Art Slam

I could not deny being right brained if I tried, and to be completely honest with you I would not want to. Let’s take a moment and visit the characteristics of my right brainedness:

• Impatient with how, needs to know why. Ideally, I would love to know how I am going to reach a goal, but what I am learning to embrace is simply starting and not being concerned with how I am going to get there. Starting is the first step.
• Dives in, figures out by doing. My theme word for 2009 is boldness, and I have been diving into situations knowing the outcome will be good for me in the long run. It takes a certain amount of faith…no, it takes complete unwavering faith to trust that what you are getting into will have a good outcome. You can’t be a chicken if you want to see positive change in your life.
• Is fluid. Oh, yeah…I am constantly adjusting and changing direction. Going with the flow is what I call it.
• Is chaotic, unstructured. I am not fond of having a set schedule when I create. I prefer to do it when the mood strikes me. This is not always a good thing when I am on deadline for a project. So, I do plan and give myself ample time to create authentically and not in total chaos.
• Skips around, is a multi-tasker. I can multi-task like nobody’s business, but it can be exhausting. I have limited the amount of projects I work on to one really big one and two smaller ones. I am not allowed to accept any new ones until one of the three is complete. Also, if I am not passionate about a new project, I do not do it. It all goes back to being true to what I enjoy doing.
• Focuses on how something is said/feels. I am a big feeler (get your minds out of the gutter…just for this point). I respond best to pictures and words that evoke emotion in me. It was my motivation in starting Picture’s Story. A good image and a good story always evoke some kind of emotion. I like that.
• Imagines the big picture. Thinking about the big picture excites me. Any big picture. The anticipation of what is to come is what propels me forward and keeps me excited when things seem a little tough. You have to keep the big picture in mind and stay positive. Period.

Again…that peaceful tranquility theme pops up in yet another art journaling page. I pretty much figure my first mind is telling me to chill out, take a moment and just be. Not always easy for me, as I am used to being on the go and filling darn near every waking moment with something that just has to be done. As a result of that, I have noticed all that activity has taken a toll on my body. Fatigue, restlessness, teenage acne in my 30’s, weight gain, massive craving for sweets and so on. Well, I decided earlier this month it was time to listen to my intuition and release a few obligations and take better care of myself.

I see it like this. You can not do everything well, but you can do a few things really well. What are you doing to live the life you want? And, lurkers, leave a comment. I would love to get to know you better.

Related Posts:

• Honor Your Light
• Do Nothing
  
• On the Edge of Beginnings

Creativity usually starts with an idea, and for many of us, it ends there. If we are luck enough to even remember the idea, we don’t do anything with it after having it. I read a great quote today that said:
“Some of us (perfectionists, especially) fuss so much over making the ‘right’ choice, but in life, all that’s really needed is to make any’ good’ choice, believe in it, go through with it, and accept the consequences.” – author unknown
Ideas are similar to choices in that you have to take action for them to come to life. The suggestions below are a few things you can do to keep your ideas flowing and focus your creative juices.

Catch and Store Ideas
I cannot stress enough how important it is to capture an idea when it happens. I always have a notebook and pen with me just in case I see or hear something that interests me. I had not thought to use my cellphone to take pictures of interesting things I see, but this is another way of capturing ideas. For those gadget lovers, consider using your Flip camera to capture ideas, phrases and moments you can refer back to at a later date. The idea here is to catch the idea and store it.

What are you Passionate about?
I have been listening to a podcast called Camera Position and one of the episodes focused on finding your passion and letting your passion inspire you to make better pictures. What better way to focus your creativity than to name and pursue only the things you are most passionate about. I have not created an artist statement since college, but I am starting to do it for all of my photography projects and my art journal series. When you state why you are working on a project, it gives your creativity focus.

Be Active in Your Community
Being around like-minded people who share your interests and passion is great for keeping your creative energy  high. Community is what you make it.  Whether you start or join a group online, there is a tribe out there for you. Now go forth and find yours. Check out Flickr to get you started. I have two groups there that geared around my two loves, photography and art journaling.

Reconnect with Your Inner Child
Play. That’s right, just play. Remember how it was when you were a kid and you would make up rules as you go. Do the same thing when you create. Get a box of crayons, the biggest you can find and color outside the lines on purpose. Freeing your mind from what you think you are suppose to do will help you focus on what you need to do. You want to get focused, then give yourself time to play.
Focus on Doing instead of Thinking
I tend to feel short on ideas when I spend more time thinking about great ideas instead of acting on what appears to be a small idea. It goes back to the quote above; we get stuck on wanting to make the right choice instead of just making a choice and throwing ourselves into it 100%. You have to do the same thing with your creative fire. Don’t worry about whether the idea you picked is right, be more concerned about the process of acting on it. Focus on giving it life by doing. You can always change midstream, seriously, you can!

If you enjoyed this creativity post, check out the following:

• Shake things Up to Get Out of a Creative Rut
• Spark Your Creativity on Demand
• Lay the Foundation for Your Creative Life

When you find yourself stuck in a creative rut, the best thing you can do to get out of it is shake things up. I find myself in  ruts a lot lately. Seems in times of stress or constant activity, I end up blocked for weeks. Complaining about about being stuck does not help the situation and neither does giving up. If you want to regain your creative spark, learn how to recognize a rut when it is happening and start doing something to move past it. Here are a few things that have helped me move past my ruts and get back into a creative groove:

• Take an art class. Whether online or at your local art school, being in the presense of like-minded people will instantly lift your spirits and make you feel more creative. If you go in with an open mind and do not fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others, an art class is a great way to get your creative spark back.
• Find a few mentors. Reach out to people you admire and get their advice on moving past creative blocks. Having someone who is doing the kind of work you want to be doing is a valuable relationship. Mentors do not have to be someone in your specific field. I believe everyone is creative regardless of whether or not they are artistic. You can learn a lot from connecting with people from a variety of backgrounds. Knowing I am very right-brained, connecting with a very left-brained person has often given me a new perspective on projects I may be struggling with.
• Read everything you can get your hands on. I LOVE magazines and have made quite a few trips to the bookstore to thumb threw some of my favorites and a few new ones. I always end up with at least ten new ideas simply from looking through magazines. The best ideas always seem to come from magazines I regularly do not read.
• Get a new perspective. Go to a place you normally don’t go and soak in everything about environment. Again, an open mind is a great tool for this. When was the last time you went to the local farmers market? I know I have not been in a while, but when I do go, I always find something new to try out. If I really pay attention, I notice smells and sounds and people that end up being just the jolt my creativity needs.

Shake things up. Take a class, connect with someone new, read…a lot and get a new perspective. Any and all of these can help move you back into the creative space you want to be in.

I am off to the Blissdom conference tomorrow and I am looking forward to meeting some new people and learning a thing or two. It has been a while since I was last in Nashville. Seems the further South I go the more I start drawling my words. I hope to come back from the experience energized and full of new ideas for the Art Slam.

I finally added the art journaling prompts to the navigation up above. I have been meaning to pull the prompts out for those looking to start an art journal or seeking some inspiration. Make sure you read the Art Slam rules first. Especially number 3.

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How many times have you been on deadline for a project only to have your muses leave you high and dry? No new ideas, sparks of inspiration…NOTHING! Sometimes, it is not enough to look through your favorite magazines or visit your favorite blogs for ideas. You need something completely out of the box to get your ideas flowing.
Recently, I found myself in this situation. Desperately in need of some new or revamped ideas, I went to my art area and started painting backgrounds in my art journal. Mind you, there is nothing in the art journal, because I am blocked, but slapping paint on blank pages gave me the necessary spark I needed to generate a few ideas. That experience started me thinking about some other ways to jump start  creativity on demand.
Be an observer of people. I love watching and listening to people. The lunchtime crowd is my favorite. Especially when you catch them on a warm, sunny day. Watching what people wear and how they mix colors together can be rather inspiring and good for a few laughs. I have seen unusual combinations of patterns I would never normally pair together myself. Overheard snippets of conversations can be just the spark you need to start a new project. People watching is very effective if you learn to be a good observer. There is a wealth of creative inspiration just waiting to be found out.
Find inspiration outside of your discipline. While I find a lot of inspiration in the photography, scrapbooking and crafting world, I tend to find the best inspiration in other disciplines. I love food photography because it covers many of my interests. Studying how to light food helps me improve my portrait photography. Analyzing the simplistic styling of a food photo shoot has helped me design my scrapbook pages better. Looking at a fluffy, frosted cupcake inspires me to sew fluffy pin cushions shaped like cupcakes.
Exchange ideas with friends. I like to call this “friendly brainstorming”. The purpose of brainstorming is to generate a bunch of ideas. Why not do something like this with a few friends? Some of my photography buddies will have a brainstorming session at the end of the year to generate new ideas for promoting their businesses the next season. One person’s idea can be the catalyst for your next BIG thing. Remember, if you have an idea and your friend has an idea and you exchange them, you both now have two ideas. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
Kill the excuses. That’s right, knock them out. Excuses are a messed up way to avoid taking action. I have a few of my own I use from time to time…”I don’t have time.”, “I am too busy.”,  and my favorite, “I am feeling blocked.” All excuses that distract me from moving forward. Instead of settling on your excuses, do anything that nullifies the excuse. If you are feeling blocked, create anyways. Who says it has to be your best work? Sometimes, the best way out of a block is to work through it. If you are too busy, get organized or delegate to someone else.  If you don’t have time (this is a good one for those of us who say we want to work out…), get up earlier or stay up later to get it done.
Acknowledge your hunches. Hunches can lead to some pretty good ideas, but if you are not prepared to record them, you can lose them as fast as they come. Carry a notebook with you at all times and write your hunches down. Those hunches, that seem unimportant at the time, can lead to some amazing ideas.
I hope these ideas help you to jump start your creativity and to get it going when you need it the most. As long as we do not forget we are already creative,  creativity will come easily to us.

If you want to sustain your creative life, you have to lay down a firm foundation. You ever notice how easily you make excuses for why you can not be creative? You know the ones; you are too busy, you have to take care of the family, this is silly, you are not creative, blah, blah, blah… Well, dismiss them. Making time to feed your creative side is important. We all need a little time to play, relax and return to center. By using the following tips, you will be well on your way to establishing your creative life.

One of the first things you have to do is be in a creative frame of mind. You have to believe you are creative. Without this simple and critical step, you will not reach your full potential. Don’t wait for others to tell you how good you are, KNOW how good you are. One of our biggest problems is we compare ourselves to others. You are uniquely you and can not be like anyone else. Comparing yourself and your artistic skills to someone else’s is a waste of your time. So, start off by believing with everything in you that you are creative.

Secondly, make a commitment to create everyday. If making art is your chosen creative area, art does not have to mean a 30′ x 40′ canvas. Your art can be small, playing card sized, in fact. I have done a series of fabric postcards that were no larger than 4” x 6”. I would create all of my backgrounds one day and work on another layer as each day went by. By the end of a week’s time, I had a set of completed postcards ready to mail to my writing buddies. When I scrapbook, I do not always finish a page the same day I start. Again, I may select my images or do my journaling first, then pick the papers and elements I plan to use and by the third day, start assembling the page. I make time to be creative, even if it is only 15 mintues a day, it is still time I commit to growing as an artist.

Third, create an environment that nurtures your creativity. Dedicate a space, no matter how big or small, to be creative. My creativity spot is mobile most of the time. Since I work a lot with the computer, I have a favorite area on my living room couch next to a large window. I set the mood with some music, my journal and all of the materials I need to work with. If I am being more organic, like painting or working with paper, I have a dedicated area in the basement where most of my materials reside. It is not a big space and I have been known to grab what I need and work on the dining room table instead (hence all the paint and ink marks on the table). I am flexible about my environment, but where ever I am, I make it work for me.

Next, start a creativity file. You never know when you may need some inspiration. I have a morgue to store just about anything that inspires me. My morgue consist of quotes, pictures, color palettes, words, ephemera, blogs and so on. You can read more about starting a creativity morgue here. I read a lot, so I am always finding something new to add to my files.

Finally, surround yourself with like-minded people. If you are serious about building a creative life, one of the best things you can do to help sustain it is build a creative community around yourself. There is nothing like having a support system when you are in a creative slump or having an, “I completely suck at this!” moment. I have a variety of kindred spirits around me who give it to me straight and encourage me to follow my heart and my dreams. We share techniques, uplifting words and empower each other and ourselves with our friendship.

Having a creative life is a lot easier than it may seem. We are all born creative; sometimes we forget that, but we are. Taking the time to nurture and grow your creative life is one of the best things you can do for yourself. Give yourself permission to play, learn and grow. Give yourself permission to just be. I wish you much joy on your journey and wild, free ­spirited creativity on the way.

I received an email last week from Maria Hammon asking if I would be interested in doing an interview for the Rev It Up list. Hell yeah! I have been a huge admirer of Linda Woods and Karen Dinino’s books, Journal Revolution and Visual Chronicles . Anyone who loves art journaling as much as I do must be awesome.

She presented me with some thought provoking questions that made me think and I must say, it is my most authentic interview to date and that feels pretty good.

I am so excited to have Christina, owner of Lazar StudioWERX guest slammin’ for me this week. I had the honor of being a member of her design team and I must say it was one of the best experiences I have ever had. Christina also has a great online shop houses all kinds of goodies for hybrid scrapbookers and creatives.

You can see all the details of her project at the PaperWerxings blog…she has taken the Art Slam to a whole new level of cool! Thank you, Christina! I love this!!!

Hybrid Art Slam

Lu emailed me today, confirming my ’slam’, and one little word in her email jumped out at me and led me down my chosen art slam path… digital. now that was a word. a word that led from digital to digital paper projects, digital scrapping, hybrid scrapping and on and on. so, with that pivotal word in my mind, the plan was set… an art slam about hybrid paper arts projects. so let’s get to it!

step 1: picking your subject…

for me, that was the easy part. my hubs. i’ve been with my hubs for 14 years [married for 8 of those] and he is often the focus of my photography and my favorite person to journal about.

step 2: picking your colour palette…

this is usually a little harder for me because i’m a mixed media artist and i love colour. but… lately i’ve been drawn to [almost hypnotically!] to blues and browns, with bright shots of white and contrasting black. it’s my favorite yum-go-to palette.

so… rifling through my vast inventory of supplies – i’m a manufacturer of stamping and scrapping supplies after all lol! – i dug up some of my favorite paper, a few of my favorite newish stamps, a couple of great ink pads, some rubs and kicked-up the computer so i could add some digital goodness to my chosen patterned 12×12 paper. this is essentially what i pulled together:

step 3: pick and print a photo…

again. easy. picked a great photo of my hubs terry and printed it in black and white so the colour palette would stay crisp and clean. then i mounted the pic on chipboard, rounded off the corners and sanded the edges for a distress look.

step 4: pick and digitally alter pattern paper…

i decided to use our paperWERX organic collection paper called mud bay since it had light enough areas for digital printing to show up on it. it was also a new and still current favorite of mine. plus i love that it has ‘visual’ texture without the bulk of actual texture. wicked!

i cropped the 12×12 pattern paper to 8×10.5 so i could feed it through my laser printer, then i opened up photoshop on my computer and loaded a digiWERX ledgerbook digital sheet. i converted the ledger page to b/w, adjusted the ‘levels’ of the paper and resized the ledger page to a 8×10.5 digital layout base. then i added a piece of graphic stock for the title frame and finally set up the title using a bold, blocky font.

i placed my cropped 12×12 paper in the by-pass tray of my laser printer and printed the digital layout onto the patterned paper. so cool! i took a regular scrapbook paper and customized it simply by doing a few simple things in a graphics program like photoshop. many paper artists know this as hybrid paper arts or scrapbooking. i just call it like i see it, cool as heck!

step 5: start scrapping…

so first i adhered my mounted, distressed and oh-so-handsome pic of my hubs on the altered pattern paper. i covered up the butterfly in the paper because butterflies aren’t that manly. LOL! then i layered on a hambly screenprints journaling spot and journaled in my own handwriting, i used a black sharpie pen for the journaling. love those!

step 6: breaking out da rubbah!

next, i used two ink pads from the staz-on ink line in timber brown and jet black to stamp layered concentric circles around the edges of the layout. the cool thing about that was that it ‘inked’ the page edges without looking forced and contrived. love that. the randomness of the strong concentric circular stamps perfectly complimented the structured lines and rectangles of the printed pattern and photograph… cool beans man!

step 7: add the rubs…

suddenly as the stamping took over and i got all rubber happy, the layout started looking a little dark! dark stamping, b/w image, dark writing and journaling spot was all adding up to a heavy looking layout. not my plan… so as usual, flying by the seat of my pants, i hauled out the basic grey white rubs and started randomly applying them on the layout. i pretty much added the rubs whereever looked ‘right’ or was too dark. no master plan, just a quick ‘lets do this’ attitude. worked well IMHO =)

then, to spice up the rub-ons, i used a uniball signo white pen and added scribbles, fills and outlines to the basic grey rubs.

step 8: finishing up…

the final step in this fast and fun, add a ’subtitle’ to the layout. using my favorite, hard-to-find american crafts roosevelt jr. alphabet, i added the word ‘baby’. a small word, but one that fit the bill of this layout to a tee.

the final results of this layout are pretty dang cool in my humble opinion. the design of the layout is simple and clean. the graphics trendy, fresh and funky with a touch of tribal. the colour palette a favorite of mine, restrictive and simple – which means it works! it was a layout that took all of 30-45 minutes to complete and the results were quick. dirty. and lots of fun!

i hope that this piece shows you how you can combine what you already have, supply wise, and how you can ‘tweak’ your projects with digital hybrid media. hybrid paper arts are all about chucking everything in your arsenal of supplies, including the kitchen sink and your computer skills, at a project and seeing what sticks. there are no rules. nothing is wrong. as long as you like, or hopefully love it, it’s all good. use what you’ve got… or download digital media to make what you’ve got, better! now go forth and hybridize your projects.

There is nothing worse than being a creative who is stuck in a rut. You know what I am talking about, don’t you? You do the same kind of scrapbook page…use the same painting techniques…start your stories the same way…photograph the same ole nature shots…

Oh, the boredom of routine and status quo!

Well, I have been practicing a few things to shake up my creativity when I feel a rut coming on:

Walk This Way. When was the last time you took a walk around your neighborhood? When was the last time, you walked in the opposite direction? I have discovered interesting things when I change my path or walk somewhere I normally do not go. A change of scenery can be all you need to spark an idea.

Embrace The Opposite. Seriously, when was the last time you spent the entire day focusing on positive things and ignoring negatives? Give it a try, I mean a real genuine try. Focus on what you have instead of what you do not have. Eat a food you normally reject to see if you really might like it.

Change Your Scenery. Sometimes, the smallest change in your environment can inspire you. Change the pictures on your wall or at least switch them around. Paint one of the walls in your house a different color. Move furniture around. Get rid of things you no longer use or need. Change it up!

Flip the Script. Listen to music you would not normally listen to. Eat at a new restaurant. Wear that special outfit you would normally save for special times. Take a class to learn something new. Learn a new craft.

Embrace change! It is a surefire way to get yourself out of a rut. There is so much going on in the world and so much to explore. None of us should have a reason for being bored. So, find something new to do. No matter how simple, a small change can make a huge difference for your creativity.