My favorite: left-brain crafts

 

I love doing goofy crafty things, and if I can rope some unsuspecting friend into doing it with me, I'm even happier.  This past weekend I plied my best bud Leanna (in photo) with wine and snacks if she would come over and draw and paint these cardinal pictures based on quilt square patterns with me. I call these quilt squares one of my "left-brained" crafts because they require a bit of thought but very little creativity.  You figure out how many squares wide by how many squares long the quilt square is, measure those out on whatever you are painting, divide the squares into triangles where appropriate based on the photo, and then paint them whatever colors you want.  All week long I analyze data and use computer code, math, and a little statistics, to turn that data into some information that someone wants.  I also love to be artsy fartsy, but after being very caught up in the analytical side of my brain all week, it's hard to switch gears and be truly creative.  Some weeks I just can't make the transition, and thus I try to come up with a left-brained craft. I've tried paint by number, but those are ultimately not that rewarding because there is zero creativity.  At least with the quilt squares, I have to figure out the pattern and draw them out.  So anyway, I did this cardinal, a leaf pattern, and another bird pattern this weekend. They all look like they might've been painted by a third grader, but I really love piddling around with this kind of thing, and Leanna said it was fun and relaxing