I received my art journal pages i sent over a year ago to Stampington for possible inclusion in Art Journaling Magazine.  They were my very favourite pages and to be without them for over a year was like farming out my children to a distant land .  Ha!  Funnily enough my favourite pages were not selected for the magazines two page spread. 

Here are a few of the pages i had sent in – you may recognize some of them. 

This is the Magazine my pages appeared in. It was pretty exciting to be featured in the same magazine as one of my favourite Art Journalers of all time – Teesha Moore!

You may recall that i was visited by a woman from the Netherlands last summer – Karla and her husband Rolf who had been inspired by my work – you can read about the visit here. Karla was inspired by my small papier mache ladder which you can see in the above link.  Karla was participating in a year long workshop/creative/coaching program.  I believe that the final large project was to create something meaningful in 3-D – this is what Karla came up with!  Isn’t it incredibly amazing? She may donate this sculpture to a children’s school or hospital.

It really warms my heart to know that someone living so far away can be so positively affected by my work and then go on to create a unique piece of art that comes from their heart and soul.  The internet truly makes us all indelibly connected!

I’m off to teach a Junk Journal Workshop at the Surrey School Districts Pro D day. Should be a fun time!

Have a great weekend!

Love, Violette xo

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I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

You’re in for a real treat!  Today on my blog I’m featuring an excerpt of Eric Maisel’s lastest book Making your Creative Mark. Every once in a while i am sent a book which might be of interest to me.  This book definitely is of interest and is just what the doctor ordered ! 

At times I tend to be a bit airy fairy about wanting to make it as an artist.  The ideas and wishes are in my head and often do not see the light of day or I let the voices inside my head deter me from moving forward on some ideas.  In this book Eric explains what is going on and how to deal with these issues in practical easily digestible steps.  Who better to help the artist than the foremost creativity coach Eric Maisel?

I found myself wanting to become more organized and focused after reading Eric’s book. It helped ground me and heighten my resolve to live a life as an artist. This book isn’t just for visual artists – it’s for writers, singers, filmmakers, musicians, craftspeople and actors. Making your Creative Mark will definitely be my GO TO book when i feel like I am floundering and rudderless and need some direction. I hope you check it out as well!

This is Eric Maisel.  If you want to have a chance to win a creativity coaching session with Eric enter the giveaway on the New World Library blog.

I hope you enjoy this excerpt from his latest book!

CONFIDENT CREATING

By Eric Maisel

If you want to live a creative life and make your mark in some competitive art field like writing, film-making, the visual arts, or music, and if at the same time you want to live an emotionally healthy life full of love and satisfaction, you need an intimate understanding of certain key ideas and how they relate to the creative process.

One key idea is that you must act confidently whether or not you feel confident. You need to manifest confidence in every stage of the creative process if you want to get your creative work accomplished. Here’s what confidence looks like throughout the creative process.

Stage 1. Wishing

‘Wishing’ is a pre-contemplation stage where you haven’t really decided that you intend to create. You dabble at making art, you don’t find your efforts very satisfying, and you don’t feel that you go deep all that often. The confidence that you need to manifest during this stage of the process is the confidence that you are equal to the rigors of creating. If you don’t confidently accept the reality of process and the reality of difficulty you may never really get started.

Stage 2. Incubation/Contemplation

During this second stage of the process you need to be able to remain open to what wants to come rather than defensively settling on a first idea or an easy idea. The task is remaining open and not settling for something that relieves your anxiety and your discomfort. The confidence needed here is the confidence to stay open.

Stage 3. Choosing Your Next Subject

Choosing is a crucial part of the creative process. At some point you need the confidence to say, “I am ready to work on this.” You need the confidence to name a project clearly (even if that naming is “Now I go to the blank canvas without a pre-conceived idea and just start”), to commit to it, and to make sure that you aren’t leaking confidence even as you choose this project.

Stage 4. Starting Your Work

When you start a new creative work you start with certain ideas for the work, certain hopes and enthusiasms, certain doubts and fears – that is, you start with an array of thoughts and feelings, some positive and some negative. The confidence you need at that moment is the confidence that you can weather all those thoughts and feelings and the confidence to go into the unknown.

Stage 5. Working

Once you are actually working on your creative project, you enter into the long process of fits and starts, ups and downs, excellent moments and terrible moments – the gamut of human experiences that attach to real work. For this stage you need the confidence that you can deal with your own doubts and resistances and the confidence that you can handle whatever the work throws at you.

Stage 6. Completing

At some point you will be near completing the work. It is often hard to complete what we start because then we are obliged to appraise it, learn if it is good or bad, deal with the rigors of showing and selling, and so on. The confidence required during this stage is the confidence to weather the very ideas of appraisal, criticism, rejection, disappointment and everything else that we fear may be coming once we announce that the work is done.

Stage 7. Showing

A time comes when we are obliged to show our work. The confidence needed here is not only the confidence to weather the ideas of appraisal, criticism, and rejection but the confidence to weather the reality of appraisal, criticism, and rejection. Like so many other manifestations of confidence, the basic confidence here sounds like “Bring it on!” You are agreeing to let the world do its thing and announcing that you can survive any blows that the world delivers.

Stage 8. Selling

A confident seller can negotiate, think on her feet, make pitches and presentations, advocate for her work, explain why her work is wanted, and so on. You don’t have to be over-confident, exuberant, over the top – you simply need to get yourself to the place of being a calmly confident seller, someone who first makes a thing and then sells it in a business-like manner.

Stage 9: New Incubation and Contemplation

While you are showing and selling your completed works you are also incubating and contemplating new projects and starting the process all over again. The confidence required here is the confident belief that you have more good ideas in you. You want to confidently assert that you have plenty more to say and plenty more to do – even if you don’t know what that “something” is quite yet.

Stage 10: Simultaneous and Shifting States and Stages

I’ve made the creative process sound rather neat and linear and usually it is anything but. Often we are stalled on one thing, contemplating another thing, trying to sell a third thing, and so on. The confidence needed throughout the process is the quiet, confident belief that you can stay organized, successfully handle all of the thoughts and feelings going on inside of you, get your work done, and manage everything. This is a juggler’s confidence—it is you announcing, “You bet that I can keep all of these balls in the air!”

Manifest confidence throughout the creative process. Failing to manifest confidence at any stage will stall the process. It isn’t easy living the artist’s life: the work is taxing, the shadows of your personality interfere, and the art marketplace if fiercely competitive. If you learn some key ideas, for instance that you must act confidently whether or not you feel confident, you give yourself the best chance possible for a productive and rewarding life in the arts.

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Eric Maisel is the author of Making Your Creative Mark and twenty other creativity titles including Mastering Creative Anxiety, Brainstorm, Creativity for Life, and Coaching the Artist Within. America’s foremost creativity coach, he is widely known as a creativity expert who coaches individuals and trains creativity coaches through workshops and keynotes nationally and internationally. He has blogs on the Huffington Post and Psychology Today and writes a column for Professional Artist Magazine. Visit him online at http://www.ericmaisel.com.

Adapted from the new book Making Your Creative Mark ©2013 by Eric Maisel. Published with permission of New World Library http://www.newworldlibrary.com

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Hello again!  Happy Friday!

I mentioned on Wednesday’s blog that i was a nervous flyer.  Thankfully a couple of days before i was to fly out to California I attended a talk by Nicolette Eus who is a Hypnotherapist.  I loved the guided visualizations she took the audience through and I felt instantly relaxed and at ease. I knew that Nicolette’s mediations/guided visualizations would be the answer to my prayers.

Nicolette gave everyone in attendance a copy of her Pause CD which you can find here.  Her lovely voice and relaxing guided imagery helped me to remain calm through 2 flights – one of them on a propeller plane. Between the two flights the horrible tragedy of the Boston Bombing was unfolding and CNN was bombarding everyone with repetitive fear based visuals and warnings at the airport.  I tend to avoid watching the news as it really upsets me.

Needless to say this fuelled my fears even more.  Heightened security by TSA certainly made things worse as the travellers carryon baggage was examined before boarding our plane.  While all this was unfolding I listened to Nicolette’s soothing words on my i-touch.  She provided a safe cocoon during a time I might ordinarily be having a full blown anxiety attack.  Thank you Nicolette!

I snapped a pretty bad photo (sorry for the poor quality) of the kitchen wall i commandeered at my friend Sandy’s home.  I fleshed out our workshop on the wall! As you probably already know  I’m a very visual person and need to see things in a pretty artsy way to understand how things are coming together also I wanted Sandy to be able to grok what was inside my head . I don’t even have a wall this big or clear at the Magic Cottage that i could use to do this kind of work! 

We used Sandy’s pretty collection of washi tape to tape all the pieces onto the wall. It worked really well even over the bumpy wall.

Here’s a photo of Sandy and her husband Elmer.  Elmer is the most supportive, kindest husband i have ever met.  He’s Sandy’s biggest fan and helper.  I swear he’s an angel in human form .

On the last night i was in California I took Sandy, Elmer and Elmer’s cousin Judy out for dinner to their favourite Chinese restaurant.  We celebrated Elmer’s birthday with complimentary birthday banana bread.  Of course being gluten free i didn’t have any. The owner kindly gave me a fancy peeled orange (which i didn’t snap a photo of) nestled back inside it’s peel cup. What a treat!

Yours truly and Sandy in front of the lovely lake behind their complex in  beautiful Dublin California.

Here’s Sandy – she’s wearing one of my Top hatted girls pendant! Sandy is a talented Law of Attraction Coach as well as a Soul Collage Facilitator. You can find her at her website Attract a Great life.  She hosts 2 Soul Collage workshops in her home per month. Some of the ladies have been meeting there for 7 years creating transformative Soul Collage cards. They usually start off with a theme and go from there.  It sounds like a fun time!  I only wish that we would have had the time to create a few cards together!  That would have been awesome! I did however get to see Sandy’s huge Soul Collage collection – now THAT was a treat!

I hope you all have a super fun and creative weekend!

See you on Monday!

Love, Violette xo

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I was reading Pema Chodrun’s book When Things Fall Apart when i came upon a parable about Buddha that really spoke to me.  Buddha was sitting under a tree before he became enlightened when he was attacked by Mara (the evil demon – the personification of obstacles that prevent us from understanding our true nature).  The attack is seen as arrows and Buddha who remains unmoved turns the arrows into flowers.

I created this art journal page to illustrate the story.  To make a long story short my great hopes of flying off to San Francisco to create a workshop with my new friend did not manifest.  Even though we did flesh out the course and spent 4 days planning, brainstorming, mindmapping and setting up the shape of the online workshop we have decided not to proceed together. 

Issues such as big learning curves, time and energy required as well as a sizeable outlay of money caused my friend to back out.  When i look at all of the things involved i certainly understand her reticence to proceed.  Needless to say I was disappointed initially and quite bummed out. 

As usual I always believe there is a reason for everything.  I was reading Pema Chodrun’s book when the story of Buddha under the Bodhi tree hit me.  Even though this project didn’t work out I realized that I have all that I need, I know where i need to ask for help and that I should honour all of the talents and gifts that I have developed over time.  The arrows have become realizations (flowers).

I am a nervous flyer and had to take two planes to get to my destination – one was a propeller plane. Even though i was freaked right out i still went which tells me that I am very passionate about this project and should still find a way to manifest it.

My friend and her husband were super hosts – they knew i was vegetarian gluten free so they bought special foods to accommodate my health concerns – AND they bought wine too which is always appreciated! They were very gracious and accommodating – they had a virtual stranger sleeping in their living room for 5 days! 

Here I am working on the agenda/calendar for the 4 days we were creating and planning.

I tend to travel super light and don’t bring a lot of supplies with me so i was very grateful that my friend had an awesome supply of felt pens in every variety you can imagine!  It made planning so much fun.  How wonderful is this organizer?  It comes from a place called Organize More. It’s such a fabulous idea to store pens in this fashion.  I’m either going to order one (shipping to Canada would probably be pretty high) or get Mr. G to make me his own version of it.

Another fun treat were the wild turkeys which would come around close to dinner time making funny noises and fanning their tale feathers.  I enjoyed watching their antics! 

All in all it was a big learning experience.  I am still processing everything that has happened and am turning arrows into flowers!

How about you? Have you experienced any challenges or obstacles that you can turn into flowers?  I’ll bet you can!

Love, Violette xo

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I’ve been sick for the past few days but was happy to be coherent enough to be able to think and speak for this fun Video Interview with Martiel Beatty over at Things Crafty Link.

Video Interview  I am having problems embedding the video here so hope you click on the link to watch it – it’s over one hour long but kind of fun and chatty – you can watch it while having tea – pretend we are having tea together . I spoke about art journaling and how it saved me, my book Journal Bliss – and how i got the book deal and much much more!

I’ve created a “Violette TV” Pinterest Board that you might like to check out! I’m not sure if i should put all of my videos on there or just my favourites!

I’ll be briefly blogging on Friday – I know it’s Good Friday but some of you might be popping over here.  Guess what?  In a couple of days it will be the 4th anniversary of my book Journal Bliss being published – so I’ll be having a contest giveaway next week – stay tuned! 

Love, Violette xo

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I’ve been working in Photoshop for several years now and have never actually successfully “cut out” any image from the background.  Lately i wanted to create an ad for a networking newsletter so i pretty much had to learn how to do it if i wanted to create something i had envisioned.

Part of the problem is I have a minimal amount of patience and when using the lasso tool i would lose the path i was following and be back at square one.  I’d give up in frustration.  This time i had my friend Susan take a photo of me against a white wall which made it easier to cut myself out (the wall was NOT in the magic cottage – all of them are bright colours). The flipchart photo was taken in the backyard so it was pretty challenging cutting it out what with all of the trees and yard art . Then i had to superimpose my photo on top of the flipchart photo.  Next step was creating a background.  Since creating ad copy is not one of my fortes I’m having a friend who is good with words figure out what to say. Graphic Design is not one of my fortes either!

Here is one of the soul collage cards i created the other day.  It’s two images superimposed on one another. Even though both images repelled me i was strangely drawn to them so decided to listen to my intuition and work with them.  When i looked at the card (after some prompting from my friend Vivienne) I realized that i felt like I had crashed and burned regarding teaching art journaling live for 1 or 2 hour classes.  After schlepping all of the supplies, buying supplies, setting up, tearing down, making pages, planning etc. i was getting paid almost minimum wage!  Mr. G and I created an excell spreadsheet and i entered in all of the to do items, times involved etc.  It was sobering to see the figures there in black and white – it was depressing actually.

So I’ve decided to step away from teaching short classes which just are not worth it and regroup and rethink what i want to do.  When i look at this soul collage card i see a bird rising up from the ashes like the Phoenix.  So I’m hoping that I’ll emerge with a renewed sense of vigour and joy.  When i first looked at the tree with the flapping pieces of fabric I thought they were random pieces of fabric that flew there from a dump. Upon closer inspection i see that they are prayer flags flapping in the wind sending out prayers to the surrounding area!  How wonderful is that?

Right now I’m enjoying exploring different areas and following my intuition and see where it leads me! How about you?  Where is your intuition leading you?

Love, Violette xo

p.s. a small group of women turned up at the Art Journal jam yesterday but we had fun chatting and sketching.  Small groups usually translates into deeper conversations!

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