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Do you do DIY projects?
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Message
Posted
I don't - because I am exceedingly bad at it; there are good physical reasons why I can't apply wallpaper, or do much involving either reaching upwards or crouching down: though I'm sure I'd be lousy at any such activity anyway. Woodwork, frame-making - all beyond me. I can repair books, if they're not too far gone, if that counts. Even so, I doubt that you're the only one for whom DIY led to an interest in painting - I certainly WOULD do it, if I could. Unfortunately, I'm confident that disaster would ensue - I can't even cut a mount without skinning, slicing, or severing my fingers.... they tell me that as painting is a physical activity, involving certain mechanical skills, I SHOULD be able to do this sort of thing. But I was the despair of the woodwork and metalwork classes - my father and grandfather were pretty good at it, but that's a gene they failed to pass on to me.
Posted
For me, the problem is the DIY concept and definition. When I make a full meal recipe, from the peeling potatoes, to the last sprinkle with parsley, without using a ready-made meal, am I doing DIY?
And when I buy a chair kit on IKEA (Sorry for publicity) and mount it at home, doing just an assembly work, am I doing DIY?
I believe that DIY concept doesn't apply to Arts, but only to Technical Work, home works, like Carpentry, Mechanics, Electronics, etc.
If you're talking about Models, yes, Model Making (Dioramas) is a form of Art and will never be a DIY thing.
As far as I see, this whole site is about Paintings, not photos, not sculptures, not any other form of Art. In another way of looking at the question, painting is a DIY for itself, because you Do It Yourself when you mix paint and brush the canvas with it.
Are you talking about crafts? Craft is another form of Art, very appreciated, but that's not DIY. If this is a Painter's site, for Paintings, maybe you were not so clear, and you're talking about painting walls and fences. That's an art, I know... but not in its real sense!
Posted
Nah...DIY is not an art form . It's not original creativity. I know someone who bakes cakes and stuff very beautifully but she follows a recipe, the recipe was created by someone else. Sculpting is certainly an art form .creativity is original thought and the doing of.
If you are really good at it ,it is put into a skip....yay.
Posted
Does it lead you in was the question - in my case no, but I certainly think that my playing as a child was formative in my later artistic efforts: whether using toy bricks to build houses, or my sandpit to make a castle: that's not DIY, but it does employ and stimulate the imagination. So I CAN see that it might, even if making a tent-peg in First Year woodwork (just the one: what the hell were we supposed to do with that? Didn't even have a tent..) did not inspire me ever to approach a chisel and vice again, still less to reach for a paint-brush. Anything that gets your creative mind working, though, could be said to stimulate further creativity down the road - just with less practical use, assuming your woodwork was ever practically useful, which mine never was: my scissor-rack, for example, was met with "we keep our scissors in the drawer, and I don't really want that screwed to the wall"; thanks for the encouragement, mum...
Edited
by Robert Jones, NAPA
Posted
I was rewiring plugs before I was 10, I was fascinated with taking things apart to see if I could put them back together. Mum and Dad had to move all electrical equipment out of my reach because I would have the screw drivers out. They were frightened I would electrocute myself but I always knew how to fix the wiring back.
Posted
Denise, my son has always been “ what if? “ or “ how does that work.” - even now, aged 50. I have to keep my eyes peeled or never mention when something isn’t working….I always remember when he cut my washing line down ( full of clean clothes) to see what would happen and how sharp the scissors were.