Brain Doodles

Brain Doodles By Camille Lazarus  Creative Practice Blog #8       This week I went to visit my family at the beach for a much-needed break from Gainesville. Saturday morning I was able to see the most beautiful sunrise, which is what I decided to paint this week. I am continuing to work on my watercolor skills (with the addition of oil pastels). When deciding to switch to watercolor, I wanted to be able to paint beautiful sunsets and sunrises. My theme of growth is connected to my work in multiple different ways. Firstly, I have been painting various nature scenes that depict growth in nature in the literal sense. But also I am exploring my theme of growth personally. I am taking these creative practices as time for myself to grow as an artist and improve my skills, but also grow as a person. I have learned a lot about myself through this creative practice.     I have really enjoyed picking up drawing and painting. Each week, this practice gives me somethin...

  Brain Doodles By Camille Lazarus  Creative Practice Blog #7      Now entering the second half of the semester, I decided to stick with my same theme of growth (reflected in nature) but decided to change my medium. Instead of doing colored pencil drawing, I am incorporating watercolor painting into my creative practice. Today, I decided to start my journey with watercolor painting. Something I really want to work towards is painting beautiful sunset and water scenes, which I believe are most beautifully done through watercolor. Though I still want to explore colored pencils, I can still practice my drawing skills by sketching with oil pastels, which is what I did for this creative practice. I wanted to start off simple with a simple sunflower painting to get the feel of exploring different scenes with watercolor painting. In connection to my theme of growth, flowers are another beautiful picture of growth within nature. I have always been drawn to flowers, I lo...

  Brain Doodles By Camille Lazarus  Creative Practice Blog #6          This week for my creative practice I drew a sunrise lake scene. The lake is another one of my happy places, I have so many amazing memories of being out on the lake with my friends and family. Watching the sunrise and sunset is one form of self-care. There is something about being alone and watching the sun rise or set with all the beautiful colors accompanying the sun in the sky, it gives me time to reflect and be grateful for all of the good that there is.       I will say I did struggle this week to engage in my practice. In the last few weeks I have been able to really get into a nice flow of drawing, but this week every time I returned to my notebook to draw I felt anxious. I think this is a result of the building stress I currently am dealing with in my own life. But finally, once I sat down to finish coloring the sky, I was able to get into a nice flow of ...

  Brain Doodles By Camille Lazarus  Creative Practice Blog #5     This week was the same as the previous weeks, I continued to engage in my creative practice of colored pencil drawing. I have been exploring the topic of growth through the various nature scenes that I have created. Throughout my time spent coming up with ideas for the nature scenes, I have been envisioning places that mean a lot to me that are already existing and those that have fond memories associated with them. this week through my creative process in developing the scene, I was thinking of the future. A little log cabin surrounded by trees. A place where, maybe one day in the future, my family could be making memories too.      I have discussed a lot previously how I was very nervous coming into the creative art practices. I never saw myself as an artist, let alone did I think I would seek comfort when I was feeling down or stressed but that is slowly starting to change for me. I a...

  Brain Doodles By Camille Lazarus  Creative Practice Blog #4                 Let me paint this scene for you all, this beautiful palm tree, beach scene is a little slice of heaven at Indian Harbor Beach. Today I engaged in my creative practice from the beach! I sat on the beach with my sketch pad and had a peaceful moment to myself. I woke up early to take a walk on the beach and at the end, I sat and engaged in my creative practice. But before that, I sat and turned my phone on silent and just took in nature. As I took in the sea air, I watched the waves crashing on the shore and the birds flying above and it made me really reflect on how lucky I am. I have found that e ngaging in my creative practice really causes me to become reflective of my life. It allows me to take much-needed brain breaks as well. I have found that when I get into a nice groove of shading and coloring, I can really disconnect and focus on the scene I am try...

  Brain Doodles By Camille Lazarus  Creative Practice Blog #3      This week I approached my creative practice differently. For the past two weeks, I stuck to the guidelines I gave myself initially for drawing, which was thirty minutes of undisrupted time. This week I decided to sit out with my roommates in my living room and engage in my practice since I was feeling a little isolated. As we sat around talking and listening to music, it made me grateful for how far I have grown. In my first year in college, I struggled to find those close relationships that I had from home, and now, in my junior year, sitting reflecting on college this far I am so lucky to have found those people. In relation to my theme of growth, I was thinking of other places in my life where I have grown a lot. Franklin, North Carolina is one of those places. My family has had a house here for over 70 years, a little cottage up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. My grandma grew up spending her sum...