Quinn McDonald's Blog, page 95

Ice-dying on Paper

Yes, I remember that I promised a column on black and clear gesso today. Our humidity is high and nothing dried enough to scan it. So instead, I got tempted by art instigator Diane Becka, who sent me a link on snow dying fabric. I decided to adapt the technique to dying paper. In July. In Phoenix. Instead of snow, I used my blender to crush ice.

Here’s the step-by-step if you want to try it. It includes the mistakes I made, which you can now avoid.

In an aluminum or glass pan, place racks to keep the paper out of the melting ice/ink mixture.  I used two sheets of watercolor paper and two sheets of Arches Text Wove (now called Arches Velin). They were dry when I put them on the rack.

Use snow in winter, but lacking that, I crushed ice in my blender and heaped it on the dry paper in uneven piles.

I put blue, purple and teal inks on the Arches Velin. The blue was a dye ink, the teal and purple were pigment inks.

I sprinkled walnut ink (dry crystals) on one of the watercolor papers. On the other one, I dripped brown and black pigment and dye inks.

This looked promising. But you don’t know until all the ice is melted and runs off the paper.

The only thing interesting about this result is that the lines of the rack showed as colors. (It looks like ridges, but it was color). The brown was not any more interesting.

I decided to use the existing papers and do it differently.

I crumpled the papers, dripped ink directly on it, crushed more ice and wrapped the paper around the ice. Then I let it all melt.

The watercolor paper was too stiff to bend or crumple, so I dripped ink on the paper and placed an ice cube on each drip spot.

Results of the brown ink. Interesting effect, with some nice detail work. The other sheet simply rinsed off the ink. Unlike fabric, the pigment ink is the one to use here, rather than the dye.

Blue/purple ink and crumpling gave interesting results, as well.

If I were to do this again, I’d ink the papers fully first in one color, then drop ink in another color on it and use the ice wrapped in paper. I’d also try some different dyes and pigment inks, and write down which colors were used where, so I’d know which ink brand works with this technique.

—Quinn McDonald is the author of Raw Art Journaling, a book for experimenters and explorers. No drawing ability necessary.

Filed under: Creativity, Journal Pages, Tutorials Tagged: art experimenting, creativity coaching, ice dying, mixed media, snow dying

Identity in Action (or, DoBeDoBeDo)

A flurry of articles have floated across blogs recently. They are all versions of “I am not a writer, but I write.” The upshot seems to be money–people are declaring that they write a blog or an article and are happy to do it without getting paid, because they aren’t “real” writers. This makes me smile.

My mind went to variations of that statement. “I’m not an artist, but I art.” Maybe that should be “Make art.”  Or, “I’m not a chef, but I cook.”

This agave has both white and pink flowers. It doesn’t know it’s not supposed to do that.

Yes, I recently wrote about the importance of being professional and demanding the money you deserve if you are a writer. And I said that because I am a writer, and people writing for free devalues the profession. But I’m looking deeper into declaring what you are not.

There are reasons for declaring what you are and what you are not.

1. You are scared to death of being responsible for being a better writer, artist, chef. If you say, “That’s not my real identity,” you don’t have to shoulder the responsibility for getting better or being professional. It’s OK, even good writers need to practice and work at their skill. It’s OK not to be perfect and still identify with that activity.

2. You think you can only be one thing. This is part of our culture. You can either be a good parent or a good employee. You can either be a writer or an artist. You can not only do more than one thing, you can be good at more than one thing. Notice that I used “do” and “be” in the same sentence. You can have both of those.

This chandelier is made of both light bulbs and crystals. It doesn’t have to choose only bulbs or crystals. It can use both. And then it can be used for light and for beauty. If an inanimate object can do that, what can you do?

3. You have to have a clear identity. Well, sort of. By that I mean you can define your own identity. When people ask me what kind of artist I am, I say, “I combine words, illustration and color.” The next question is always “what is that called?” It’s easier to talk to someone if you can label them with an identity that is known to you. That is not my issue, although I can help them through it. I might add “Art journaling and collage.” But it’s two things, so sometimes I say, “Mixed media,” because that’s a larger term that covers more.

I think the answer comes down to how you make meaning. What do you do that allows you to explore yourself, your life, your world, and the thing you were born to do in this world? Whatever that thing is, it’s fueled by your creativity. That’s who you are. When you are yourself, that’s your identity. That is what you do.

In the meaning-making life, who you are is what you do. Not always well, but always with purpose. Meaning.

Today, when I purchased some black gesso and clear gesso (they make clear gesso?) I had no idea what I would do with it. But I knew it would involve exploring what i don’t know. And that makes meaning for me. I’ll show you what I did tomorrow.

How are you making meaning today?

–Quinn McDonald has two new bottles of meaning-making liquid in her studio. She doesn’t know what they do. Yet.

 

 

Filed under: Coaching, In My Life, Recovering Perfectionists Tagged: creativity coach, identity, making meaning

Gel Transfers, Longstitch Journal, Ideas

Last Saturday, I posted a few links to tutorials and older blog posts you might find interesting if weekends are studio days for you. You encouraged me, so I’m doing it again. Have fun in the studio (and the kitchen with the orange peel lamp)!

All these open in a new window for ease of viewing and returning:

Gel transfer how-tos, tips,  and videos.

Longstitch journals are ideal if you are a mixed media artist. The spine is flat so you can have fat pages and still work in the book. And it’s not hard to make. This blogpost shows results, and has links to a how-to and a finished long-stitch journal.

The huge variety of watercolor brushes always overwhelms me. Here’s a demo on the difference between natural and synthetic watercolor brushes.

You can get oranges any time of year, and summer nights are just right for an orange oil lamp. (Results may vary. Mine is in the photo.) You can also do it with lemons and limes.

–Quinn McDonald is spending time in the studio this weekend. She’s thinking about another book.

 

 

Filed under: Creativity Tagged: gel transfers, mixed media, orange peel oil lamp, watercolor brushes

Fear Factor

On July 4, I wrote a blog post about fear-based culture. It’s an exhausting way to live, and it creates a circle of anger, resentment, control, and giving up.

Because I work with words, and words are an easy weapon, I looked around to find titles and situations in our popular culture that ignite the fuse on the anger circle. The words we use casually become part of our lives.

“War”  We now have a war on women, a war on religion, and yes, Craft Wars on TV.  It’s offensive to use the devastation of war to describe a disagreement and a competitive TV show. Remember when “awesome”  meant extremely impressive or daunting? Now it’s used as a filler word, used to mean “I heard what you just said.”  Soon “war” will be another shrug-off word. We’ll be mildly interested in the collateral damage, but it won’t shock us.

Every successful TV show spins off a competitive one, where one team has to demolish the other. The winning team gets to lord it over the losers. Apprentice, American Pickers (the competitive version), Cajun Justice, Fear Factor,  all the competitive cooking shows, all the race-from-one-place-to-another shows–it’s not just about winning, it’s about making the other team lose. The leftover resentment, anger, ridicule is now part of the American Dream. If you are on the winning side.

From the New York Times Hardcover Bestseller List: 50 Shades of Gray (a trilogy on sadomasochism), Wicked Business, Wild, Cowards, Killing Lincoln. Don’t forget the softcover selections: Explosive Eighteen, Afraid to Die, In the Garden of Beasts.

Best Selling Video Games:  Total War, Bioshock, Mortal Kombat.

Words are important. In the movie Iron Lady,  Margaret Thatcher ‘s attributed this wisdom to her father:

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. What we think, we become.

I know that violence is more interesting than compassion, drama has more frisson than contemplation, and reading about tragedy is more exciting that reading about self-awareness. It does us no good to avoid gluten if we are stuffing our minds with gore.

Do the hard thing and give up your anger, your control, and your threats. Fill your time with creativity. It soothes, heals, inspires and makes you feel like you have achieved something worthwhile. Because you have.

—Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach who is giving up control, one day at a time.

Filed under: Coaching, In My Life Tagged: control, creativity coaching, fear, life coach

Book Intros

No one reads them, right? Book introductions are the part most often skipped. Can’t speak for everyone, but I read them. First. Before I read the rest of the book. The introduction, particularly in a how-to book, is the foundation of the book that follows. I learn about the author, the intention, the organization, the background, the thinking that went into the book. It’s a lot more interesting (and telling) than the author’s bio. It helps the book make sense.

When I read the reviews of my book on Amazon.com, I am always mildly surprised when the reviewer says, “she must have meant this book to be for beginners,” or “I was surprised to see she includes a lot of information about writing in your journal.” Yes, I do. I wrote Raw Art Journaling primarily for those who want to keep an art journal but don’t know how to draw. Because journaling is also about writing, I included exercises about writing. I explained it all in the introduction. When people say “this isn’t for fine artists,” I wonder how they reached that conclusion. Because fine artists already know how to draw? Nope, book isn’t about drawing or not drawing, it’s about making meaning with your creativity.

Just because I read introductions, and read them first, doesn’t mean anyone else does. I’ve watched how people read the how-to art books. They pick them up, and flip through them, often back to front, and find a project they think may be interesting and read it.

The introduction is often skipped entirely. It’s a pity, because there is good stuff there. You can learn a lot about the writer and about the purpose of the book. If you’ve never done it, try reading one. You probably have the books within arms’ reach. You might be surprised. Delighted, even.

—Quinn McDonald said this in the introduction to her book: “One of the great joys of accepting your imperfection is that it frees you to create imperfectly.” She still means it.

 

Filed under: The Writing Life Tagged: book introductions, creativity coach, making meaning, mixed media, prologue

The Fourth of July

There will be no fireworks where I live this year. It is too dry. As I write this, rain is predicted–the first time in four months, but then again, I live in the desert. But even if it rains, no fireworks. Too many wildfires already. Palm trees burn explosively, sending sparks onto dry brush and roofs. I understand, but it will feel different.

Every July, I wonder what it would be like if my parents hadn’t emigrated, hadn’t made a life in America. If I hadn’t been born here, mis-identified by my parents as “our little Native American.” I didn’t understand their mistake till my fifth grade teacher called me Little Raining Cloud. The smallest and youngest in my class, and, unfortunately in a rural school, bad at sports and good at math, I cried a lot. Kids made fun of the way I dressed (hand-me-downs), my European pronunciation of English, and my braids. I could not decipher why they all wanted to sit around me when it came time for tests, when they despised me the rest of the day.

What makes me still and silent on this day of bright celebration, is what has happened to our culture since 9/11. I remember before that day, our country was brash, and open and daring. After that day, fear dominated. We fear immigrants. We fear dark-skinned people. We fear non-Christians. We give up privacy and freedom in exchange for a false sense of protection. We separate the world into “them” and “us.” And “them” are wrong. News, which once was the inviolable ground of neutrality, is now a snipe fest of blame and blood. Common sense is hanging on by its thin fingernails, as we beg the question, believe in correlation instead of cause, and pay no attention to critical thinking because rage and hurled invective is so much more demonstrative of patriotism than calm and rational thinking.

So today, I am carefully sweeping up the shards of my hope, digging in my backpack for leftovers of compassion, and digging out the last few grains of kindness. It may not be much, but I won’t trade them for the more colorful and dramatic fear. I won’t let fear stay in my house or in my heart. I want to be determined in good will, in optimism, in  helping those who need help. Eventually, if you live by the sword, you die by the sword, and I want to live by kindness instead.

—Quinn McDonald is a writer and creativity coach. She is a creativity coach who believes that kindness can transform, one person at a time.

Filed under: In My Life, Opinion Tagged: America, generosity, patriotism

Put Your Effort Where It Works

Wishing for what isn’t is not way to live happily. Wishing that it were cooler (if you live here in the Sonoran Desert) makes it seem hotter. Wishing you were richer makes you feel poorer.

All those yellow flowers and green leaves? They’re not coming back.

In July, the serious heat sets in. July is the hottest month for most Northern Hemisphere areas, and we often have 30 days of more than 110 degrees–they aren’t consecutive,  but most of them happen in July and August. Each year, I buy plants that say “full sun” on the little white plastic spears that come in the pot.  Our “full sun” melts the little plastic signs, so the plants don’t

Each year I struggle to keep those plants alive. That makes as much sense as trying to keep the leaves on the trees in October in Vermont. It’s just not going to happen.

This morning I quit watering the straw those plants turned into and decided to put my efforts into the ones that could survive without a lot of extra work.

Not going to make it, no matter how much love I pour on it.

And that’s exactly what happens with your creativity, too. Put it in a place where it can’t possibly survive, and the struggle is ugly and non-productive.

Whether that’s a bad relationship, bad retreat you feel you should have loved, bad project you thought would be great, or bad book you are reading, there are some efforts that won’t be rewarded. Goethe, the German thinker and poet, said “Die Arbeit ist nicht immer mit Erfolg gekrönt,” —Your work is not always guaranteed success. (I know it’s not the literal translation, the interpretation was called for here.)

So why not eliminate all those dead projects that aren’t worth saving? Flogging a dead horse is not always noble or even what’s called for. Sometimes it’s far more worthwhile to be very honest, determine that you do not have the stamina, strength, materials, smarts or spirit to make this project succeed, or even move forward. The smart thing to do is to stop pouring your effort into a bottomless pit and spend more of your effort doing something that will give you a better result.

This is the one that will make it. This is the place to put the effort.

Half of being smart is knowing what you are dumb at and not doing it. The other half, of course, is knowing what you are good at and doing more of it.

Yes, this is different from stopping because you are bored or tired, or walking away from your marriage because there is something more appealing to go after.  You know the projects. You’ve been there. Spend the precious water you have in the Sonoran desert to nurture the plant that can adapt to the desert. Put your energy behind the projects that will work. They will thrive and so will you.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach.

Filed under: Art/Freelance Biz, Coaching, Nature, Inside and Out, The Writing Life Tagged: Creativity, creativity coach, follow your heart, giving up

Freelance Writers and Getting Paid

Writing is not the same thing as being a writer. Lots of people write. Many do a good job of readable emails, reports, even articles. But not everyone who can manage is keyboard is a writer, no more than anyone who sings in the shower is a musician.

Good writing is clear and direct. Easy to read. Grammatically correct. Written with clear syntax. Bad writing is what you get when you don’t know what good writing is, or don’t want to pay for good writing.

Writing takes training, practice, and a lot of work. I know. I’m a writer. So I get a bit cranky when the art and work of writing is shrugged off as “content providing.” And I get even more cranky when I pitch an idea to a magazine, and the editor writes back and says that they love the idea, but they don’t pay. Because it’s a privilege to appear in their magazine; having my work published is an honor. Yes, thank you, of course it’s an honor, but it is tough to buy gas with honor and privilege. The plumber does not think it is a privilege to fix the water leak, he expects to be paid for his time and expertise, and so do I.

Yes, some beginning writers need to write for very little so they can build a portfolio. I’m past that now. I read a lot of content, and I don’t see very many good writers. I see a lot of writers who don’t understand copyright or plagiarism, who think Google is a research tool, and who don’t understand when to use the nominative or the objective case.

Writing is a profession. It takes training, practice and dedication. And if I agree to work for pennies on the dollar, I am the one to blame for accepting that as a wage. On the other hand, if many writers who can live on pennies a day undercut writers who won’t, the system becomes unbalanced. Writing is devalued.

It’s happened with other professions. The work is outsourced and the value diminishes. It’s easy to settle for content, instead of writing. Cheap, starchy filler will always be easier to get than good, solid, well-crafted writing. Be careful. You are what you read.

--Quinn McDonald is a writer and creativity coach who works with writers.

Filed under: The Writing Life Tagged: good writing, Writers, writing is a skill

Scraps on Your Journey

The Pawnee (a tribe of Native Americans living in Kansas and Oklahoma) have a legend about the meaning of life that I find both interesting and startling.

For years, I’ve studied origination myths–stories of how the world was formed, according to many religions, nations, and legends. I’m amazed at how many different stories there are, and how the stories have so many things in common.

Here is my recollection of the Pawnee legend:

The Journey. © Quinn McDonald, inks on paper. 2012 All rights reserved.

We must all walk our path. Each person’s path is different, but we must all walk on our own. We will cross other paths, and they may seem similar, but there is just one path for each person. We walk on it in the day, and we sleep on it at night. If we live to see the morning, we get up and continue walking. We cannot go backwards, we must always move ahead.

On the path, there are scraps of notes. These are experiences. Sometimes, we do not know what the experience means, but we must still live it, take that scrap and put it in our pocket. No scrap is too small. Even if the scrap has only a part of a letter on it, we must take it along.

There are times in our life, when we put all the notes together and look at the whole it makes. Maybe we understand what we read, maybe we have part of a map, maybe we suddenly see where we are going. That is the wisdom of experience.

There can be many understandings along the way, but there will always be more scraps, more notes, more experiences. We live life, and life also lives us.

When we understand what the Great Creator wants of us, when we do what we are born to do, we stop longing to be on another path and walk our own in peace.

* * *

I love this story, because it tells the story of keeping a journal, of making meaning through writing and art–the way we take notes about our life.

-–Quinn McDonald is a note taker. She crosses paths with other meaning-makers, and spends time asking questions about their journey. In this way, she is a creativity coach.

Filed under: Journal Pages, The Writing Life Tagged: journaling, journey, making sense of life, What is my purpose on earth

Posts from the Studio

I don’t run new posts on Saturdays, but many people spend time in the studio on the weekends and I thought it might be helpful to post links to several older posts on this blog that might be helpful for a day in the studio.

How to make your own deckle-edge paper.

Review of Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils.

Marbling with Sumi ink.

10 Ideas for what to put on your journal’s first page

How to handle problem students (Part 1)  (Part 2)

Enjoy the day!

–Quinn McDonald writes “The Business of Art” column for Somerset Studio.

Filed under: Art/Freelance Biz, In My Life, Tutorials Tagged: deckle-edge paper, how to handle difficult students, sumi ink, Tutorials