Art Slam

Sharing one of my favorite spreads from my Book of She. As part of Dina Wakley’s Art Journaling 102 class, I am working on art journal pages that expand on the concept. Good times!

I am going to tell you how this page came together in three steps.

The image. I have been holding on to this image of the balancing lady for months, not quite knowing what I wanted to do with it.

The title. Last week, I found the words Canvas for Creativity and it went perfectly with the image.

The words. A few days later, I read a story where the author wrote about mindful living. This was just the message I wanted to go along with the title.

That is how this page came together in three steps. The message is clear. It is simple and to the point. That is why I love it. No fluff and completely authentic. Mindful. Exactly what I was going for.

My art journal concepts do not come as easily to me as they used to lately. One reason, I figure is  I don’t make art everyday like I used to. Making art was routine for me about a year ago. I came home after work, spent time with my little people, then I pulled out all of my crafty stuff and either busted out scrapbook pages or I worked in my art journal. It was my way of destressing.

This particular page sums up what I strive for daily. Remembering to breathe, stay balanced and honor my light. It is so easy to get distracted and forget to live authentically.  Hell, forget to live, period. We sweat the small stuff too much. We wait for things to be perfect before we give ourselves permission to just be. And, while we are doing all that waiting, life is doing its thing; living around us.

So, daily, I rise, pray and work towards balance and a more authentic me. I have no intention of waking up and wondering where my life went while I waited for the perfect moment to do whatever. There is no perfect time like the present to be in moment. This moment right now is all that really matters anyway.

So tell me, what you are doing to breathe, balance and honor your light?

I am not going to even lie.
It is so nice to have my art journaling mojo back. I have been working on lots of pages the past few months. Many of the pages are in various stages of development. I am seriously thinking about going back to creating a page everyday just to keep the creative juices flowing. I started a business plan that is actually an art journal using a book called The Creative Entrepreneur. It is great resource for right-brained business people.

This week, I signed up for an online art journaling class with Dina Wakley at Get it Scrapped. Dina has some of the most amazing art journals. Her Art Journaling 102 class starts February 24, so head over to Get it Scrapped and sign up. You will love her teaching style and the fun projects she has in store.

If you prefer getting your inspiration from magazines, Somerset has a new magazine in its growing line called Art Journaling. It is jam-packed with journals from a variety of creatives and is definitely worth checking out.

Visual Chronicles is a favorite in my collection of books. If you have wanted to start an art journal or play around with altered books, this book will get you started.

Sabrina Ward Harrison has a wonderful collection of books that make you want to make art all day and everyday. One of my favorites is Spilling Open.

Another excellent tool to take your art journaling to the edge is Randi Feuerhelm-Watts‘ creativity notebook and card set, Wide Open. I have two words for it…LOVE IT!

I hope you make some time this weekend to either start or revisit your art journal and that one of these resources inspires you to take your work to the next level.

Music is one of my favorite artistic expressions. I’ve been listening to some songs lately that sit very well with my soul. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Chrisette Michele – Best of Me Her voice is amazing.

Anthony David – Words I love this song, love the video, simply love it. And, it does not hurt he is singing this with India.Arie.

Kevin Sandbloom – Viva Los Angeles I saw him perform in Cincinnati and it was amazing. Deeply soulful.

Kate Bush – This Woman’s Work ( I love Maxwell’s version of this song, too.)

Maxwell – Get to Know Ya I love his music and his absence from the music scene is driving me crazy.

Wacom has done a great job of packaging the Bamboo Fun for scrapbookers and crafters looking to enhance their photographs, layouts and artwork. Now, I have talked about my adventures with the Bamboo Fun and had a great time getting back into digital scrapbooking with the other PenScrappers. I really do love the tablet and use it all the time with my photography.

The package they created, Bamboo Craft is jam packed with everything you need to get started with the tablet. In addition to the tablet and pen, you get the following in the kit for $129:

• A 26-session training DVD from Jane Conner-ziser and Software Cinema showing you how to use the pen with the software included in the box
• A 28-page instructional book called Scrappin’ With A Tablet by Amanda Dykan to help you jump right into digital scrapbooking and art projects
• A fun Digi-Scappin’ CD of complimentary embellishments
• Adobe® Photoshop® Elements (6.0 WIN/5.0 MAC), the perfect application for editing photos
• Corel® Painter™ Essentials 4.0 for designing you own artwork and embellishments
• Nik® Color Efex Pro™ for adding unique photo effects to your digital photos
• Free 1-year Subscription to Scrapbooking & Beyond Magazine
• Free 8″ x 8″ hard-cover, professionally-bound Photo Book from Shutterfly
• Free online store so that you can sell your artwork or creations with Café Press and $15 off you first purchase of $50 or more

That is one heck of a package with about $172 worth of extra value in the box . It can be frustrating getting a new tool and not having what you need to get the most out of it. If you have always wanted to try a Wacom tablet, then this is a great value and I am all about getting the most for my dollar.

India.Arie
This is her best album ever. Each song inspires me and makes me so happy. My favorites so far are Therapy, Pearls (originally by Sade…India’s version is beautiful), River Rise, Yellow…every single one. Seriously, get the CD now. Target has it on sale for less than $10. It is worth the full price.

Organic Wear Makeup
I am a sucker for amazing packaging and I really like theirs. Plus, anytime you can find makeup that does not break you out is a good thing.

Heart Hair Clips
These are so viciously cute.

Envirosax, Botanica Series
As much as I use these and tell people about them, you would think Envirosax would give me one of every bag they make. Guess I can dream.

Sherbert Colorblock Headphones
The colors flashed me back to the 80’s. I don’t know if that is good or a scary thing.

It seems the crayon lingerie at the Hotel Preston is causing quite a stir. I had a friend ask where in the world can you get a zillion pink crayons? That prompted me to do a little research. I went to THE crayon people, Crayola and discovered you can, in fact, purchase crayons of a certain color in bulk. This is good information to to have when I get the urge to cover my own lingerie in plum purple crayons.
You can also purchase from the following retailers:
Blick Art Materials
Holcombs Educational Materials
Nasco Arts & Crafts
Paper People
Art Supply Wholesale
I also found a few artists who use crayons in creative ways to make art:
• Herb Williams’ crayon sculptures
• Diem Chau creates intricate carvings from crayons
• Pete Goldlust, crayon carvings

I arrived home from Blissdom fired up and ready to go. There were two tracks, Apprentice and Maven. I decided to take the Maven tracks since I have been blogging for a while and I wanted to hear what seasoned bloggers had to say. To my surprise, a lot of the panelists had not been blogging any more than a year. I did appreciate that the tracks were organized and for the most part informative. The moderators did a great job of keeping the sessions moving and on time.

The sessions for the Maven track were:

• Content/Readership
• Social Media/Marketing
• Affiliate Marketing
• PR, Marketing & Ad Agencies/Networks
• Branding
• Book Deals

I enjoyed listening to Liz Strauss, Arianne Segerman, Megan Jordan and Allison Worthington during the Branding track. These ladies kept it real and that made their session one of the best. They gave good commonsense advice on how to improve your blog and enhance your voice.

It was great meeting new people and discovering new blogs to read as well as seeing old friends. What was interesting about this conference was everyone asked  you what your Twitter handle was and if they were not following you at the time, they were by that evening. Seems to me everyone had a great time. I know I did.