anika mari

Day two of the Creativity Boot Camp, and I was a bit stumped. I had lots of ideas, but they all seemed so obvious. When I’m faced with a project like this, I try my best to come at it from another perspective, not just go with the literal imagery that tends to pop up right away. Usually if I give it enough time a unique idea will surface, but not this time. All I could think of were sandwiches and paper plates and ground cloths and ants.

I wanted to stick with the schedule of the boot camp, so I went ahead and created a few drawings. Since I couldn’t think of any ground breaking ideas, I decided to approach the assignment in the simplest way. To boil it down to the basic elements.

So what are the basic elements that I would need for a perfect picnic? I quickly discarded the ants because they would not make my picnic perfect. Soon I had four essential ingredients for any lovely picnic.

Bright blue sky and puffy white clouds would indicate sunny weather that wasn’t too hot.

Soft green grass to walk on barefoot, and on which to set up the picnic would provide a comfortable setting.

A pretty ground cloth would add a touch of color and cheerfulness to the gathering.

A basket filled with yummy food would be the most essential part–otherwise it wouldn’t be a picnic!

Not only did I simplify the theme to basic elements, I also simplified the drawings to be representations of the items in pattern form.

I was happy with the outcome, and I was glad to finish the drawings on time. The next day, however, something was tugging at the corner of my mind, and it wasn’t ideas for the next boot camp theme.

You see, I actually did have a different original idea for “picnic”. It involved lines of ants inter-weaving to create an intricate pattern that might resemble a doily or some fine china, but I discarded the idea almost immediately for 2 reasons: ants seemed obvious, and I didn’t want the final image to look too much like the drawing I’d just finished the day before for the theme of ivory.

It wasn’t until I was discussing the Creativity Boot Camp with my brother and sister-in-law that I realized I should have gone with my original idea. I mentioned the drawing with ants that I never drew, and they both thought it sounded great. The more I thought about it, I came to see that I had been hasty in moving on from the idea, and decided that it would probably look pretty neat. Far from obvious, it would have been a unique interpretation of the theme.

I spent the following 2 days drawing little ants, letting the pattern evolve as I worked.

I drew all the little “bodies” first, and then I added the legs. As I was drawing the legs, I liked how it looked like the ants were invading the pattern; maybe crawling onto a plate looking for crumbs. I decided to limit the number of complete ants (bodies + legs) to maintain the feeling of a crawling invasion of ants.

Although spending so much time on this second iteration of the picnic theme has now set me back on three new Creativity Boot Camp themes, I really like the result, and I’m so glad I saw it through.

I think both picnic solutions are a representation of my style, but I particularly like the ants drawing because I pushed myself in a different direction.

The next theme is “multilayered” and at this point I’m actually considering trying to continue the radial-pattern-style drawing throughout the boot camp. I realize that I might hit a road block if there’s a theme that I just can’t figure out how to fit into a circular format, but I’m up for the challenge, and I can remain flexible and change it up if I need to.