Lately I’ve been exploring patterns. I’ve been noticing patterns that repeat within a design, playing with combining different patterns to create an art piece, and also paying attention to patterns in behaviors.
Behaviorally, one pattern that shows up consistently for me is the tendency for creative time to drop to the bottom of the priority list when life gets busy. This is one pattern that I am working on changing, but the realization around that in relation to this weekly creative challenge is this: I want to prioritize this process AND not every week allows for the time I want to spend on it and to just “get something done” to fit it within the week undermines the overall intent of fueling creativity. So, I am shifting the pattern of this challenge a bit to give it more breathing space.
With that said, I have been artistically “at play” with patterns and textures. This particular challenge involved the use of frosting. 🙂
My son requested a Chess Board design for his 10th Birthday cake. I have come up with quite a few creative cake designs over the years, but I am NOT a cake decorator. I don’t know what I am doing – I just “wing it” and see what happens. One thing I haven’t been able to achieve in the past is getting the texture of the frosting really smooth on the surface of the cake. That was the challenge I took on: to create the chess board pattern on the cake by using a squeeze tube of frosting and getting the texture smooth.
Once the lines were drawn, the tricky part was filling in the black squares. The squeeze tube made squiggle lines but didn’t spread well within the small space.
The “creative aha” was dipping a spoon in hot water and using it to smooth out and “melt” the frosting into the space.
I am sure cake decorators have all kinds of tricks of the trade that make it easier, but for a “wing it and go” approach, I was pleased with the result.
And so was Jonathan. 🙂
The Creative Edge 
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