What creative outlets do you have other than writing?

I enjoy small-scale sculpting (ornaments and such), when I can get out to my workshed, which isn't nearly as often as I'd like. I also do some doodling and sketching - used to do more, but I've drifted away for a while, for lack of focus. I've enjoyed scratchboard and pen and ink the past, used to do a little painting with acrylics (keep wanting to like watercolor, but it fights me), and keep meaning to try pyrography and illuminated letters. One Of These Days...

I like to make things out of silver and gemstones. I do some standard beaded jewelry and other misc. trinkets, but my favorite thing is to use metal clay. I make earrings, pendants, bookmarks using metal clay and gemstones. I also make wine accessories- beaded wine charms and wine stoppers.

I've got more hobbies than I have time, but they aren't all necessarily creative.

Byeka said:

Wow, those are both really unique and interesting hobbies. Do you just craft them for fun, sell them on esty?

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The ornaments are mostly for family at holidays, and the occasional friend. I have a couple yard art creations I've been trying to finish for a couple years (yes, years - I'm hung up on paint color on one, and keep being unable to get out to finish the second.) Apoxie these days, a two-part epoxy sculpting medium. I've also used Paperclay and variants (LeDoll, etc.), but I've come to prefer the Apoxie. (Just don't bother with the fancy "metallic" colors - paid extra for the "bronze," and just looked like brown. I can paint brown.) I've also used polymer, which was nice because I didn't have a time limit, but I don't have a place to bake it that isn't our food oven, and I just plain don't trust the chemicals enough to use that. (I know it's supposed to be safe, but still... Talked to a woman from New Zealand a while ago, the creator of Pal Tiya - nice stuff, once you get used to it - who mentioned how many of the career sculptors for Weta and other places often had their work catch up with them from the many chemicals and other nasties they worked around, often without masks or gloves. She was big on wearing gloves, even with "safe" materials, for that reason.)

Many years ago, I did little canvas drums with painted drumheads that I sold through a local shop - mostly stopped because I don't have a band saw to cut the cardboard tubes I used for the rounds, which meant I had to rely on an increasingly unreliable sibling who... has not exactly maintained her shop or tools, let's say. Sorta killed that... Tried a variant with a hoop, but my momentum was broken, then the shop deal kinda went sour before I got a prototype that worked right (very long story about the shop)... never got back to it. Probably should one of these days - could use a little extra cash, and once I got production down they went fairly fast, for being such small areas painted.

Byeka said:

Wow, those are both really unique and interesting hobbies. Do you just craft them for fun, sell them on esty?

I can imagine making things out of silver and gemstones can be a pit pricey to do.

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I started crafting for fun. Then I had too many items to keep so I started selling them locally to friends and family. I donated tons of earrings last year, and I started selling on Etsy last year, also.

I enjoy music - I sing in a choir, write features for the Recorded A Cappella Review board, judge in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. My husband is working on building a home studio and then we plan to start recording original music for fun. Since we are old and married with kids and dreams of rockstardom are long past. ;-)

Snowboarding. That obviously only fills part of the year . I also am a programmer. It was a full-time job for decades, and now it's a hobby.

I cook, & I do this several times a week - most of that is craft but I have a number of dishes & sweets that I made up for myself. Also, I make music, I design & make clothes (sewing & knitting). On occasion I draw.

I have a few, but the two where I can really let my creative juices run free are cartooning and making balloon animals.

I make birthday and Christmas cards, some from kits and others using "digi-stamps" that you download, colour in and make into cards. I have lots of DVD's full of designs to run off the printer and stick together, but where's the time?

Baking. I picked it up several years back now and it turns out I have a bit of a knack for it. Mostly I just make things to bring in to work, so a lot of cookies, biscotti, etc. I've changed/adjusted a few recipes enough that I call them originals, and I've got a few 'specialties' I'd like to work on when the weather turns. It's just too hot to bake a lot in summer.

Interior designing. It was something I did in my college days for a church, and I fell in love with it.

Wow, I love reading about everyone's hobbies! You guys are amazing.

This question got me thinking, because I'm super crafty, but I don't feel like most of them are "creative outlets," strictly speaking. Currently I paint watercolors, make wire/bead/wood jewelry, bake, spin on a drop spindle, and I'm into animal photography... but I don't feel like any of those tap into sort of the same creative urges that writing does. The only thing besides writing that really feels like it feeds that part of my brain is my woodworking. I scrollsaw pretty intricate designs out of hardwood, which I just love. I get to take something from idea to design to rough-cut wood to finished wall-art. Some of the designs are just pretty, but some feel like Art with a capital A.

Drawing. I quite enjoy painting acrylic too, but it's not something I do regularly. Also I like dancing.

Basketball isn't an obvious creative outlet, but as sports go, I find it's provides a lot of room for invention. It's the one thing I do all week that, for about an hour, makes me forget everything else in my life.

A creative bunch indeed! I love to paint, it relaxes me a whole lot. Plus NYC has these "Paint Night" events where a group of strangers get together, have wine and dinner and just PAINT. It's a lot of fun and a great way to meet people. Musically, for relaxation and meditation I play the flute. I like to do it outside, and honestly, sometimes the place is so silent I feel as if the world is hearing me play. The Earth itself. It is very calming.

Aside from writing, my hobbies include:

1. Reading. I don't own a TV, and I read every day. Obsessively.

2. Running.

3. I would never, ever, EVER admit this in "real life", but I spend a lot of time both researching/buying cosmetics, and practicing my makeup application techniques. It takes a LOT of time and practice and strategic skill to achieve the "natural look" that prompts people to say things like, "You're so lucky that you look like that without needing makeup." Hahahahahaha! If they only knew about my massive collection, and just how much time I spend applying my "subtle" enhancements. Straight men NEVER think I wear makeup at all. I love makeup and perfume; I love the unique poetry of perfume profile descriptions on the perfume fanatic forums (I suppose the amount of time I spend on those forums constitutes another interest).

3. Horses. I ride frequently, and the smell of horse is one of the most beautiful things in the world.

4. Travel. I take myself to a different European capital one weekend per month.

I draw! Not always very well, mind you, but I love drawing my characters so that I can get a better visualization of them. I also really like doing charcoal landscapes.

I'm not sure if some would consider it a creative outlet, but gardening is also very peaceful and healing for me, especially planting flowers. I love making color patterns.

Oh, oh, oh and MAKEUP! I am such a makeup junkie. It's both an art form and a kind of self care for me. I am an eyeshadow and lip product junkie. If it weren't for this writing thing, I think in another life my dream would be to be a beauty blogger.

I have a laundry list of things I do, which makes living in a not-especially-big place really hard, because I am always doing some combination of them... but I can lay off on them for years at a time as well. So, my obsessive hobbies besides writing is:

• Pottery and other forms of sculpture
• Photography
• Music (I play guitar and bass and piano at varying degrees of proficiency and write music)
• Watercolor and ink and colored pencil

Plus, there's the whole biking-everywhere-instead-of-driving thing and the whole cooking thing.

It's both fun and frustrating.

For example, I'm pretty good at photography, not to the point where I could do it as a dayjob, but I still to a pretty good place. My drawing skills are OK, but because of the photography thing, I'm never feeling like my drawing skills are 'real' enough to make a graphic novel without getting frustrated about it.

On the other hand, photography helps my writing, because I'm working with models and so I get to see a person's view of themselves for an hour or three and so that comes out in my writings.

I do code for fun, but given that I code for work, it doesn't really have the feel of a creative outlet.

paint nite

I drink wine and paint mediocre landscapes

Music - lots.
I collect and play world-music instruments, which has (alas) become a bit of an addiction.
Recently I met somebody who makes flutes from bones. They are fantastic! She has a jawbone which she is going to make a flute from...

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