I’ve been hearing about so many cool artsy things lately, you guys! I can’t wait to tell you about them:

First up: my friend, Scott Magie, is a talented filmmaker, and Friday I was able to go to the debut showing of his new documentary, “Creative Icons.” What a treat! The show (it’s the first in a five-part docuseries) lives at the inspiring intersection of creativity and faith. It features interviews with all kinds of creatives (writers, illustrators, choreographers, etc.) and explores how faith inspires their art. At its core, “Creative Icons” highlights God as Creator and points out that if we are made in His image, then aren’t we also made to create? I loved hearing artists’ thoughts on this topic, and of course celebrating Scott and his film, a piece of art in and of itself! Check out the trailer at the Creative Icons website.

The second super-cool thing I learned about recently is the art of ebru. This is the Turkish tradition of dropping paint into oily water, forming a picture, then transferring it onto paper. As if painting wasn’t hard enough, the Turks were like, “let’s paint on water and then MOVE the artwork onto paper!” It sounds impossible, but when it works, it works! Look at how beautiful this is:

You may want to watch this video too. I think it’s so therapeutic! Until you try it, I’m sure. These things are always harder than they look. (Artists everywhere are like, “duh.”)

With Christmas right around the corner (eeeeeek!) there is one more art form I recently learned about that I want to share with you. Furoshiki is a Japanese gift wrapping technique using cloth rather than paper. The wrapping can be as fancy or as basic as you want (or as you can manage if you’re me.) Afterward the cloth can be used to wrap another gift, made into a little tote, or (my favorite idea) whipped into a wine carrier. How cute are these gifts?

And, since I’m all about the video links today, here’s a link to a furoshiki tutorial. It looks like it works best with rectangular gifts, which this very bad wrapper always aims to buy anyway.

If you watch the “Creative Icons” trailer or attempt ebru or furoshiki please tell me your thoughts! I love hearing from you!!