The other day i walked down to the library for some exercise and also so i could be alone amongst the books – i feel such a connection to books – they are like tiny friends i have never met until i open them up and begin a relationship. When i was at the library i noticed that they had Quilting arts TV DVD’s you could borrow. Well i was really thrilled since i am not a quilter and didn’t really want to buy the dvd’s but was thrilled that i could borrow them to check out. I’ve been having fun just watching the different techniques. Now i’m thinking of buying a new sewing machine since my 32 year old number doesn’t have the ability to do any free motion stitching. I think that would add a nice element to my pages and fabric journals i plan on creating. I’m not looking for a fancy dancey kind of sewing machine – just a basic one where i can sew some pages and small pieces of fabric.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a good sewing machine?

Right now i’m reading two books: Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky and also Linchpin by Seth Godin. Both are really good books. The premise for Making ideads happen is that ideas are useless/worthless if you don’t make them happen. How many brilliant and thrilling creative ideas have you had that have had an untimely death? I know i’ve had many, hopefully this book will help me develop healthy strategies to make the ideas REAL. Linchpin is Seth Godin’s latest brainchild – i’m enjoying it too!

Happy Labour day weekend to my Canadian and American friends – and a regular “have a creative weekend” to all of my friends out in cyberworld.

love, violette xo

A couple of days ago there was a loud rap at the door. When i opened the door (still in my jammies) there stood a man asking me how much i wanted for my van. Mr. G had put a “for sale sign” on my glittergirl van. This fellow was a scrap car removal guy – he was obviously looking for a good deal. He told me that no one would want to have a painted van sitting in their driveway except for me and that since i had painted my vehicle that it was now worth very little. Of course i felt pretty bad and countered with all of the adventures Glittergirl had been on and that she had appeared on TV a few times and that i in fact loved her. So he argued with me that i could not possibly love her since glittergirl is an inanimate vehicle that could not love me back. He cited Scott Peck in his book The Road less travelled where Peck spoke about this concept. I asked him if he was a philosopher and that perhaps he should dub himself “the philosopher scrap car removal guy” with the subtitle: philosophy for free. And then of course i heard a bit more about his life story….still while standing at the door in my jammies.

The scrap car removal guy waved his arm unceremoniously at the magic cottage and asked “what the heck is this all about anyways?”. So i said that i was an artist and painted everything. He asked me what i did and i told him. Then he asked me “who says you’re an artist?” I told him that i did and then he went on to say that it was subjective and that someone might come along and say i wasn’t an artist. This bizarre interchange lasted about 20 minutes leaving me very deflated at the end of it. It ended off with me dispensing a bit of dating advice (he asked for it).

To make a long story short the fellow wanted my van for about 100 dollars so that he could cannibalize it for parts….which of course drove me nuts – Cannibalize glittergirl??? Glittergirl needs a new battery in order to run along with a new windshield (there is a crack in it). She does still run though. So if anyone is interested in having Glittergirl for FREE please let me know (as long as you don’t cannibalize her). It might be kind of fun to put her in your backyard and turn her into a mini art studio! How cool would that be? I would do that only there is no way i can put her in the backyard without cutting down my magnolia tree and tearing apart a fence. So let me know if you are interested okay?

Thank you everyone (from Mr. G) for the birthday wishes – you are all so sweet!!!

No….i’m not talking about knitting here – i’m talking about having my cast of 6 weeks removed!  Hooray…….it feels wonderful to be free of it – now i just have to think of what to do with it – make a lamp or incorporate it in a mixed media painting.  As you can see i’m wearing a plastic splint for a while until my wrist gets stronger.  Now i have to train my left hand how to type again – it’s not doing too badly actually.  It’s sort of like riding a bicycle – you never forget.  It just takes a while to get up to speed.

I’m still recovering from a busy weekend and company yesterday – it seems like i just need more downtime when i’ve been around lots of people – especially if they’ve all come here! So i’m not really into blogging today but wanted to leave you with a link to Rice Freeman Zachary’s latest blog rant – it’s brilliant….all about branding – and the post before it is on the creative life.  Both post really spoke to me.  I hope you enjoy them.

Yours truly in front of the studio

Some of the stationary items for sale.

Mr. Gee decided to repair the dragonfly (that is normally perched on the front of the magic cottage) in the backyard.

Friends Susan and Rob dropped by for a visit with their little pooch Sam.

Signs were made and displayed to show the way…

Betty Ann – a frequent visitor of this blog dropped in!  Thanks Betty Ann! 

Jess Rice, a local artist and friend came by.  Thanks for the flowers Jess!

I will post some more photos tomorrow.

Escaping the corporate world for the creative life

 I often receive emails from people asking me for advice regarding making the transition from the corporate world, looking after children and family, and retiring to a more creative life (read less structure). Where do you begin? I think first of all that it’s important to not criticize yourself and have the same expectations you had in your previous life. You are after all embarking on a new chapter in your life and you’re navigating different waters. How exciting to be starting out on this journey. I think when you come from a background of structure such as working a corporate job, or looking after children you feel lost when you’re standing in front of a proverbial candy counter of creative possibilities.

Now, I feel that since I lack a lot of structure in my life and often struggle with organization that I’m not one to ask. However since you did ask (or some of you did) – here’s what I think:

Sit down with a piece of paper and begin to write down all of your creative dreams. Did you ever hope that one day you’d have enough time to learn how to collage? Or did you want to learn how to sculpt clay? Were you always fascinated by the human body and wanted to learn how to draw from life? Write down all of these dreams without censoring. On another page write down the things you love to do as a child. My list would look like this – playing marbles, being in nature – close to water, drawing, daydreaming and playing school. The next thing I would do is to create a mind map with perhaps creative life written in the center. Here’s an example of a mind map:

How do you find your purpose or your path? Sometimes it’s difficult to find it in this day and age where we are bombarded by messages from the media, messages from the net and more. I sure as heck have fallen into a heap wondering at times what is my purpose, why am I here? Whats at all about Alfie? You can always find a life coach who can help you navigate your life and help you realize your potential. They give you a series of questions and tools to discover what your values and goals are while encouraging action. Of course you don’t have to have a coach to do this. You can enlist the help of a family member or friend who will be your accountability partner. I have found though that a coach is better because they are trained to keep you on track. They’re much more objective and don’t have an agenda.

You might think that this is a strange thing to say however I have personally very cleverly sabotaged my success by diverting the attention of my friend to a totally random subject when we were getting too close to my dreams. And my friend was to eager to agree – “yes let’s go for lunch!”

If you can’t afford a coach then you might want to invest in a book that will provide you with a toolkit of exercises to  use or check out this site – top 10 ways to coach yourself to success.　 Have fun discovering your purpose!

The genesis of an art journal page:

Yesterday I received a bit of upsetting news. I have been waiting for many months to see an ear specialist about a hearing problem. Not only did the Dr. have bad news but he also had a terrible bedside manner. I had spent the past year going to clinics about a hearing problem – the doctors made me go home and do strange things like use a steroid nose spray which only made my nose run and clog up my head. Another Dr. Told me to go home and have a shower, plug my nose and blowhard with my mouth closed so that I could pop open my plugged ears. Of course that didn’t work! I kept thinking that I had plugged ears and needed grommets or tubes put in my ears. To make a long story short the ear specialist said I had hearing loss and that grommets in my years would not help. He implied that I would most likely benefit from hearing aids and controlling my environment??? What the heck? By controlling my environment he meant only talking to people when they’re facing me, not across the room or when they’re out of earshot.

So I was pretty upset when I came home and decided to create a journal page around what had transpired. On a happy note – not hearing very well can be quite entertaining since I find what I think people are saying is infinitely more interesting and humorous than what they are actually saying. For example the other day Mr. Gee said we should have brought our umbrellas with us but I heard him say gorilla!!!

Life is full of fodder for your art journal pages.  What upsetting situation did you have that can be transformed by creating a journal page around it?  Art truly can heal you in so many ways!

This is going to take me quite a while to do this tutorial so you might wanna check back in a while to see when it’s finished.

Supply list:

• Micron pens
•  Water color pencil crayons
•  copic pens
• cardstock
• decorative paper for background
• Grommets (grommets kit)
• Folk art acrylics
• Glue
• derwent sketching pencil -medium wash

Begin by painting over a piece of decorative paper (if you look closely you can see I had first glued some text over the background). I thinned down some white folk art paint and dribbled it on the page.

Begin sketching your idea on a loose piece of card stock in pencil.  Ink in with your micron pens and erase your pencil lines.  Colour in the woman’s face, hair and the flowers with watercolor pencil crayons and also copic  pens (you can use ordinary felt pens as well). Colour in other elements as well such as the hands and talk bubbles.

Cut out all of your elements.  A little trick I use to make cutting things out more easier is by outlining everything with a thick black felt pen.

Tone down the background a bit with some watered down white folk art paint.  Glue all the elements  on your page.  As you can see at the last minute I decided to add a hand holding a talk bubble with grommets hammered into it.  When the glue has dried add a bit of shading to your cut out pieces with a derwent sketching pencil -medium wash.

I just wanted to give you all the heads up about the podcast i will be on tomorrow at 

4:00 PM (ET) , 3 PM Central, 2 PM mountain, 1 PM Pacific     

FAMM Radio Talk Show

The show is approximately 40 to 50 minutes long.

FAMM Live Talk Show

something for all art lovers. Hosted by creative entrepreneur and Mixed Media

Artist Rebecca E. Parsons, the weekly show is a blend of lively conversation,

cutting edge creative ideas and encouraging support with healthy doses of

inspiration. We will explore the creativity of fiber and mixed media artists, delve

into tools and materials, keep you informed about upcoming events, workshops

and so much more. It is an opportunity to speak with and hear the creative

journeys of other artists who are doing what they love.

live on BlogTalkRadio every Thursday at 4:00 PM (ET) (3 PM Central, 2 PM

Mountain, 1 PM Pacific). Archived episodes can be streamed directly from the

website or downloaded free through iTunes. Show page:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/fammrlive

I’m looking forward  to being interviewed by Rebecca Parsons - check out her website – she’s a mentor and creative soul.  Please come and join me for this fun interview – you can even call in with your questions and comments.

I still get befuddled by technology – I’m suppose I have a skype interview today and I’m still having difficulty bringing up the video so that the other person can see me.  I wish I wasn’t so challenged by technology. Maybe tonight I’ll get Mr. Gee to help me with this issue so I can post a short video tomorrow morning.

This is a photo of a Buddha sculpture at Ruby lake resort.  I was enchanted when I saw these lovely statues as well as painted metal sculptures of birds and flowers at the rustic resort.

Before leaving ruby lake I took 5 minutes to quickly sketch the buddha head on a piece of junk cardboard I had pre painted.  I will finish it off and let you see how this art journal page turns out.

When you’re away on vacation or even out on an artist walk/date you can bring along a sketchbook or pre painted pages like I did and quickly document what you see.  Later on when you return to your studio or home you can further embellish and paint your journal page adding text and freeform writing to it.  Don’t feel like you have to finish it all on the spot – it’s just a great way to capture a bit of energy of the moment on a page.  I used to carry around with me a miniature sketchbook and while having coffee at the local coffee shop I would sketch the people around me, my coffee cup and muffin, the chair, or any fanciful idea which was swimming around in my head!  As you can see the supplies can be as simple as a black pen and a sketchbook or even a small collection of recipe cards.  Later on you can collage  your tiny creations either in your art journal or in a mixed media project.

Cast update – I went to the cast clinic yesterday, after four weeks of being in a cast and was told that everything is healing nicely and will have to be in the same cast for another two weeks.  The cast guy – the fellow who  was going to cut off my cast with the scariest looking implements I might add – told me that glitter cast the nicest looking cast he had ever seen!  After they remove the cast I will have to wear a splint for a while but at least I’ll be able to type and have a shower.  YAY!!!

I think I should get an award for using the word cast in a paragraph in as many ways as possible don’t you think?

Mr. Gee and I went away to visit family and friends this weekend and on the way home we dropped by to see some tunnels which had been created in the 1800s to make way for a railroad (near Hope).  Since I have a fascination with orbs I asked Mr. Gee to take a picture of me with my spirit friends.  Notice how there’s a green orb next to my head?  I believe that is a my spirit guide or guardian angel.

We’re walking through another tunnel when I felt somebody walking beside me – so I quickly turned into the pitch black to see who was there.  When I turn there was no one there.  So I asked Mr. Gee to take a picture of me to see if there was a spirit hanging out there – sure enough there was an  orb next to my shoulder!  Cool eh?

This is a picture we took of the pathway to the tunnels.  I always love taking photos of pathways – I’m thinking ahead of future art journal pages that these lovely photos would be perfect for!  Of course pathways are always a metaphor for the journey.  They really speak to me.

Here is another lovely pathway picture we took yesterday.

The cast clinic

Today I’m going to the cast clinic – it’s been four weeks since I’ve had my cast on and I believe they’re going to xray my wrist to see if everything’s healing properly.  I’m hoping that they will put on a smaller cast.  It’s been very hot here and having a big heavy cast on makes me a wee bit cranky.  Ha!!!

I took this picture of a rose from my garden.  Ordinarily I’m not a big rose fan but lately I’ve grown to appreciate them in all of their gorgeous  complexity! They are so delicate and give off such a lovely scent.

Why not take some pictures of roses and use them in your art?

I took this image of a rose and hands from a “Google” image search, printed it off and glued it to a page. I proceeded to paint over it with acrylic paints so that it could blend into the background which is graffiti-ish. I have this illustration as a print and will sell it again on my Etsy shop soon.

Mr. G and I are going on a long car trip today so I’m bringing along my hemp cord to practice macrame’ and also my I-Touch so that I can listen to motivational and inspirational audio books.

Mr. G’s little matrix will become a “travelling school”.

Hope you all have a FAB weekend !!!!

Love, Violette

XOXOXOXO