A few years ago, I did a video for Creative Jumpstart about what I do to get creative. One of the things I shared in that video was leaving all my art supplies in plain sight. I find that it has a significant impact on my creativity and on whether I use my supplies or not.
The image you see above is the configuration I set up for 2014. On the other side of the desk are my stamps, washi tapes, my sakura watercolor box, sewing machine, and some supplies I use less often. And this side is all the art supplies I use to do my yearlong projects. The only thing not shown is my Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils which I use daily, religiously and own in every color. I love and adore them. They are far and above my favorite product.
I often get asked what I use and for Christmas this year I got a few new things and I also made a resolution to use a wider variety of products so I can learn and experiment. Due to all this, I thought I can do a post on what I have, how I store it and how I use it. Hopefully this is helpful.
For the most part, I store all my art supplies in three black plastic containers. The containers are actually the boxes from the lego advent calendars my kids had for previous holidays. I find they are almost perfect for my needs. They are not super sturdy so I keep the new ones each year and swap them after 1-2 years of use.
Right in front of me is the container with all my acrylic paints. I tend to use mostly Golden and exclusively heavy body paints. It’s what I like and what I am used to. I haven’t experimented a lot with other brand names so I am not making any political statements, just this is what I have. I paint the tops of each tube so I know what’s inside quickly.
To the right of that, I have another one filled mostly with my new supplies:
In the front are the Montana pens which I want to remember to use and experiment with this year since I just got them. Behind them, to the right, are the Conte pencils for sketching and some color pens I’ve had for years. And then RH oil Pigment sticks for facial colors, another new supply I want to make sure to play with. And finally my tombow watercolor markers which I love and use relatively often.
Next to that is a basket with my two notebooks and the ATG gun which I use a lot, and a towel to wipe paint. Behind that is my lesser used products or tall stuff like rulers, scissors, etc. I have the copic markers and Pitt pens back there, too. I use those less often, for now, though I might move them up to behind montana pens since I have room there.
Next up is the container to my right:
This one has a lot of variety. The Caran D’ache Neocolor II water soluble crayons, Derwent Inktense and Graphitint pencils, Col-Erase pencils, Stabilo CarbOthello pastel pencils, Faber Castell Aquarelles and Art Grip pencils. In the second row: Posca pens, Prismacolor Pencils, Frixion erasable pens and markers, guache paints, water soluble oil pastels, and Faber Castell gelatos. Then I have lots of Pitt Pens in black and Sakura Microns in 0.005, which I use for everything. I also have mechanical pencils, erasers, and the Stabilo All pencils which I use all the time. And finally some other pastels and sticks that I use less often. And the new Sennelier Pastels I got for Christmas (yes, I was really well spoiled this year on art supplies.)
And finally, inside the basket that holds my ATG gun, I also have this:
These are peerless watercolors and the arrangement and idea and everything comes from the awesome Jane Davenport who explains it all in detail here. I took these with me on the flight to CHA this week and I love love love them.
What you don’t see in the photo is my PenPastels which are stored away and end up never getting used. I firmly believe this is because they are not out and I am trying to find a way to keep them on my desk too so I find myself reaching for them.
I know this seems like a lot of stuff, and it is, but I use every single one of these during the course of each week and I know that’s because they are sitting right there within my reach. Each item that I put away or make inaccessible never, ever gets used. For example, I put away my Liquitex Ink! bottles and even though they are on my desk, because they are less accessible, they never get used.
So if you want to start using the art supplies you have, my first recommendation is to find a way to have them out in the open! I hope this answers some of the questions and please feel free to leave me comments if you have more.
Off to do some art!
As it worked out with the title page, this month will only have three more weeks. So this week is the monthly intent for January: Listen Calmly.
January is going to be a tough month for work, so I decided that calm would be a good way to start the year, especially since serene is one of my core desires. So this month’s intent is to listen calmly.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what calm means to me. What I’ve learned from a lot of reading and listening to talks is that when we stress, our fight or flight response kicks in and our prefrontal cortex (where we do higher level thinking) shuts down. If I can manage to find a way to calm myself down, it gives my brain some time to come back online and for me to be able to think again.
This means that I am now acting and not reacting. This is where I would like to be.
When I was discussing a situation where I often find myself reacting with my coach last year, one trick I thought of was to walk away (in this case from the computer) and take ten minutes to myself. Go outside if I can, but if not, just walk around the living room, or do whatever it takes to spend the time. Ten minutes can be long when you’re doing nothing. Long enough to have the influx of emotion pass and long enough for my body to stop reacting and for my ability to think to come back.
And while ten minutes is long enough for all that to happen, it’s short enough that the “disaster” can wait. It will not get much worse. I can afford the ten minutes.
So that’s my plan for this week. If I find myself experiencing anxiety, stress, worry, fear, I will take a ten minute break and walk around. Wait for the immediate reaction to pass and for the calmness to come back.
Here’s a before shot of the above page. I used the picture of a tree because trees make me feel calm. The lettering is Octave and the tree is inspired by the wonderful Pam Carriker.
I then colored with watercolor pencils to complete my page.
Listen with Intent is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.
Here are photos from this week:
We cleaned out the board game closet this week, which meant a lot of playing.
the boys played Chess, stratego, risk, and scrabble.
i played scrabble with them too.
it’s my favorite. i loved watching them play.
then we took a walk to the park so david could get some photos of animals.
and Nathaniel could play.
he had to make some funny faces, of course.
as he loves being a clown.
when we sit to take our family shots, he can hardly contain himself.
he looks at me.
or away from us.
or starts giggling.
until we’re all laughing too.
and here we go. so grateful for my life. i hope your week was lovely, too.
Weekly Diary is a project for 2013. You can read more about it here.
As I was thinking about what project I’d like to do with David this year, I kept coming back to my theme for the year: learning. I want 2014 to be a year of learning and growth. So it made perfect sense that I would pick a project where David and I could learn together.
What I’ve decided is that we’ll be taking online classes together, using sites like udacity, edx, coursera, etc. and we will make little cards to capture all that David learned each week.
Our first class is by udacity.com and it’s a math class called Introductory Algebra Review.
I hope to do a wide range of subjects together and I know that we might only make it through four classes since they are meant for college so we have to go slowly but it will still be worth it. Here are some I’ve found for us:
We may take all of these or none of these. Either way it’s nice to have a list to draw from.
Here’s to a year of learning!
I talked about how I had different types of goals for my projects this year. Here’s what I had in mind for this one:
Skill to learn/expand: doodling, using different mediums, journaling, collage
Topic to explore: what i know to be true, lessons from the week.
Format: Squared notebook spread 11×8.5
Paper: Moleskine Journal Squared. This is just ordinary notebook paper.
Media: Mostly dry mediums but some gelatos, watercolor brushes, crayons, etc.
This idea also came completely from the Soul Comfort class. When Melody talked about the idea and showed some of her pages, I was immediately hooked. Coupled with the fact that I knew I wanted to focus on doodling this year, I decided this was a winner for 2014.
My goal for this project is to couple lots of journaling with doodling, sketching, and collage. And whatever else I am in the mood for. This is the first page I ever did and it’s a bit different than the ones that come next. As I did more pages, the idea expanded a bit and then settled down.
As with the others, I am not married to a particular way and this might shift and morph but for now, I love what it is.
Like the Listen with Intent project, I created a pinterest board for the ideas I want to try out. I am hoping to have a wide variety and to use this book to explore, have fun, and journal my heart out.
The pages in this book are thin so even though I hadn’t intended to, I ended up glueing every other page just to get them to be a bit stronger, but I also plan to stick to dryer mediums which will be a fun and interesting challenge.
The prompts are all from Melody and this first page says: Today I know that I would like to get better at….
and I wrote about not being so hard on myself when I am learning something new.
And the feather art was inspired by Jane Monk Studio and I used copics to color the feather.
Here’s to a year of meaningful and fun pages to record what I know.
When I originally thought of the projects I might like to do for 2014, I picked several art ones, of course. And when I started the Soul Comfort class and they had videos on creating little stitched patches, I wasn’t interested. I’m not sure why I was resisting it.
Even more surprisingly, a few weeks later I decided that not only would I stop resisting it but I could make stitching little patches a project for 2014.
Clearly I was confused about this whole stitching thing.
Once the idea began taking form, I couldn’t stop it. I spent a few days trying to decide between hoop sizes. I had a 4 inch one and a 8 inch one. One seemed to small and the other, too big. I tried to envision what a 6″ one would look like and was pretty sure 5 or 6″ would be the right size. I ordered some and then got bored waiting for them to come so I decided to give my 4″ one a try.
And it was just right.
The circle was big enough to draw something nice but small enough to get my project done in a week.
So 4″ hoop it was.
As with all my projects, I went on pinterest and created a board for the project and filled it with ideas.
The goal is that each circle will have an image and a word. This one is a little tree with birds and the word loved.
I will be using muslin for most of my circles. I like the fabric and love the white and already have a bunch on hand. I have the 4″ hoop and a blue dissolving marker. I bought a lightbox. I stitch my circles on the hoop each week and then when I am done, I take them off and cut them. On the back, I am using another fabric I had on hand, something slightly gold. I then do a blanket stitch to join the two. I suck at the blanket stitch and can never do it even, nice or consistent. But this is not meant to be perfect so i am just trying to enjoy it.
here’s a peek at the back:
My current plan is to make these little circles and then combine them all into a little book or something. I don’t have a grand idea here. The reason I picked stitching is because I like the idea of learning a few little stitches, creating something small each week, and most importantly, stitching is something that really makes me serene and I can do it while I listen to a book or watch TV or sit with my family.
Here’s to a year of stitching little circles.
Two nights ago, one of my son’s close friend’s mom emailed me (and several other moms) to see if we were interested in signing up our kids for summer camp classes. As I looked at the prices and the feasibility of driving my kid back and forth to the faraway location, I started stressing and worrying and my mind started spinning.
I’ve noticed that I’ve been doing this a lot in the last few years as my son started elementary school and I’ve been trying to make sure I can meet his needs as well as the demands of my work and life and my other son and my marriage, etc. Each time something comes up, I feel a sense of panic and I try to do what’s “right.” I talk to my husband and when he questions my thoughts, I get aggressive and defensive.
And then I was reading this wonderful blog post yesterday.
It made me realize exactly how much stress I’d been carrying for the last few years.
More importantly, it made me realize why.
I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t grow up here and didn’t know the rules around Elementary school or if it was the dynamics of where I live, but either way, somewhere along the line, I felt like I was ill-equipped to figure out what my son’s life should be like at this age. What extracurriculars should he be doing, how much, what play dates, sports, academics, etc. Because I felt like I hadn’t spent enough time thinking about my values and thoughts around this, I was reacting to what others around me did. Since I had no idea, they must be right and we must do what they were doing.
Reading that post woke me up.
I am who I am and I do what I do. There are things I stand for and it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out how this extends to my son. We have our way of living and family values. I decided that it was time to take a big step back, think about what really matters to me, to us, to my son and then figure out how this looks in the real world.
For example, instead of going to the camp that’s really far away, I’d much rather my son spends some of his summer time volunteering. I think he will learn much more valuable life lessons there than at any camp. I also believe since we both work, we are not in a place to drive our kid 2 hours each way for camp and that just means we have to pick one that’s closer if he really wants to go to camp. This doesn’t mean my kid is going to be devastated (in fact, I talked to him afterwards and he doesn’t even want to go to that camp.) It just means that this is the way our family works and we all adjust to make it optimal for everyone involved.
Once I’d lined up my values and what matters most to me, I decided I will talk to my son. Let’s see what matters most to him and between him and us, we can decide how to handle summer (and all other things that come up.) This moves us from a space of reacting to a space of intentional action. That’s the space I want to be in.
And also to remember nothing is personal. This wonderful mom wasn’t “pointing her avocado at me.” She was trying to do her best for her kid, aligned with her values and life choices and wanted to make sure my son felt included if he so chose. It was a kind and generous gesture. And I am grateful.
Thanks to this new perspective, I know that when I find myself reacting and defensive and aggressive, it’s a sign that I need to step back and reevaluate where my values are. What matters most to me and what that would look like in action.
Amazing what one blog post can do.
I’ve been thinking a lot about The Savor Project and even though this project hasn’t fully worked for me for either of the two years, I am still not ready to give up on it. I love the idea of preserving our stories and savoring our moments. I love how it encourages me to take more photos. It even encourages me to do more with my family.
So I decided to give it one more try for 2014.
This time I have a slightly different plan. I am going to do the project fully digitally and then order an 8×10 Blurb book at the end of the year. If this works, I can do one each year.
I dug up my old week in the life templates I’d used a few years ago and adjusted them a little bit to come up with my spreads:
and the other way around:
and then one alternative look:
I am envisioning a spread per week but they can also be turned to single pages per week. The dates might disappear if I decide I don’t like the pressure but for now they are not bothering me. I can also put a wider range like January 2 to 15, so I have some idea of the duration but no pressure to do it with some specific regularity.
I don’t know if I will stick to these or change them completely. I don’t know if this whole idea will work or not, but I am going to give it a try.
I also plan to do my daily gratitudes (which will become weekly gratitudes) and celebrations as part of this project this year, as maybe extra enticement.
If you’d like a copy of the psd templates, you can download them here.
Here’s to another year of savoring.
I loved several of Elizabeth Strout’s books so when The Burgess Boys came out, I knew I wanted to read it. She has a magical way with words.
I will admit it’s been a while since I read this book and I don’t remember it as well as I remember some of her other ones like Olive Kitteridge. But I still remember liking it. Elizabeth has a gift for creating characters and even if this wasn’t my favorite of hers, all of her books are wonderful and completely worthy of your time.
Though if you’ve not read her before, start with Olive Kitteridge.
I talked about how I had different types of goals for my projects this year. Here’s what I had in mind for this one:
Skill to learn/expand: Painting, using different mediums, portraits
Topic to explore: Things I want to Remember. Things that are meaningful/inspring to me.
Format: Portrait 9×11
Paper: Dylusions Creative Journal has a mix of white bristol like paper and manila paper.
Media: Mostly acrylics but collage, spray inks, oils, pastels and anything else I want to try this year.
I bought this journal last year because I heard how wonderful it is and I wanted to try it out. I usually have an intended purpose when I buy a new journal but I didn’t have anything with this one. It sat at my desk for quite some time.
Until one day I was particularly frustrated with myself and opened to the first page and created the piece you see above. I was annoyed with myself, With the way I see myself in the world lately. I was fed up and ready to be done. And I wanted to remember that feeling.
So I painted and I wrote.
It says: it is time to be brave. i choose to fly free. i am ready to break out of the cages i have created for myself. i am done being a victim. watch me soar.
I then decided this would be my book for remembering messages that are meaningful to me. Things that I lose sight of. Things that I want to make a point to remember.
When I was sitting down to think about my projects for 2014, I knew this book was going to be a part of it. I decided to couple it with something else I’d decided to take on for 2014: Life Book. I took a free class from Tam a few years ago and I have been a fan ever since. I was on the fence about taking this class in both 2012 and 2013 so this year I decided to just take the plunge. Knowing myself, I was aware that the best way to commit to a year-long class was to make it a part of one of my projects. So I decided this journal would be my Life Book for 2014. I plan to do the exercises/promopts/etc. in this journal. I might do exactly what the lesson is or I might just use the art technique and do my own topic, or I might just pick the topic and do my own technique. I am open to the possibilities and since I have never taken the class, I am not sure how it will turn out yet, but I am flexible.
I am also taking The Walk with Brave Girls in January, so I am pretty sure I will incorporate those lessons into this book, too. At least that’s my current plan.
I will also likely use it for my My Mind’s Eye Mixed Media pages.
This will be my book of experimenting, having fun, trying new mediums, and keeping in touch with Art Journaling this year.
For the first few weeks I will be sharing mixed media pages I’ve made for My Mind’s Eye last year in this book. They are all reminders that I need again and again.
Here’s to a year or Remembering.
Like most people, I usually like to start fresh at the beginning of the year. There’s something magical about beginnings. Beginning of a new year, a new month, a new week or even a new day. It feels like anything is possible in a new beginning.
As long as it’s not used as another excuse to postpone beginning.
The new year this year fell on a Wednesday and I had decided that I would be taking some downtime with my family during the holidays this year until we all had to go back to our external obligations (school and work). Since neither started until today, I had the conundrum of trying to figure out what to do with my monthly projects. I knew I wasn’t going to start until we’re back to work, but then it would be the 6th of the month. Does that mean I should skip January altogether? I know it sounds silly when I write it like this but so many of us do this in so many ways.
I’ll start Monday, I’ll start tomorrow. Or even when we really want a specific goal, we put conditions: I’d like to start my new company but I need to have a logo first. Or my website has to be professionally designed first.
No it does not.
There are very few cases where there are a slew of must-have prerequisites. No one day is actually any more “special” than the other. The best time to start anything is: right now. Always.
Always.
Just think of it this way, if you start now, by next year, you’ll be 359 days into it. That’s definitely better than 0 days. By now, you will either have failed and moved on to something else or had small setbacks and conquered them all or you’ll be a huge success. In my opinion, any of the three scenarios is better than doing nothing.
I feel like when we’re scared of things or when inertia is strong, we just pile up reasons as to why it’s not a good time to start right now. When I woke up this morning, I reminded myself that this is day one. I can choose to start today. And if I try but fail, well guess what? Tomorrow is day one, too.
So, I woke up this morning and drew my little birdie. This means I will only have 25 days of birdies instead of 31. But it also means I will have 25 more birdies at the end of January than I would have if I decided I could only begin at the start of each month.
So if you’re like me and you’re pondering when’s a good time to start, the time is now.
I talked about how I had different types of goals for my projects this year. Here’s what I had in mind for this one:
Skill to learn/expand: Lettering (and Sketching)
Topic to explore: Create specific intentions around listening for each week
Format: Landscape 5×8.25
Paper: Moleskine Watercolor Journal
Media: Watercolors
I’ve wanted to do lettering for quite a few years now. I’ve taken a few classes but nothing did the trick, so I decided I wanted to make it a major focus for 2014 and see what happens. As with each year, I am not sure how it will turn out, but I am looking forward to finding out.
As for the topic, I’ve become a huge fan of setting intentions thanks to last year’s January OLW prompt
and the Life Organizer book. As we approached 2014, I knew I wanted to continue this wonderful concept.
So I’ve set monthly intentions for listening for all of 2014 and then I will set weekly intentions within those monthly ones. For each week, I will set an intention, use a new alpha to write the title and then couple it with a small sketch. At least that’s my intention for this project.
I’ve created a Pinterest board full of alphas I can use. I would like to make another one with sketching ideas (to match the phrases/sentiment) but I haven’t done that, yet.
Here are the intentions I’ve written down:
- listen kindly: look for the positive, be gentle, look them in the eye.
- listen patiently: slow down, be present. take your time.
- listen joyfully: hear the good. celebrate the sounds.
- listen deliberately: choose what to listen to.
- listen calmly: breathe. be present. relax.
- listen carefully: what are you missing? be attentive.
- listen gratefully: what’s amazing in this moment? You’re lucky.
- listen bravely: pay attention to the whispers. What are they telling you?
- listen creatively: what else could it be? is there another perspective here?
- listen publicly: go out there, listen in a group.
- listen deeply: what more in there? can you go deeper?
- listen actively: be engaged. look for what’s not being said. listen to your body.
I’m not attached to these. I might stick to them, I might not. I just know that doing preliminary work makes the project more possible and exciting to me.
Here’s a before look at the page above:
This page uses the avanth typeface. I first drew in pencil, then I went over it using my Pitt pen and then I colored it with Watercolor pencils.
And here we are. Project #1 for 2014.
|
projects for twenty twenty-six
projects for twenty twenty-five
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
|
