Are Creative Prompts Actually Useful?

     Have you wondered if creative prompts are actually helpful or just a temporary entertainment? These past two weeks I participated in Jane Dunnewold's Creative Strength Training Summer Camp. It's an ongoing summer activity to promote her marvelous book, Creative Strength Training and her  Creative Strength Training Prompt Cards.
     For the first prompt, we were basically supposed to collect sticks and do something with them. I painted mine black and then dropped them onto a dyed cloth to see if I could get a nice arrangement of black lines. I did that because I often like to sew black lines onto my art quilts.

sticks thrown on cloth

While I like the zen-like feel of this arrangement, I may or may not ever use this particular design. But I can see that this method is a good one. I chose sticks with similar curves and I chose one that was much longer than the others and when I dropped them, I dropped them in groups. So the design isn't completely random. The other thing I noticed is the shadows produced by the sticks also contribute to the design. So if I'm looking to add prominent stitching lines to an artwork, this could work as a starting point for designing them. 

     The second prompt involved choosing a page from a book and highlighting at least eight words and writing a poem using those words. Right now, I'm liking the concept of life working in cycles and people's lives getting caught up in eddies of the rivers of life. So I got out my gigantic old dictionary and looked up the word "eddy". The words on that page that I used were: eddy, edge, fringe, golden, Eden, balance, mystical, and spiritual. (Some of those words were in the definition of Ecuador.) 

     After I wrote my poem, I pulled out a watercolor painting I did about a year ago that fit the poem and digitally put my poem on top. 

Eddy of Life

     And I think this method is a way to explore a concept more deeply. To help get more images for your artwork. Another way to mind map. So I will definitely do this again, too. 

     To answer the original question then... for me, the creative prompts can be incredibly useful in creating my art if I use them with my art in mind. (They are also entertaining.)

I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts so that the artists know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.