Quinn McDonald's Blog, page 50

Last Minute Holiday Cards

The second I dropped my cards into the drive-through at the post office, I thought of a few more people I wanted to send cards to. There were no more on the desk.  Instant card shortage! I’m probably not alone, so I made a few cards that don’t take long and don’t require  illustrator or designer skills.

All of them used only the papers and materials I had on my desktop. OK, my desktop is cluttered, but no buying more material. Here are the five cards you can make quickly and get points for sending handmade cards.

“Solstice” A large 5″ x 7″ card starts with a piece of Strathmore Ready-Cut, my salvation because I can’t cut straight. I painted the bottom corner, let it dry, then covered the rest of the card with marbled paper. I cut three triangles out of paper I’d inked for some project, choosing greens and blues. One card made. Inside it says, “May the returning light brighten your year.”

“Reflection” The second large card starts with a base of suminagashi paper I made a few weeks ago for the Niji Design Team blog. It’s the middle one on this blog post, you can see the gold far more clearly. I cut my signature wavy lines in increasing lengths and created the reflection of pine trees on the paper. Inside it says, “Reflect on 2013 in peace and joy, and may 2014 bring you dreams to live.”

” Three Gifts” Using a gift-tag punch, I created three gift tags, then turned them into presents with a pen. The place where you punch a hole and run a thread becomes the ribbon, and two more lines create a package. I used a monoprint cut down to size for a background.  On the inside I wrote,”Peace, health and joy for 2014.”

“Bird in Winter 1″ Using a book with Chinese writing, I cut across the writing to give the pieces the look of birch trees. A tiny triangle of red paper makes the bird. I used Arches Cover in black for the card, it’s sturdy enough to make into a card. Inside, I wrote, “May you find surprises that delight you in 2014.”

“Bird in Winter 2″ Not sure if it was easy for everyone to create a tree from slivers of paper, I did away with the branches and created a forest of  abstract trunks. This one is my least favorite, as it looks like one of our dreaded forest fires has moved through. I included it because I wanted to show what happens when you simplify too much. Later I went back and added tree branches in white pen. It was better, but it won’t get sent.

I’m looking forward to this week; it’s a quiet work week, and the weather is warming up enough to eat on the patio.

–-Quinn McDonald is using monoprints that didn’t work out to wrap last-minute presents.

Filed under: Creativity, Links, resources, idea boosts, Recovering Perfectionists Tagged: holiday cards, last-minute cards, solstice cards

Perfectionist and Procrastinator, Part 2

Yesterday, in Part I of Perfectionists and Procrastination, you heard about Anne, who missed opportunities because her perfectionism never let her finish a project.

The Root of Perfection.

What causes perfectionism? Research shows that around the age of four, children begin to socialize with the culture they live in. In American culture that means playing in groups, not being too different, not showing above-average intelligence, and following rules. (Later this changes to not getting caught when breaking the rules.)

Around age four, children start spending most of their day in a school-like group environment where behaving according to the teacher’s norms is important—it yields approval.  Children learn to color in the “right” colors, stay inside the lines, sing in groups, write the “truth,” and memorize facts that will appear on standardized text.

Critical thinking is not encouraged. Creativity isn’t either. Both take time, and most schools spend a lot of time preparing the class to get better grades on standardized tests.

A Little is Good, a Lot is Worse.

Socialization isn’t bad, it’s just overdone. Our parents and teachers tell us to compete, win, get that good job, make lots of money, be “successful.” We compete, and our inner critic  steps up to tell us that we are not good enough, not applying ourselves or lazy. By the time we are in college our goals are to hurry up, win, compete, and stay in the top percentile of school and achievement. And we are almost completely unequipped to do it.

Perfectionism is not all bad. In tiny doses, self-discipline is great, and even the desire to be perfect can be useful–doing careful research, doing original work instead of plagiarizing, being diligent–all are good. When being “perfect” gets out of hand it leads to serious life problems.

The key is separating discipline from  fear of failure. Over-discipline stops us from producing anything finished.

New Idea of Discipline.

There is a new discipline–and it is exactly the right word for what we need to nourish.

The idea stage of a creative project is the fun part,  the part where anything is possible.  But when we start the process portion of the project, we need to call on a new discipline rather than the critic of negative self-talk.

What we need is discipline enough to push through to the finish and get that wonderful feeling of completion, satisfaction and accomplishment. Even if the project is not perfect.

The Trap of High Standards.

Perfectionists say they have “high standards.” It serves as the excuse to miss deadlines and to berate less than perfect results. The perfectionist is a bully. Of self, of others. Because that was the power example they learned early by coloring in the lines.

Blaming the deadline is a lack of discipline. The truth is more likely to be, “If I never finish it, others will never find the flaw, and I will never have to admit that my work (and I) are not perfect.”

The Reward of Completion.

Here is the big reward: when you get things done, even if they are not perfect,  you will first be overwhelmed with shame at how poor the work is. You will invent hundreds of excuses not to turn it in.

Do some deep breathing, put it away for an hour. Then, look at it right before you send it in. You will feel relieved. You will feel the rush of the imperfect. It is the acceptance that you worked hard and as well as you could with the talents you have today.  It will be the first step into being a recovering perfectionist.

–Quinn McDonald is a recovering perfectionist who helps other people open the door to a new future without the burden. She has just completed a book on developing inner heroes that take on our inner critics.

Filed under: Inner Critic, Inner Hero/Inner Critic Tagged: Creativity, inner critic, inner hero, perfectionism, procrastination

Perfectionist and Procrastinator, Part 1

Anne is a writer. She hit upon a great idea for an article. It would require a lot of interviews, but the idea was brilliant. She posted a segment of the work on her blog and was contacted in four hours by a publisher. Anne could turn the idea into several spin-offs, so there was a great future ahead.

Changing time won’t change deadline

If you are a perfectionist, you know the next part of the story. Anne missed the first deadline. And the next. And the project is still not complete.

Anne is a perfectionist, too. She does excellent work and doesn’t want to turn in anything less than the best.

If Anne follows the road of perfectionism most writers and artists (and office workers, moms, employees, and supervisors) take, she will start a dozen projects and finish none of them, because they are not “finished.” Or “quite right,” or “done editing.”

She will have another great idea, and start it, and never finish it, either. Over her lifetime, she will start a thousand projects, ideas, articles, books, blogs, and relationships. None of them will end satisfactorily; many of them will never be finished at all.

Perfectionism sounds like something everyone would aspire to, but in real life, it is a pitfall to satisfaction. Perfectionism is the enemy of “good.” Or even “great.”

Don’t confuse “excellent” with “perfect.” Perfectionists are not satisfied with excellent, because there may be an  invisible flaw that someone will find. And expose the perfectionist as a fraud.

And being exposed as a fraud takes the identity from a perfectionist. And the power they hold over others. As long as they don’t hand in the project or complete the work, they hang onto their identity.

Perfectionists are driven by fear of inadequacy–and sooner or later, often sooner, they will fail. Perfectionists fear this failure so much, that they begin to control their lives, their work, their employees, their family and friends in an ever-widening circle of perfectionism. By judging other people severely,  perfectionists point to the flaws of others as a distraction from faults growing in their own lives.

They are never happy, always striving, forever hearing the threat of “fraud,” “unworthy” and “failure.”

Continue reading Part 2 of  Perfectionist and Procrastinator on Sunday, Dec. 22. Discover a common cause of perfectionism and a new perspective. The Inner Critic takes the form of perfectionist to make sure you never are satisfied, and don’t get your creative work completed.

--Quinn McDonald is a recovering perfectionist who helps others open the door to being great, if not perfect. See her work at QuinnCreative.com

Filed under: Coaching, Inner Hero/Inner Critic, Recovering Perfectionists Tagged: Creativity, creativity coaching, perfectionists, procrastinators

Acrylic Skins for Upcycling

First things first: Pia from ColourCottage won one of the new Inner Hero books! The other winner was Suzanne Ourths–congratulations to both winners! As soon as my shipment arrives, two books will be on the way to new owners!

* * *

Show me a container and I’m in love–cardboard, plastic, wood–if it’s well designed, I will find a use for it. No clever container goes in the trash, it get upcycled.  In this case, I used a small drawer-shaped cardboard box, about 3 inches by 3 inches.

After painting it in cream and black, I decided to add an acrylic skin to dress up the box. It will hold small pieces of paper for journal or collage work. Some of the skins are made with Splash Inks and some with acrylic paint.

Pour three or four puddles of tar gel directly onto a teflon craft sheet. About two tablespoons of tar gel makes a good size finished piece. I’ve tried glue and acrylic gloss medium for this project, but I find that clear-drying tar gel gives the best results.

Using a plastic dropper, put three or four drops of different colors in each puddle of tar gel. Rinse the dropper well between each color to prevent further blending.

Using the stirrer, blend the colors by dragging the stirrer through the tar medium and colors. I start at one edge and draw the stirrer through to the other side, then circle and cross through the colors like you would if you were incorporating beaten egg whites into a batter–always cutting through the middle.

The gold adds a dramatic effect, but add it last. Because it contains a lot of pigment, it likes to settle to the bottom. You can use the Niji gold sumi-e watercolor, or acrylic fine gold iridescent paint.

Now comes the hardest part of this project. You have to wait for the puddles to dry completely. It will take at least 24 hours. You can use a hair dryer, but be careful. You don’t want to push the shape around. Do not put this project in the stove or microwave to dry it. Patience produces the best results. If you live in a damp climate, it may take three days to dry.  Here in Phoenix, it takes 24 hours.

Find a piece that is attractive and matches what you plan to place into the box. paint the back with clear-drying glue. Do not use tar gel as glue.

It’s nice to have one edge wrap over the edge of the box. Place carefully. Don’t slide the gel skin because the glue will leave a mark on the box. Because the tar gel dries perfectly clear, the skin allows the color of the painted box to show through.

Here, I used a large one on the front of the box, and a smaller one on the back of the box. The upcycled box is now a handsome gift box, ready to hold the small journal sheets or other surprise!

Read the complete instructions (with more photos) on the Niji blog site.

–Quinn McDonald is a Niji Design Team member, a collage artist, blogger,and the author of Inner Hero Creative Art Journal, released this week from North Light books.

As a Niji Design Team member, I do not get paid to play with art materials. However, Niji sent me a box of materials to play with.

Filed under: Art in Progress, Creativity, Tutorials Tagged: acrylic skin, make a gift box, upcycle

Shipping Tag Journal

Traveling makes taking a journal a bit harder. You don’t want to take a wire-bound journal in your bag, because the wires will get crushed. A hard-bound book takes up a lot of space. So I’ve been experimenting with loose-leaf journal pages.

Take a few loose-leaf pages on a trip, fill them up, bind them in some way in the future. With a date on them, you won’t lose the order, if that’s important.

Most recently, I’ve used shipping tags. They are just under 5 inches x 3 inches, so they are great for one-sentence journaling, capturing a quick thoughts and impressions.

After I filled up some manila tags, I decided to color some of them. What a fun idea! Using only a brayer and a credit card to apply paint, I colored a dozen or so tags. Once they were dry, I put a bolt and wing nut through the hole to bind them.

The poem fragment by Mary Oliver caught my attention, so I copied it down. Using a dark Sharpie on the light part and a white pen on the dark, the quote fills the page in an interesting way. The circles (done with the corner of a credit card) look like portholes. It says “Now, of all voyagers remember, who among them did not board ship with grief among their maps? “

Practical, easy to take along, you can always keep the next blank one on top to work on.

The only thing that made this project hard is that the fluorescent bulbs we all have to use make the colors look harsher and more gray than they are. There is a good amount of gold in the pages, and it doesn’t show. That will teach me to photograph the blog images late at night.

-–Quinn McDonald thinks there are no limits to what constitutes a journal.

Filed under: Journal Pages Tagged: brayer art, journals, shipping tag journal

A Word for 2014 and a Giveaway

Never a friend of New Year’s resolutions, I recommend another ritual that’s more powerful and has more potential than New Year’s resolutions: Choosing a word for 2014.  You choose a word that will symbolize the year for you–set the intention or create a verbal amulet.

The word should be limber and supple, without any stiffness of punishment, or benchmarks to measure yourself with and find yourself coming up short.

Choose a word that has possibility for you–a word that will inspire you or keep you at peace, a word that makes you reach in anticipation or offers a rich depth of exploration.

From http://under30ceo.com/dreaming-big-helps-entrepreneur/

Verbs are good, because they are action words. And taking action is a favorite step of mine to get unstuck or move ahead.  Of course, there are also the state of being verbs: is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been. Small verbs, but powerful.

Other people prefer nouns–things or ideas: creativity, intuition, freedom. Nouns can be things you hold in your hands–paper, pen, seeds, feathers. Or they can be things you hold in your heart: wishes, wisdom, peace.

Now is a good time, at the end of the year, to think of a word you can hold and use for all of 2014. Choose a word that will last, that will build you up and support you. You can choose a word that is both a verb and a noun.

You can, of course, choose a description of your first inner hero to honor in 2014. Something like Stubborn Kindness (which has a long history in my family), or Explorer, or Spark-Striker.

Your word can be any part of speech, and you can use it in as many ways as you want–present tense, active voice, transitive with an object or not. Use it as many ways as you can and see how you change it and how it changes you.

If you keep a journal, you can write it down and visit it every week or month and see how that word has shown up in your life at the end of every week and how you would like it to show up the next week. You can write it on a piece of paper and put it in your pocket and rediscover it every day. Write it on a key you use every day and remember it when you unlock the door.

What is the word you want to invite into your life for the year? Leave it in the comments, and tell us why. I’ll pick two winners on Friday and will send a copy of my new book Inner Hero Art Journal to the winners–as soon as I get my copies!

—Quinn McDonald is choosing a word for 2014. Right now, she is inclined to choose an inner hero and re-visit it once a month.

Filed under: Inner Hero/Inner Critic, Life as Metaphor, The Writing Life Tagged: word for 2014, word for the year

The Inner Hero Art Journal: The New Book

The Inner Hero Creative Art Journal: Mixed Media Messages to Silence Your Inner Critic. It’s quite a mouthful for my new book’s title. And admittedly, I did not choose it. But it’s exactly what the book is about, and that’s exciting. I didn’t have the nerve to give it the name that describes precisely what’s inside.

We all have inner critics. Some of us have whole vans full of them; whole clown cars that unpack themselves with each new direction we take. The inner critic speaks of lack and attack. We listen and believe. But we don’t need to.

Margaret Peot’s illustration from Chapter 2.

The book helps you discover and call out your inner heroes–parts of you that you may want to deny exist. The strong parts. The ones that know your worth. And yes, the vulnerable ones that hold great wisdom that you may know want to live up to.

The inner heroes in this book are there to help you find the words to speak to your inner critic. The ones you aren’t bold enough to come up with yourself.

The projects in the book are new and challenging. You don’t have to know how to draw. You are not going to draw your inner hero. Instead, you are going to do deep writing exercises, be with your own heart, and use color and technique to create an atmosphere that surrounds you with strength and courage.

A leaf I painted for Chapter 5, The Gardener

The book encourages you to make free-standing journal pages to help you develop messages that confront the inner critic through strengths you may not know you have. The more pages you make, the more sure of your own mind you become.

The book also gives suggestions about how to use all the free-standing pages (or cards, if you like), and ways to carry them with you.

The Inner Hero Creative Art Journal is available from North Light Books (the publisher) right now, and within a few day from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and your neighborhood independent book store.

—Quinn McDonald is creating a class for coaches who want to use the book to work with creative clients.

 

Filed under: Art in Progress, Inner Hero/Inner Critic Tagged: discovering strengths, free-standing journal pages, inner critic, inner hero creative art journal

Saving Discards

Running my brayer on a big drawing pad to clean off the paint brought a mumble from class members. I raised an eyebrow, “Question?”

“You shouldn’t be using good drawing paper to clean off the brayer,” said one person.

“That’s what a phone book is for,” said another, helpfully.

“Or a stack of newspaper,” added a third.

They were all right, of course, except that a brayer is not just a tool for spreading paint. It’s the creator of accidental art—backgrounds, layers, textures.

When I’m applying paint on Gelli Plates, the extra color on the brayer needs to go someplace–but often, it creates a great background of its own. On a newspaper or phone book, it mixes with the cheaper soy inks and makes a pile of discard papers.

On the other hand, if I brayer off on a good piece of paper, it becomes a background, or a piece that can be torn up for a collage.

Here’s a nice accidentally textured background:

And this background became a good place for a stencil, making an instant page that can be used as is, for a card, or for a journal page:

Discards don’t have to be thrown out. They have something of their own to offer. Accidents can become fresh new starts. And that’s as true of art as in other parts of life. Don’t be so quick to bury your past, it brought you to where you are today.

–Quinn McDonald makes use of the layers of her life.

Filed under: Art in Progress, Creativity, Life as Metaphor Tagged: gelli plates, monoprints

The Power of “Off”

The space heater finally died. It was quiet, efficient, warmed the studio which is in a cold part of the house, and after two years, it grew cold and stayed cold.  Two years–average for small appliances. It would cost more to fix than to throw out, so reluctantly I replaced it.

The new one has a digital temperature reading, a timer, a high- and low speed setting . . . and no “off” switch. I could unplug it to turn it off, but the plug is in an awkward place, difficult to reach. Sure, I can use the digital system to make the requested temperature much lower than the temperature in the room, or click down the timer, but wouldn’t an off switch be simpler?

The digital readout is always on, so it’s sucking up electricity every minute of the day.

Which made me think–our appliances reflect our needs and culture. The first microwave could cook turkeys and came with special browning sauces and powders. Now they have pre-set buttons for heating coffee, warming pizza, popping corn and baking potatoes—because that’s how we use microwaves. Turkey? Of course not.

Our lives no longer have off switches, either. My friends and clients expect me to be available at all times. They are sure I am checking in their Facebook posts, tweets, and their fan pages. They no longer leave voice mails, I’m supposed to notice I missed a call and phone back. Most of my clients text me, emails are not fast enough. The idea that I may be in a meeting, teaching or in bed means nothing. I have to be available. I should point out that I’m not an emergency-room neurologist,  I’m a life coach and a trainer who teaches writing, and an artist.

The millennials–the group of adults who are now between 18 and 28–have never existed in a time when they could be alone. They will survive little more than 30 seconds of silence in a conversation before talking or texting to someone else.

Thirty-five percent of babies between the age of six weeks and three years have a TV in their room that is on more than two hours a day. We now live in a culture that is always in touch, speaking, connecting. (I’m not sure how much we’re listening. That’s another post.)

In order for me to be fully functional, I need down time. To sleep deeply, to create, to refresh. I have an off switch and I’m willing to use it, even if my space heater can’t.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, trainer, and certified creativity coach.

Filed under: In My Life Tagged: quiet, rest, silence

My World, in Blue and Yellow

This morning, when I peeled off the patch over my eye, my world looked blue. Icy blue, like a super strong fluorescent light had been turned on. It was bright, crisp, and unbelievable. I squinted shut the eye that had been bandaged and slid back into the dingy, dun-colored world I’ve been in for the last five years.

The scarf that was a muddied brown and maroon when seen with my right eye was rich purple and orange when looked at with my left eye.

Diabetes is a disease of slow, creeping changes. They are  so gradual, you incorporate them into our perspective, into your reality.  At night, you see halos around lights. Small ones, that grow so slowly you accept them. Finally, you can’t drive at night because lights are blurs and oncoming cars are giant glares.

Street signs aren’t distinct, and you can’t read freeway signs. But you think it’s your glasses. Because diabetes doesn’t signal changes clearly.

Protein deposits cloud and finally occlude the lenses in your eyes. No glasses can repair the damage. Some diabetics can’t chance the surgery because of retinopathy–little aneurysms in the walls of the capillaries in your eyes. I was lucky. Having stuck to a sugar-free diet, lost a lot of weight, brought down my blood pressure and reduced the amount of carbs I love and wish I could still have, I was a good candidate for eye surgery.

The surgery was simple and fast–a surgeon removed the damage lens in my eye and replaced it with a clear plastic prescription lens. Not a contact lens, but the one behind the cornea inside the eye. I was awake during the surgery but felt nothing. Late in the afternoon of the same day, I was able to run some errands, although Cooking Man had to drive. Today I ran my own errands. Tomorrow I’m teaching proofreading.

But until the eye heals enough to have the same surgery on the other eye, one eye will see a bright, crisp world; the other a dusty brown one. With both eyes open, I see the clear world more often because my left eye is dominant. I had the left lens on my glasses replaced with a clear lens, because the correction is already in my eye.

It was a gift of sight, and the surgeon did a great job. I do have a black eye, but it’s a small price to pay.

Why am I taking up a whole blog to yak about health problems? Because a majority of diabetics don’t know they have it until the disease is advanced and damage is done. I caught mine in time, I brought the numbers down. The disease is almost entirely symptom free. If you love french fries, ice cream, cookies, pies, bread, sweets, sodas, and enjoy them, stop by a drug store or grocery store with a minute clinic. Ask for a blood sugar reading. It’s easy and almost painless. And it can save your eyesight.

And if you don’t have diabetes, this is also a wonderful opportunity to look back and see how you have changed and not noticed it. Your life is a metaphor. Everyone gets used to the dingy. What can you do to get that crisp view again?

–Quinn McDonald lives in a blue and yellow world. Within the next month, both eyes will see the world clearly again.

Filed under: In My Life, Life as Metaphor Tagged: cataract surgery, seeing clearly