I think it’s only fitting to follow up a post about performance reviews and self-evaluations with a post about slacking off, don’t you? All work and no play makes Colleen a very grumpy DBA, and no one wants that. So today I’m sharing with you some ways to stretch the right side of your brain. That’s the creative side of the brain that we sometimes forget to exercise as we get older.
Wordle
Wordle is a fun little online utility that lets you create word clouds from text that you supply or from existing web sites. I created the cloud here based on this blog. You can play with a variety of fonts, colors, and text arrangements. I think it’s just interesting to see key words from my blog boiled down into, well, art. Users can save their creations to an online gallery for others to enjoy.
Psykopaint
Ever wish you could paint, but feel you haven’t got the skills or talent? Psykopaint helps you “fill your artist soul with no skills”. Start by uploading a pic of your own, or choose from one of their stock photos, and go to town. There are several painting styles to choose from, like Van Gogh, Monet, Munch, etc, or you can mix and match. Psykopaint takes care of choosing the colors for you. If you register for a free account, you have even more options to choose from, like brushes, knives, and so on. As with Wordle, when you’re done you can save your creation to an online gallery. Psykopaint even gives you the option of ordering a print on a canvas. Makes a better gift than a Chia Pet.
FoldingStory
If writing is more your thing, FoldingStory is a fun way to pump up your creative muscles. It’s a group story-telling game where each participant gets to write one line of a story before passing it on to the next person. Oh, and you have 4 minutes to do it. If other writers like your line, they can give you points for it. Those points boost your personal ranking, but they also count in the overall story’s ranking. If you’ve ever suffered from writer’s block, this is a fun way to get the creative juices flowing again.
