Entries from: January 2012
Creative Every Day Check-In: January 30th – February 5th
January 30th, 2012, Comments (39)
This weekly check-in post is a place for Creative Every Day Challenge participants to share their creative activities.
Join in the Challenge: You can now sign-up for the 2012 Challenge here!
Ways to share: Once you've signed up, you can leave a comment on this post and/or use the "Mr. Linky" widget below to link to a blog post(s) about your creative activities during the days of 1/30/12 - 2/5/12.
The widget below is an optional method of sharing your creativity that makes it easier for others to check out what you're up to. You can use it to link to a blog post (or posts) or flickr image during the week listed. Or if you have a bunch of posts and don't want to link to all of them, you can link to your main blog page once. Do it in a way that makes sense and is fun for you! If you're unsure about how to use the widget, check out the "How to use the Mr. Linky widget" section on the Creative Every Day Challenge page. (If you're reading this in a RSS reader or email subscription, you will not see the "Mr. Linky widget", so click on over to the blog to use it.) If the Mr. Linky widget is missing from this blog post, it's probably a problem with their server and it will come back as soon as it's fixed. You can always leave your link in the comments.
You can also take advantage of the great CED flickr group to post your images and see what others are up to. If you're on Twitter, you can use the hashtag #CED2012!
Theme: The (totally optional) theme for January is New, which you can read more about and get ideas for here. February's (totally optional) theme is Night, which you can read more about here.
Happy Creating!
The night walked down the sky with the moon in her hand. ~Frederick L. Knowles
Creative Every Day Theme for February: Night
January 26th, 2012, Comments (23)
At the end of each month I will announce the totally optional theme for the following month. For the month of February 2012, the theme will be Night. Thank you to Cat of sea.sky.stone for the theme idea!
As always, this month's theme for the Creative Every Day Challenge is totally optional. Use it if it inspires you, continue being creative every day in your own way if it doesn't, or do something in between. You can sign up for the 2012 Creative Every Day Challenge anytime. More info can be found here and the sign-up page is here.
I'll be posting about the theme throughout the month on the blog to help keep you inspired. You can use the posts here for jumping off points or interpret the theme in your own creative way. If you need some suggestions, here are a few ideas to get you started. You could:
- *Reflect in writing about the darkness of this time of year.
- *Make a garland of planets and stars.
- *Research a constellation and make a creation based on the story around it.
- *Make art by candlelight.
- *Make a creation based on the dreams you dream at night.
- *Create vision boards to honor the new and full moons.
- *Take a walk in the evening and gather inspiration in the quiet.
- *Do some creating in the wee hours. How is it different from daytime creating?
How to use the CED themes:
If you're feeling creatively stuck or blocked at any point during the month, use the theme as a source of inspiration to get you moving. Feel free to focus on the theme in your creative activities for the entire month or as much as you'd like.
Using the theme is entirely optional for CED participants. Use it if it inspires you, ignore it if it doesn't. I'll be sharing posts throughout the month around the theme (among other things) to get you thinking about how to incorporate it into your life. I'd love to hear how you use the theme in your creative world.
And have fun with it!
I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day. ~Vincent Van Gogh
p.s. The art above is adapted from my piece, Fishing for the Moon, available here.
Guest Post by Whitney Ferré
January 25th, 2012, Comments (9)
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“The Creativity PORTAL”
By Whitney Ferré of Creatively Fit
What if the true intention behind your creative practice was to be a PORTAL for change on this planet? Would this be NEW to you?
For me, the most exciting part of my creative journey has been the corresponding emotional and spiritual journey. I have inspired “non-artists” to embrace their creative power since 1996, but I confess that I did not do so in order that they might create “quality” art or marketable product. What has always inspired excited energy within me and a passionate drive to share paints, colored pencils and watercolors with as many people as possible is my belief that it is our creative energy that is going to save the world—literally! As the world prepared for 2012 I was further inspired as some of my most respected spiritual philosophers and leaders started sharing their own beliefs surrounding our creative spirits. This following quote is from Andrew Cohen.
“In the way that I use the term, God is the energy and intelligence that created the universe and is driving the process forward in every moment. And that energy and intelligence cares desperately about change and innovation and the release of potentials that have not existed before. So it is constantly looking for portals through which it can enter into the world and consciously engage with creating its next step. As conscious human beings who have been blessed with self-awareness and free agency, we are those portals.” ~Andrew Cohen
Can you go there? Can you imagine the infinite universe scanning kitchen tables and art studios around the globe, searching for PORTALS through which to channel its infinite, creative energy? Why not? As human beings we created art before we created a monetary system OR a written language. We can look at tribal art and we know the sculptures, paintings, and symbols were created to access other dimensions and powers. We can still do that today.
The image below hangs above the door to my art studio. The “double croc” is an ancient symbol of protection. My painting it was a meditation on protecting the good, positive energy and my own “inner croc” that needed a boost to “own my power” and protect my own inner landscape. (Read more in my blog post here….)
This Creative Goddess is my most recent painting, still in process, and has already provided hours of colorful, sparkly meditations on all that is possible. As I layered and layered the colors, scratched through to bottom layers, and made her glow with my white & yellow painted fingers, I felt as though I was really accessing this goddess, encouraging me to think bigger, to expand my awareness about my own creative power and really let go!
I do believe it will be when more people proudly state, “I am creative!” rather than, “I can’t even draw a straight line…” that our global consciousness will shift and our world will step into a new time of greater peace, compassion and sustainability. YOU getting “Creative Everyday” is building that energy that our world needs. Here is what Ken Wilber has to say about creativity….
“Creativity: in some ways it seems so common, yet in other ways it is actually at the foundation of virtually every important activity and practice in human life—from relationships to play, from work to relaxation, from meditation to transformative practice, from parenting to teaching, from emotional expression to cognitive competence, from recreation to career choice. In many ways, creativity has been thought of as a rare, difficult, hard-to-come-by talent or gift, evidenced only by the few geniuses of each era. But according to the Integral view, creativity is actually a component of each and every moment of existence, and it can be learned and exercised with a few simple practices.” ~Ken Wilber
This is why there is such power in what Leah is doing here at Creative Every Day. Each day that you flex your creative muscles you are opening up as a portal to infinite creativity.
Here is a really fun & easy exercise to create and, should you choose, integrate into your spiritual life. I call them Story Cards.
Grab that stack of magazines and tear out ANY images that catch your attention. If anything, a color, a texture, an image, makes you go, “Oooooh!” tear it out. Don’t judge and don’t wonder what you are going to do with it. Just grab the pages that speak to you.
When you have a nice stack of images, divide them into 3 piles (you can make many sets of these, but each time make 3 piles). How do you divide them? Just let the images that you intuitively feel should be together join the same pile. You do not even have to label them yet, or understand the difference between the piles. One pile may have all bluer images, another pile nature images. The image above is a collage of three of my Story Cards. The far left card is about my spiritual life. When I look back on that card, with the fact that right now I am busy with our new SPIRIT Project 2012, I get the chills! The middle card was all about things I love. The far left card was inspired by nature.
When you are done, you will have exercised your “creative intuitive” muscle and have cards you can go to over and over for insight into the ART that is your LIFE!
I hope this NEW perspective on your daily creative activity inspires some new thoughts and energy into your practice. Namaste. Whitney
Whitney is the author of The Artist Within, A Guide to Becoming Creatively Fit and you can learn more about Whitney at www.CreativelyFit.com and join the SPIRIT Project for only $20.12 for the entire year!
Creative Every Day Check-In: January 23 – 29
January 23rd, 2012, Comments (32)
This weekly check-in post is a place for Creative Every Day Challenge participants to share their creative activities. To those who celebrate, I hope you have a beautiful Christmas!
Join in the Challenge: You can now sign-up for the 2012 Challenge here!
Ways to share: Once you've signed up, you can leave a comment on this post and/or use the "Mr. Linky" widget below to link to a blog post(s) about your creative activities during the days of 1/23/12 - 1/29/12.
The widget below is an optional method of sharing your creativity that makes it easier for others to check out what you're up to. You can use it to link to a blog post (or posts) or flickr image during the week listed. Or if you have a bunch of posts and don't want to link to all of them, you can link to your main blog page once. Do it in a way that makes sense and is fun for you! If you're unsure about how to use the widget, check out the "How to use the Mr. Linky widget" section on the Creative Every Day Challenge page. (If you're reading this in a RSS reader or email subscription, you will not see the "Mr. Linky widget", so click on over to the blog to use it.) If the Mr. Linky widget is missing from this blog post, it's probably a problem with their server and it will come back as soon as it's fixed. You can always leave your link in the comments.
You can also take advantage of the great CED flickr group to post your images and see what others are up to. If you're on Twitter, you can use the hashtag #CED2012!
Theme: The (totally optional) theme for January is New, which you can read more about and get ideas for here.
Happy Creating!
There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth...not going all the way, and not starting. ~Buddha
Intuitive Ink Prep
January 21st, 2012, Comments (12)
In a week from today I'm teaching Intuitive Ink at the Wish Studio in Newburyport, Massachusetts. If you're in the area, I'd love to see you there! You can get all the details and sign up here.
Earlier this week, I did some inkblots in prep for the class. Above, are some "before" inkblots which we'll play with and make creations from in class. I'm loving the way they look all lined up together though. A nice burst of color during these dark winter days.
And here's a couple example of some "after" inkblots. They're so fun to make!
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I'm also planning to create an online version of this workshop, which I hope to have ready to offer in the Spring!
I hope you're all having a wonderfully creative weekend. I had the fun experience of letting my daughter play in the snow for the first time on Friday. She was having a blast until she realized that snow was very cold. heh.
2012 Goddess Year Workbook
January 17th, 2012, Comments (7)
I adore Goddess Leonie and her Creating Your Goddess Year Workbooks are always fabulous. What a delicious way to wrap up the year you've just gone through, celebrate all you are, and plan for the year to come. Leonie makes it easy with great prompts, questions, and spaces to dream. Here are a couple pages from my workbook.
A page with some loving affirmations, perfect as my word for the year is Love!
And here's a page about making your home what you want it to be in 2012. I decided I'd like to focus my energies on one room per month, doing some cleaning and clearing in that space.
It's still early in the new year and there's plenty of time to plan and dream up your 2012. You can grab a copy of Leonie's beautiful 2012 Creating Your Goddess Year Workbook here.
Creative Every Day Check-In: January 16 – 22
January 16th, 2012, Comments (28)
This weekly check-in post is a place for Creative Every Day Challenge participants to share their creative activities. To those who celebrate, I hope you have a beautiful Christmas!
Join in the Challenge: You can now sign-up for the 2012 Challenge here!
Ways to share: Once you've signed up, you can leave a comment on this post and/or use the "Mr. Linky" widget below to link to a blog post(s) about your creative activities during the days of 1/16/12 - 1/22/12.
The widget below is an optional method of sharing your creativity that makes it easier for others to check out what you're up to. You can use it to link to a blog post (or posts) or flickr image during the week listed. Or if you have a bunch of posts and don't want to link to all of them, you can link to your main blog page once. Do it in a way that makes sense and is fun for you! If you're unsure about how to use the widget, check out the "How to use the Mr. Linky widget" section on the Creative Every Day Challenge page. (If you're reading this in a RSS reader or email subscription, you will not see the "Mr. Linky widget", so click on over to the blog to use it.) If the Mr. Linky widget is missing from this blog post, it's probably a problem with their server and it will come back as soon as it's fixed. You can always leave your link in the comments.
You can also take advantage of the great CED flickr group to post your images and see what others are up to. If you're on Twitter, you can use the hashtag #CED2012!
Theme: The (totally optional) theme for January is New, which you can read more about and get ideas for here.
Happy Creating!
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, Begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it, Begin it now. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Brand New Artist in the Making
January 15th, 2012, Comments (12)
This is my silly, sweet, beautiful girl.
And this is her first drawing. A little artist in the making! 
Trying Something New
January 10th, 2012, Comments (20)
Last year at this time, I decided I wanted to learn how to sew. I started out with a book and an old sewing machine and I made a huge, frustrating mess. I didn't want to give up, so I signed up for a class. I drove my pregnant self out to a small, local fabric shop where the owner was offering beginner sewing lessons. Sitting around a re-purposed kitchen table, 2 other woman and I learned how to thread a machine, how to make a lot of mistakes, some stitches, and came out of it with a simple bag.
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Leaving the class, I was ready to do more, so I took a book (Anna Maria Horner's Handmade Beginnings) out from the library and used the patterns to create a pair of baby shoes and then a jacket, which was first modeled by a teddy bear, but made for Annabelle. I definitely gained a whole new respect for clothing makers! I also loved making little touches, (curtains and crib skirt) for the nursery, which make the space feel even more special for me.
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This year, I'd love to learn how to make flower headbands for Annabelle. I've been gathering up the supplies and will post pictures here when I give it a go.
Learning something new really stretches and inspires me. I think it's good to learn something new every so often, even if it's not something you'll continue. You never know how trying something new will inspire your main creative outlet(s).
Do you have plans to try something new this year? How will you learn the new skill? What kind of supplies and/or support do you need?
Creative Every Day Check-In: January 9 – 15
January 9th, 2012, Comments (43)
This weekly check-in post is a place for Creative Every Day Challenge participants to share their creative activities. To those who celebrate, I hope you have a beautiful Christmas!
Join in the Challenge: You can now sign-up for the 2012 Challenge here!
Ways to share: Once you've signed up, you can leave a comment on this post and/or use the "Mr. Linky" widget below to link to a blog post(s) about your creative activities during the days of 1/9/12 - 1/15/12.
The widget below is an optional method of sharing your creativity that makes it easier for others to check out what you're up to. You can use it to link to a blog post (or posts) or flickr image during the week listed. Or if you have a bunch of posts and don't want to link to all of them, you can link to your main blog page once. Do it in a way that makes sense and is fun for you! If you're unsure about how to use the widget, check out the "How to use the Mr. Linky widget" section on the Creative Every Day Challenge page. (If you're reading this in a RSS reader or email subscription, you will not see the "Mr. Linky widget", so click on over to the blog to use it.) If the Mr. Linky widget is missing from this blog post, it's probably a problem with their server and it will come back as soon as it's fixed. You can always leave your link in the comments.
You can also take advantage of the great CED flickr group to post your images and see what others are up to. If you're on Twitter, you can use the hashtag #CED2012!
Theme: The (totally optional) theme for January is New, which you can read more about and get ideas for here.
Happy Creating!
I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning. ~J. B. Priestly
