Creative Liberation*

Beauty from the former times

2010-04-27T23:33:00.000+02:00

Visiting castles in the Loire valley was a great opportunity to take out camera once again. You can find here few shots that describe the beauty from the former times. Walking in some castles was like traveling in the time...

CHAMBORD

...and its 440 rooms

Throne of the majesty King

Who let the dog out?

CHEVERNY

The real treasure is hidden inside

Hungry? Me too!

Teddy Bear & Tea Time

Travelling in the time seems possible here

CHENONCEAU

Lost girl

King of the Sun

Where is the kitchen

Summer

My home is your home

Do you believe?

CLOSE LUCE

Leonardo show us the way...

VILLANDRY

What else?

Garden ART

Creativity is journey

2009-12-21T20:25:00.001+01:00

Creativity is a learned skill. It is true that some people have more imagination than others, but everybody can become creative. Interesting is that if you ask people to count their creative activities, most of them will think of objects... like drawing, painting, mosaic, or scrap booking craft, etc. This answer is understandable; however it shows our limits of thinking. And what if as creative activity we would consider as well innovative process of cooking, new solutions on complex technical problem, different dress up for special occasion, or just taking pictures of the same object from different ankles. So lets me ask again... how many creative activities have done in last 3 months?

Creativity is rather about the journey than about the result itself. The process of finding the idea, inventing the new ways of development, combining various materials and resources in unusual way or simply changing the concept in the middle of the project but still striving for the same objective.

Our latest creative activity with Karim was building our own table for the living room. As we could not find anything suitable in Parisian shops, we decided to create one by ourselves. First we bought piece of wood, wooden legs, thin pole and material for painting. Next step was to choose the picture for mosaic.... although as you can see we changed the idea in the middle and finally our small table is a crossroad of many journeys:-)

Black or White

2009-11-18T20:50:00.004+01:00

Once I saw a billboard against racism.... it was straight and clear, only one simple question "What colour is your heart, black or white?" obviously every heart is red and we are all the same. This is true... but I want to show you how different it can be to look at the same things and places in different colour.

This weekend Janka and Igor visited us in Paris and we did again usual tour around Paris. Once again I was so happy that I had opportunity to walk around like a tourist and take pictures. Same places, same things, but this time it was BLACK & WHITE!!!

Jardin des Tuileries

2009-11-08T15:09:00.004+01:00

It was sunny day... sunday 25 of October. We went to my favourite place - Jardin des Tuileries. This garden turns into magic place when sun is shinning. And I took few photos of people enjoying their free time...

people running and listening music

eating and drinking coffee

sitting and sunbathing

discussing and falling in love

taking a walk with the family

being proud of their twins

and riding bicycle :-)

Our nature

2009-10-30T11:28:00.000+01:00

Those photos are pretty old and I have many new ones, but I need to organize my latest pictures and select best ones to share with you on this blog.
I believe I can fly (February 2007)

Blue diamond (May 2008)

Cabbage bouquet (January 2008)

Calmness

2009-10-30T11:21:00.000+01:00

Happy moment, Velky Krtis (December 2006)

One for all,All for one, Paris (February 2007)

... on the beach, Italy (July 2006)

Symphony of colors

2009-10-30T11:19:00.000+01:00

Bunch of skimmers,Hong Kong (November 2007)

Magic night on July 14th,Paris (July 2005)

China porcelain, Hong Kong (November 2007)

Beauty of the sunset

2009-10-30T10:45:00.000+01:00

Some of my older photos capturing sunset in Paris, Hong Kong, and Bratislava.
Jardins des Tuileries,Paris (March 2006)

Fisherman's village,Hong Kong (November 2007)

Bratislava castle and Danube river (June 2006)

Bratislava transmitting station (June 2006)

Photography contest

2009-10-20T23:25:00.001+02:00

The other day I read a blog of my friend and he is passionate about photography as well. He had chance participating in the Photo Marathon - contest with many teams, very specific rules and timing deadline for submitting your work. Two weeks ago we organized the similar one here in Paris. Very specific was the fact that we were only two:-). It was not ideal at all but we had fun and that was important. Major criteria for evaluation was creativity, composition and topic.

Let's have a look on the selection of some photos:

CHINESE IN THE STREETS *neli

SLEEPING BEAUTY *neli

HAPPY PEOPLE *ka

TREE IN THE CITY *neli

SHADOW (of neli shooting shadow :-)) *ka

We hope you like our work here:-))))

Tea or coffee?

2009-10-20T22:34:00.004+02:00

I like IKEA. I do. My very close friends Lenka and Janka had a little tray from there. I remember many peaceful moments when we were sitting in their room, drinking tea and discussing about everything. And few weeks ago when we joined our friends going to Ikea, I decided to buy finally. So many times before I resisted!

And I found a special shop here in Paris where you can buy equipment for mosaic. It's called CHAMPIONNET CARRELAGES , So each time I go there, I buy lot of new stuff... I have already membership card:-) And then I have to use it somewhere.... so I took the little tray and decided to decorate it with the mosaic. This time I was not pressed by time, so it was a pleasure to continue any time I wanted. And here you can see a progress step by step with final result:

It started as something completely else, just trying colours and different shapes:

Working in the park was very relaxing, although many people are watching you:

Suddenly it started to look promising:

And when all little pieces of puzzle found their place, it was time to finish with gypsum:

....et voilà le résultat :-) here we go with the result...

So what do you want to drink... tea or coffee?

Inspiration transformed into Illustration

2009-10-19T15:56:00.002+02:00

I had it again… this strange feeling of excitement and motivation. Suddenly my heart was beating faster, I was excited… simple INSPIRED! I love these moments… it is like ecstasy pill, you are acting irrationally, you are emotional, and you feel your heart singing :-)

It was end of May… That day I was inspired by Edita Sliacka, a friend from our town, the person with who we (me, Lenka & Janka) spent one nice holidays in Croatia. Although she graduated from European studies at University of Constantine in Nitra, now she is an illustrator and lives in Prague with her boyfriend (by the way…talented photographer). When I learned what she is doing, I asked for web link to see her illustrations, and there I had my moment of unconquerable inspiration. And once again I was dreaming of becoming a graphic designer. So finally I decided to do one step further from the dreaming and I bought a graphic board!

Since my graphic board BAMBOO FUN arrived, few months passed... but I have to recognize that when the weather is nice outside, I go out... no desire to stay at home and look into the computer!!! Well... I think if I will become artist one day... I should do a lot of craft works during winter because I am sure it will be tough during summer:-) And yesterday it happened again…we were walking in the city... Chatelet; Cité; St. Michael; Odeon... and there Karim took me into one small gallery. It was full of pictures and paintings from some unknown artists. I did not see anything special, till Ka showed me one picture. It was a young illustrator; age 27; and she was painting pictures full of happiness and positivism. Actually those were paintings for children… and there again… I was inspired. When we came home I took my graphic board, opened ArtRage (software that was a part of the package that came with graphic board) and started to learn and play with colours, and tools, and canvas, and smearing and…. and…. and…. In few hours I discovered a completely new world and hopefully very soon will share some work with you!

If you want to learn more and get inspired, read this: Somewhere I have found this description of the ArtRage and I think it is very nice way to put it: “Its best feature is that it's designed to mimic *traditional* painting/drawing etc so it WON'T do everything Photoshop does, but it's the best ever for just painting with. Some people hate it because you have to know how to paint, it's messy, most people love it, because it's like using real paint....if you know how to paint, in real life, ArtRage is better.” On the top of this I would like adding this interesting article about TOP 5 applications for creative teams.

October... time for mosaic

2009-10-01T18:06:00.000+02:00

October is here! Some would be sad because day is getting shorter, weather is getting worse and there will be fewer things to do. I would say it is maybe first time in my life that I am looking forward to coming autumn and bad time… because this means more time for CREATION:-)))

It was last autumn when Paris became busy with forums and conferences. One of those we visited last year was ‘Salon de la Creation & Savoir faire’ (this year it will take place on 19-23 November 2009). There I discovered the art of mosaic and got really passionate about these little colourful squares that create beautiful picture once put all together. I bought a kit for beginners including tools and I was happy to start new adventure. Few months after I tried it out and this summer when I asked my friend what kind of gift she would like for wedding, and she answered “something that even in ten years I will remember that this was your gift for wedding”, at that moment I decided to do big mosaic for her.

This was my second mosaic in my life! The first one was a kit for beginners as I mentioned already :-) Maybe you will not believe but I did it myself, hahaha... in 2 weeks! The time was short and mosaic was big… last days I was working till 2am! I would like to share with you here the progress step by step and have your opinion on the result.

PS: I found this amazing web-site related to mosaic art. You can find there really great pictures for your inspiration* http://www.mosaicartsource.com/

Paint me if you can...

2009-09-24T21:49:00.000+02:00

Among many different art techniques, acrylic painting would be always my choice number one. You can create such a symphony of colours…. colours that shine, fix your eyes for few seconds and make you travel… Great paintings make me stop for few minutes and I can not take my eyes of the picture. My mind starts thinking and takes me away… I will always remember one movie where they painted with special brush that transformed the painting in the living picture. You could actually enter and become part of the painting. The problem was to come back to the reality… some people liked the imaginary world so much that they even preferred staying there and leaving behind all their beloved…

I would like to present you so far very small collection of my paintings… Each painting has its story behind, the source of inspiration, the aim of creation, and as I continue painting, you will find here always new arts:-).

"Our Identity" (Neli&Ka) October 2008 This painting is very personal… together with Karim we copied our hands, again and again… and created this puzzle of hands. The single hand drawings would not be so special but with the crossings of the lines we created many separate areas that turned the picture into puzzle. Each area was then painted with different colour. This painting is like our identity… our hands are the same, same number of fingers, one left another right, but we are so different as all those colours, our family, religion, culture. And the most beautiful is the combination of all that and it only proves that we are united in diversity.

“Happy Elephant” September 2008 Here is used the mix of various techniques – painting, mosaic, collage. Happy Elephant was a gift for my mum this year… on her birthday. It’s a shining picture, shinning as a sunny day, shinning as my childhood,… shinning as me when I am happy:-)

“Friendship Tree” January 2008 This one was a gift for a friend. Friendship Tree is a concept we used in AIESEC during conferences. We drew a tree and asked delegated to take post-its and write little messages for their friends. At the end of the conference, tree and full of messages and the room was full of new friends!

“Passion Garden” (Neli&Ka) January 2008 You can find this painting in Anna’s room. This garden is full of passion fruit flowers that grow one over another… but the most important is that they are all together…

“Bouquet” January 2006 This was my revelation… a re-discovery of my passion for painting and art after many years. I painted this picture one winter weekend at home… people were amazed how simple but beautiful the picture is and I was really happy how it turned out. It was my goodbye present for my lover when I was leaving France. I would never say that one day this painting will be part of our shared home.

Paris autrefois...

2009-09-22T00:34:00.000+02:00

Paris is one of my true inspirations. I love this city... walking in the streets, enjoying the unique atmosphere, and taking photos... over and over, I can't get enough. Two weeks ago I tried out a special filters on the reflex camera and here are the most special pieces...

Hotel de Ville

Notre Dame

Notre Dame

Tour Eiffel

Trocadero & La Dèfense

Arc de Triomphe

Opéra Garnier

Montmartre

Finding myself to inspire you

2009-09-22T00:00:00.001+02:00

I believe that eight years of art school have something to do with my passion for art, design, illustration, photography and mosaique. Not mentioning the fact that I am right-brainer writing, drawing and painting with my left hand. And I am living in Paris, the capital of art, creativity, design and fashion. You could say... pretty good start! But the fact is, that till the moment you do not challenge your inspiration and do not express your imagination, all that does not count. Today I am starting this journey with the excitement and inexplicable sensation of happiness. Creative Liberation* is dedicated to sharing with you my art creations and photo experiments; revealing the various sources of inspiration; and discussing the exciting news from capitol of art <3 For the beginning you will find here following categories: Simply Creativity - games, execrises, tips on its exploring and expressing...
Happy heART - painting, mosaique, ink, collage...
(P)hotography (E)xperiments - colour, black & white, antique...
Illustrations – meeting with creative illustration works…
Design & Deco - design and decoration tips, ideas, news from Paris and world…