Secret #9 of 12: Transcending Rejection and Roadblocks

Its week 9 of the 12 Secrets book.

I thought that as an antidote to rejection slips I'd make suggestion cards.

Because I'm currently focusing on art most of these are simple art suggestions... but not all of them... sometimes what's needed is a change of focus. None of them require me to feel that I'm "good at drawing" or any of those things which can get in the way of actually making something.

If you would like to print these out for yourself here are the images I printed:

These four are uploaded to blogger - if you click on them you'll get a large version of the image.

I printed them out on white card and then sliced them up.

If by any chance you do want to use them you may wonder what some of the terms mean.

For instance:

blind contour drawing - there are several ways you might choose to do this:

* look at an object, let a pen or pencil draw on a sheet of paper as your eyes trace around the contours of the object
* close your eyes - imagine a drawing and let your hands simply draw
* look at an object - attempt to draw it without looking at your drawing but occasionally allow yourself sneak peaks!

Another term you may not know is what I call doing a "feelie". Put a pen or pencil in your drawing hand and let it draw whilst with the other hand you trace the outline of the image of which you are doing a feelie. You might like to also try this with the pen or pencil in your non-dominant hand.

You can also do a feelie of a 3 dimensional object though that isn't on these cards... it can help with something tactile to put it out of sight whilst you feel it so that you aren't tempted to draw what you see, just what you feel.

Jim has been feeling creative too - go to his blog to hear his song - Dog Park.

Secret #8 of 12: Selecting Empowering Partnerships and Alliances

My digital tweaking of iwadesu's Hear, See, Speak no Evil

Empowering Partners?

I love collaborating with other people like iwadesu. She isn't someone I've met and I've not used any of her photos before (at least I don't think so) but she was kind enough to put this image on flickr with a creative commons license that allows reuse and manipulation which means when I searched for something to show hear no, see no, speak no evil hers was one of the images to come up. This sort of loose association of collaborators is one I really appreciate and one of the reasons why I like flickr so much. Most, though not all, of my flickr images are available for others to play with too and are some of my most popular images.

More formal partnerships?

Well there is my husband - he and I do quite a lot of things together, some of them creative. Right now he is in the process of writing Teasel's dog blog. We planned to do this in "real time" but somehow it didn't happen and he's been busily posting back-dated entries and is currently up to mid-December last year. He keeps a diary and has relied on that. I'd taken lots of photos (and he's taken some too) and many of those are in there.

Today I bumped into an old work colleague... he's someone I enjoyed working with though we didn't do much together. He now has his own business called Business with Heart - what a great name! His presence in my day reminded me that once I used to really enjoy the people aspect of my work life.

However with art work its not been the same. I've attempted twice to share studio space and found both times that it was disastrous for my creative output. This may be something to do with my needing to avoid words too much when I'm in picture space. And the converse that talking shifts me out of picture space...

But I really get a lot out of the way we all spark ideas in each other via our blogs. Yesterday Leah of Creative Every Day mentioned Angel cards - I thought of these, the Angel cards that are available separately but also as part of the Transformation Game. I decided I needed to play it:

Normally one plays it with other people but I've also got the Solo version and I've adapted that to play in other ways too. Yesterday I played it with 2 hands - my conscious self and my dream self. It was amazing - I love the things that come up through playing it though I won't bore you with details!

Last week Kathryn, Collage Diva, called this process of sparking ideas back and forth the Inspiration Spiral. I love that name.

Secret #7 of 12: Consulting with Guides

Thanks to Leo Reynolds for winged figure of Peace and GoYurt for GoYurt at night
both with a creative commons license that allows alteration.

Onto week 7 of 12 Secrets... For me the idea of consulting with guides is about listening to my inner guides... looking and listening for answers from within.

Right now my intuition is that I need to play with labyrinths again.

And I decided I needed to carve them. So I used lino.

One worked, the other didn't. I rather like the symbology of both a working, followable, labyrinth and one that is merely superficially labyrinthine but in fact quickly turns out to be a dead end.

I am amused at one synchronicity. This week's interview is with Melba. And it was when I was taking part in Melba's Mixed Media Memoirs (an old challenge that is no longer running) that I last showed images of labyrinths on this blog!

For those prompts I was tending to scan things in, manipulate and glue them together digitally, before I printed out the completed whole to stick in my memoir. This time around, with the inspiration of altered books and Soul Journals, I'm using more real glue. And maybe also because the novelty of doing everything digitally has worn off a little...

And I have really been getting my hands dirty this time. These are my first lino prints since school!

Here are the next two I did:

Sorry this is all a bit stilted... my words go out the window when I'm in strong image space.

Secret #6 of 12: Conquering Saboteurs

Suit of Armour, featuring pwbaker's girl warrior of the 15th century
with a creative commons license that allows alteration.

We are onto chapter 6 of Gail McMeekin's "12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women" hosted by Jamie Ridler.

This chapter is about Conquering Saboteurs - and what better for that than a protective golden suit of armour! This is a partially completed page from my SoulJournal done in response to the 3rd day of Soul Journaling prompts from Sarah Whitmire which is about our critics, both internal and external, and building some protection for ourselves from them.

I started working on these prompts last week but was struggling to find suitable armour. On Saturday Radio 4 had a play about Joan of Arc and I thought that I might try a search based on her... I love searching through flickr using the advanced search so that I only find images which are available for manipulation - but you need some idea of what to look for!

The Soul Journalling has been inspired by some of you - thank you!

I love mixed media work and have had a couple of goes at altering books. I'm loving playing with these prompts in what was once a Colour Me Beautiful Style Guide book and is becoming my own Soul Journal!

Last week I was inspired to re-organise my art materials after watching Art by Chrysti's video tour of her studio. I did a lot of sorting out but I realised I was rather short of storage furniture. So imagine my joy at finding these outside someone's house with a sign on them saying "please take".

Jim was kind enough to collect and install them for me - Thank you Jim!

They fit into a previously unused space and are perfect for my paints.

Chrysti has been doing a whole series of Giveaways, the most recent was Day 21 of the planned 29. That one is open until February 20th, 2009. And she has the rest of the 29 yet to post. So do check out her blog.

Another freebie I was lucky enough to benefit from was on Thursday... Bristol Zoo were celebrating Darwin's 200th birthday by offering free admission to anyone sporting a beard - whether real or fake.

Of course that did mean I, and lots of others, had to wear a beard to gain our free entry:

The centre photo is of Jim wearing the beard he uses when playing bass when the band he is in covers ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man" - their band is called the Macaroni Penguins - so here you see a penguin, in a beard, at the zoo.

There are six photos around the edge of me which also involve the same beard.

Teasel, being a dog, is not allowed into the zoo (they don't even allow assistance dogs in which must be rather hard on those that rely on them) so Jim and I took it in turns to wear the beard and go into the zoo whilst the other took Teasel for a walk nearby.

The interview this week seemed extra-specially relevant to me too - I take my camera out the way Andrea Scher describes and love seeing my local neighbourhood in a new way daily both with and without my dog! Being grounded by what is around me really helps when I'm feeling that I'm going through a low of any kind and is something I tend to enjoy doing whether I'm feeling "creative" or not. I don't worry about whether my photos are any good whilst I take them - then I'm in the moment and attempting to capture some aspect of it. Whether I have or not doesn't really matter.

Here are some of the things I've photographed locally recently:

My eye is drawn to quirky things - like the daffodils labelled as Lavendula! And you really wouldn't believe the number of suitcases that have been put out on the streets recently.

This post has taken me so long to write that I've already altered the armour a bit - here is a close-up:

Secret #5 of 12: Committing To Self-Focus

"Eye Candy" for February's MSH on Flickr

We are onto chapter 5 of Gail McMeekin's "12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women" hosted by Jamie Ridler.

My first thought on reading this chapter was that I'm already self-focussed... then I wondered if I was just kidding myself and I noticed how hard it is to put a whole day aside to just make things.

There's the dog to walk (so I take my camera and usually get photos too - most of my house numbers have been taken that way), there's shopping to do (even then I sometimes get photos - today I got this photo of a butterfly cake) and Jim to be with (not time I plan to give up!)... We are pretty good at sharing the cooking but I do seem to do most of the laundry... He might point out that he does most of the DIY... We have no children and are not especially house proud so really there isn't much to bind me.

I think rather than focussing directly on Self-focus this week I'd be better off focussing on:

Spelt using Spell with flickr

Because Self-Forgiveness is what I need to improve my Self-Focus.

I have been reasonably productive in the last week or so.

Those of you who haven't yet commented on my perpetual calendar giveaway have until noon GMT Feb 11th if you would like to be in with a chance of winning one of the three that I'm giving away... make sure you comment on that specific post as I'll be doing the draw from the names there.

I'm still collecting new photos of numbers and have started to collect photos of letters too... though as yet I haven't a full alphabet so am relying on tools like Spell with flickr for colourful words!

With the unusual amount of snow we've had this week I've built a snow totem:

And I've taken lots of snowy photos... most of which have yet to get on flickr...

I've made a couple of new SoulCollage® cards, one of which - Goat - is on my card blog. I've realised that an excellent way to get a good usable set of cards would be to send them off to be printed as postcards... I'm still thinking about that as it would be a complete change in feel to the cards I've previously made.

And today I even bought myself a present:

The chapter did get me wondering what more I could do to support the creative women I know... especially those I know who aren't bloggers... I thought maybe something creative from me to help them...

What would you suggest?

Secret #4 of 12: Surrendering To Creative Cycles

"Fish on a Bicycle" by Darren Greenhow

We are onto chapter 4 of Gail McMeekin's "12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women" hosted by Jamie Ridler.

And today I've got my copy of the book at last!

A couple of days ago I found I could read parts of it on google book search, which has some way of monitoring how much one's read and limits it, but it seems to let one dip in wherever one likes.

But its much better to have a real physical copy in my hand at last.

This week is about surrendering to creative cycles...

And talk about creative cycles....

Our household is currently being turned upside down as Teasel, our not yet quite 6 month old puppy, has just come into season for the first time...

She is so frustrated that she is not being allowed to run free in the park... indeed yesterday she showed us that she is able to leap the puppy fence that we thought was keeping her safely constrained within our back garden...

---

The keys in this chapter are:

1. Learning Patience
2. Surviving the Void
3. Navigating in the Darkness
4. Watching for Clues
5. Trusting in Creative Re-emergence

1. Patience

How can I tell the difference between patience and procrastination?

Is one person's patience another's procrastination?

I love to read cards of various sorts:

• Am I putting off doing something else when I do this?
  
  
• Am I just playing?
  
  
• Am I finding ways to let clues come through to me?

Photo: "Butterfly Inspiration" - a toy butterfly with the Inspiration card from the Enlightenment Pack by Chuck Spezzano

2. Surviving the Void

Each void that I've faced has been different and needed different coping strategies... the main thing I've learned is that what worked before may not work again.

If you don't like where you are, you need to do something different... 'cos more of whatever it is that you were doing, no matter how beneficial it was before, may be currently digging that hole deeper.

Letting go of everything is sometimes what's needed... and that's really scary!

Image: Collage and digital manipulation. Blogged in Novemeber 2006.

3. Navigating in the Darkness

I'm not sure that this is a useful concept for me.

It makes me think about things like destinations and maps...

But what if what's really needed, especially at times of darkness, is to realise there is only what is here and now...

When I'm in the dark it is a time when I feel that there is no meaning and no purpose... and the fact that at other times I feel differently doesn't really help me then.

Accepting where I am at such times is never easy but, so far, reaching that point of acceptance is what has then enabled me to see the light at the end of the tunnel...

Photo: "Little Lost Butterfly" - a pram toy found on the pavement (sidewalk).

4.Watching for Clues

One of my favourite activities...

As I've mentioned before I love synchronicities.

I also look out for other sorts of signs.

Sometimes I ascribe meaning to them.

Other times I simply enjoy them.

Does God play dice?

Or is it simply that we cannot see the pattern?

Or feel the connections?

Photo: "Butterfly Brain" - graffiti of Einstein and a butterfly spotted in Bristol

5. Trusting in Creative Re-emergence

Does a caterpillar know it will become a butterfly?

Does it dream and yearn for wings?

Or does it just get on with being a caterpillar?









Photos: "Paper Doll - 1" & "Caterpillar dreaming of things to come"

I hadn't previously realised quite how many butterfly images I had on my flickr stream. And as there weren't quite enough I popped out to get a couple more before finishing this post ;-)

If you click on any one of the thumbnail below (or any of the other images in this post) it will take you to that photo on flickr: