I’m teaching art journaling tonight to a group of ladies belonging to a Mastermind group.  It should be fun!  What a wonderful way to bond with your group and in the meantime create a meaningful, colourful journal of where you are headed in your life!  Creating a book that has been filled with your intentions in a graphic way has power.  It’s like creating a goals list, committing it to paper and then if you choose, reviewing it every day (best if you do it first thing in the morning) to help manifest your dreams.  When you do this you are activating the RAS – the reticular activating system in your brain makes you aware of information that is important to you.  Check out this quick video with Lou Tice as he explains the RAS. 

If you write down and illustrate your goals either by drawing, painting or collaging them and if you review them on a daily basis your RAS will notice opportunities that arise in the world which can help you manifest your dreams.  It’s sort of like seeing Volkswagens everywhere once you announce you want to buy a Volkswagen .  They were always there before but you simply never noticed them.

Not your Mother’s book club

Tomorrow night from 6 to 8 pm I’ll be at Black Bond Books in Semiahmoo Mall, White Rock, B.C. creating bookmarks with tweens and teens and teens-at-heart!  There will be prizes and snacks and best of all it’s free!  You can share your favourite books and get new recommendations from knowledgeable staff!  I’ll have my teen’s dream journals and some of my other journal pages available for the teens to look though. I hope to see you there!

The happiness continues!

Congratulations to Marney Makridakis – her book Creating Time became a #1 Bestseller yesterday afternoon in both Canada and the US!  Yay!  Callie Carling (Marney’s Partner Relations Coordinator) has creating a fun little video to celebrate the book becoming a bestseller!.

See you all tomorrow!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter!  I did!

Here is my grandson Sam enjoying a chocolate Easter Egg! He rarely gets chocolate or candy for that matter so having a chocolate egg was a real treat! 

Apart from creating a visual bio on a flipchart for an introduction at a Woman’s Networking event last Thursday i have not created ANY art…..yikes!  There was visiting to be done, yard work and errands to run.  Unfortunately art making fell by the wayside .  I tend to feel a bit cranky when I’ve gone for a few days without making art! 

I was inspired by the interactive e-book Art Journaling Exposed and Cloth Paper Scissors Pages – the digital version.  I love REAL books but my art library has grown so large that I’m thinking of buying more digital art books. I’ve really been enjoying these last two e-books and am feeling inspired to create some new pages and books!  I love the interactive part of Art Journaling Exposed – sometimes my ADD prevents me from understanding just the written word so it’s helpful to see a short video of the artist at work to “get” the technique that is being explained. 

My Friend Shannon nominated me for the Inspired Blogger Award over at Musings on Realities.  Thanks Shannon!  As you may know a while ago i was nominated for this award by my friend Wendy over at Late Start Studio.  While you’re you’re visiting Wendy check out her latest project – a lovely quilt.

Well that’s it for today – I’ve been looking through my e-books and searching online for inspiration and listening to Jim Rohn’s wisdom on Youtube to get my mojo going – it’s a little slow today.

See you tomorrow!  Hopefully I’ll be a bit more exciting!

This is what one of my art journal pages sometimes looks like before it’s assembled.  I place the various bits and pieces and the focal image onto a painted background to see if it fits. This is called “auditioning”.

I decided on this background which may have been a mistake since it’s kind of busy.  So far I’m not crazy about it but I’ll keep working on it until i like it. I’m thinking of making the background less busy by adding some gesso to it to tone it down.  I need to think of where i want the journaling to go.  Will i be writing directly on the page or adding strips of printed text or will i add a talk bubble with text? Worst case scenario i decide to ditch the entire thing in which case I’ll be salvaging the face and bee . 

I decided to design a thank you card this weekend.  You’ve probably seen this image before of the woman with the funky top hat?  Well i thought it would look quite nice on a thank you card so i had to doctor it up to fit a greeting card format.  To create a professional looking card i send the digital files to my printer (300 dpi) and they print them up on glossy card, cut the cards and score them for me.  If you’re printing more than a 100 cards that’s a lot of cutting and scoring.  You should have seen how long it took me to choose a font for the design – close to one hour.  I was paralysed because i had so many choices.  I’m not a graphic designer so don’t understand all of the nuisances – like if the font is too formal, too funky, too casual.  Does it reflect my brand or not? All i know is if i like it or not! 

The Creating Time Mega Event starts today – you can still sign up to receive lots of goodies!  Join me as we count down to the ending of time as we know it! I’m so excited about The Creating Time Mega Event…three FREE weeks of inspiration as people all over the world will come together and welcome the ending of time as we know it…and the beginning of an exhilarating new life!The Creating Time Mega Event celebrates of the release of the new book, Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life by ArtellaLand.com founder Marney K. Makridakis.

My friend Tina created this Visual Bio for me for my newish website Purplejuice. Isn’t it fun?  It documents most of my art life – didn’t have room to put in there when i was a stay at home Mom creating cartoons and arts and crafts.

As you can see i was pretty dramatic as a teen about having strict parents.  My European parents were not at all like the Canadian parents .  Of course at the time we didn’t know that my Dad suffered from a mental illness – that set the tone for the atmosphere at home. I found solace in art.  I’d often be found drawing in my bedroom – at times sketching pictures of myself behind bars.  Art was like the silent listener – always there for me when i needed it. My identity was wrapped up in art.  It soothed me……it made me happy when i was down.

I wish that i had known about art journaling back then.  I know that if i did things would have been easier that’s for sure.  That’s why i created the Teens Dream Journal DVD.  The Journal is a place to keep your hopes and dreams in as well as the things you are good at.  As a teen I needed quite a bit of guidance and this would have been the perfect thing for me – like a GPS for feeling good about yourself!  It would have helped me feel better about who i was and get in touch with the beauty and magic that was already there!  I had incredibly low self-esteem back then.

I guess in a way the Dream Journal creation was like reaching back into my past and giving the young lost teen that i was what she needed.  I guess the saying “Your mess is your message” can be true .  The mess of the past can be your message to the world. 

I love this quote by Mastin Kipp on The Daily Love:

Add value to other people’s lives and value will be added to your own. Being of service and taking the wounds of your life and turning them into lessons and sharing your experience with others will do more good to you and the planet than almost anything else.

I so agree with Mastin! Can you think of anyone you know of who has turned their mess into their message? I would love to hear about it!

Remember the angel page i created the other day?  Well i thought i would create a tab for the art journal page. I drew a tiny head (about 1 1/2” high) on a book page, coloured it in, cut it out and adhered it to a piece of cardstock.  I then cut out another piece of cardstock the same shape for the backside………

I then drew a small heart, coloured it and then clipped around the bottom of the heart and glued it to the back.  This formed a tab on the other side but using the same shape as the face tab. On the other side of the page i drew a big heart on a separate piece of cardstock which i adhered to the back of the angel.  The book page was pretty flimsy and needed backing. 

Here you can see some tabs i used in the Teens Dream Journal.

I sometimes use paint chips as tabs as you can see in the above art journal

You can also make a tab of sorts by having the face jutting off of the page making the edges of your journal book all the more interesting.

Check out this fun video by Jennibellie on Making an art journal by recycling greeting cards.

Bucket list idea

Virginia from Zebra corn.com said she liked the bucket list idea i had the other day and was going to transcribe her list (which used to be in a pocket in her art journal) onto pieces of card or wood and but them in a bucket or maybe a clear pocket sheet and hang it on the wall so she can be reminded of her wish list.

Today is the last day of Jennifer Lee’s Right Brainers business Video Summit – Jennifer Louden is the guest speaker – should be a great show.  If you aren’t able to watch it live you can get the replay later!  It’s happening in a few minutes.

I had so much fun with this hand journal page that i decided to trace my foot and create a “foot art journal page”. 

I think it might be fun to document the places i have been to on my foot or perhaps the places i would like to visit? The possibilities are endless aren’t they?

Ali commented on my post yesterday that she teaches art to teens with disabilities in Australia.  She had the teens trace their hands and then doodle inside them (similar to my hand).  Ali mentioned the teens were engaged for 135 minutes in that activity!  Isn’t that amazing?  Art as a healing tool as well as simply being a “Joyful” activity  will never cease to amaze me.  I’m making a list today of things i am grateful for – art is at the top of the list!

I can’t recall if i showed you the journal book i got back from the art journal swap i was part of a couple of years ago – it took FOREVER to get my journal back and so when it did arrive i was so happy!  I really love this journal spread i created. I loved the face so much that i used it in a number of different places – that’s called leveraging your art! The face was inspired by Madonna.

This was the original sketch…….

Here is another page i created by tracing the face onto a painted background. Do you see how different one image can appear by using it in varying ways and also using different mediums and backgrounds?  I could even print out a coloured face and then create a collaged woman a la Teesha Moore – that might be fun! 

Consider how many different ways you could use one image whether it is an image of a face, a bike or a frog .  Stretch yourself and have fun!

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend and partake in some creative activity!