Quinn McDonald's Blog, page 56

Time to Plan that Dream

You have a plan, you have to-do lists, and you are always one step ahead, asking “What’s next?” “What’s the next step?” But over the weekend, as I talked to a lot of creatives, the thing I didn’t hear often was, “I give myself time to think about what I really want to do, and then plan a path to get there, then evaluate it.”

Just a Dream by Enrico Agostoni

That part where we dream a plan, try it on, see if it fits, revise it, and then create it, that part is often missing.

We decide one step ahead, we do it. We do a lot of moving ahead, actions, pushing forward, but there is not often time to dream and then re-shape the dream into a plan that makes sense for what we want.

We listen to clients, we listen to our budget, we listen to safety. We compare our dream to the success we wish we had, and we always fall short.

When was the last time you sat down and asked yourself what you wanted, what you are really good at, what you ache to do? In fact, have you ever asked yourself that? We do what we have to, we put our shoulder to the wheel and our nose to the grindstone. And it’s awfully hard to have vision that way.

Not every vision is a great one, or even a good one. But every vision deserves the time it takes to think it through. And often, we don’t give it that. We just do the next thing that needs doing–laundry, a marketing plan, bill paying, equipment buying. And while that jumbled order gets something done, it’s often not the work we are called to do.

There are many ways to build a business, but the first step is to have a vision. A complete vision. One that you can describe and explain. And that’s the wonderful place to start. Write it down. Because if you don’t, it won’t be there tomorrow for you to create.

—Quinn McDonald spent time on an airplane, dreaming.

Filed under: Coaching, Creativity, Inner Critic Tagged: Finding the big vision, planning a dream

Traveling With Art Supplies

If you travel by car to teach,  you can load it up. But if you fly, you are limited to sending the material ahead or taking it with you on the plane.

If you are traveling to class, you usually scan the supply list and balance your need to take the class with the ability to take the supplies.

It’s not easy either way. Over the past few years of taking classes and teaching them, I’ve found a few short cuts that may be useful to you:

The easiest rule is to take only what you need. It’s easy to take everything you like to work with, but thinking through your class and taking just what you need will lighted your burden considerably.

1. Make big items small. Once I learned the trick of cutting watercolor pencils in half, I transferred the idea to other art items.

Instead of taking six journals so I can show 12 pages in them, I do samples on loose-leaf pages and take just the pages I need. Strathmore Ready-Cut paper is already cut in sizes that fit in standard frames. And their watercolor paper is wonderful.
Instead of taking big tubes of watercolors, I buy small palettes and fill the pans with watercolor and let them dry. Covered with cling wrap, they can be reconstituted in class.
Instead of a many Micron or Pitt Pens, I take a Medium and a super fine. I can make broad strokes with the medium, and the super fine will do the rest.
I also take a brush pen, because with varying pressure I can get different widths of lines. Black is my go-to color, as I can use a water-soluble one and blur the paint with water for shadows.

2. Take multi-use items.

Matte Gel medium can be used is glue, sealant on collage papers, and can waterproof colored pencils.
Newspaper is a smooth surface to work on, protects the table, and is packing material.
Inks can be watercolors, worked with pens or brushes.
Beeswax can smooth thread for sewing, serve as a resist for painting, and rub over a surface for a shiny finish. Be careful of using beeswax in summer or on paper that you’ll leave in a car. Or anytime in Phoenix and other desert towns.
A pencil can be used to write, draw, shade, create an area of graphite to use as tracing paper, check to see if a surface is level (it will roll in the direction that is lower), or a line is straight. Pencils can make temporary lines that don’t smear or have to dry.
A travel iron can keep your clothes tidy, dry a watercolor page, melt beeswax, get glue to set. A hair dryer can do the same, but it won’t iron your clothes.
A cheap shower curtain will protect a table and can be used to line your shipping box to protect from potential leaks. You can also cut up the shower curtain to work wet at your table or to place between wet pages in a journal.

3. Use what you have at hand. Instead of a long, cumbersome ruler, take a soft measuring tape used in sewing. If you can be approximate, the length of your fingertip to nose is about a yard, the distance between the middle knuckle and the one toward the fingernail is an inch (any finger). I know that if I spread my fingers, the distance between my thumb and little finger is 8.5 inches (I have big hands)–so you can approximate sizes and distances.

Instead of a variety of cases, roll pencils, pens, inks or scissors in wash cloths and pack in ziplock bags. You’ll have wipe-up cloths ready to use. (Iron them dry them before you pack up again, wash between trips.)

You can take a pencil sharpener, but a piece of sandpaper will have more uses–everything from smoothing the surface of your paper or book corners to sharpening your pencils, watercolor pencils, and sewing needles.

Pack tiny items in bags or small boxes so they don’t disappear in a big packing box.

Separate items that won’t go through security at the airport and keep them out of your carry-on. X-acto knives or craft cutters and their extra blades, sharp needles, spray cans, scissors with sharp or long blades–all can create long delays in airports if you accidentally take them along. The TSA will confiscate them and search you for other infractions.

Worse, the rules are enforced differently at different airports, or even the same airport by different personnel, and it’s not smart to argue with the inspectors. I pack supplies in ziplock bags that have the contents written on them in red marker. That way I pack what it says on the bag and put them in bags or boxes that get shipped.

Perhaps most important of all–pack the items you can’t afford to lose in a backpack and make that your carry-on. Ship the suitcase with the craft knife and bulky supplies.

–Quinn McDonald is up late again, but it’s all worth while.

Filed under: Art/Freelance Biz, In My Life Tagged: packing for art classes, teaching and traveling, traveling with art supplies

“If You Only . . . “

Whether you are an artist, an instructor, or ready to run for office, watch out for a common stumble on your way to success. It sounds like this: “I’d buy that [take that class, vote for you] if only . . . ” followed by a request that is very specific. Sometimes it’s followed by “and I’ll tell my friends and they’ll [buy it, take the class, vote for you] too.”

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Owen Egerton’s book cover, which has that phrase “everyone says” in it. It wasn’t true in the book , either.

What sounds like a simple change to make money is actually a huge mistake you are about to make.

What you are hearing is one person’s idea. What it can easily sound like is a marketing plan. If you act on it you are simply making a decision. It doesn’t obligate the other person and if there is no money exchanged up front, there is no guarantee that your idea will be successful.

Examples:   1. When I was in high school, I’d have an idea that required Mother Superior’s approval. And a change in the school rules. Three or four other students would tell me, “You go to Mother Superior and ask her, we’ll back you up.” It was all I needed to hear. My heart swelled with possibility. I marched into Mother Superior’s office. “A lot of us think that it would be a good idea if. . . .” I’d explain. Mother Teresa Joseph would raise an eyebrow, visibly moving her wimple, and say, “who are these girls who agree with you?” and I’d happily list my supporters, who had vanished. They denied knowing me, hearing the idea, much less supporting it. And I looked like not only an idiot, but a liar. And yes, it happened more than once before I caught on.

2. When I made jewelry, there was a woman who insisted that if I made silver beaded barrettes, “all my friends and I would buy them.” She said it so often, I began to believe her. So I made a set. They were custom made, with the bead color she wanted, and not cheap. I was thrilled when the woman came into the booth. You already know what happened, don’t you? The potential customer looked at the barrettes and said, “I didn’t know you were going to make them long. I wanted them round. Now, if you made them round, I would buy them.” The barrettes, in silver and with 20 hours of work in them never sold. I melted them down a year later.

3. I posted a class I was teaching. Two people emailed me and asked for a date change. Another two asked for a slightly different class. Thinking I could fill the class simply by making a few date and content changes, I made them. All four decided they had promised their family to spend more time that particular weekend, and the class didn’t make.

People asking for custom work or classes or special times are just asking for what they want. Two emails don’t create “everybody.” It’s just people asking. Unless you do custom work or have a contract, or get paid ahead of time, you don’t have a real offer. You have one person’s (maybe two) opinion.

Listen to yourself. Stick to your own marketing plan. And as always, don’t make any decisions because one or two people make suggestions. Trust what you know. Or do research. But before you go running down the street, sure you have a massive following, look behind you and see how many people are still behind you after the first block.

–Quinn McDonald has new classes coming up. She isn’t changing her plans.

 

Filed under: Art/Freelance Biz Tagged: ", " "everyone says, building a following, listening to "everybody

When Walking Meditation Fails

This morning, I headed out for my usual walk and meditation. Almost from the beginning, something didn’t feel right. My pace was a little slower, the sun was a little higher. But the weather was fine and I was feeling strong.

After I crossed a busy street, the meditation that usually relaxes and delights me didn’t work. Was it the long list of items still to do before the Design Your Life Camp? Was it the new Persuasive Writing Class I’m teaching on Wednesday? I don’t know. I tried following my breathing. I tried listening to every sound on the walk. I tried imagining letting go of each thought. But my mind raced and bounced, worried and fretted. There are sandpipers here in the fall, shore birds hundreds of miles from shore. I felt that misplaced.

It happens. Even long-term meditators have days in which meditation is difficult. I decided to let it go. Instead, I plugged in and listened to a novel that took a bit to get into, but that I am now enjoying.

I wanted to worry about it. I wanted to figure out why. I wanted to beat myself up for . . . listening to my inner critic. It doesn’t happen often, but when I can’t muster the gift of meditation, I move on. Tomorrow will be another opportunity. It’s hard to be OK with not connecting with a practice that is generally refreshing and invigorating. But the more you are OK with it, the sooner the strength comes back. And I trust it will. It’s important not to beat yourself up, not to over-think it (hah!) and not to quit. Other than that, some days are better than others.

–-Quinn McDonald will get up and continue doing walking meditation tomorrow.

Filed under: In My Life, Inner Critic, Nature, Inside and Out Tagged: inner critic, interrupted, meditation, sandpiper

Monoprinting Experiments

A few weeks ago, I was given two Gelli Arts Plates. My creative life hasn’t been the same since. Gelli Plates are gelatin-like consistency printing surface  that you can use to make gelatin prints without the hassle of making gelatin. I have a big weakness for monoprints. But the monoprints I learned to make are very exacting and precise, and we all know by now, I admire those characteristics–in others. Wabi-sabi and rustic echoes out of my soul.

Gelli plates are used most often in creating backgrounds for multi-media uses. And they are fun to use for that purpose. You put acrylic paint on them then roll out the paint with a brayer. To put designs in the paint, use stencils, homemade tools, or just your fingers. Then put a piece of paper on the paint, smooth the surface with your hands, then pull the print off the plate.

©Quinn McDonald, 2013

Quinadricone Azo Gold and Quin. Burnt Orange are desert colors that blend well with Payne’s Gray and metallic gold. I used a small tile to make the imprint.

© Quinn McDonald, 2013

You can layer the prints, which is super popular in the layer-on-layer art journaling pages. This was fun. But I wanted a little more experimentation. So I made a custom rubber stamp out of foam sheets. That’s a separate tutorial, but it is well worth the time. No carving. You cut out foam and put it on a piece of foam as big as the plate.

© Quinn McDonald, 2013

Here’s a foam stamp, showing both positive and negative use. This is fun. There will be more of this experimenting. But I wanted to make real monoprints. Not for backgrounds, for a print. So I started with a simple one.

© Quinn McDonanld 2013

Three squares, layered, but translucent colors. The middle one is stamped with a gold antique clock. The piece represents past, present and future, each affecting the next. Interesting, but not quite what I wanted–something more graphic and still abstract.

After the Fire, © Quinn McDonald, 2013. Acrylic monoprint.

Much more of what I was trying to get. Landscape feel, contrasting color, and some interesting detail on the lower right corner. (Above) And then I figured out how to draw on the plate and use the accidental arc of Azo Gold. (Below)

Night Pines © Quinn McDonald 2013, acrylic monoprint

I worked the dried monoprint with Pitt Pens to add more detail and to make it look a little more like a woodblock. Then I added Derwent Inktense details to create the final piece. This is what I’d like to do more of. My original intent was to write over it. Now I’m rethinking that, at least for this piece.

And now, it’s the week of Patti Digh’s Design Your Life camp, and I’ll be prepping for that as well as teaching my new Persuasive Writing course. But it was a creatively satisfying weekend.

–Quinn McDonald loves experimenting with monoprints.

Filed under: Art in Progress, Creativity, Journal Pages, Wabi-Sabi Tagged: experimental journal pages, gelli arts, Journal Pages, monoprints

Five Things Never to Say to a Diabetic

Note: Congratulations to Deborah Weber, who won the book. And thanks to all of you for your great ideas of what to do with the flash cards.  Now to decide which ones to try.. . .

When in full snark mode combined with teacher mode, I make lists of things not to say. I’ve done one for funerals and one for writers, and now it’s time to stand up for diabetics.

With the zeal of a new convert to a strange religion, I’ve decided not to hide and pretend I’m on a fad diet. Fueled by the acceptance of fads but the fear of disease, our culture accepts almost any diet as a brave attempt at carving out a slim line from a hunk of fat. . . except for diabetics. We, it seems, are fat because we chose to be. Here are five things diabetics do not want to hear you say:

1. “Is it Type 1 or Type 2?” Unless you have just discovered the cure for one of them, there is no reason to ask. What in the world do you need that information for? To decide if they got a bad genetic download? (Type 1) Or if it is “your own fault”? (Type 2). See? You just want to judge. Don’t.

2. “You know, there’s this great new cure I just heard about. . .” Most diabetics have a doctor or a dietician. If you have a new cure, call the American Diabetes Association, or Snopes.com. Diabetes is a complicated hormonal and endocrinological disease, and whatever you read online that starts “one weird old way. . .” or “why your doctor doesn’t want you to know about. . .” is not the answer.

The same advice goes for asking if we can’t just eat gluten-free or paleo. Here’s the answer: No. Diabetics aren’t allergic to gluten, it’s all carbs they have to watch out for. Gluten sensitives can eat rice. diabetics can’t.  So glad you love your paleo diet. Please don’t try to foist is on me.

3. “You can’t stay on that diet all the time. You have to treat yourself.” Most diabetics have learned to “treat themselves” in ways that don’t involve food. What you are doing is indicating that you are unhappy with the change your friend went through”, and you are giving a “switchback” message. “I liked the old you better.” Diabetics liked the old diet, too, but it’s killing them.  That remark is not far from telling an alcoholic that “one drink won’t hurt.” Take the cue from the diabetic. They know more about their disease than you do.

4. “Can’t you just eat one dessert and then take more medication?” Is there an M.D. after your name? No? Then stop giving medical advice. The medication your diabetic friend is on depends on a diet to make it work. Insulin is not the “morning after” pill, it’s a way to balance what the body no longer produces. Messing with it leads to blindness, kidney failure, and amputation. Ready to give up a kidney?

5. “Just how much weight have you lost?” is not as charming as it sounds. Instead, say, “You look great!” –it’s a phrase that doesn’t seem to have any strings attached.

Bonus #6: “I could never jab myself like you have to.” Lucky you don’t have to then. And no heroin jokes, either. I’ve heard them all. And no, you may not look at or use my test kit.

—Quinn McDonald has noticed that the test strip container is just large enough to hold some darning needles, or a pencil sharpener. How convenient.

Filed under: Creativity Tagged: change-back message, diabetes, diabetic, Type 2

Saturday Creative Do It!

Every Saturday for a while, you’ve seen artists and their interesting work here. This week, it might be interesting if you wrapped yourself in some creative work yourself. Not sure of what you want to do? Here are some suggestions;

Lili’s great paste paper design.

1. Try paste paper. A lot of fun for very little money. Use your fingers, you don’t need to buy anything to have fun with making marks. Lili’s Bookbinding Blog has a great tutorial. Lili also marbles paper in the traditional way. Don’t miss the eye candy surface decoration.

2. Have fun with acetate. Mel shows you how to emboss inexpensive acetate and make a 3-D flower with only one layer of acetate.

3. DIY: pumpkin with book pages. Couldn’t be easier if you want to scare kids out of reading. No, no, just kidding. I’d love to see that pumpkin done in torn-up maps, too.

4. Make a book the old-fashioned, real-book-bookbinding way. Worth a look, but not a project you are going to whip out in a day or so.

Have a creative weekend!

–Quinn McDonald is having her own fun in the studio this weekend. It involves Quinacricone Azo Gold.

 

Filed under: Journal Pages, Raw Art Journaling, Tutorials Tagged: diy, fun in the studio, Tutorials

Living a Portfolio Life

Writing a blog is fun, inventive, a chore, impossible, and, well, just like real life–a mixed bag.

Lots of ideas can fit together like a mosaic.

Smart people, who care about Search Engine Optimization and marketing businesses like mine, keep telling me to pick ONE audience–art journalers, writers, life coaches, training developers, instructors, workshop leaders–and write only to them. “It will focus your energy and give you a better audience,” they explain.

Perhaps. But I don’t DO one thing–I live a portfolio life. I do several things, all of which I love, and all of which connect through my heart and soul. They don’t need separate websites any more than I need separate desks.

Seven years ago, I vowed not to make my art pay the mortgage so I could do the

Creating your own reality happens only when you take the time to do it.

art I wanted, not just what sold well. That gave me huge creative freedom,  less creative discipline that I needed (another whole blog post), and a lot of work in different areas.

Corporate clients who were bothered that I was also an artist expressed concern. I told them that if I was not meeting their expectations as a corporate trainer, we should speak to that point so I could create better results. No one spoke up. But I know that in the corporate culture, creativity is called “disruption” and that the name itself doesn’t sound great, even if the effect often is.

So the blog continues to jump from topic to topic–training, art journaling, workshops, demos, ideas, life problems, coaching issues–just like real life.

But I’m open to different ideas, and if you have one, let’s hear it in the comments section. Or tell me how you decided to limit your blog (or not). To check out different ideas:

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer posts photos of her creative adventures every day on her blog.
iHanna takes us on visual journeys through her daily life on her blog.
Seth Apter often talks about other people’s art on his blog, The Altered Page.
Tammy Garcia is a peripatetic artist whose website (Daisy Yellow) covers a vast variety of art topics

Meanwhile, I’m getting comfy with the different kinds of work. I’m re-doing my website (every website needs an update every 18 months or so) and am open to new ideas.

–Quinn McDonald has opened the window of her mind. She’s got a head cold and is hoping for a drying breeze up there.

Filed under: Coaching, Creativity, Dreams, In My Life Tagged: Coaching, doing it all, training, workshops

Tutorial: Marbling With Splash Inks

Splash Inks are versatile fun in a bottle. I’m on the Yasutomo Design Team, and Splash Inks is one of the products I got to use. As soon as I found out you could marble paper with the inks, I had to try it. Here’s how it works:

In addition to the Splash Inks, you’ll need a flat deep, non-reactive pan about 10 inches long and at least 2 inches deep (25 x 5 centimeters).  Shown  (above) is an enameled meat tray you can buy as a palette in most art supply stores.

The medium to float the inks is Sta-Flo liquid laundry starch. It comes in a blue half-gallon bottle.  A spray bottle with a fine, misting spray and a roll of paper towels come in handy, too.

Add an eye dropper, a big-tooth comb, a shower squeegee and a group of small containers to mix your favorite color inks and you are ready

Choose a sturdy paper to marble:  I like Strathmore and Canson Mixed Media papers. You can also use Arches Velin, or 90-pound watercolor paper by Bee.  Start by protecting your worktable with newspaper and wearing gloves if you want to keep your hands ink-free. Shake the bottle of starch to blend the ingredients. Pour the starch into the dish so you have at least an inch of fluid in the dish. Stir gently with the comb or a gloved finger to remove the bubbles.

Using an ink dropper, add several drops of ink to the surface of the starch. The first time you do this, the drops will be small and sink. Expect one or two test sheets till the starch is tempered.

You can use colors right out of the bottle, or you can mix inks into small containers. A color blending chart is included along with the four bottles of Splash Ink.

Save your test sheets  for collage work. When  the ink drops  get larger and float well enough so you can put drops within drops, you are ready for marbling.  The  pattern above, (called ‘stone’, is fine, or you can use the comb and gently drag the teeth through the liquid.

Drag the wide teeth of the comb left to right.

Drag the narrower teeth up and down. The more you comb the finer the pattern. Colors will blend with a lot of stirring.

When your surface has the appearance you like, you are ready to place the paper on the surface.

Place one end  of the paper onto the surface then “roll” the paper and drop the other end to keep air from getting trapped under the paper and leaving a white spot. You can see  (above), that the bottom, left-hand corner of the paper is picking up from the surface. That’s a sign to pick up the paper, the marbling is done. It takes about 10-15 seconds for the color to transfer.

Carefully pick up the paper and put it on the newspaper. To get the starch to run off, tilt the paper slightly by putting it on a piece of crumpled newspaper. After about one minute, spray the paper with a mister to rinse off extra starch.  If you like a very crisp look with distinct lines, wipe the excess starch off the paper with the shower squeegee. It will take off some color with it.

To make pastel shades of paper, drop the sheet on the surface, let it absorb color, then use a palette knife (or the comb) to push the paper under water. The back will become marbled in a pastel swirl of color.

Make many sheets at once to have choices. To clean the surface of the starch, float a paper towel on it to absorb the ink, then add more ink. Above, you can see several sheets–upper left is a sheet made with the four colors in the bottles; upper center, a pastel effect by sinking the paper; bottom left is a piece scraped with the shower squeegee.

The papers may curl while they are wet. To get them flat, put them between two sheets of parchment paper and iron them on a medium setting till they are flat.

You can also marble directly onto your looseleaf journal pages, then write on the front or back (or both). Here are three examples of that:

 This is part of a Robert Jeffers poem. It completes on the back, along with some comments I made about the poem.

I found this a handy way to use those quotes I save for journaling. And “llustrating” them with abstract marbling poses an interesting challenging.

This is one of my “fish out of water” pages. It’s an interesting theme I explore–what makes us feel uncomfortable, what gives us community? So the background is blended in blue (water) and green (land) and the fish is adapting.

On the Niji Design Blog, I used the marbled pages to make two different kinds of postcards. You can read about that project here.

–Quinn McDonald is a member of the Yasutomo Design Team. She experiments and designs projects for Niji/Yasutomo. She receives free product from the company to complete the projects.

Filed under: Journal Pages, Product Review, Tutorials Tagged: art journal pages with marbling, marbling paper, marbling tutorial

Hate-Reading: Queasy Diet for the Soul

The second I saw the article in the New York Times (Style Section, page 19, Sept. 22, 2013) I knew it was worth a blog post. The article was about deliberately reading social media posts that make us angry, crazy, upset or fills us with fury over someone’s perceived hypocrisy, goody-two-shoe-attitude or some other feeling we hate to feel but can’t stay away from. It’s called hate reading, and it seems a lot of people are caught up in it. Considering the comments I see on Twitter (about the new, East-Indian Miss America, for example), there is a lot of free-floating hatred.

The article cites different kinds of hate-reading. One person is tired of seeing endless posts from a friend about her dog and kids. Another person hate-reads an acquaintance’s relentlessly cheerful, hope-filled messages and wants to demand proof of that emotion.

Katie J. M. Baker, who writes for Jezebel, says, “Our motives rarely come from a position of strength . . . when I walk away from my computer, I feel like I’ve just binged on a butter-sogged bag of popcorn before the movie even started; I’m slightly nauseated but still can’t help licking my fingers for more fatty flavor.”

Hate-reading fuels up our negative energy. Much like binging on sugar, it makes us feel oddly exhilarated to have caught someone in a lie, hypocritical posing or overt bragging, but the crash is as bad as the push up the emotion was gratifying.

The article says we downward-compare to feel better. But the feeling doesn’t last.

Professor Alexander H. Jordan, an adjunct assistant professor of business administration at Dartmouth, says “It’s when a person’s typically rose self-view is temporarily threatened that self-enhancement processes, such as finding people to ‘hate’ online, are triggered.”

Of course, the people we hate (or hate-read) become tethered to us emotionally, and, like an addiction, we continue the behavior.

We used to engage in this behavior only with celebrities, “hating” an actress when we didn’t know her personally at all, and simply drew conclusions from photographs and our own opinions.

And still, and still, we all want to be loved and heard. But it’s so hard to do it for others. Something interesting to think about, for sure.

—Quinn McDonald is not above hate-reading. She’s going cold-turkey after reading the article. She’s received emails from people who hate her without knowing her, and has decided negative energy needs doesn’t need to be stored.  It can’t be harder than giving up sugar.

Filed under: Coaching, In My Life, Links, resources, idea boosts, Opinion Tagged: attracting negative energy, hate-reading, nemisis