My Pinterest Art Journal board. I call it “Art Journal Love”.  If you have not already discovered Pinterest – hop on over and check it out.  I think you’ll fall in love with it and the possibilities. Pinterest is a social  media site like twitter and facebook however it’s a virtual bulletin board which houses your favourite images on the net. My favourite board is my art journal board.  I go there for inspiration and sometimes to watch a few tutorials too that have been pinned.  If you are getting married or having a baby you can create a board just for those occasions to give you ideas for the event, furniture or clothing you love and more!  If you have a dream of buying a funky trailer one day well you could create a “trailer board”.  

I have a favourite’s list on my computer however i never use it – it’s grown so big and cumbersome that i don’t even know what’s on there.  Now i use Pinterest or Evernote to capture images or in evernote’s case to store articles and recipes that i like. 

I visited my grandson Cillian on Sunday and had such fun holding the sweet little guy – he’s almost 3 weeks old.  While holding him i saw the position of his wee hands and they looked so precious.  I asked my stepdad to quickly take a photo.  I plan on putting the image of Cillian’s hands in a collage – not exactly sure what I’ll do with them but something will come to me .

Gosh – there is so much inspiration all around us that we will NEVER run out of ideas for creative self-expression.

I won’t be blogging tomorrow as I’ll be co-facilitating a workshop with teens tomorrow morning.

See you on Thursday morning!

Do you remember I was talking about the sample book i was creating to leave with one of the Learning Centers for Teens?  Well here are a couple of pages i created for it. The above image is a stencil of a crow – next to it is a fantasy face.

This is a funk-i-fied image of me a la Teesha Moore.  You can definitely see the Teesha Moore influence here.  I thought the Teens would really enjoy creating an art journal page like this of themselves.

On Friday and Saturday i have a booth at the BC Art Teachers Conference – I’ll be selling my Teens Dream Journal DVD’s and my book Journal Bliss as well as some necklaces. I’ll also be presenting a short workshop on art journaling. My i-pad will really come in handy at my booth as I have the short intro video to the DVD workshop loaded up on there so i can show interested attendees what the DVD is all about. Since I don’t have a banner for my booth I am creating a simple display to get people’s attention as they pass by. I’ll show you what I’ve been up to tomorrow.

Did you get the chance to watch the video i spoke about on my blog yesterday and did you create your own Vision of your future Dreams?  I think there was quite a bit of interest there. Drawing your dreams is powerful stuff – it’s like you are drawing your desires closer to you as long as you infuse the drawing with colour and emotion.  This is basic Law of Attraction material.  For us Visual folks we GET THINGS much more easily if it’s delivered to us in a visual format.  Just like Dream boards that we post somewhere we can constantly see, posting your “Drawing your Dreams” illustration can help you manifest your Vision.

If you build it they will come – you just have to get out there and TAKE ACTION !

See you tomorrow!

Jenny and Kym at the Tamarind Tree restaurant in Seattle.  I met up with them in Seattle and had a lovely Vietnamese dinner.  As you can see Jenny was creating one of her fantastic doodles during dinner!

Here are some doodles Jenny made into postcards.  Aren’t they awesome?  She traded some of them at the PLAY retreat.

Jenny had bought a beautiful handmade book which she asked participants in the PLAY retreat and Jane Davenport’s class to draw in and leave a few words of wisdom. I was honoured to be asked to leave my mark in this gorgeous book!

At this point i wasn’t quite finished yet – i still added more words to the page and shaded behind the woman so she would stand out better.  I spent two hours drawing while visiting before and after dinner – it was so much fun!

Ordinarily when i got out for dinner with Mr. G we just eat and chat and are finished in one hour.  I think it’s fun to go out once in a while with your art friends and take the time to create while visiting!

Remember if you would like to order a Teens Dream Journal DVD for yourself or a special teen in your life I still have lots in stock! 

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend.  I plan on visiting my newest little grandson Cillian – should be fun!

Congratulations to Nici and DaisyJane!!!!!!  YAY!!!!!!  You have each won a copy of the Teens Dream Journal DVD!

I am moved and impressed by your stories and the advice you wish you had been given as a teen.  Do check the comments out if you have not already done so.  Thank you so much to all of you for having entered the contest! You can still grab a copy of the DVD here.

The Art with Heart Chill and Spill Intensive training was awesome – I was so impressed with the level of organization, the fabulous kits we received and how the presentation was handled – the organizers thought of everything.  Annie McCall– the therapist who facilitated the 1 1/2 day workshop was very thorough.  She was a great “model” teaching us a number of techniques, teach back opportunities and group discussions. I would highly recommend this training to anyone who is working with at risk youth and want to utilize the guided journal Chill and Spill. 

The above photo is of Steffanie Lorig the founder and director of Art with Heart. She’s demonstrating collaging techniques and fun painted backgrounds. I really enjoyed taking part in this hands on project – it was the messiest project we worked on and i loved it .  Most of them were pretty neat and tidy – we used pens and coloured felt pens in our books, some of the projects were writing exercises.

We had a variety of refreshments to enjoy throughout the training. 

If you are unable to attend a training but want to use the books that Art with Heart have created then you can order them online – i have all of them! They would be awesome for therapists, youth workers, school counsellors, community rec workers, hospital rec workers, hospice volunteers, workers at transition houses etc.

In the building where Art with Heart is located there hung a large triptych on the wall that was absolutely stunning – i was inspired by it and didn’t want to forget about it so snapped a quick photo.  You just never know how you might be influenced by a piece of art.  Notice the cut out piece of the bear’s face?  So cool!  

I was staying at a hotel right next to the Artfest Annex in a sketchy part of town so i did not venture out too much on my own in the evening however the first night my art friends Jenny and Kym met me and we went out for Vietnamese food and art journaling!  Hopefully I’ll be able to figure out how to download a few pics from my phone so i can show them to you tomorrow.  I spent over 2 hours creating a two page spread for Jenny before and after we ate – fun stuff!

This is my new grandbaby – Cillian!  He was born yesterday and weighed in at 8.5 pounds!  My daughter Jessica and baby Cillian are doing well – and so is Daddy Nis!  He’s staying at the hospital to help out. Welcome to the world Cillian!  We love you already!  I’m going to visit Cillian today – haven’t seen him yet – so excited! FYI Cillian is a Celtic name.  Jessica is half Celtic and half Spanish (from me).

Last night Mr. G took me out for a celebratory dinner and our waitress was sporting a tattoo on her arm that i just loved! “Life isn’t about finding yourself.  Life is about creating yourself.” – isn’t it so true? I know that Cillian will find this out as well as he grows daily into his personality.  Years ago i created an illustration that read “I love who you are and who you are becoming” – it reminds me of how we can create ourselves and our reality.  If we don’t like the reality we are living in we can always change it to a better one .

Chill and Spill workshop

I won’t be blogging again until Wednesday morning as I’m off to Seattle Washington to take a two day workshop at Art with Heart. I’m taking a workshop on reaching at risk youth called Chill and Spill intensive training. It’s based on “cognitive behavioural, narrative and art therapies”.  It’s funny but getting me to go anywhere, having me leave my precious magic cottage sanctuary is like pulling teeth.  My Mom asked me why I’m going as she knows i don’t like driving across the border or straying far from home. I told her because it’s good to stretch yourself and that this will be a good course to add to my toolkit . 

I’ve always had a deep love of art but also psychology and personal development so this is right up my alley.  I don’t like teaching techniques for techniques sakes – to me it’s about self-discovery, about stretching and growing and healing!

And speaking of Healing – no one has signed up for the FREE Art journaling for grieving Teens next week. If you know of anyone who might benefit from this class please click on the link.

There is still time to enter my contest to win one of two Teen Dream Journal DVDs.  Draw date is next wednesday.

Also if you would like to grab yourself a copy of the DVD which includes a video and a downloadable PDF file go here!

See you on Wednesday – have a fantabulous weekend – i know I will be!  I’ll be meeting up with my friends Jenny and Kym whom i met over a year ago at Journalfest! YAY!

I am thrilled with the comments you have been leaving for the Teens Dream Journal DVD giveaway! If you have not already done so please leave a comment on yesterday’s post  in order to be entered to win a prize!  The question i posed was:

 What do you wish you had known as a teen that would have made your life so much better?

In the above illustration I basically talk about the advice i would give to a 20 year younger me.  I think this is a good exercise for anyone to do.  We all possess an inner wisdom – imagine if you could conjure up that wisdom to help you through the “present” bumps we encounter? As usual i LOVE to draw – especially the “crones” so naturally i drew a funky character but you could easily use a photo of yourself that you doctor up or even use a magazine image that you enhance.  Just find an image of a person that is 20 years older than you and cut it out.  You could paste on some larger funky sunglasses, add a hat or anything you can imagine to personalize the portrait. Now tap into that wisdom and ask yourself a question about something that is troubling you now.  Get quiet and wait for the wisdom to come forth.

Where do you get your ideas and inspiration from?

Check out this incredibly COOL Wine Label from Bear Flag Wines! I actually looked like a cartoon character when i came upon this bottle of wine dust billowing out behind my skidding feet…….i was zipping along in the liquor store looking for a bottle of wine when i quickly stopped in my tracks when I spied this label.  I thought to myself –

 “What the heck is an art journal page doing on a bottle of wine?”

Naturally i HAD to buy the bottle (just for the label) even though it wasn’t the kind of white wine i drink and it was 3 dollars over my happy number for wine .  The red wine label was EVEN cooler than the white wine label however I’m not a big fan of red wine. Eduardo Bertone is the artist who designed the labels. His art is so amazing and versatile.  As you can see he’s used stencilling, textured backgrounds, sketching, splotching and lettering to create this amazing label.

I am often asked where my inspiration comes from – well pretty much everywhere if you open your eyes. Even a boring liquor store can inspire you.  Another place of inspiration are store windows – some of them are super duper creative and can inform your journal pages! Just think how you can incorporate some elements into your next art project.  The sky is indeed the limit!