

Bobbi Fisher in Sudbury, Massachusetts is spending a year on her project It’s time to go: Letting go of stuff. She explains, "The project is about simplifying our life by getting rid of all the stuff we have accumulated over almost 50 years of marriage. It’s about getting rid of small things, and big things. It’s about reminiscing and letting go. It’s about passing on things to kids, relatives, friends, charities, and sometimes even, the dump."

Why did you decide to do this project? 
The idea of doing something within a single theme every day for an entire year intrigued me the moment I perused Noah's book at the book store last winter. The commitment and the discipline was what drew me in. But, I’m not an artist, so the idea of creating some kind of skeleton, or bird, or flower every day—well, I just wasn’t going to do it. I had been blogging faithfully for over a year, so I knew the satisfaction of blogging, but I wanted something concrete to blog about for a year.
My husband came up with letting go of something every day. Perfect. Motivation is high. We’ve lived in our present home for over thirty-five years. Need I say more? This is a natural.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life?
 Oh my goodness, yes, letting go of stuff has affected our lives. The relief that we feel on a daily basis as we let go of stuff is amazing/ Whew!! Out, out, out!! After all, we have lived here for thirty five years and have accumulated plenty of stuff. Two kids alone is enough to do it. But I was a teacher for twenty-five years, and , elementary teachers are the accumulation queens of the world. Next I went to divinity school where I collected books, books, books. Then there was my sewing days, and you just can’t have enough fabric or equipment.

My husband went through several hobbies, collecting typewriters, clocks, cash registers, golf memorabilia, bottles. You name it. Then there was his woodworking and gardening.

When we get ready to move out of this home of ours, hopefully we will be able to pack up with ease. Letting go of a little each day, without a deadline, gives us time to reminisce over some of the treasures, memorabilia, scrapbooks and photo albums that we have accumulated, and to make careful decisions about where it all should go. And we can even change our minds before any of it ends up with our kids or at the dump, or somewhere in between. 

The project is going along quite well. The only glitch is that even while letting go of stuff, we occasionally accumulate new stuff. Sometimes it feels like one step forward, two steps back. For the most part, the culprit is my husband who loves to bring things home from the put-and-take at our local dump. But how can I complain. He finds great stuff and we haven’t bought a present for anyone in years.

 

See everything Bobbi has gotten rid of HERE.

Rocks and Relics

Christine Chang in Fullerton, California is making a year of Rocks and Relics...

Why did you decide to do this project? I found your book in a local craft store and thought "This is exactly what I need to stay motivated!"  I wasn't getting very much accomplished by just designing jewelry "whenever I felt like it".  So far, your book is working great to keep me designing every day!

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? It has opened up my mind to working in new ways, with different materials, and it forces me to go beyond just what I already know how to do.  It's just the creative kick-in-the-butt I needed!

See all of Christine's rocks and relics HERE.