In a recent post I talked about the fact that Maya and I were starting a daily creative project, following the suggestions given in Noah Scalin’s book.   Scalin is the artist who created a skull a day for 365 days and wound up on Martha Stewart’s show as a result.   His book is great, because the suggestion for each day can take two minutes or two hours, depending on how much time and effort you feel like putting in to it.

Day 10’s suggestion was to use water as either our medium or inspiration.   Maya and I work independently on our projects, and yesterday she literally took only about 2 minutes to do hers, which was a pen drawing of a large drop of water falling in to the ocean.

I decided I was going to try and capture a drop of water as it fell from the faucet, which required a bit more time and effort.   The photos didn’t turn out exactly as I had imagined, which is part of the fun with art.    In fact, Maya and Ben were telling me yesterday that in their art class, Debbe, the teacher, has a sign that says, “Practice makes progress” and how that is so much better than “Practice makes perfect” because there is no such thing as perfect.

So my photos were not perfect,  but as I worked with them and adjusted the settings in iPhoto there was progress and  I ended up with shots that I liked.

Even after 10 days (355 to go) the daily project has become part of our routine.  We know it will make change the course of our thoughts, even if only for a few minutes.   The best part, of course, is that Maya wants to do it.  If she didn’t, it would quickly turn in to one of those ‘must’ tasks,  unpleasant and tedious.     I read a great quote the other day.   It said:

“Learning can only happen when a child is interested. If he’s not interested, it’s like throwing marshmallows at his head and calling it eating.”

~ Katrina Gutleben

Here’s to interested lives, devoid of thrown marshmallows.