How does the creative process work for you

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Displaced Canadian

Displaced Canadian

Member
Joined
Aug 5, 2009
Messages
3,248
Location
Millersburg, OR
Caden has had the opportunity of watching me in my creative process. I turn on the classic 80's music then walk around the shop putting random pieces of wood on top of each other to see how they look. Then put them back on the shelf/drawer/barrel and grab a few more and do it all over again. After an hour or two of this I will grab a completely new set of materiel and assemble a blank maybe even turn it into a round shape then put it in the drawer with the others and start all over again because a new idea has struck. And to think I started pen turning so I wouldn't have to go to therapy :biggrin:
All this to ask the question, How does the creative process work for you?
 
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I walk into the shop and turn on the light , then slap a blank on the lathe and turn a perfect barrel , then do a perfect CA finish on the first try , then put a piece of aluminum or brass on the lathe and make the perfect kit to put on my perfectly finished barrel and ......








Then I wake up and avoid the shop for the day :biggrin:
 
I go out in the shop and sit down on a stool in the middle of the shop and think.....
What the heck am I going to do with this mess. I must confess it takes me 6 months of chewing on an Idea before I put it together. The pen in my signature line took me almost a year to go from idea to pen. Then at the last minute I changed part of what I was gong to do.
Mike
 
I drive an hour to work and hour home which gives me ten hours a week to think up things to do the 30 hours that I am awake on my two days off.
 
For me it does not usually start in the shop. I see something during the day or in a photo and that gives me the idea. From there I doodle on paper until something I like emerges. Then life happens and it sits in the idea folder for a while until I come across it again. I work on it some more and once it looks good I do a scale 2D CAD model of all the segments to be sure they fit on the barrels and still look good. Then that goes to the shop where the real work begins!
 
very poorly

Displaced Canadian said:
Caden has had the opportunity of watching me in my creative process. I turn on the classic 80's music then walk around the shop putting random pieces of wood on top of each other to see how they look. Then put them back on the shelf/drawer/barrel and grab a few more and do it all over again. After an hour or two of this I will grab a completely new set of materiel and assemble a blank maybe even turn it into a round shape then put it in the drawer with the others and start all over again because a new idea has struck. And to think I started pen turning so I wouldn't have to go to therapy :biggrin:
All this to ask the question, How does the creative process work for you?
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Very poorly and very slowly. But then I only want to turn wood so that's ok...so long as I start with a plain ol' blank I won't need to borrow ideas.
 
I have a two hour train ride 5 days a week. I have a little green note book with celtic knots all over the cover that I scribble ideas as they come to me. Then at least once a week I look through the entire book again and see what if anything jumps off the page at me. then I go to the shop and do something else that fails completely.

Then I jot down more ideas and why the one I tried failed, and how it could succeed if tried again.

I literally have 30 projects half completed in the shop waiting for me to remember them. Some are okay ideas that will spawn something else, some are kick ass ideas that will be shown off.
 
Ninja skills :P Its fun to watch chris build a blank its like watching a little kid play with legos lol

Me on the other hand i just look at a blank say that would look nice with that kit a day to a week later i have a pen :P
 
I have to say... Good music and is the only thing other than shop time that I have found that really de-stresses me and gets the creativity flowing. And Ron hasn't been around in quite a while, but I have to say I can agree with his "muse" of music choice sometimes too (Phantom of the Opera).
 
All funny stuff aside, my most creative "stuff" comes while waiting for glue, or paint, or WHATEVER to dry.

My wife calls me the "Tim the Tool Man". I'll make a perfectly acceptable pen that people would buy.....then "tweak" it...all the way to the scrap pile. Drives her insane...I call it the learning curve.

Many of my "originals" go through 30-50 "prototypes".....See sentence #3, THEN DON'T!
 
The best and worst day of my pen turning career both happened in the same day!

I respect my wife's opinion. She tells major corporations what will sell and what won't sell, how to "place" them in the market...and the price point! I showed her what I think is important in a pen and the things to look for in a well made pen. She complimented my work...That was the BEST DAY!

Then, she brought out the calipers, a huge magnifying glass, AND A CLIPBOARD! They were graded as A,B,C work. She wouldn't let me "take back" the B and C work, JUST MARKED 'EM DOWN....This was also the WORST DAY of my pen making.

I hate having B & C work! She says it makes 'em unique and proves they are hand made. GEEZ!
 
Walk out to shop. Unlock and open door. put coffee cup on cup warmer, say hi to Spotted Kitty (Feral cat who lives in my shop) feed cat. Turn on Radio Rome or Rush, neither put on music. Boot up Netbook, go to IAP nothing new for sale check out or forums, not much going on Curtis has shut any thing down. Check Email, nothing. Look at all kits then look at all the blanks, nothing go back into house get more coffee sit on deck out side of shop and drink coffee and talk to dogs. Pet Louise and Charlie, 2 of spotted kitty's offspring who granddaughter tamed. Oh gee it's lunch time go in fix lunch watch noon new nothing good back out to shop decide to take AC out of window for the season, getting warm out better leave it. Look at kits and blanks no inspiration, 2:30 pm time for nap. 3:30pm back out to shop, still nothing happening check IAP, quiet day check sites nothing of interest, go bug LOML, get the look back out to shop. Time for dinner, and now time for Dog Park. Better go out to shop and feed the Cat and close things up. Come back inside check IAP, still quiet day read a few threads. 10 pm go out to shop pull out one of Toni's blanks find nice Sedona kit for it sit down and get started, yea! something accomplished today. If you don't know it I am retired and some days, no many are like that. Midnight go to bed. I must point that I am recovering from surgery a month ago so don't alway feel energetic.
 
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You missed the part where you glue your fingers to the blank, or melt the plastic baggie to your finger.

I did both today!
 
The glue is on my night stand next to the eye drops. See the thread about the pen turners wife to understand. With Toni's blanks you don't need glue. I glued my hand to work be once. Glued my fingers together to many time.
 
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I start in CAD and draw things to scale. I go off on a tangent, roughing out an idea, then copy that design and start another. I often go through about 20 iterations before ever cutting metal.
 
I sometimes start on a blank and after cutting a bunch of materiel just not like where it is going toss it in the small parts area then weeks later that idea will click and another batch gets cut and sometimes a blank or two gets made then it's off to find a way to change it. When I try to get an idea to use all of the small pieces it just never gels into a good idea.
 
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