Creative Self-Care Archives - Page 2 of 32

Facing the Empty Space: Practicing Mindfulness Through Art

06.20.2018 by Amy Johnson Maricle // Leave a Comment

Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

Since last fall, I’ve been participating in a practice called authentic movement. It’s a movement-based mindfulness practice and active imagination process. I’ve been inspired by all of the parallels between the movement practice, and my art practice, and I wanted to share with you about one of them today.

Just so you understand, I’ll give you the basic layout. We practice in a light-filled renovated barn – a big open space. There is a facilitator who is the witness, and there are movers. Each of the participants moves with her eyes closed for about 45 minutes. The idea is to tune into what your body wants to do, and to follow the impulse as closely as you can. So if your hand wants to make a fist, you do that. If your feet enjoy sliding on the wood floors, do that. (I do that often.) But it’s not a planned movement or a performance of any kind. It’s about being mindfully, non-judgmentally present to your body and what it wants and needs in the moment.

When the movement is over, the witness reflects back something she saw and what it made her feel and experience. Her job is to help you feel that you were non-judgmentally seen, not interpreted. It’s a very beautiful practice, and I find it more accessible than regular meditation practice. There’s something really powerful about being seen non-judgmentally, both by yourself and by another.

Before we begin, we stand at the periphery of the room and make eye contact to honor each other, and then we do something interesting – we look at the open space to honor it too. We do this again at the end. At first I wasn’t quite sure what this meant, but recently, my teacher offered a little nugget of wisdom that really struck me. She said:

“In the beginning, there is nothing. In the end, there is nothing.”

It’s the same with art. In the beginning, there is nothing, and in the end, there is nothing once again. You begin a piece in the empty space, fill it with your marks, complete it, put it away, and return to the emptiness. We face the possibility, the curiosity, and the anxiety of not knowing.

So much of what scares us about art practice stems from facing this empty space. So much of what excites us about the art process stems from the emptiness too. What helps me to face the possibilities and the anxieties is knowing that I am not alone. I face the unknown in community.

Fluid Art Workshop:

We’ve been talking a lot in my Diving Deep class about how important community is in building our courage as artists. I want to help you build your art courage too. I’m inviting you to a free workshop tomorrow, Thursday, June 21st at 12pm EST. There’s still time to register, and you’ll get an amazing PDF with all the goodies from the workshop. There’ll be a 48-hour replay as well. I’m thrilled to tell you that I’ll be announcing an AMAZING freebie at the end, so stick around for that. Click here to register now.

Creatively Yours,

Amy

Don’t Make Art, Make Marks

03.09.2018 by Amy Johnson Maricle // 2 Comments

Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

Happy March! I’ve been deep in content creation mode, and I cannot wait to spill the beans about my new class! It’s going to be such an adventurous and beautiful experience for so many of you, who will dive deeper than ever before into your art practices. Stay tuned for more information on that class.

In the meantime, last week we had a wonderful Facebook Live workshop: Simple Marks & Creative Sparks, where I shared tons of art journaling ideas and some inspiration: stop trying to make art, and focus on making marks. I wanted to inspire you to get beyond the need to always create a “product” and get into the mode of exploration, like a deep sea diver – let’s just see what’s down there, and what we can create. If you missed the workshop and want to take it, I’ll be offering a mini version of it soon, so be sure you are on my mailing list so you don’t miss out.

Mark making, whether with a brush, your hands, or random objects, is the basis of most 2-D paintings. The more we understand about the marks and effects we can get with the tools at our disposal, the more fun we have and the more we can say with our art. I find it’s just a ton of fun to explore with repetition, variation, and pattern with mark making.

You really don’t need to make anything prescribed in your journal, just explore and enjoy. That’s what your journal is for. See the sea foam green piece? That has some very subtle marks scratched into the paint, and then I glued one of my mini masterpieces on top. And the black and white pieces? I’d like to try that several different ways to see what happens. If this process of simple mark making and play is speaking you to you, I have a new, live format class that’s open to a limited number of people: Diving Deep: Intuitive Art Journaling. We will be learning to dance between artistic technique and using impulse and imagination to create your own intuitive style. The class starts April 23rd.

This piece has a lot of marks scratched into paint. I haven’t played with etching in years and it was such fun. I’m excited to do more.

Don't make art, make marks. #markmaking Click To Tweet

Sometimes a really simple page is so pleasing to the eye. It’s restful and rejuvenating. That’s how I feel about this one.

Curious about the supplies I used? Here’s a list with affiliate links:

Strathmore Watercolor Journal

Moleskine Art Plus Sketchbook Large

Moleskine Art Plus Sketchbook, Pocket

Liquitex heavy body professional paint, black

Liquitex heavy body professional paint, white

And the small tubes with the super fun colors are from Dick Blick matte acrylic paints line. While I love the colors, I have to say I’m not a huge fan because when you use a larger amount they smell bad, even once they are dry. You can learn from me and take a pass on these, unless you want to use them on tiny areas. Sorry Blick! I’m a huge fan generally.

Tell me, where has mark making taken you? And if you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for my mailing list so you can join me on the next webinar, be inspired by the next post, and share your wonderful new work with the community.

Creatively Yours,

Amy

What Your Art and Your Coffee Have in Common

01.31.2018 by Amy Johnson Maricle // 11 Comments

Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

I’ve been thinking a lot about what empowers us to create. It’s slightly different for each of us, but one thing that artists of all kinds consistently talk about is trusting the process. What exactly does that mean?

When you first start making art, it’s a bit like feeling around in dark. You aren’t sure where you are going, and it can feel uncomfortable, but hopefully you keep pushing on because you have to get where you are going. The problem is that sometimes staying present with the unknown can seem overwhelming and people give up before they’ve even begun.

This leads me to my point about the similarities between art and coffee. One thing I know about a good art process is that it’s a lot like a delicious cup of coffee: it needs time to percolate. Developing your own art process can’t be rushed. When’s the last time you threw some coffee grounds in your mug and chugged it down? (Are you envisioning the coughing fit sending coffee grounds flying through the air like I am?) Or when have you put a scoop of coffee beans in your cup and then poured cold water over it? You would never expect this to make coffee.

Take time to get to know your art process. Let it be like a delicious cup of joe, something you savor throughout the process as you grind the beans, fill the coffee pot with ground coffee and water, wait for it to brew, and then add in the accompaniments that please you most. When you first started drinking coffee, you had to experiment to see if you liked your coffee black, or with sugar, cream, or milk, or if you preferred a skinny grande latte double shot with single pump of vanilla. (Whoa, I think I’d be vibrating all day if I drank that!) But unlike hitting the drive through of your local Starbucks for your am cuppa, there are no short cuts with your art.

There’s a ritual to our morning coffee, and your art becomes much richer when you decide to create the same kind of ritual and process around it. To do this, you have to make your art a priority. What would you be willing to let go of in order to have more creative time in your life?

I recently listened to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Magic Lessons podcast interview with writer Glennon Doyle. She said that she realized if she wanted time to write, she needed to give up her beloved night time tv. Now she puts the kids to bed, and hits the sack at 9pm so that she can rise at 4, go to her closet desk, and write uninterrupted for a couple of hours. It’s her time, her creativity, and her self-care. Let go of tv for a week, get off the internet and social media in the mornings, or at night and make art instead. Think about where you have mindless time and reclaim it for art. If you need more help, I created this post on making time for art.

Once you sit down to create, prioritize experimenting, letting loose, and just creating for the joy of creating. Let go of the need to produce. You deserve time that is just for you to play with beautiful colors, textures, and shapes.

Let your art be more about the process than it is about the product. Focus on the joy of creating for creation's sake. #maketimeforart Click To Tweet

A Key Element in My Art Process: Percolation

So here’s a little peek into my art process. One of the most important elements of my art process is percolation. (Yes, I do love coffee: it’s a skim latte, no sugar, no flavors. How do you take yours?) Anyway, I love to work on several art pieces at once and let them percolate. I have several percolation stations around my studio. Here’s one on top of my supply dresser.

Or sometimes I’ll put high flow acrylic paint on several pieces at once, letting my process be loose and playful, and then when they are dry, I have several to choose from. In the percolation station below, you can see that I’ve also cut up a piece with alcohol ink on Yupo paper. I’ve used these circles and rings as collage elements on other pieces. I teach my process with high flow acrylics and circles in my class Fluid Art. You can learn more about Fluid Art here, or check out a gallery of gorgeous student work here.

Letting My Art Percolate

I spent all day working on the animal print piece. The photo below shows how it looked when I stopped working before dinner. In between cooking, I kept it propped up on the kitchen table. I looking at it several times from a distance as I chopped and stirred, trying to decide what the upper right corner needed; I knew it felt too busy. After dinner, I kept it on my desk so that when I walked by, I would see it. This is a great way to let the image percolate in your unconscious.

Later that night, I realized that that corner needed to get a bit darker. After adding a wash with the Nickel Azo Gold, it felt just right. Complete. What I love about my process is that I don’t get too hung up on any one piece; I have multiple things I am creating, and I always have something in process, inviting me in. Another artist recently put it this way: working on various pieces at once is like leaving a present for your future self so you don’t have to start with a blank page. That’s so sweet, isn’t it?

How do you take your coffee? What are you learning about your art process? I’d love to hear about it!

Creatively Yours,

Amy

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. That means that if you choose to click and purchase something, at no extra cost to you, you will support the work of Mindful Art Studio to empower the artist in everyone.