I’m not feeling very chatty today so I’ll leave you with some images of things, places and people i am loving these days!

I Love………

Visiting with grandson’s Sam and Cillian on Sunday. Cillian is one month old and Sam is 2! This is the cousins first meeting – Sam is not sure what to think!

Looking at the beautiful pages the teens are creating during our Teen Workshops!

Watching Teens happily engaged in creating!

A house i fell in love with in Sechelt – don’t you just love the old bicycle?

The Coast of B.C. – i took this picture while coming home on the ferry from the Sunshine Coast.

Well that’s it – apart from drawing – I’m loving drawing too as always! See you tomorrow!

The Teens Workshop went very well yesterday.  I think everyone had fun and the girls actually wanted to keep working on their books when we finally signalled everyone to clean up. That’s a good sign isn’t it?  I demonstrated on a flipchart how to draw faces and encouraged the girls to try their own but most of the girls were either intimidated or were not into it. Thankfully i had created a few other pages like the above pages which were perhaps less daunting to make. 

There are so many ways you can art journal that it’s not funny . The hands above are a photograph of my hands along with a hand painted border and some text.  I used a combination of computer generated text and magazine text for this page.  The cut out  hand is my hand traced onto cardstock and then backed onto a cracker box packaging.  I had fun doodling and drawing while watching TV!  I think the girls liked this page and enjoyed the fact that it wasn’t your basic rectangular page.

Amazing Art Journals

And speaking of art journals Ingrid Dijkers has some incredible Art Journals!  Oh my gosh – when i attended Journalfest over a year ago i was able to see one of Ingrid’s journals in person and it was quite a beautiful piece of work.  Rice Freeman Zachary interviews Ingrid on her podcast – why don’t you have a listen and be inspired?

And speaking of Rice Freeman Zachary – i absolutely ADORE her…….anyways i am excited to say that she is going to be teaching again after taking a 10 year long break – find out why here!

While you are over at Create Mixed Media you might want to check out the Desire to Inspire Force of Good Awards.

Pinterest

If you are still debating about using Pinterest – not sure if it will be good for your business etc. but want to know more you can check out this video – it’s pretty long but lets you know lots about how to navigate Pinterest. The video was created for Retailers and store owners however i think you might find some helpful ideas there if you are an artist as well.

In Celebration of March Craft Month!

In honour of Craft Month (did you know that March is Craft Month?) Create Mixed Media is giving away a free craft project every day – today you can get a tutorial by Michael Demeng!

Well that’s it for today – see you tomorrow! xo

This was my table at the convention – not too fancy but it was okay – i didn’t want to over fill the table.  I wanted to showcase the Teens Dream Journal DVD.

I taught a Dream Journaling class – a very quick one – 70 minutes which meant the participants had less than one hour to create collaged journal pages . The participants had fun getting messy though.

Here is Lois enjoying stencilling.

Aren’t these pages looking great?  The Stencil on the pink background is from Artistcellar.  The participants loved the artistcellar stencils.

We had one gentleman in the class – i later found out he was a photographer.  I wonder what he thought of art journaling.

I really love how this background turned out!  Unfortunately towards the end of the class everyone was hurrying up to complete their pages that i didn’t have time to take photos of the collaged people.  I had to quickly clean up to relieve the two students who were manning my booth for me.

The two day conference was not as well attended as it had been 2 years ago so there were only about 70 or 80 people – mostly art teachers.  I didn’t make enough money to cover the cost of my booth as i also donated two items.  But i did meet many lovely people and received some great feedback from a few teachers about what their teens like and don’t like.  A couple of women i met might come by the magic cottage for a visit and to pick up a copy or two of my Teens Dream Journal DVD.  I didn’t take MasterCard or debit cards so I’m sure that prevented a couple of sales from happening. I did pick up a few brochures from other vendors and may follow up on teaching opportunities as well as applying for a possible grant.  Nothing ventured nothing gained eh?

I think you can always learn something from every situation whether you deem it successful or not.

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!

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!