Kurt Vonnegut’s 6 Storylines
Writer Kurt Vonnegut demonstrates 3 of his 6 simple shapes of stories.
View more creativity videos here.
Read more about Visual Storytelling here.
Learn more in my digital printing and digital photography workshops.
Writer Kurt Vonnegut demonstrates 3 of his 6 simple shapes of stories.
View more creativity videos here.
Read more about Visual Storytelling here.
Learn more in my digital printing and digital photography workshops.
“Daniel Milnor is a professional photographer who specializes in documentaries and creates visual stories. He shares his insights on how to become a better photographer.”
View more photographers videos here.
Read more about Visual Storytelling here.
Learn more in my digital printing and digital photography workshops.
My newsletter Insights goes out Monday!
This issue features the most in-depth look at color saturation you’ll find anywhere; what it is, why it’s important, creative possibilities, and how to adjust it.
Saturation Is An Essential Key To The Success Of Your Images
One of the most distinctive features of a visual artist’s use of color is their use of saturation. When you think of Ansel Adams’ photographs, you think of neutral images rather than highly saturated ones. When you think of Matisse’s paintings, you think of supersaturated images rather than neutral ones. Think of your use of saturation as an essential element that will help you define your own signature style.
One of three elements of color (luminosity, hue, and saturation), saturation can give your images specific qualities of energy and light. Here are five things you can do with saturation: one, increase energy and impact; two, add complexity by revealing hidden hues; three, restore life to listless hues; four, calm colors that are distracting; or five, produce softer semi-neutral and pastel palettes.
Read more about Saturation here.
Together, Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop offer an impressive, almost overwhelming, array of possibilities for controlling saturation. Do three things before you choose a tool to adjust saturation with. First, understand and develop your eye for saturation. Second, adopt a consistent strategy for exploring the possibilities it offers your images. Third, understand the differences between the tools, both how they function and the effects they produce.
Know What To Look For
Knowing what to look for will help you choose a direction, a tool, and how far to go with it. It will also help you evaluate the results you produce – and quite possibly improve them further.
There’s lots of great art in Maine!
Here are six great museums presented geographically from north to south.
Waterville
A collecting and teaching museum focussing on American art. It houses and displays the largest collection of John Marin and Alex Katz’ paintings as well as Richard Serra’s works on paper.
Rockland
There’s always something new and old on view at the Farnsworth. The museum has one of the nation’s largest collections of works by sculptor Louise Nevelson. Its Wyeth Center features works of Andrew, N.C. and Jamie Wyeth, which is extended by the Olson House (Christina’s World) in nearby Cushing.
Rockland
Center For Maine Contemporary Art
A contemporary arts institution, presenting a year-round program of changing exhibitions featuring the work of emerging and established artists with ties to Maine.
Brunswick
Assyrian reliefs in Maine? And much more! The Bowdoin art collection includes Antiquities, European,and American collections including memorabilia from Winslow Homer’s nearby studio.
Portland
Significant holdings of American, European, and contemporary art, as well as iconic works from Maine, the museum brings it all to life with unparalleled programming, from special events, family activities, and community conversations to PMA Films, curator talks, and tours of the Winslow Homer Studio—it’s all happening at the PMA.
Ogunquit
Ogunquit Museum of American Art
Celebrating its origins in Ogunquit’s art colonies it acquires, preserves, exhibits, and interprets American art.
Looking for more fun things to do?
Rockland
One of the largest lighthouse museums in the United States.
Thomaston
Owl’s Head Transportation Museum
Its mission is to collect, preserve, exhibit and operate pre-1940 aircraft, ground vehicles, engines and related technologies significant to the evolution of transportation for the purpose of education. Special events offer car rallies and air shows.
Bath
It sits on a 20-acre campus on the banks of the Kennebec River in “The City of Ships”. Daily cruises visit some of Maine’s most iconic lighthouses from the water and get an up-close look at Navy vessels under construction at Bath Iron Works.
What Is Equivalence? It’s a seminal concept proposed by Alfred Steiglitz and developed further by Minor White that cuts straight to the hearts of awareness, intention, and communication.
Learn more in my article on Luminous Landscape.
Plus find links to Minor White’s seminal essay.
They Did It This Way
Did you know?
Ludwig Van Beethoven religiously took walks in nature to find new musical ideas.
Georgia O’Keefe cultivated her garden for improved health. Upon hearing that John Marin had completed three canvases in one day the first thing she asked him was what he ate that day.
Agnes Martin’s rigorous meditation practice helped her manage her schizophrenia and find inspiration for her paintings
Ernest Hemingway stopped writing before he didn’t know what to say next so that he knew where to pick up in the morning.
Thomas Edison slept upright with a metal ball in his hand to wake him up so that he could record the ideas he found during light sleep before he lost them in deep sleep.
You Do It Your Way
No two artists do it quite the same way. Your art is your own. So are the daily rituals that propel your life. Like you, they change over time. The time you spend reviewing your habits, casting aside old unproductive ones and cultivating new productive ones will ensure greater fulfillment and success and quite possibly new breakthroughs.
Habits … they’re the keys to achieving your life goals. Habits are powerful because small things build up to something much bigger over time. Are your habits serving you? If you haven’t reconsidered your habits recently, it’s time. I know it is for me. We don’t have to do this all at once. We just have to get started. And make it a habit to consider our habits.
In this set of resources, you’ll find all kinds of great food for thought including what worked for famous artists like Leonardo, Beethoven, Hemingway, O”Keeffe and many many more.
A Toolkit To Help You Improve Your Habits
Don’t think of these resources as a to-do list. You can’t do it all! What’s most important is making time and space for the things in your life that are the most important to you.
Think these resources as toolkits to help you craft the life you want to live!
Schedule
How To Schedule Your Day For Peak Creative Performance
Exercise
Why Exercise Makes You More Creative
Can A Simple Walk Improve Your Creative Thinking?
Beethoven’s Daily Habit For Inspiring Creative Breakthroughs
Diet
Need A Creative Boost? Take A Look At Your Diet
From Picasso’s Rice Pudding to O’Keeffe’s Green Juice, the Favorite Snacks of Famous Artists
Sleep
Taking a Nap Could Make You More Creative
Scientists Agree – Coffee Naps Are Better Than Coffee Or Naps Alone
Can Sleep Make You More Creative ?
How Famous Artists Dealt With Insomnia
Stress
Artists Share Their Rituals For Dealing With Stress
Meditation
Why Meditating Might Make You A Better Artist
How Disconnection Boosts Your Creativity
Want to Be More Creative At Work? Stop Working !
Artists
The Daily Routines Of 12 Famous Writers
The Daily Routines Of Great Writers
The Morning Routines of Famous Artists, From Andy Warhol To Louise Bourgeois
The Daily Routines Of 10 Women Artists, From Joan Mitchell To Diane Arbus
7 Famous Artists Who Made Great Work Late At Night
Quotes
That’s a lot! Don’t eat it all at once! Savor it over time!
Start here.
Can Sleep Make You More Creative ?
Enjoy this collection of quotes on habits.
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“We become what we repeatedly do.” ― Sean Covey
“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”
― Gandhi
“Sow a thought, and you reap an act;
Sow an act, and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit, and you reap a character;
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.”
― Samuel Smiles
“Habit is stronger than reason.” – George Santayana
“The only way we could remember would be by constant re-reading, for knowledge unused tends to drop out of mind. Knowledge used does not need to be remembered; practice forms habits and habits make memory unnecessary. The rule is nothing; the application is everything.” ― Henry Hazlitt
“Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.” – Blaise Pascal
“We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. In that race which daily hastens us towards death, the body maintains its irreparable lead.” – Albert Camus
“Get the habit of analysis – analysis will in time enable synthesis to become your habit of mind.” – Frank Lloyd Wright
“The real key is to live in an environment where the mind feels free to choose the right thing instead of being compelled by habit and inertia to choose the wrong thing.” – Deepak Chopra
“I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.” ― Warren Buffett
“We will be more successful in all our endeavors if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves. And we’ll also have a lot more joy in living.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
“Your little choices become habits that affect the bigger decisions you make in life.” ― Elizabeth George
“Repetition of the same thought or physical action develops into a habit which, repeated frequently enough, becomes an automatic reflex.” – Norman Vincent Peale
“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” ― Samuel Johnson
“Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it each day, and at last we cannot break it.” – Horace Mann
“Good habits are worth being fanatical about.” ― John Irving
“Habit is the intersection of knowledge (what to do), skill (how to do), and desire (want to do).” – Stephen R. Covey
“Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” – Malcolm Gladwell
“Habits change into character.” – Ovid
“In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions.It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.” – Tony Robbins
“Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out.” – Robert Collier
“Successful people are simply those with successful habits.” – Brian Tracy
“Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.” – Benjamin Franklin
“All people are the same; only their habits differ.” – Confucius
“Wouldn’t it be great to be gifted? In fact… It turns out that choices lead to habits. Habits become talents. Talents are labeled gifts. You’re not born this way, you get this way.” – Seth Godin
“Successful people aren’t born that way. They become successful by establishing the habit of doing things unsuccessful people don’t like to do.” ― William Makepeace Thackeray
“The difference between an amateur and a professional is in their habits. An amateur has amateur habits. A professional has professional habits. We can never free ourselves from habit. But we can replace bad habits with good ones.” – Steven Pressfield
“If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.” – Colin Powell
“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” – Jim Rohn
“Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is the result of good work habits.” – Twyla Tharp
“The creative habit is like a drug. The particular obsession changes, but the excitement, the thrill of your creation lasts.” – Henry Moore
“If your habits don’t line up with your dream, then you need to either change your habits or change your dream.” – John Maxwell
“The secret to permanently breaking any bad habit is to love something greater than the habit.” ―Bryant McGill
“You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.” ―John C. Maxwell
“True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.” – Jean Cocteau
“Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.” ― Mark Twain
“Without struggle, no progress and no result. Every breaking of habit produces a change in the machine.” – George Gurdjieff
“Each year one vicious habit discarded, in time might make the worst of us good.” – Benjamin Franklin
“A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit.” ― Erasmus
“A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.” – Mark Twain
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“Drop by drop is the water pot filled.” – Buddha
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Explore The Essential Collection Of Creativity Quotes here.
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With over 30 books to his name, Waite’s distinctive images are recognized around the world and his work has received wide critical acclaim over many years.
Learn more about Charlie Waite here.
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