Right now, my kiddo's going through extra long treatments for his CF because we're participating in a drug trial, which means we've been watching a lot of videos, many of which were our videos as kids that have been commandeered from my parent's house. Lately, the favorite has been Dumbo. Like a lot of kids movies, this cartoon is served up with a heaping portion of lessons and morals. It occurred to me, though, there are lessons to be learned for us creative people as well. Give me a break, I'll take the inspiration where I can find it!
1. Perspective.
One of the things that always gets me about this move is the perspective in scene at the beginning where the animals and workers are putting up the circus tents. The "camera" shows a variety of unusual perspectives of the action, rather than an straight overview of the scene. The result is a refreshing change from the majority of kids animated features. It gives the scene a totally different feel than the rest of the movie that is very powerful. As creative people, we need to remember to look at things differently. It kind of goes back to my "
reframe" motto, it will allow us to see things we haven't before. For example, have you ever taken a few minutes and really looked at your ceiling? It's amazing how much we miss because that's not at eye level. Take it literally or metaphorically, change your perspective and suddenly a whole sphere of ideas is available to you!
An added bonus to changing our perspective as artists is that it changes the perspective of those we interact with. This weekend my family went to the
Wishes for the Sky event on Harriet Island. When you enter the pavilion, there are poems written in what look at first glance to be Chinese characters. Instead, the characters are artistically constructed English words that take a while to interpret. One of my friends commented, that by having to translate each poem, a person gains the advantage of really paying attention to what the poem says. Had the poems been presented in a traditional format, people most likely would have read the poem quickly and moved on without really absorbing or thinking about it's meaning. We have the tendency to take things for granted when they're easy and everyday. But switch up your view point, and people are forced to think about what they're seeing because it's not what they're used to.
2. Work hard and be persistent.
Because the view of setting up the tent was presented to me in a new way, I've thought a lot about that scene. Another thing I really take away from it, is the value of working hard. Changing your perspective is not easy. How many snap shots have you taken in your life? Probably thousands. How many photos have you deliberately made? I'd guess a much smaller amount.
Now, I'm not saying that snap shots are bad, they're certainly important in documenting our lives. But think of those photos you really LOVE. They're the ones of your kid in the middle of a project shot from the side not looking at the camera, tousled hair over one eye, tongue sticking half out in concentration, the light carrying specks of dust. Or the one of your favorite tree, shot while lying underneath with the sun peeking through the brilliant gold leaves. You could have taken either of those photos head on from a distance, but instead you crawled around on the floor until you found the perfect vantage point or you came out to your favorite tree several times to get just the right kind of lighting. And you took LOTS of pictures. You worked at creating the kind of image you wanted. And when one shot didn't look right, you changed your perspective and tried again. You kept working hard and when you failed, you tried again.
3. Find your unique ability.
Okay, now that I've babbled on about the look of the movie, let's get down to the plot. In case you have never seen the movie - or haven't in a very LONG time - Dumbo's about an elephant with extraordinarily large ears. What seems to be a handicap for him turns into an asset when he learns that the very ears that have brought him much ridicule and rejection are what allow him to fly.
His journey to this discovery was not easy, but eventually he found something he was really good at. As an adult, this rose colored view requires a bit of naivete to buy into. But I think the main message is important. We're not all going to be good at everything. Sometimes we have to travel a long way to find those things that we're good at (and I believe that everyone has lots of things that they're good at). We'll trip over our ears along the way and cause our share of calamities, but eventually we'll discover something that we can excel at and that's where we'll be successful.
4. Have confidence.
When Dumbo is learning to fly, he's coaxed into trying by the conviction of his support system, the crows and his best friend the mouse. They convince him that if he holds a magic feather, he'll have the ability to fly. This works really well until he looses the feather mid-flight the first time he's called on to show the world his new ability. Fortunately his best friend is able to boost his confidence enough that Dumbo realizes that he can fly on his own, just before disaster hits.
We all have people in our communities that are there to encourage us - we need to listen to those voices and block out the ones that are a negative influence (or as DudeCraft calls them
Energy Vampires). That support system will get us a long way, but when it comes down to the wire, we need to have the confidence in ourselves. We need to love what we're doing and be excited to share it with the world. We need to know that even though we don't know everything, our unique abilities set us apart from others. We also need to be confident enough to ask for help and learn from others.
5. When all else fails - have what they are having!
Step 1: Cut out all of your pieces. If you're not using buttons you can cut out circles from a fabric that contrasts with your body fabric. You can use all one fabric or mix and match like I did, just make sure you have enough of each piece. A note on fabric - I used a medium weight tweed and a light weight quilting cotton. I'd recommend using all lightweight wovens if you're a beginner then you don't have to worry about fraying and over-locking your edges.
Step 2: Sew on your embellishments - eyes, fangs, etc. And don't get over excited and forget to sew your velcro to the inside wing at this time. If you don't you have to sew it on after the wing is but together, which is not easy to do, particularly on the machine. Save the other half of the velcro for after you stuff the bat.
Step 3: Put your fabric pieces for the wings, ears, feet right sides (side with the print) together and do a straight stitch around the outside edges - leave the side that will attach to the body open. If you use a fabric that frays easily, you'll want to finish the seam somehow. I over-locked it below. Trim the points as close to the seam as you can get them and cut a slit in the top of the curves along the bottom of the wings. If you don't do this you'll get bunching like you see at the top of the wave in the photo above. Also if you want crisp edges now's the time to iron your pieces.
Step 4: Turn pieces inside out and push out the corners.
Step 5: Put down the front of your main body piece and line up your wings and ears (leave your feet out as we're going to leave the bottom open) around the outside of the body. Then take each piece and fold it over on top of the front piece and pin into place. It helps to fold your wings in half so that they don't get in the way of the seam on the other side. Also, if you want your wings and ears to be a certain color in front and back like min, make sure you have your front sides facing the front of the body. Now place the body back on top with the right side down and pin all the way around.
Step 8: Turn the extra fabric at the bottom inward, fold your feet in half and pin the raw edges inside the fabric. Hand stitch along the bottom to seal up the hole.
Step 9: Fold your wings over with the velcro wing on top to line up where you want to put your bottom velcro piece. Hand sew this into place. If you're careful you can sew it to the outer layer without the stitches showing inside the wings.
Step 10: Give your little bat a name. Mine's Alistair and he's a little shy.
I hope you have fun creating your little bat friends. I'd love to see what you come up with and as always let me know if you have questions or anything seems unclear. Feel free to share this, just please include a link back to my blog. Thanks!
We've had a few really toasty days here and as I lay in bed recovering from yet another round of whatever's going around (or possibly food poisoning) I've been dreaming about the beach. Then the other day I saw these awesome photos from Noa Noa's latest catalog and now I can't get the vintage swim cap idea out of my head. Blame it on the amazing styling.
When I was a little kid I took swimming lessons for years at the high school pool. I think my other body must be that of a mermaid because I was like a fish - a kid who was in the water as much as possible. When I had really long hair I had to wear a swim cap. Yeah, it was nothing like the pretty ones above it was more like this one...
The kind that cut off circulation to your brain it was so skintight. And not at all flattering. You see my interest in swim caps is purely aesthetic and has absolutely nothing to do with the practical uses.
A little research has turned up that by the 20's swim caps were made of latex. Searching for latex fabric brings up a lot of diy dominatrix sites and the information that latex should not be exposed to the sun or heat - so great fabric for the beach, right? So maybe we should check out some more modern materials for this project. Not sure where to find waterproof Lycra or silicone - a quick web search didn't really turn up much. Maybe we're back to latex. If you have any ideas, let's hear them!
It was so great to see so many people out at Johnstock last weekend! My absolute favorite part of doing this is when someone is so excited at their purchase they just have to put it on right there and then! Plus it was fantastic to meet so many great people. Everyone was enjoying the fabulous weather and the variety of talented artists and musicians and the community really came out to support and meet each other.
One of the things that always gets me about this move is the perspective in scene at the beginning where the animals and workers are putting up the circus tents. The "camera" shows a variety of unusual perspectives of the action, rather than an straight overview of the scene. The result is a refreshing change from the majority of kids animated features. It gives the scene a totally different feel than the rest of the movie that is very powerful. As creative people, we need to remember to look at things differently. It kind of goes back to my "reframe" motto, it will allow us to see things we haven't before. For example, have you ever taken a few minutes and really looked at your ceiling? It's amazing how much we miss because that's not at eye level. Take it literally or metaphorically, change your perspective and suddenly a whole sphere of ideas is available to you!
