Creativity Boot Camp Weekend and a Rock Fairy Miracle...

Creativity Boot Camp Day 6 - Breaking Our Own Rules

Maegan encouraged us to think about ways to break out of the ordinary in our creative process, to break the self-imposed rules and routines that we can sometimes fall into.

I thought about how I can add in new elements to my art work, learn from techniques that others use and of course, try out some new tools every now and then !

I did some carving of some new little rubber stamps

on these little square pre-cut squares that I got from my friend Kriss's stash recently.

Then I used the stamps to create this little guy...

and glued him onto my art journal page for this day.

I also worked in our random prompt word for the day : Fluid.

I often feel like I am pretty fluid about what I do in my art making - sometimes too fluid. I don't always feel like I have discovered my style or even my medium yet...

I do like changing things up though and this Creativity Boot Camp Play is letting me do just that !

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Creativity Boot Camp Day 7/8 - Write it out...

Our fearless leader, Maegan encouraged us to spend some time with our inner artist and spill our guts onto some pages in our notebooks - a la Julia Cameron's morning pages or stream of consciousness writing. She suggested 45 min. but I just went with filling up three pages...it took me about 20 minutes...

I kind of wussed-out with using the random word prompts Maegan gave us on these two days.

Fly and Ornament just kind on made onto my pages...

Another thing that Boot Camp play inspired me to do was to use some materials that I don't always use and to shake things up a bit.

I actually found 5 goals that I had set for 2010 in the very notebook I did my writing pages in and I realized that I hadn't really achieved any of them and here we are in the 6th month already !!!

So this was the perfect opportunity to check off number 5 which was paint pieces on canvas rather than always in my journal so I would have some of my own art to hang in my house.

This morning as David had a nice quiet sleep-in, I got out the acrylics, the Golden Fluids, the blending medium and this 16X8" canvas, put on the mellow morning tunes, and got to work...



When I got here, I almost stopped. How cool do these bubbly lollipop shapes look ?



But I decided to go on with the vision I had in my head and give the circles faces.

There were lots of layers here. You may see it better if you enlarge it. They had green faces, then I added the purple and even some metallics.

I kind of liked them this way but something was missing for them to feel like they were mine...

You know it ! The black India Ink !!!

Did the line work with a broad tipped dip pen and now the lollipop girls work for me

And a piece like this can hang on a wall instead of hiding out in the journal which feels good.

I pushed myself a little, enjoyed the whole process of having this quiet time with myself to create and just seeing what would come.

Ain't being an artist grand ?!

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Finally, I wanted to let you in on a little secret worry I have been keeping.

About two weeks ago, David and I went to North Hampton to fill up my bucket of rocks for my Rock My World rocks.

When we got there, there were very few rocks to be found.

The beaches had taken quite a beating and sand had covered whatever rocks had been there.

I managed to collect about a quarter of a bucket but it was not like the summer before where the beach was literally covered with rocks of all sizes - where taking a bucket full didn't even show...

It made me wonder if this was a sign.

Should I stop taking those rocks at all ?Was Nature giving me a sign ?

Was it time to move on to something other than painting my precious rocks and find some other way to put my love out there ?

This weekend, David and I headed out to the Seacoast to see if we could find another beach with rocks, a new source for the Rock Fairy. I had decided I would make a decision about continuing the Rock My World project after our search.

Well, we decided to stop at North Hampton anyway, just towatch the waves for awhile, even though it was misting and gray...

here's what we saw and heard at my favorite NH beach...

The ROCKS were back !!!!

Now, I don't know if the State dumped those rocks there or what, but where there was only sand two weeks ago, there was an abundance of smooth and perfect rocks for the Rock Fairy !!!

It was a miracle !

Okay, maybe not a miracle, but I took it as a sign that I still have more work to do with these wonderful rocks of mine.

Not to mention that I had just created a special custom order for my friend Patti Digh which she provided as special memory keepsakes at her friend Celeste's funeral yesterday...

or

that my restaurant owner/chef friend, Tom had sent me a message while I was rock collecting that he needs a big refill of rocks at the restaurant...

Guess I am going to keep on Rocking It, Babies !!!

I hope you had a cozy and creative weekend.

Big Rocking Love to you from the Rock Fairy !

If she could see me now...

So I listened to some COOL music in high school.

Stuff that lots of kids in my suburban neighborhood of Montreal didn't listen to at the time.

Flock of Seagulls, Tears for Fears, Ultravox, OMD, Talk Talk,...

British Techno stuff, like I said COOL (at least I thought it was then...).

So how is it that when I was asked by Maegan on Day 5 of Creativity Boot Camp to listen to

music from a time in my life that still had me living and feeling like anything was possible,

the first song that came into my head was this CHEESY number :

I listened to Lou Gramm sing it out(what is with his hair ?!) again for the first time in a really long time.

The lyrics are kind of good, you know,

over coming heartache and pain and turning to love instead...

And maybe it was my "pity party" PMS mood yesterday (still lingering today a little),

but the cheese won me over yesterday.

It did make me think about how as a teenager girl, I definitely did so want to be love.

And hey, as a forty-four year old woman, I have come a long way...

Here's my art journal page - Lady asks "Girl, whatcha want to be when you grow up ?"

(our random word prompt was "grow" for Day 5)

Girl answers "Lady, I wanna be ME when I grow up."

"You will."says Lady.

Then she asks "Girl, what do you want to know when you grow up?"

Girl replies "Lady, I wanna know what love is."

Lady's last words " You will."

This is actually a photo from my high school graduation in 1983.

And this was a photo of me about a month ago.

It was kind of cool to talk to that youthful Self and see if the dreams she held for herself came true.

Many of them have, and in many ways, I am still that girl who had her cousin alter a vintage ball gown to wear to grad when everyone else was dressing in poofy taffeta, short skirted dresses with big shoulder pads and big hair.

I am confident in my own creativity now in ways that took their roots way back then.

I guess I am doing that girl proud most of the time.

I am still being me.

And baby, I sure as heck know what Love is.

Happy Friday, Lovely Ones !

Let's hope for sweet weather tomorrow as David and I do a seacoast day to fill the old rock bucket.

Big Love !

Couple of Bootcamp Days & Thankfulness Thursday

Creativity Boot Camp
Day 3

What are your "creativity buzz kills" ? What inner and outer things interfere with your creative process ?

Random word prompt - multi-layered"

A multi-layered journal page with a list of creativity buzz kills hidden under a little door:

Page with door open - click to enlarge and read the list.

The evil creativity killer...

going after the brave Artist-Bird with her wonderful wings...

This part makes me laugh ! Hee, hee !

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Creativity Boot Camp Day 4

What inspires you ? Take a walk, take a ton of photos and then examine what themes reoccur, etc...

Random Word Prompt - Heavy Metal

Art journal page : What Inspires You

I started listing all the things that inspire me and came to the conclusion that it may be easier to say what doesn't !

I see the world through the eye's of an Artist and for that I am sooooo grateful.

The unusual, the beautiful, the inspiring just kind of finds me. Whether I can translate what I see and feel into my own art is another story...;)

Here are some of my favorite shots from my discovery walk.

I had read the prompt before I left so "heavy metal" was kind of the theme of the walk too.

(gorgeous little flower fence in white metal)

I have also been in a red place all week.

It came out in my journal pages as well as in my meditation on Monday night, where we did some work with chakras and color. It was my first time really examining things with this kind of focus. It was very pretty interesting, a little intense and gave me a lot to think about in terms of how we can help heal ourselves with so many different tools.

It made sense that then, that the fire hydrants with their reds, bright or dulled, and wonderful rusts popped out at me as I walked. I love putting a Rock My World rock on top of them. Some cool contrasts in color and I love to think of someone seeing the rock out of the corner of their eye, balanced there...

Look at the paint and patina on this incredible alarm box on a pole...

Double open...

My favorite shot and one of the ones I shared with the Creativity Boot Camp group on Flickr.

So that is where I am at in terms of the Boot Camp activities. It feels like a challenge to get to each activity every day but I am feeling a sense of accomplishment already as the pages in my journal fill up and the files of photos do too !

I woke up angry, PMS-y, crabby, sore-backy this morning.

On our morning phone call, my Mom asked me what I was going to do today.

I replied :

"Make it through the day."

I could have added :

"Try to keep from biting anyone's head off."

as I feel like every thought in my head is an angry one waiting to be expressed by my tongue with the sharpest words possible.

So I think I will lay low...

Maybe read a little or watch a movie where I can be gone from myself for a few hours...

Today is Thankfulness Thursday though so I will say that

I am grateful for this day and the freedom that I have to just wallow a little.

It makes me so much more grateful when I get back to the other side of

my Self...

See you later, Beautiful Ones...

when it is SAFE. ;)

Queen's going to BOOTCAMP!

Sunday morning, I woke up thinking about how many things in my life I have left undone.

I know, right !!!?...

Waking up like that and having those kind of negative thoughts isn't very pleasant.

After a few minutes of feeling crappy about myself,

I said to myself :

"So kid, what are you going to do about this ?"

I realized I can't really go back and change the past and

finish all the things I started but never completed, but I could start from where

I am right now and try to make a commitment to see some things through to completion.

That may be just the ticket to change some of those

negative thoughts and wake up feeling good about myself instead !

So of course, as soon as you make a bit of a plan to take action to change,

the Universe puts something in place to help you get there.

I was reading beth's blog and saw that she was joining

in on Creativity Boot Camp

- a free on-line class to help boots your Creative Powers being offered by Maegan Beishline.

Here's a bit from her introductory post :

"I’d like to welcome you to the Creativity Boot Camp! Thank you so much for being here. I really hope that you come away from this course with a deeper, more enriched sense of your creative spirit. I hope that this course enlivens and awakens your creative impulses and sets you free on your creative journeys. "

Now I am pretty in touch with my creative spirit.

I have learned that being an artist and living a creative life is essential to me and my happiness in this world.

So it wasn't only the theme of the class that made me decide to join.

It was the fact that I would be committing to two weeks of creating and writing every single day about my creative process.

Here was something challenging yet manageable that I could work on seeing through right down to the finish line !

I just happen to have two relatively quiet weeks ahead of me.

I certainly have all the simple and few supplies to participate !

So here I go - doing this for me.

To prove to myself that I can say I am going to do something that benefits my life experience and stick to it !

The Queen's going to Boot Camp, Baby !

I have decided to create a new journal for the class.

I will be making a journal page each day, doing some writing with the prompts that Maegan give us and adding photos of my stuff to the Flickr group periodically to share with the community there.

I will be doing this each day for two weeks.

Here is the page for Day 2 - June 7, 2010

Maegan also includes a random word prompt every day to work in to our art work.

Day 2's word was : Picnic.

This is the photo I am adding to the Flickr group.

This feels like a fine way to start the week !

It also feel like a fine gift to give myself.

Let's get those creative muscles in shape !

You can do this, Kimbo !

Happy Creative Monday, Beautiful Ones !

Everything has a place...

A lovely friend of mine, Kriss, is moving to California.

Because she is unsure where she will be living right now,
she is storing all of her stuff in one of those POD storage things.

Because those things get hot, she decided that she didn't want to have all her art supplies get ruined and that she should give most of it away.

She asked me if I would be willing to take her stuff.

I said yes. I figured that whatever I couldn't use, I could find good homes for.

The thing was that my own studio was kind of bursting...

Especially my art armoire from Home Depot. The shelves were a mess and I couldn't take a lot of things out without causing a bit of an avalanche.

So my friend's need and my own obsession with art supplies meant time for a big clean up !

Purging, re-organizing and prioritizing...

It took entire three days...

I didn't take before pictures (I always forget that !!!)

But I did take a couple of during...

After three long days, two full garbage bags, five bags of art goodies for friends, two boxes of art supplies that need to go to a classroom somewhere, two large bins of fabric that are now in another room and about $50.00 in plastic storage containers from Walmart

I now have a studio that looks more like this :

The top of the armoire - tidy and accessible tissue paper and canvases...

The inside of the armoire - everything organized, paper on top according to colors, and no avalanches in sight !

My altar back in order...

Instead of junk piled on it, I have inspiring things

Like my newest addition,

a little box

that came from Kriss that houses my funky mermaid from Mexico and some of the rocks

from my friend Lynne very nicely !

My work table still has a lot of stuff on it but that is how I like it - everything I need at my fingertips !


A place to paint and journal...

and a secondary place where I can set up the sewing machine or do jewelry making or even have a friend over...

Even the Computer desk got a bit of a purge and a tidy...

It all feels so wonderful to have a place for everything and have everything in its place.

I know it won't stay like this for too long but it is fun to jump into a summer of creative fun with this clean space just for me to play in !

Speaking of creative fun...

a little while ago, the lovely Deb from what's deb doing asked me for a 5x7 print of the

"Leaves of my Heart" piece I had done.

I sent it to her as a gift, and in return she sent me this gorgeous hand-made creation :

It is a lovely banner of flags made from bits of soft and sweet vintage fabrics.

Deb also embroidered words on extra bits and added them to the flags.

So pretty and so feminine. I loved it !

I though maybe it should go in my studio

but then I realized that the colors, the mood and the words fit perfectly into my other sanctuary

in my house..

our bedroom...

I hung the banner over two of the four windows that make up our bay window...

See how perfectly it works with the lovely bright flowers of my Pottery Barn duvet cover ?

I slept well last night with the words "breathe", "bliss", "allow" and "relax" hanging above me...

Little Boo says he likes the new addition to his window just fine too !

Thank you for your gift and your sweet friendship, Beautiful Deb.

Time to go put all those glorious and organized art supplies to work !

Happy Sunday, Beautiful Ones !

Thankfulness Thursday - It's all in the Attitude

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

I am thankful for :

- the heavenly smell and glorious bloom of the peonies flower I snipped from my own garden this morning before the rain...(no ants in it, yay !)

- leggings, soft t-shirts and flip flops

- my hubby surprising me with a new Pandora charm bracelet when the clasp on mine broke - he went to Jarods ! (Thank you, thank you, Sweet Man !)

-the sweet brown eyes of my Yellow Lab

- lovely comments from my friends in Blogland on my posts

- inspiring posts on some wonderfully talented and brave friends in Blogand (ie : Rachel, Connie, and Elena, just to name a few...)

- the joy my heart feels when I write thank-you cards to friends - that attitude of genuine gratitude is sooooo good for ya !

oh and so much more....

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I am finishing the packaging of some bags of Rock My World rocks that will be making there way to some of my wonderful friends who want to join me in spreading the love.

I am encouraging all my pals to take the time to give some thanks and love to some peeps in there world today.

Focusing on what is right may still seen PollyAnna or too little or too much of an effort in this world where so much is wrong...

But it is what my Soul knows for sure is the one thing that will get us all through.

At least it makes this one moment we are in right now a better place !

Spread the love anyway you can, beautiful Ones !

It really will come back to you tenfold, I promise !

An Audience with the Queen...

Hey Queenie, where ya been ?

I've been around.

Ya, whatcha been up to ?

Well, I have been doing a little of this and a little of that.

Spent a sweet Memorial Day weekend with the Hubby.

We worked on the gardens, shopped quite a few nurseries,

had lunch out one day,

breakfast another.

Went to the beach to gather rocks, feel the waves and smell the salt.

And spent a lot of time be very thankful for all we have

Cool.

You do any art ?

Ya, I did a page or two in the journal.

This is the latest :

(click on image to enlarge)

It is a bizarre totem pole that just kind of emerged...

The top is an angel praying - reminding me to maintain my attitude of gratitude.

Then comes the head, two of them actually, reminding me to look at things from both sides...

The middle is a photo of a Player's Cigarette tin. My dad actually had a tin like that that he kept little trinkets in. I think my sister Kristina still has it. So for me the tin represents a link to my roots. Tobacco was originally and still is traditionally smoked to unite the smoker with his own spirit. Though the smoking part is no longer a part of me, I kind of like that connecting to my spirit image being in the middle. Again, it all just kind of came together.

Just before the legs and feet is a square with an image of a cat on the Eiffel Tower.

I have no idea where the image came from - I have boxes of images that I have gathered from friends and bought on etsy along the way and this little square just appeared and fit perfectly as I was building my totem pole.

For me, it represents the ability to dwell in the realm of possibility.

The legs and feet from a magazine ad with their perfect black leggings and practical black shoes represent keeping your feet firmly on the ground while reach upwards.

Wow, Queenie, that is some deep stuff. You are kind of a weird chick, you know.

I don't think of myself as weird. I think I am in touch with that Inner Artist and she comes out and plays whenever I let her. It is a beautiful thing !

Beautiful ? Kind of, but like I said, weird.

So what else have you been doing ?

Well, I have been really enjoying my women friends lately too.

They are so very dear and essential to me ! The wonderful thing is that I finally, after ten years of building them slowly, have some really great relationships with women here in NH and I don't always have to travel 5 hours for a good girlfriend time !

Just yesterday, I had lunch with my friend Kriss in Stratham, which was wonderful. We chatted and shared stories and really encouraged one another to follow our dreams fearlessly. What more could you ask from a friend ?

I also went out for dinner with my Art Gathering friends. Mexican food, large margaritas for some (not me, I was driving) and lots of giggles and laughs. Most of the girls went on to see the Sex and the City movie (which I saw last week with my friend Sonia and really didn't like !) but my pal Colleen and I headed to Barnes and Noble to peruse the art mags and books and continue the chatting a deux. (Just the two of us!)

Plus I have wonderful phone calls with friends back in Montreal often during the week.

I truly feel blessed with the friendships that I have built in my life. So much good juicy girlfriend LOVE !

Well, Queenie, you are a very good friend, I will give you that !

Thanks ! I think I am pretty good at spreading the love..

So anything else you feel like sharing today ?

Well, I am loving the way my back deck is coming together ! I planted a few different flowers in containers, as well as some tomatoes and some herbs.

I really love the African Daisies I found.

Check out the gorgeous yellow :

And these bizarre purple ones - they look like alien flowers !

Pretty...

Yup. This warm and wonderful spring is helping me live in the moment, enjoy all the treasures that life is surrounding me with, and feel really connected in this crazy, sad, beautiful, joyful world.

So Queenie, why do you think that life is so good for you right now ?

Oh, that is easy ! Love is the answer to every question, my friend. LOVE.

(click to enlarge) - journal page

"Maybe Birds" - May, 2010

Well, on that note, let me say Thank You for spending some time with us today !

You are so very welcome. Have a great hump day, Beautiful Ones !

Queenie, OUT !