Stretching and Adding in More Creativity

One of my personal goals for 2011 was to start being more involved in the arts locally.  I started working on this at the end of 2010, so I got a little bit of a head start on this one.  I wanted to start networking more and meeting more creative people and try some new things.

This is my lovely welding booth. Number #11!

For Christmas this year, my hubby got me a welding course at the local community college.  Sounds strange, I know, but I've been wanting to learn how to weld for a couple of years now.  I am not looking to get into metal arts, but I do want to know how to make bases and armatures for my sculptures.  I think this would be great knowledge to have.  Thus the welding course gift.  So I went last week to my first class, and it was just a classroom lecture.  Lots of talk about electricity and safety and safety equipment.  All good things to know, because I don't want to get injured doing this!  My first session in the welding shop was on Saturday and the guys are all quite nice.  They don't seem to mind me being a girl, and they don't really try to help/interfere in any way, but they do little things, like make sure I can see during demos.  I'm in that class with some super big dudes, and they always make sure I can slide to the front to see what the instructor is doing.  I appreciate that!  So far, my welding is pretty bad, but I will get better as the class goes on!  I'm so glad I am trying it.  It's fun (and scary) to stretch out in new ways.


Another fun thing I did was on Friday.  Laura, a friend of mine here in Charleston, organized a "tweetup" for ladies who are on Twitter in the Charleston area.  As it turned out, it was mostly entrepreneurs and creatively-minded ladies.  It was a super high-energy kind of thing, and I think that everyone was so excited to be with other like-minded individuals.  There was talk of more group luncheons and some folks were instant friends and began to make plans for other outings.  The girl I sat across from, Charlotte, is a wedding photographer, but also loves the more traditional arts.  She was trying to convince me to go to a figure drawing class here at one of the art centers.  I took a life drawing class in college - and I was terrible!  My proportions were always off and it looked like my models had fallen out of a 6 story window, only to land in these horrible, awkward positions, instead of these lovely, graceful poses that we were supposed to capture.  BUT, in the spirit of the moment, I told her I would love to go, but that I wanted to sit in the back with shields on the sides of my paper, so that no one else could see what I was drawing. :)  But you see, I think it is good to work on drawing and sketching, no matter what the subject, and spending time on learning/practicing other forms of art is not time wasted.  So while my drawings may look terrible in the beginning, hopefully they will start to improve over time.  I will keep you posted on how the classes go, if we actually get brave enough to go! :)

How are you adding to the creativity in your life? Are you taking a fun e-course or trying out something new and slightly scary?  I'd love to hear about it!  I have seen a couple of really cool e-courses out there right now, that I'd love to try....

~Kelly