creative thursday: book review + giveaway

i first came across marisa's shop, creative thursday, in late 2007 while browsing etsy for woodland-related artwork. i fell in love with her sweet characters and her story: she'd started following her creative path by reserving one day a week to her artful pursuits.

it's been exciting to watch marisa's growth and expansion over the years and when her book, creative thursday: everyday inspiration to grow your creative practice,came out i knew i had to have it!

of course, me being me, it's been a minute. i picked it up almost six months after it came out and i only recently finished it, but let me tell you, it's been my trusty sidekick for three months. i quickly read through it once and then again slowly, savoring every bit. like any favorite book of mine it is now complete with water (or coffee?) stains and my own notes throughout. i knew i'd like it but i had no idea just how perfectly executed it would be.

mine has seen some use!

if you're a visual artist, you need this book. no matter where your discipline is or where you are on your journey, marisa's words provide gentle assurance and reminders that our creative voice matters.

this isn't a huge book but it is JAM-PACKED with inspiration, motivation, and guidance that honors how our creativity is connected to every aspect of our lives. i was delighted to find that every few pages or so marisa would present a concept that was familiar but with the strength of her own voice and experience, it was like seeing it for the first time. and the illustrations! oh. every page has gorgeous, full-color photographs of marisa's artwork or beautiful surroundings. truly a feast for mind + spirit!

while reading creative thursday, i was also reading art + fearand both touched upon the unique challenges that artists face when it comes to managing time and expectations but i will refer to creative thursday much more often as marisa's attention to distraction, resistance, and fear spoke directly to my heart. she really has a way of expressing the importance of pushing through our comfort zones with grace and peace.

just as i was finishing up the book i already knew it would be my handy guide for years to come and that i was going to read it again, right away, but go deeper. take notes. etc. the pages had already been ruined by a cup of water that one of the boys spilled, i'd already lightly underlined some things, it was already cherished and these thoughts were racing through my head as i get to marisa's final thoughts, in which she shares that her wish is for the book to be with you for years, sit among your most treasured items, and provide just the thing you need to see if you pick it up and open a page, at random.

it was as though she was reading my mind. her wish came true for me and she has so generously provided me with a signed copy for one lucky reader (and i bet her wish will come true for you, too!)

i am so excited to share this beautiful, positively uplifting resource. like i said, i came across marisa on etsy several years ago. shortly thereafter i decided to "make art everyday" because dedicating a single day, or even several hours, once a week seemed so impossible. i turned, what felt like a negative, into a positive by being satisfied if all i managed was a quick napkin doodle some days. i knew that i had to create momentum, everyday, no matter how small and it was in some part due to marisa. my own journey in the last five years, which has been perfect, has also felt arduous and slow, at times. just last month i reached out to a long-time friend, ready to put up my paints forever. the demands of art and motherhood had become too heavy and i was desperate for help. through a beautiful, humbling experience, we came up with a supportive solution better than i could have imagined and i now have five hours a week to dedicate to my creative work (or general self-care, solitude, and silence). and as it turns out, the five hour chunk of time my friend could provide me happened to be on thursdays! seriously, unplanned, but oh, how i love little coincidences (and here's a couple more: marisa and i both go by our first and middle names *and* she printed my very most favorite anais nin quote in the book.) ♥

no doubt i love anything with the word 'blossom' but this quote is just perfect.

now for the giveaway...(i love this part!)

how to enter - you may enter up to four times but please leave a new comment for each entry:

1. tell me when you first heard of creative thursday (the shop or the book) or how you find your creative time. you may also share some tips on how you best manage your time or what your current obstacles and challenges are.

2. share this blog post on facebook and leave a comment stating so, for another chance to win.

3. follow me on twitter and then tag me in tweet (@valeriblossom) about this giveaway with a link to this blog. then leave a comment here for an extra chance to win.

4. share this on your blog and leave a comment, linking to your post.

i will select a winner, at random, next thursday, september 26th, by 5pm EST. good luck!! now i have to get ready for adventure tomorrow in santa fe with tracy verdugo and a group of other creative ladies before we take tracy's paint mojo workshop this weekend. squeee!

eta: this giveaway is open to all US and Canadian residents.

eta, part two: a winner has been selected. yay!!! and only a week late (eep!). blogging is going to become a bigger priority, it will, and i apologize for my delay. a couple of peeps mentioned they'd shared the giveaway on FB in a single comment so i added an extra entry for them and *drumroll please......*


the winner is ....

KAT!!!! ♥ ♥ ♥
(which is pretty cool because she's not too far from me and maybe we can snag a coffee date!)

thanks everyone ;)

on patience + pretending

this painting was listed on esty once.
even though i knew she wasn't ready.
even though i wasn't *in love*with her.
even though i didn't even like how i'd signed my name.



title: princess of pretend

yet i resisted holding on to the piece.
uninspired with the process or just distracted.
i went ahead and listed it.

she hung around a while but didn't sell.

perhaps she was a little boring for a princess of pretend.

i pulled the listing and decided to wait until she had more to say.


last week the muse called and i listened.

 

i think i've (finally) learned to always always always listen and wait. to be patient with my process which is very, very slow sometimes.

 

through my patience she developed {~pretend~} wings and now, she's almost ready to fly...

delightful

the other day, some delightful kids shoes caught my eye. i was somewhat in a hurry so i grabbed a postcard advert for the shoes so i could look them up again when i had time.

the company is called chooze. when i looked more carefully at the postcard i realized the shoes match or coordinate but the left and right pair are not identical. awesome!

i silently wished they made them for adults.

well, today i decided to check out their website and they do!
they make them for women and i think i need this pair:

also, i think pea and sprout may need some of these adorable boy shoes - do you know how hard it is to find fun, free-spirited shoes for boys? well, chooze has just made it a little bit easier.

loving those stars. hard.

also loving these ones in the toddler sizes.

actually, both boys pair come in little and big kid sizing.
pea and sprout could have a mix and match free for all if they had four shoes to "chooze" from.
oh, mama's getting all giddy with excitement.

know what else is exciting? chooze doesn't just make simply delightful shoes with cotton and other vegan-friendly materials, they're a company with a wonderful philanthropical foundation.

they invest their profits in educational and loan programs to help impoverished women start businesses of their own.

**bonus** each pair of shoes is packaged in an "art box" that can be decorated and re-used/re-purposed in all kinds of fun ways.

can you say, i love this company?

they are currently running a design contest, too, so get out your art supplies and let your child's imagination and creativity flourish for a chance to see their design on a pair of chooze shoes!

unfortunate

unfortunately i'm exhausted.
i haven't had much time to keep up around here.
i haven't made art in weeks.
i wish i had the time and money necessary to process stuff with a therapist.
i keep focusing on the good and telling myself i'm happy but life isn't beautiful without the pain and sometimes it's hard not to go there. actually, i'm always there, the pain is more real than telling myself it's all roses.
i really want to get serious about writing my book, and like anything, i guess i have to make the time by i can't squeeze any more out of my days and i don't even have a working laptop anymore.
i'm up early and i had this fantasy that i could wake early everyday before work to paint or do yoga but the truth is, i'm up because sprout is an early bird, today his new record: we've been awake since 5:30 :(
i'm thumb-typing on my phone because i don't want to ignore him by going into the office just to update my blog.
there's a lot of stuff under the surface and a whole damn lot of it is good but the pain is greater right now.

check it - art classes and giveaway

so...amy mc donald is hosting a giveaway and promoting some early bird pricing on two new classes being offered july 14th on flutterbye. one of them is goddess territory and might be completely worth checking out! hint: click the link below for class details.

my littlest is crying at me, i haven't finished my coffee, and *omg* i start my new job today soooooo, i can't go into all of the giveaway details but consider this a sort of fun scavenger hunt (that's really easy) and check out this post for further instructions. hint: the giveaway is for a gift certificate to a really cool art supply site!

ACEOs on another level

when i started to make time for myself with the intention of creating something everyday i was so taken by the ATC/ACEO (Artist Trading Card or Art Cards Edition or Original) format as an easy way to slip into the discipline. they're the size of basic trading cards (2.5" x 3.5") and while some can be very elaborate and intricate mixed media works of art, some are simply mini prints or reproductions of larger works.

i started by cutting index cards down to the required size and then eventually bought several types of pre-cut cards as soon as they were available in my local craft stores. i focused less on mixed media and more on illustrations with some collage elements. last summer i probably created close to two dozen and one of the first was this stripey stocking gal. the dress shape was cut out from the card and then a heavy, double-sided, patterned cardstock was adhered behind it so that one pattern showed through the front dress cut-out, with a different pattern on the back.

the rest of her body was colored in with staedtler lumocolor markers, pens, and colored pencils. she was cute, she was a concept, and i had no idea that almost a year later, she'd turn into this digital painting.


one of my favorites, one that i pulled from my etsy shop almost as soon as i listed it is a watercolor of a bird in a tree. i bought a sampler pack of blanks with a few cards made of watercolor paper and experimented with watercolor pencils that had collected dust over the years. it's not my favorite medium but i do think this turned out okay and i could just never part with it.

i don't even remember what i was trying to accomplish but at some point this became the first thing i turned into a digital painting. as a result, it occurred to me that i could turn all of my little awesomuffins into bright, cheery, streamlined prints and keep the original ATC-sized illustrations because it was hard to let them go. (they're now being slowly added to an art journal/scrapbook!)

the digital process takes forever. in six months i've greatly improved my technique, felt my way through photoshop and inkscape, and like the results more and more. the conversion and refining process can take upwards of 6 hours and in some cases, i'm sure i've spent more than 10 hours on one piece. i don't know if i'll continue to create new sketches and whatnot for this single purpose but i still have at least a dozen to convert.

anyhow, i was recently invited to participate in an ACEO art show at a local bookstore. i had lots of "original" cards already made, obviously, but some of them could never be offered to the general public because, like the striped stocking gal up there, they were just ideas put on paper and, as mentioned above, many of them are so dear to me that i couldn't possibly sell them. i thought about simply working with what i had available and making small prints of my digital paintings and cutting them to ATC specs but that was pretty uninspired, i have to admit.  

when i sat down with a vision i thought of keeping it simple and sweet and working with the double-sided cardstock and papers with pretty patterns on them but it evolved into a process that allowed me to work with each image in a completely individual way.

quickly my table became over-run with supplies and i tried not to become overwhelmed with it all.

however, the results were worth every second of frustration.

the show is a month away and because of one distraction or motherly duty or another, this is all that i managed to finish in one day. i have some lofty goal of having at least 24 cards completed between now and the show but i know that may not be realistically possible.

i painstakingly completed another that day, one that won't be included in the show because i didn't think it through much. it was a trial and error sort of experiment with gel medium. i ended up happy with overall appearance but not the way the gel medium dried. i thought it would settle and dry to a smooth, flat surface much like it seems to when used to adhere things. instead, it created a bumpy, textured surface that looks sloppy at best. so. another one for my scrapbook :)

i can say i've been published!

it was a goal of mine and it's but just one small step on this journey but i am so stoked!

pasticcio 12 is available now and somewhere in it's sixty, lovely, full-color pages is a something i created. wow!

i have some reader challenges for a few publications that i'd like to work on but deadlines are looming.

i have a bunch of ACEOs i have to submit photos of for a local ACEO art show. tomorrow is the deadline and i've got to get moving on the finishing touches. i don't have to have them ALL completed by tomorrow, but still, there has been so much going on that i thought i had time and here we are. i'm a last-minute sort of gal. i don't even nearly hyperventilate anymore. i accept that i wait until the last minute and i am usually okay with the end results. i work best under pressure. yeah, yeah. i am getting better in time management.

so that's that. yay :)

inspiration, fun stuff, and new artwork reveal!

i've wanted to reply to few sweet comments but i'm not able to. for some reason i cannot stay logged into blogger unless i'm behind the scenes, updating or editing my blog. i've cleared my history and cookies and temporary internet files but it hasn't helped. so...i can't comment here or on other blogger blogs and i can't follow anyone new :(

that out of the way, i'm excited to share that i'm starting two projects inspired by two different mamas. i came across threads that each of them started on the cloth paper scissors forums. i ended up there because i might participate in the recent home sweet home reader challenge since the idea of "home" is close to my heart.

the first idea came straight from the forums and it involves an index card challenge. create a piece of art on an index card every day. that in and of itself is brilliant! the forum member took it a step further, though, and said this is how she would be inspired to try new techniques and overcome her intimidation of art journalling. this immediately resonated with me because, as much as i look at gorgeous and intricate art journals and think "i could do that" when it comes down to it, i don't go very far with the art journal process. i don't know if it's because i find it difficult to expand my mind and technique on pages that are stuck together or what but the index card idea is awesome because i can do whatever i want on each card, they're much sturdier than moleskine pages, and i can bind them together into a journal or add them to existing ones or just...the possibilities are endless and i've finally found one awesome solution for using up the hundreds of index cards i've held on to for no apparent reason.

the second use for them is going to be to help the kids create their own summer scrapbook! i don't know how much two year old sprout will contribute but he likes to color alongside us and might just go wild if i let him try other mediums! fifteen year old bean looked at me like that was the lamest suggestion i've ever made so he likely won't participate, but five year old pea? he is over the moon excited and in fact, i shouldn't even be writing about this all right now because he just came to me and said, "i cannot WAIT to do this fun thing!"

camera is ready and supplies are gathered - but this summer scrapbook must be properly credited. i read about it on the forums but the author of the post is also updating her blog with the weekly themes and all sorts of fun instructions for new techniques. you should totally check it out. if i could stay logged in (grrr!) i'd be following her blog in a heartbeat! she's doing hers a bit differently but i am definitely going to learn some new stuff along the way even if we start out using index cards as the base, initially :)

and finally. all three etsy shops are coming along and stocked with goodies. i'm really excited about one of my latest pieces. i started it last year and painted it entirely but then decided to rework quite a bit just recently and highlighted certain areas with ink. then, because i just had to, i enhanced the color in photoshop to create an aura or feeling that i couldn't quite capture with ink and pen alone. i keep tooting my own horn, i know. but i sort of love it and it's my tribute to having only birthed three little sunshines :)

once i can decide on a name for it i will list prints at slightlyimperfect.

follow your own path

as usual, i have so much to say but don't want to or don't know how.

this makes blogging an unusual challenge.

life is good.

the path was rocky but change is never easy. i think i've been as balanced as possible while on my current tight-rope walk of faith and i'm not out of the water, yet, but the path emerging is clear.

the messages from the universe and from the people i have just serendipitously met along my way are what keep me going. i finished a piece recently that i just absolutely adore. i will have lustre prints available on etsy soon but here until then...a non-blurry ipod, non-hipstamatic sneak peek of "follow your own path"...

on your mark, get set....

deep breath. i told awesome papa i would stock some things in my new etsy shop by friday. today is friday. 

when editing the photos of my miniature pieces of art, in preparation of listing them later, i was bombarded with massive self-doubt.

i am reminding myself what we said about practice, just the other day.
there is no need to stress or worry so i'm pushing through this fear, for lack of a better word.

i think they're awesome and that's all that should matter, at this point, anyway.

here's just a sample of what i've been cranking out...

deep breath. i'm not scared. i'm excited!

practice

last week, when awesome papa and i were discussing our budget, we were also discussing our business plans and decided that there are two things we both sort of let by fall by the wayside (his franchise/business consulting and my art).

we went over the reasons and found they were pretty similar even though making (or selling) art and helping people find the right business model are two very different things. in the end, though, it comes down to a fear of rejection. i keep making these pretty awesome things and then i store them away when the little voice in my head starts saying they're not good enough. i quiet the voice by continuing to create but it has an impact because i have yet to put anything up on etsy. i struggle, daily, to overcome the worry that people will laugh at me. that people won't buy my stuff. that people will criticize my technique because i don't have a degree in any kind of art.

however, after talking with awesome papa, it was easier to say, "so what"...so what if they don't like me, so what if no one buys anything, so what if i don't have any formal art training other than a few drawing classes? who cares? it's fun and it should be fun and i shouldn't take it so seriously. it's just practice, afterall. not the end all and be all.

awesome papa came to a similar conclusion about his franchise consulting. he was feeling pretty down about how neglected it had become as he refocused his energy into the cleaning company. i reminded him that the refocus on the cleaning company was completely necessary and that he'd already made two franchise placements, which was better than any of the other consultants he'd started with. i also reminded him that he runs a successful weekly meeting for local professionals facing uncertainty or unemployment. even though the literal payoff for this hardwork is realized maybe only once per quarter, he has already proven that he has what it takes and he can re-direct his attention to consulting when time and the other company allows.

so, instead of approaching this business with such seriousness, he's just going to do what he can every week and "practice" making phone calls in an attempt to reach potential clients.

to practice ones art, no matter if it is visual art or art of a different nature, is all we can do and there is no sense in getting so hung up on the details that we stop practicing altogether.

so his daily goal is to make one phone call. maybe once per week he'll actually make contact, have a conversation that goes somewhere. maybe not.

and my goal is to list at least one thing on etsy per week. and more, as time allows. i will likely kick off this week by listing more than one thing on friday but one per week is a manageable goal. maybe people will like my stuff and buy it. maybe not.

hedgehog love on etsy

what do i do while nursing sprout to nap, before getting in shower?

why, i search for hedgehogs on etsy, of course!

loving:

• these adorable booties
• this amazing felted plush
• note cards!
• sweet mama and baby (i actually have one of these sweet pillows that i spent way too much on before i realized the seller offered them on etsy!)
• such a precious shirt (a dear friend named her baby niamh and now i see the name everywhere.)
• mama and babies tile (i've always loved these and wonder if they make customs with three babies?)
• pendant tiles (also own several of these. love them!)

okay. sprout is solidly sleeping. mama can get cleaned up now.

enjoy!