Kaleidoscope Creativity: Guest Post by Artist Dave Weiss

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As a person who has felt a genuine call to help people to regain their God-given creativity, few things have excited me as much as the Adult Coloring phenomenon. For years, most adults relegated creativity to children and to those select few were deemed gifted. The rest of us were told to try something “more realistic” and we fell for it.

Well no more! Creativity is for all of us. As children of the ultimate creator, created in His image you might even say we were created to create. It is absolutely true. Think about it: Every time you figure out a way to survive when you run out of money before you run out of month, you get creative. Every time you fix something with duct tape, chewing gum, rubber bands, every time you use anything for a purpose other than the one for which it was created, you were creative.

Then, of course, there is the other side of creativity.

The one where you imagine an argument and wind up getting angry or every time you succumb to fear over something that may or may not happen. It’s misused creativity, but it’s creativity. Yes, friend, your creativity, your imagination is alive, but it may have been corrupted. It’s time we take it back and adult coloring is a great first step.

It’s entry level. The lines are provided. It’s less intimidating and yet it opens doors of creativity that for many of us have been sealed shut. I love that. I love anything that gets us creating again.

Kaleidoscope creativity is for Everyone.

I personally have illustrated and published four of these books so far. I call my books Kaleidoscopics and Kaleidoscopic Creatures. The title comes from the way I create the art. A lot of adult coloring books use a design style called Mandalas. A lot of people want to trace this style back to its roots in Eastern religion. I didn’t want to go there. My work is totally disassociated from that realm of spirituality. Rather I imagine what my work would look like viewed through a kaleidoscope.

The results of kaleidoscope creativity are breathtaking.

I say this not to boast about my own work but because even I as that artist am never quite sure what the final piece will look like. You see I don’t render the whole piece. I create an eighth of the final image and then manipulate it digitally to get the final result. I love this way of working because it holds a great deal of mystery for me. Kaleidoscopic Creatures are done similarly, but they combine my love of working kaleidoscopically with my love of drawing creatures.

This is some of the most fun I have had as an artist and I love the fact that the work is also a collaboration with the end user who will add the colors and bring it to life. Few things thrill me like when someone takes the time to not only color my work, but share it with me.
My four books are but a small section of the over 60 thousand adult coloring books found on Amazon alone. The market is really glutted and I hardly even care.

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At the end of the day, it comes down to this: People are catching the creative bug and getting started. Dear reader, you need to know, you are creative, and this world needs you to embrace your creativity and put it out there for the world to see. The people who love what you do are your audience. Create to make their day and you might just change the world.

I’d like to close with a quote from author Hugh MacLeod.

In his book, Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity “Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the ‘creative bug’ is just a wee voice telling you, ‘I’d like my crayons back, please.”

It’s time to demand your crayons back!

Check out Dave Weiss’s Entire Book List

Check out Dave Weiss’s website