Creativity in Monsters

I’m fascinated by how people create. How they make things. Not just where they get their ideas from, but how they harvest the ideas and turn them into straw—and then gold.  Is it part of the human condition, this curiousity about how other people do what they do?

So it’s no surprise that I found Stefan Bucher’s Daily Monster videos entrancing.  It’s hard to stop watching, as he starts with an inkblot and sketches it into a monster, using timelapse video. I especially like the sounds his pen makes as he draws.  If you haven’t yet watched one of his monster videos, they’re worth checking out, either on Stefan’s website or on his Youtube channel.

When the monster is done, it’s a tough call: do you watch it again, or move on to a different day’s monster? Most artists and writers don’t share their creative process in this way; they keep it private. They might tell us about how they create things, but it’s a rare gift for an artist to show us.

I’m not the only one so entranced.  A whole community of people rallied around Stefan’s Daily Monster effort, writing stories for all the monsters, eagerly awaiting the next day’s monster.

Stefan has turned the online collaboration into a book titled 100 Days of Monsters, complete with monsters, over 200 stories about the monsters, a DVD with the Daily Monster videos, and even some open source ink blots you can use to create your own monsters. With a foreword by the effervescent Ze Frank. I haven’t gotten my hands on it yet, but I plan to for the holidays.