Jock’ s Tips on Being More Creative
Jock’ s Tips on Being More Creative
Driftwood clock
• Find a mentor( or many!)
• Don’ t be afraid to follow a pattern while you learn your craft
• When you’ re ready, challenge yourself to personalize the patterns you follow
• Find what inspires you
• Try different versions of the same project
• Keep an open mind
The idea of adding a personal touch carried over into other projects. Not totally creative, but tweaking is another technique in my“ take-an-extrastep” toolbox. My woodshop neighbour, Dennis Fisher, was known for mosaic mantel clocks. He used odds and ends of what most people would discard to puzzle together a mishmash of sizes, shapes, colours, and depths onto a semicircle of wood. At first, I felt I was copying his style, but eventually I found my own spin. Instead of wood scraps, I used small pieces of driftwood and pebbles collected along the Oregon coast to arrange my timely, functional artwork.
Often, nature offers an array of opportunities. My son-in-law Chad Deschamps of Revelstoke, British Columbia, takes excellent photos of the flora and fauna of the forest. His nature photos inspired me to play with a combination of vertical slabs of local live edge wood and 5 "× 7 " pieces of tin of varying colours with Chad’ s 4 "× 6 " otter photos. There will never be two identical combinations in photo displays like this.
Otter photo display
SUMMER 2026 | 31