Quinn McDonald's Blog, page 85

Favorite Journal Discoveries

Yellow pepper, on the way to red. Watercolor on paper. © Quinn McDonald

Yesterday’s post started a whole rush of good ideas about keeping multiple journals for different reasons.

Cut up your old business calendars/notebooks for recycling in new journals
Keep a journal online, in a different language, to give space for the different aspects of your personalities.
Keep ideas in a small journal you carry everywhere. Expand them later.
Fiber work can be a journal, too. So can quilts. Don’t be shy, experiment!
Make your own journal–after you have completed some pages to get it started.
Work in several journals at once so you can dry pages without having to stop creating.

Today, I thought it might be fun to add some tips I’ve discovered to make my journal more interesting or fun to work in.

Date every page of your journal. It’s better than numbering pages, it lets you track growth and changes.

Storm warning. Ink on paper. © Quinn McDonald

Leave the last few pages of your journal empty. When you are having a bored day, use the dates to create a list of interesting ideas you had in the book. It will make it easier to find that special page if you have an index to check.

Make a mistake? Don’t paint over it. Figure out how to fix it, then re-do it on the next page. You’ll create a problem-solving how-to and gain pride in your work, not anguish over mistakes.

Want to show your journal to someone but have some pages you’d rather not show? Punch holes in the outer edge and use a ribbon to tie the pages together. People won’t untie without asking.

Brass doors at old movie theater, Phoenix.

I’m a writer, so I keep writing journals. Every month or so, I “harvest” phrases, metaphors and ideas and “distill” them into separate pages. It keeps me from hunting aimlessly for that phrase I liked so much.

Keep one journal for color swatches, alternative uses for and reviews of products you use regularly and lists of color names (for markers, yarn and paint). Take the journal with you when you go shopping. You won’t keep buying your favorite color over and over again. Instead, you’ll see what you have already and what you need to add. Stick coupons in this journal.

Keep a bin with leftovers, scraps big enough to work with. When the bin threatens to get full, organize a round robin with your friends (or Facebook friends) and swap scraps. Instant inspiration!

What are some of your favorite tips for keeping your journaling fresh?

—Quinn McDonald is an art journaler. She is writing a book on inner heroes and inner critics.

 

Filed under: Journal Pages, Links, resources, idea boosts, Raw Art Journaling Tagged: art journaling, creativity coaching, journal tips

Many Journals, One Author

A skeletonized prickly pear pad. They can dry out and crumble and they can be pressed and preserved.

Last Saturday, when I joined a group of other artists I’d never met, we brought items for show and tell. There was an art quilt pillow, and a banner, and jewelry made of polymer clay and cactus webbing. I brought two of my journals–an experimental one and a sketchbook and passed them around. One of the women asked if I kept more than one journal at a time.

“Yes,” I said, “I do different things in different journals.”

“Isn’t that confusing?” she asked.

I’ve heard this question before, and I know it is difficult for someone to look at the linear idea of a journal–one page a day, perhaps, and see the effort scattered over a number of journals.

From the sketch journal: ink, sparkling H2)s on Arches Text Wove.

It’s hard for me to grasp the idea that everything fits in one book. I have a nature journal so I can check when the figs were ready last year, when the oranges bloomed, when the migrating birds first arrived in my yard.

Then there is the writing journal, the morning pages journal. Private and focused, it’s for my stream-of-consciousness thoughts, and long descriptions of ideas, dreams, and working through the problems that return and need to be processed and re-preprocessed. It’s one I’d never pass around.

There used to be a dream journal, but it burned in the roof-fire and collapse of 2003. There is a sketch journal and an experimental journal with mistakes and triumphs in it. Mostly mistakes. It’s important for me to remember not only the mistakes, but how I fixed them, or what the idea grew into.

Then there is my daily notebook, in which I keep business call notes, to0do lists and addresses so I can remember where I taught, what I taught and when. And names of people I meet in class, people who stay or fade, and may eventually work their way into the phone list.

None of them really belong to others, the contents seem to be happier separate. There was a time when all the information was in one book, with dividers, color coded. I gave it up when I let go trying to control my life. It worked well, both the separate journals and control.

Do you keep separate journals, ideas books? Do you keep different projects separate? Do you work in more than one medium? At the same time?

—Quinn McDonald keeps many journals for many reasons. She’s writing a book to keep her inner critic out of the rest of her life.

Filed under: Journal Pages, The Writing Life Tagged: creativity coach, journals, raw art journals

The Cat and the Bag

Like most cats, Buster loves paper bags. He likes plastic bags, too, but those are for licking. Paper bags are for pouncing on, climbing into and creating cat-forts.

Buster, in a calmer mood.

Buster is a rescue cat. He was mistreated before we got him, and although he’s been with us many years, he still fears having something grab him by the neck. He wears a collar, but that took 18 months of careful work. Despite that, he loves being a lap cat and is the most fearless foolhardy of our cats.

After I emptied the groceries from Trader Joe’s, I dropped the bag on the floor. Buster was in heaven–he crawled into it, he rattled around it, he jumped on top of it, slid down the length, and stuck his head through the handle. In the split second before it happened, I knew it had been a mistake to leave the bag handles intact.

Buster now had his head through the bag handle, and while there was plenty of

Buster loves watching bacon. Just in case you drop some.

room, he was wearing the bag, and for Buster that meant the bag had him by the neck. Old fears roared to life. Buster headed down the hall full-tilt, the bag in pursuit. I tried to grab the bag as he went by, but that made it worse–now I was lunging for him. At least in his imagination.

As he came by again my comforting voice was lost in the bag rattling and flapping. The sliding door screen simply popped off the track as he burst through the open door and started a frantic lap around the pool. I hoped he wasn’t going to fall in, it’s too cold to voluntarily jump in, even after a cat. The pool towels were still outside, so I grabbed one, and when Buster made his second lap of the pool, I dropped the towel over him and scooped him up. He was so terrified he wet himself, the towel, and me.

In a second, I had the bad off his head, and sat down with a wet, shivering, terrified cat. With the bag gone, Buster did what Buster does when someone is holding him and saying calming things to him–he began to purr. In a few minutes his heart rate settled down and he let me give him a sponge bath. Particularly because I kept the bag of cat treats in view, and rewarded him when we were done.

After the drama, I began to think about his reaction. At first I thought, “he knows that bag won’t attack him; he knows it’s not alive.” But then I realized that I do the same thing. Well, not with a bag, but with old memories that still scare me. Given a trigger to set off anger, fear, or shame, I run around emotionally, not capable of calming myself, not caring what I do as long as I try to outrun the painful emotion.

The solution, of course, is to stop running, sit with the emotion and notice that it no longer has a hold on me. It never did. All I needed to do was pull it over my head. But calm thinking and planning is not what happens when old triggers are pushed. Panic and frantic emotions take over. At that moment, we need a calmer, cooler head that can see the bigger picture to hold us, comfort us and assure us we are safe. And until we learn to do that for ourselves, we will be no smarter than Buster.

–Quinn McDonald learns something every day, even if it’s from Buster. She teaches what she knows through coaching or writing classes.

Filed under: Coaching, Creativity, In My Life Tagged: creativity coaching, fear, sitting with emotions

Toy With Potential

A friend gave me an gift–a toy with potential. These word cards are made by Maruman, and have the wonderful name Mnemosyne–the Greek goddess of memory. The cards are sturdy paper (or light card stock) and blank. They measure about 4 inches long by 2 inches tall. There are 100 of them, fastened with a binder ring.

Their original use was for Japanese and Chinese language students to create their own  flash cards. Learning a language of symbols isn’t easy, as it requires memorization of hundreds of root words and building symbols.

What can I do with these wonderful cards? I’ve had some thoughts; they would make interesting tags for Art Abandonment. I could use them to catch my favorite quotes and short poems and have them all in one place.

But I’d like to add color. And making a collage on each one seems too small, even for me, who likes to work small.

Any suggestions? What would you do with these very interesting pages?

--Quinn McDonald is an art journaler and a certified creativity coach, who is running short on inventive ideas today.

Filed under: Coaching, Raw Art Journaling Tagged: flash cards

Saturday Skip into Creativity

Reminder: October 21 is the deadline for signing up to be a contributor to the Inner Hero book. I know, I know, the directions were complicated, but I didn’t think it was fair to pretend anyone could send in anything, and making it clear means details.

Winner!:  The winner of the copy of Margaret Peot’s Alternative Art Journals is Lisa Brown–Congratulations, Lisa!

It’s Saturday, so it’s time to have creative play—

35mm slide mount journal

Remember 35mm slide mounts? I love them, and I love making mini-journals (one word per slide mount) that I can use as birthday cards, too. I’d love to teach this class (I have a lot of mounts) but I’m afraid no one would know what they are.

I love sewing in my journal, and then I love tearing off the edges for cool effects.

I make journals with odd techniques and weird covers, called Mutant Journals. Here is one with a link to two more.

Love your doodles? Here’s a place that will make doodles into jewelry for you.

Filed under: Creativity, Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: 35mm slide mount journals, Book winner, mutant journals

Living Your Life Out Loud

We build community in wonderful ways–in person, online, via Skype. There are different types of communities, and it’s easy to think of them as the real world.  Like going to a class reunion, a lot of the people we meet in our new communities are not the ones we think they are.

Image from kamranweb.com

A friend of mine lives way out loud. She posts frequently on Facebook. Often. Lots. Maybe two dozen posts a day. What this does to her Facebook “friends” is allow them to think they know all about her. What it does to her is allow her to think that people like her. In general, the people who follow her on Facebook post positive, supportive comments to her updates.

And then, just like that, she posted something that offended several followers. They not only emailed her (yeah, they knew how to find that) but posted on their own timelines. My friend answered their email publicly on Facebook. Firmly putting them in place and rallying her friends to her cause. Frankly, I stayed out of all of it.

The fur flew and was followed by tears, mud-slinging, name-calling and general unhappiness and drama. Somewhere in all that, my friend wrote, “No one has a right to judge me because you don’t know anything about me.” Oh. But we do. She told us in those two dozen posts a day–about meals, wardrobe, change of hair color, house updates, political and religious activities, travel plans, vacations, kids’ weight,  grades, and pet updates. I learn more about this person from Facebook than I do after knowing her for six years.

When she asked me what I thought, I was hard-pressed to offer total agreement. I empathized with her pain and embarrassment. I also think that what you put on the internet is there forever. And even if people are polite in the comments it does not mean they love you unconditionally. Or even tomorrow.

I think living out loud is fun and colorful and authentic. I also think having a private life is a good idea and no less authentic. But as much as blogs and Facebook and all the other social media is a gift and fun, it has a price, even if it is free. Maybe even because it is free. It’s not just her friends and frenemies who know about her life, it’s all the marketing companies as well.

Things, events, relationships and choices are rarely all good or all bad. They have benefits and downsides. And while I love social media, and have met many people who are interesting and fun to talk to, generous and smart, I don’t think of them the same way as people I know in person. Because I don’t know them in person. I know them as the person they present themselves as. And that can be a surprise–happy or not.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and a creativity coach.

Filed under: In My Life, Opinion, The Writing Life Tagged: living online, online presence

More Uses for Those Pee-Pads

When my son was little, I used to encourage him to use things for the things they were designed to do.  This sounds terribly non-imaginative, or as if I were stifling his creativity, but children need to have limits. He’d use a piece of pancake as a bookmark, or a pair of scissors as a pancake cutting tool. Even if he’d just used them to trim pyracantha plants (which are poisonous.)

Luckily, my son lived to become an adult and is leading a happy life in his own house.  Having safely shepherded him through the wacky idea state, I’ve begun to delight in finding multiple, rational uses for tools or products. In this case, the product is something called a Pee Pad, which is a training aid for puppies. I have a cat who’s paper trained. Don’t ask.

I found a big box of the 20-inch plastic-backed pads for an amazing price, and have found great uses for them that do not involve cats or pee. These pads aren’t scented and aren’t treated in any way.

1. Put them in your lap to protect your pants/skirt/dress from glue, paint, or glitter in the studio. Tiny bits seem to adhere to the fabric-like surface. If you teach, take a few to pass out to those who forgot their aprons.

2. Put your very wet canvas or watercolor down to dry. No worry about leaving drips or stains on your studio table or carpet.

3. Clip them around your kid’s necks with a clothespin (if you are older) or binder clip (if you are younger) to keep them clean during art projects or messy meals, depending on their age.

4. Use them to put over your shoulder when you pick up your friend’s baby. Not all babies come with a spit-up cloth–this one is big enough to protect both of you. Also good if your friend brings over her small dog and it’s raining out–a trip across this pet door mat will soak up foot prints.

5. Just scrubbed the counters? Unpack your wet chicken packages, drippy berries, or leaking milk onto these to keep the counter clean.

6. Keep two in the car. They are great for protecting the seat if it’s raining and you have gallon jugs or other large, wet grocery items to load. Put on the seat if your gym towel is soaked and you don’t want to leave perspiration stains on the care seat.

7. Use as a big napkin for breakfast in bed. Catches drips, saves the percales. Also good for eating cookies or popcorn in bed. Just fold and put on the floor, you can shake it out and re-use the next day. No more crumbs in bed!

8. Use them for a lobster feast! The plastic backing keeps your clothes from getting buttered better than a napkin.

9. Take a few on trips. Budget hotel doesn’t have a bathmat? Use this. Eating at a park picnic table that hasn’t been scrubbed in a while? Use them as placemats. Going to eat in the car or in an airplane? Use as lapkins (napkins in your lap), or on the tray table. Last week, I saw a mom changing her baby on the tray table.

10. Wearing black this season? Pin one around your neck when you are dressed, but still need to put on your makeup. All that powdery foundation, eye shadow and blush won’t have to be brushed from your bosom.

Don’t use them to make a dress for Project Runway; it will get you eliminated.  You never know how useful something is until you have a lot of them.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and artist. She has a cat who is paper-trained.

Filed under: In My Life, Opinion Tagged: new uses for old things, pee pads

Book Review: Alternative Art Journals (And a Giveaway)

The giveaway is at the bottom of the post.

Title : Alternative At Journals: Explore Innovative Approaches to Collecting Your Creativity.

Author: Margaret Peot

Details: Published by North Light Books. Soft cover, 128 pages in eight chapters, plus a Gallery of Work, and further reading.

Contents: Traditional Sketchbooks, Collections Art Journals, Card Set Art Journals, Landscape Art Journals, Correspondence Art Journals, Box Art Journals, Faux Family Album Art Journals, Tag and Charm Art Journals.

What I Like: Right up front, I have to say I am a sucker for books that encourage people to bring out their inner artist, give ‘em a handful of art supplies and then let them feel successful with simple instructions that work well. And this is a book that does that. I love the breath of “simple” here.

Several times in the book, you get a bonus step-by-step demo on the artistnetwork.com website. Coptic book binding, bonus demonstrations, and if you sign up for the newsletter, there are additional downloads available.

The step-by-step photographs are large and clear and numbered with big, bold numbers.

The variety is big and interesting. The suggestions for alternatives are challenging so the book is suitable for beginners and advanced artists as well as those who like to flip through a book for ideas and head off on their own.

The book has a lot of tips, ideas, explanations. I am a huge fan of marginalia, and this book does a good job of it.

On technique uses white gouache as both a resist and as paint, and the instructions include washing ink off the page and allowing the sheets to dry by lining them around the walls of the bathtub. That photo alone made me want to plaster the walls of my tub with wet art. I tried the technique and found it worked well and gave great results.

What I Don’t Like: I had to think a long time to find something I didn’t like. Then I didn’t find one. The typeface is big enough and dark enough to read when you are in process of working. I’m guessing that not everyone will like the big variety of non-traditional projects–boxes and faux photo albums, round cards, charm journals and illustrated stones. I might not make all of them, but I’ll use ideas and adapt them. I’m also guessing that some people would want a more colorful book–I am a big fan of sepia, brown and cream tones, but some people will want brighter colors.

Disclosures: I received the book from a publicist for free. North Light Books is also my publisher.

GIVEAWAY: I’m giving away the book. Once more, I’m willing to spring for international postage. All you have to do is leave a comment that you want the book. I’ll draw the winner Friday night and put the announcement at the top of this post as well as on Saturday’s post.

–-Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach who is writing a book on the inner critic.

Filed under: Book Reviews Tagged: art journals, journaling, margaret peot

Book Review: Alterantive Art Journals (And a Giveaway)

The giveaway is at the bottom of the post.

Title : Alternative At Journals: Explore Innovative Approaches to Collecting Your Creativity.

Author: Margaret Peot

Details: Published by North Light Books. Soft cover, 128 pages in eight chapters, plus a Gallery of Work, and further reading.

Contents: Traditional Sketchbooks, Collections Art Journals, Card Set Art Journals, Landscape Art Journals, Correspondence Art Journals, Box Art Journals, Faux Family Album Art Journals, Tag and Charm Art Journals.

What I Like: Right up front, I have to say I am a sucker for books that encourage people to bring out their inner artist, give ‘em a handful of art supplies and then let them feel successful with simple instructions that work well. And this is a book that does that. I love the breath of “simple” here.

Several times in the book, you get a bonus step-by-step demo on the artistnetwork.com website. Coptic book binding, bonus demonstrations, and if you sign up for the newsletter, there are additional downloads available.

The step-by-step photographs are large and clear and numbered with big, bold numbers.

The variety is big and interesting. The suggestions for alternatives are challenging so the book is suitable for beginners and advanced artists as well as those who like to flip through a book for ideas and head off on their own.

The book has a lot of tips, ideas, explanations. I am a huge fan of marginalia, and this book does a good job of it.

What I Don’t Like: I had to think a long time to find something I didn’t like. Then I didn’t find one. The typeface is big enough and dark enough to read when you are in process of working. I’m guessing that not everyone will like the big variety of non-traditional projects–boxes and faux photo albums, round cards, charm journals and illustrated stones. I might not make all of them, but I’ll use ideas and adapt them. I’m also guessing that some people would want a more colorful book–I am a big fan of sepia, brown and cream tones, but some people will want brighter colors.

Disclosures: I received the book from a publicist for free. North Light Books is also my publisher.

GIVEAWAY: I’m giving away the book. Once more, I’m willing to spring for international postage. All you have to do is leave a comment that you want the book. I’ll draw the winner Friday night and put the announcement at the top of this post as well as on Saturday’s post.

–-Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach who is writing a book on the inner critic.

Filed under: Book Reviews Tagged: art journals, journaling, margaret peot

Stubborn Pays Off

When my son was about five, he bought me two plants for Mothers Day–a corn plant (Dracaena Frangrans) and a spider plant. The spider plant populated offices and homes throughout the entire state, and then exhausted, died. Not so the corn plant.

The corn plant has survived eleven moves (one cross-country), has bloomed twice and has sturdily refused to branch. When a winter was too cold and dry (and i was too stubborn to turn up the heat in New England) it threw off leaves, but each spring, it flourished again.

Night and it’s still growing.

I would cut off the top if it got too dry, and the stem would re-sprout. If the cane got dry and lanky, I’d cut off the top and replant it. The plant chugged along, older than any plant in my ever-changing collection. When I left D.C. I gave away all my plants except for the fig tree, an orchid and the corn plant. The big plants had no choice, they rode in the moving van. For five days in August, they stayed in the dark heat of the van.

Being relatives of mine (well, how could I not think of them that way?) they survived. The ficus, known for being delicate, didn’t lose more than five leaves. The corn plant drooped, but picked up again. I cheerfully topped it and planted the top while the cane died. Again, I had a new plant.

Last summer, four years into its stay here, the corn plant began to dry out. It didn’t like the air conditioning blowing on it nor the sun baking it. I trimmed the dying leaves and finally, there was just a four-inch top. I trimmed it and saw the cross-section of the cane was dry and brown. I hoped the top would root again.

The stem crinkled. and I had to admit it was over. I put the pot on the east side of the house, in days when it was still 110 degrees in the afternoon. The top was taken into the bathroom with a skylight, and after a few weeks of touch and go, it decided to live and pushed out two new leaves.

Yesterday, thinking it might rain, I went outside to connect the extensions to the gutter drain. I saw the plant and remembered I had to pull it out and put it in the trash. It had been outside for weeks, and it had rained only once.

There, on the plant, were two leafy sprouts. I have no idea how a plant that wasn’t doing well inside, at 84 degrees and regular watering would come back again. But there it was. I repotted it, watered it, and placed it under the orange tree where it will get dappled shade and great winter sun.

The corn plant lives on, thriving in any condition, dipping close to death, but coming back strong. It appreciates love, but will count on its own strength when it has to. And now I have two of them, generations away from their origin, still turning toward the sun.

–-Quinn McDonald has grown hundreds of plants in her life, but the corn plant and the ficus are the most amazingly resilient of them all.

Filed under: In My Life, Nature, Inside and Out Tagged: growth, plants, stubborness