Quinn McDonald's Blog, page 31

It’s Not About Space

Most people have their creative play driven out of them by fourth grade. Children are told what art is, and lessons are generally about precision and not making a mistake. But art is about seeing and being. And making mistakes so you can fix them and learn to see better.

Making art isn’t about “stuff” either.  Art comes from within you, not through stencils, transparencies and puffy paints. I’m not saying they aren’t fun, or that creative play should be sparse. I am saying you don’t need to break the bank and become an art-product consumer to be an artist. It’s not what you own, it’s what you do with what you have.

Here are two great examples of what I mean. Both of these people can’t NOT make art. They stand in the flow of time and art and the work pours out of them because there is no other choice. They have their own ideas of what art is, and the only tool either one of them uses is a Sharpie pen.

Justine Ashbee uses good paper along with her Sharpie. Her flowing lines and subtle use of color are incredibly beautiful art. She does it freehand. It comes from within her. It’s the flow of art. You couldn’t stop her creative work because it makes meaning. It doesn’t need to be supported with a million products.

Charlie Kratzer, the other artist, does a totally different kind of work. He decorated his entire basement with a black Sharpie. OK, it was more than one. It was $10 worth. The rest was his creativity, his ideas, his desire to decorate his life.

Kratzer is a lawyer, and started with one line in the basement–a line that began a mural around his basement wall. The mural is not just furniture and columns and wainscoting, although it is all that.

The art spans literature and popular culture, Picasso and Churchill. I could list all the things on the wall, but there is a wonderful video and article that does a much better job.

Being creative is not about owning stuff, buying stuff, or having a fabulous studio to store the stuff. Right now there it’s popular to have artists’ studios in magazines, along with descriptions about how this big, airy, wonderful space is exactly what every artist needs. Yes, it’s nice to have lots of space and storage, but thinking you need 300 square feet with special furniture before you can create is the same as thinking you aren’t an artist until you have four bins of stuff.

Creativity is making meaning in your life. Anyway you can. No excuses. Get busy doing one thing that you love. It’s fine if you think you can’t. Just get into the studio and start. The rest will wash over you and sweep you away in art.

—Quinn McDonald is using her old stuff to create new stuff.

Filed under: Art/Freelance Biz, Creativity, Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: just a Sharpie, making art, making meaning, studio size doesn't matter

What to Put on the First Page of Your Travel Journal

It’s summer and vacation time. Travel journals and vacation go together. But what to put on the first page? If you make your journal ahead of time, a printed map of the location is a good beginning. If you are going to share your journal, it helps to orient your friends to where you were.

For my travel journals, I favor 6″ x 6″ square watercolor journals. Even with the wire binding, they make practical sketch, writing, and storage journals.

On the cover, I placed all the suitcase identification, a name tag, and a small sticker that showed my suitcase had been opened by the TSA.  I love the contrast of those stripes as well as the starting and completion airport identifications.

You can, of course, put those on the first page of your travel journal, too. Another good start is the boarding pass (you’ll have to remember to print it out the old-fashioned way) if you are flying.

I write my contact information around the edge of the page.

I start every journal the same way: two crossed and curved arrows and a request that the finder please contact me if I lose the journal. My email address on the page, and I’ve had two lost journals returned to me.

The arrows represent different paths, interests and the constant demand to consider more than one view in my journals.

If you don’t fly, the first page can hold

A snapshot of everyone who went on the trip
The checklist of what needed to be done before you left
Information you found about the vacation location
Places you hope to visit or sights you want to see while you are on vacation.
And of course, there are always maps.

Map: Phoenix to Las Cruces, August, 2014/

I’m a fan of drawing my own map. It’s neither to scale nor accurate in any other way, except that as I drive, I note interesting sights along the way. Once I arrive, I complete the map with the notes I take.

Trip from Denver to Colorado Springs.

You can just sketch in a few notes, and add more as you go along, too. The second part of the above map (not shown on the blog) lists places I ate, shopped, and who I met, all detailed with small sketches.

If you aren’t into maps (what?!) you can add photos from flyers, postcards, notices you find in coffee shops or museums you hang out in. This photograph of sandhill cranes reminds me that I want to see their migration again this fall.

For pockets, I use placemats, menus, or other ephemera found in coffee shops or restaurants. The Corner Bakery has cute 2″ x 5″ bags for cutlery that just fit into a small journal. OK, they also have menu items for diabetics. But those cute brown bags! They wind up in the travel journal and hold movie or concert tickets or other memorabilia you pick up.

I also tuck 6″ x 4″ watercolor postcards into the journal before I leave, so I can make and send postcards to friends and to myself. It’s fun to come home, find some postcards you sent and add them to the journal. Enjoy your vacation!

—Quinn McDonald also adds trips to her Commonplace Journal.

 

Filed under: Journal Pages Tagged: commonplace journal, first page of travel journal, travel journal

Right Brain Business Plan: Giveaway

Jennifer Lee is the author of The Right-Brain Business Plan: A Creative, Visual Map for Success. (This Jennifer is not the author of Frozen, this Jennifer runs Artizen Coaching.)

If you run your own business, you have either avoided business plans or mastered them. There’s not much room in between. Lee’s idea is that business plans are left-brain based and that makes them hard for right-brain people. So she wrote a book that helps right-brain people write that business plan.

The book is laid out with lots of color and worksheets (which you can download from her website.) Many of the steps look like art projects. If you like the idea of mind mapping, you will love this book!

She has a left-brain, logical approach (with process steps) on how to use the book and why you should have a business plan. Then she helps you do it, creative style.

Chapters in the book:

The Skinny on the Right-Brain Business Plan Process and Structure
Where Is Your Business Headed, and What Do You and Your Company Stand For?
It’s a Big World Out There–Where Do You and Your Business Fit In?
Find and Connect with Your Perfect Customers?
Develop a Financial Plan with Fun and Flair
Build a Creative Playground of Business Support So You Don’t Have to Go It Alone
Make Your Plan Real with Goals, Strategies, and Action Steps
Put the Finishing Touches on Your Right-Brain Business Plan
Keep Your Right-Brain Business Plan Alive

Book Info: 220 pages from New World Library

It’s an interesting book, I bought it because I’m always interested in new approaches to old ideas. And I am always interested in how very different people communicate with each other.

Giveaway: I’m giving one book away on Thursday (August 7, 2014). Leave a note in the comments if you want to be entered in the drawing for the book. Check back on Thursday’s blog and see if you won!

Disclosure: I purchased the book on my own.

-–Quinn McDonald is interested in how people handle new ideas and change. She is a creativity coach who helps other people re-invent themselves and deal with change.

 

Filed under: Book Reviews Tagged: business plans, creating your own business plan, the business of art, what's your business

Keeping Track of Colors

It’s frustrating when you go to an art supply store and buy colored pencils, paints, or pastels and buy the same colors over again–several times. And if you are like me, you keep buying the same three colors in quantity.

One smart solution is to keep the names or color swatches in your journal. Very useful. Well, except that you have to remember in which journal you put which product. And flipping through journals is fun, but you come to your senses an hour later and still haven’t found the one with the Twinkling H2Os. But browsing your journals is always interesting.

Here’s an easy, practical solution: I keep all my color swatch samples in a small three-ring binder–a 5″ x 7″ size. To keep the paper tests similar and comparable, I put the samples on Strathmore Ready-Cuts, which protects me from cutting crooked pieces of watercolor paper.

There is a section for watercolor, one for acrylics,  another for my different watercolor pencils, and a section for Caran D’Ache Neocolor II, and  Tombow watercolor pens. For each color swatch I add the color number or name or any other specific identification.

Of course, while I had all this in one easy place, I would regularly forget to take it with me to check if I have the color. Then I made it super easy. I simply photographed each page on my iPhone and stored them in one “album” on my phone. The phone is always with me. I flip through the album, and check the color number or name. If I have it, I don’t re-buy it. Not even tempted.

I also do small experiments on the pages to see what technique works best for each color. I’m enamored with Caran D’Ache Neocolor IIs right now. Anything that travels easily and can look like watercolor is a friend of mine.

For the Neocolors, I’ve discovered that rubbing the color on a piece of wax-,  deli- or freezer paper and wetting it gives me the most intense color with smooth, easy application. And no mess, even on an airplane.

And the colors come in a flat metal box, so it is super easy to pack, even in your carry-on. And that makes waiting in the TSA line just a bit easier.

I love journaling, and while I love complicated discovery work, I also love easy art.

—Quinn McDonald keeps journals and travels. A lot.

 

Filed under: Creativity, In My Life, Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: art supply control, categorizing art supplies, color identification

Diabetic-Friendly Power Bars

Having discovered the book Power Hungry: The Ultimate Energy Bar Cookbook by Camilla V. Saulsbury,  I am experimenting with diabetic-friendly (good taste, low carbs) treats. The book is not for diabetics, but with very little trouble, many of the recipes can be converted to tasty treats that don’t spike your blood sugar and taste great.

The first thing I learned was that what the author calls “pucks” are baked in a muffin tin for a reason–they are moist and fall apart easily. I stubbornly baked them in brownie pans and lived to regret that choice. I now bake all my power bars in lined muffin tins for practical reasons:

You can vary the cooking time to make sure they come out to your liking–soft or chewy.
They unmold really easily from the muffin tin and no wash-up! (Big plus for me.)
They become portable if you leave them in the liner paper. I don’t fill up the muffin cups, so the paper can be folded over them successfully.
No clean up–very important

If you are going to make a lot of your own power bars, buy a silicon muffin tin, both in large and small sizes. They are easy to clean, you don’t need to spray them, and they work every time. Since we had regular muffin tins, I bought paper inserts to use.

My two success stories. Both are altered somewhat from the book.

Chewy Cherry Rounds

2/3 cup ground flaxseed meal
1/2 cup natural, unsweetened almond butter
1/3 cup milk (you can use soy or almond milk)
1/3 cup Viva coconut sugar (you can use coconut nectar)
1 tsp. vanilla flavoring (you can use almond extract0
2/3 cup dried cherries. (I used sour cherries, bulk)

Preheat oven to 325ºF  (160ºC)

Line the muffin tin with paper liners.

Soak the cherries in warm water to cover for three minutes. Discard the water. Press the cherries gently till all water is gone. I know they process them with sugar, so I needed to rinse it off. (If you are not diabetic, skip this step)

Thoroughly mix all ingredients except the cherries. Add them and stir just to incorporate.

Divide the mixture into the 12 muffin tins. It will not fill up the tins, just the bottom 1/4 will be covered.

Bake in preheated oven 25 to 30 minutes. Do NOT overbake. Take out of oven, let cool and turn out the rounds in their paper. Fold over the paper and store in zipper plastic bag in fridge.

Per round: 161 calories, 16.2g carbs, 4.3 g fiber

Alternatives:

Add a Tablespoon of Viva organic cocoa powder for a richer taste.
Substitute dried, chopped apricots for cherries. If you use unsulfered apricots, soak them to plump them up, but drain and squeeze.

*     *     *     *     *

Whole Grain Apricot Bars

1 cup health-food store cooking cereal that combines spelt,

I didn’t use muffin tins for this one. I should have.

amaranth, quinoa flakes, or rolled oats. (In any combination). It should all look like rolled oats, not like corn flakes.
1 cup pecan pieces (can use shelled hemp seeds, sunflower seeds or walnuts)
1 bar ( 1.65 oz) Trader Joe’s dark (72 percent) chocolate, cut into bits
1/2 cup almond butter (unsweetened) use a no-stir brand for consistent results
1/3 cup Viva coconut sugar (or coconut nectar)
1/2 cup finely chopped dried apricots
2 Tablespoons ground flax seed
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 325ºF  (160ºC)

Line the muffin tin with paper liners.

Rinse and squeeze out the apricots.

Chop the pecan pieces, chocolate and apricots into very fine, small pieces. Combine with the rest of the ingredients, stirring until it is all combined completely. You can use a blender, but do not turn it into paste or your taste buds will regret it.

Spoon the mixture evenly into muffin cups. They will be about 1/3 full. Cook for 20 minutes, checking in at 18 so you don’t overcook. Look for the edges to separate from the paper.

Take out of the oven, let cool, and store in the paper cups.

Alternatives:

Substitute dried sour cherries for the apricots
Use cashew or sunflower nut butter
Add 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut shreds

Per bar: 180 calories, 20.8 carbs, 2.4 fiber. For me, that means eating them after a meal of salad and fish. Worth it!

–Quinn McDonald is an experimenter. Diabetic foods are her specialty.

Filed under: Creativity, Food & Recipes, Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: diabetic power bars, diabetic recipes, diabetic snacks

Freelance Boost: Help Build Credibility

Part of owning your business is protecting your knowledge and information. But protect it too hard and no one will know you have it. That’s not a successful step in being successful.

One of the biggest leaps in understanding how to run a good business happened when I was employed in an ad agency as the creative director in an ad agency. A client called, asking for a process we did not do. At all. I was pretty sure that if I asked one of the designers, she could have created something pretty good.

Trouble was, the big client was used to excellent work, and our work was not going to be excellent. Having worked in the advertising community for a while, I suggested another company that did that process very well. Yes, they were a competitor. Our client was grateful.

The ad agency president didn’t really look like this, it just felt like it.

At the next staff meeting, I reported what I had done. The company president was livid. I was sending business to our competitors, he yelled. I was costing us business we could have used. We could have done something, he screamed, banging his fist on the table. And then he fired me. In front of my colleagues.

What hurt the worst in that story was the complete missing of the point exhibited by the company owner. The point of a good client relationship is to help people, even if it means sending them somewhere else. It builds trust and credibility and that beats any marketing plan you may have.

How do I know this is true? Because, those many years ago, the client heard what had happened. They moved the business to the company that became my new work home. They did it because I had helped them honestly when they needed it, focusing not on my own company, but on the client’s needs.

I still follow that rule today: offer the best help you can, but when someone else does it better, tell your client the truth. Make the introduction. If the client leaves your company entirely, the relationship was not as strong as you thought. Almost all the time, the relationship will grow stronger, and you will become trusted and a credible resource. And when you own your own business, that is a crown you can wear with pride.

—Quinn McDonald teaches writing to individuals and to corporations. And she’d still send clients to the best provider of services.

Filed under: Creativity

What I Learned: Watching Videos

After watching several hundred art how-to videos on You Tube, I realize that not everyone is a videographer. We learn by doing. Fine. But if you want to keep your audience, you need to concentrate on what your audience wants to see, learn, or do.

An old movie camera.

We are a culture of story tellers. We love telling them, and most people love listening to them. How-to videos are not, however, a good medium for story telling.  You don’t have to be a professional to do a good video. Here are a few steps to make your video successful:

Two basic questions to ask before starting your video

1. “Who is my audience?” Experienced? Beginners? Age? (Related to both vocabulary and software explanation choices). Geographic region? (We still call the same item by different names). If your answer is “my video is for everybody, everywhere” stop and re-think your range. No video can work for everybody everywhere because people have different expectations, experience, patience, words, and backgrounds. You’ll lose too much of the “everyone” audience.

2. “What is my objective?” Showing a skill? Doing a how-to? Explaining? Selling your classes? Getting someone to agree with you? Each one of those is different outcome and needs a different kind of video. If you don’t know exactly what your objective is, ask yourself, “What is the one thing I want people to do immediately after they watch my video?” Everything in the video should support that one thing. Again, too many objectives will confuse your audience.

Once you are clear on who you are talking to and what you want them to learn, do, agree with or buy, some other tips to make the video work:

1. Show the finished project right at the beginning. Your audience wants to know what the finished project is and will look like. Tell them and show them. Too many people want to start with a background story of how they go to this point. Right then, your audience wants to know what the outcome looks like.

2. Show the supplies needed to create the successful project. Be specific. If you use a brand name (and that brand only) name it and say why. “Because I like it” is not a well-explained, specific reason. “This pen writes on acrylic paint smoothly and without skipping,” is a specific example.

3. Do not give your background, how you came across this idea, or the fun

lol cat is not interested.

alternatives till the end. Unlike a story, a video starts with the most important point for your audience first. Your background will be more interesting when the audience sees what you can do. . .for them.

4. Your favorite music may not be your audience’s favorite music. Any music that you purchased on a CD or MP3 was written by someone else and your using it violates their copyright. I’m sorry about this, but YouTube takes down violators randomly and without warning. There is a lot of music that is not under copyright, use it. Make sure it suits the video, though. And if it is a loop of music, limit the loop to three times before you move on. If you are narrating the video, don’t use music when you are talking.

5. Watch the music volume. Particularly if you are narrating. A big jump in sound level from explanation to music is jarring.

6. Edit your video. It’s no different than a how-to article. Your first take will be too long. Edit for your reader, so they can do the step and then move on. Most videos I see could be cut in half the length and still be effective.

–-Quinn McDonald watches videos. Sometimes she smiles, and sometimes she rolls her eyes.

 

 

Filed under: Art/Freelance Biz, Creativity, Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: art how-to videos, how-to videos, making your own video

Leaving the Studio Ready to Go

One of the tricks I teach my creativity coaching clients is to leave your studio ready to continue work. Yes, I actually suggest you don’t clean up and leave it neat and tidy.

Tom Humber’s studio, ready to work.

A tidy studio with everything put away requires work before you start your real work. You have to gather supplies, plan your project, find the parts you need. During all that time, you can find excellent excuses for things that have to be done first. (See yesterday, under “dust bunnies.”)

Here’s how you leave your studio: as if you were coming back in a few minutes.

Yes, you rinse your brushes or secure the needle and thread. Of course you save the file and remember where you left it. But stopping before you are done leaves the door open to yearning for more.

Do:

Leave something open and ready to be worked on
Leave your tools ready to pick up and get back to work
Leave yourself a note of what work you want to start
Write something encouraging about your work and leave it where you can see it
Turn on a light so when you pass the studio in the evening, it will look inviting

Don’t:

Leave a long list of what needs to be done to make your work perfect
Write a list of everything you dislike about this piece, so you can “fix” it when you come back into the studio.
Pile up supplies to be put away before you start
Leave old coffee cups and plates in the studio, that encourages you to pick up the dishes and leave and maybe not come back

Whatever you leave out, create an atmosphere of wanting to return, something that will welcome you. That way, when you perform your ritual, something will be calling you to the studio.

-–Quinn McDonald has overcome studio fear several times.

Studio photo: http://tomhumber.blogspot.com

 

Filed under: Art in Progress, Creativity Tagged: making time for art, returning to the studio, working in the studio

Cutting Short Studio Time

Yesterday, I mentioned having a ritual to get you into the studio. Today we are going to take a look at why we leave the studio before we are done–emotionally or physically.

Whether you write or draw, paint or sew, at some point you put down your work and leave the studio. That instant is significant in your creative building. What happens in your head and heart just as you leave the studio defines how easy it is to come back and work again.

If you have trouble returning regularly, and you think of the studio fondly while you are in a meeting or watching soccer practice,  you have a priority conflict. But if you find yourself doing laundry, dusting or making the bed, it’s not a priority problem, you are putting off going to the studio.

There are many reasons we put off going back in. The first thing my coaching

Fully realized dust bunnies.

clients usually mention is fear of failure. But I don’t think so. I think we fear success. If we do something wonderful in the studio, we are responsible for it. We have to own our own creativity, our creation and the power of being a creator. Better to search for dust bunnies than be powerful. Owning our own power is often hard, even if we want to be famous or recognized. Because once we have created something, there is responsibility in creating more. Doing it again. Competing to outdo ourselves.  Explaining success. Easier just to let it slide.

Sometimes we leave the studio right before a breakthrough, before that Aha! Moment changes our lives. It is so much easier to cut short the revelation, the hard truth, the secret we hide. Ah, but what we resist, persists. And then refusing to return seems like a good idea. We need to “take a break,” or we need to “work it out.” Take your break in the studio. Work out your truth in the studio. Because no place else is your studio–the space dedicated to your own creation, your own growth. That’s where the magic happens–right after the sweat and fear. Stay. Wait for the magic. Give it a chance.

Tomorrow: Tips for returning to the studio with anticipation.

–-Quinn McDonald has experience studio reluctance. That’s the only time her house is clean.

Dust bunny image: http://rubyreusable.com/artblog/?cat=110

Comfort zone image: http://www.proteinandpumps.com/breaking-out-of-my-comfort-zone/

 

Filed under: Art/Freelance Biz, Coaching, Inner Critic, Recovering Perfectionists Tagged: facing yourself, fear of success, your studio and you

Rituals Work

If you work in an office, you have a morning routine. Whether you get up and shower or get up and exercise, have breakfast and then shower, you do the same thing every morning. You probably have your moves timed down to the exact second, either by a clock or your TV.  You get out of the house and to the office on time.

Creating a ritual for art is exactly the same thing as a routine for work. A ritual legitimizes your effort, eliminates distractions and assigns a top priority to your artwork. As long as your artwork doesn’t have a priority higher than the laundry or watching TV, it won’t get done. And you strengthen the priority every day of your life, by repeating what you did before.

Your art work is powerful, but not powerful enough to overcome your resistance and drag you into your studio. You have to do the work. And that means shifting priorities. To art. Why is that worth it? Because art makes meaning in your life. It helps you understand yourself, your world, your journey. It’s also sometimes uncomfortable  to face the meaning you make in art, so it’s easy to shove it aside. The art you make is not always the way it’s portrayed on Facebook, elegant and surrounded by a glowing light. Art can be messy, painful and revealing–of thoughts you wanted to bury.

The ritual doesn’t have to be complex. Decide ahead of time when you will do art. Choose a whole hour. Set a timer to ring 10 minutes before you want to go to the studio to give yourself time to quit what you are doing. Make a cup of coffee or tea, grab the cup and head to the studio. No excuses.

Once you start your new habit, it will first get much harder to meet your ritual. The phone will ring, the kids will demand your attention, a crisis will erupt. Keep to your schedule. In about a week, it will suddenly get easier.

Your morning routine works because your job brings in money and you have given it permission to take over your life. Give your art a chance, too. It brings meaning to your life. And as my mantra says, “you don’t find meaning in life, you make meaning in your life.” Give meaning a chance.

—Quinn McDonald has her own ritual for getting to the studio. Some days it’s still uncomfortable.

Filed under: Coaching, Inner Hero/Inner Critic Tagged: doing your art, getting to the studio, ritual for art