Shoes stories from my guest Giggles

With the change of season. I´m changing my wardobe and I´m taking this chance declutter a bit. This week my focus was on shoes. All types: tennis, boots, flip flops, sandals, the lot. 

And for this week I´ve been saving this guest blog post by Giggles from Happy Tiler. Fun shoes stories that go with her colourful shoe related paintings. 

Read on!
When I was three, long before car seats,  mom enrolled me in ballet lessons. Another lady drove us to the studio since mom didn't drive.  Dressed in a black leotard, ballet slippers in hand  I opened the car door  and fell straight into a very deep ditch. I was full of muddy goo and very traumatized. I don't remember ever taking another ballet lesson after that!

original done in acrylics

During the seventies I bought a  pair of very high platform sandals. Proudly strutting  out of the store down Granville street  I fell flat on my face.... a grungy looking hippie stood stared down at my stunned self repeating," Hey Man, what's happening man, what's happening?"  Meanwhile a suited business man, twice my age ran to my aid, scooped me up making sure I was okay! I hung my head, hobbled to the bus,  with my bruised leg and ego!

 When my daughter was five we went on holidays with my perfectionist cousin and her family. All day we swam in the motel pool and dined out each evening. One night we  arrived at the restaurant where my cousin proceeded to tell the story of her previous visit. She had mispronounced the  Grand Prix Burger, ordering a Grand Pricks  instead. Causing quite a commotion  in the male dominated kitchen. All the servers came out to to put a face to  the awkward blunder.....Just as the tears were running down my face in laughter at her faux pas..I looked down at my shoes only to realize I had mismatched flip flops on my own feet....They were completely different colors  and style.  We laughed so hard I almost peed my pants!!  Seems like faux pas fox paws run in the family!!

Happy Canada Day to my Canadian Friends!

When I was young girl runners were about a dollar ninety nine with not much selection they were plain tie ups in either red, blue, black or white. I NEVER liked them. I pleaded with my mom to buy the stylish square toe five dollar runners. She balked. 
 After a lot of nagging and whining, (which normally never worked and resulted in a smack,)  she conceded! Every time I tried to wear those fancy runners she'd say "don't wear your five dollar runners" eventually I outgrew them in their near new state!   I have hated any kind of runners except Chuck Taylor converse runners ever since!!!  Which I have never worn either!

The only runners I ever bought Cupcake were a mock pair of high top pink chuck taylors, (now she has every color imaginable) but as we all know little kids get dirty. So I threw them in the wash and the navy blue stitching ran into the pink canvas, rendering them tie dyed. So I bought her an outfit  to match and she continued to wear the shoes anyway.  Everywhere  I went moms begged me to tell them  where I bought them.... now that's what I called a happy accident!!

When  Cupcake was a toddler she was obsessed with " My shoe book" She made me read it repeatedly. Not only was I a bad influence, buying her way too many cute shoes, she also had her own inbred affinity for them as well!! Yesterday she added two more to her obscene Chuck Taylor collection!!

Over the last five decades there is one comfortable shoe that I have probably worn the way people wear white runners, and that is the clog.... I loved clogs in the sixties and I still love them today!  Only now I wear a replica type clog in the form of a merrell! 

Cupcake was a baby who could crawl so fast I looked haggard chasing her!   One hot summer day her dad was sitting on the couch in his flip flops enjoying a television program when Cupcake motored up to his feet and munched down so hard on his toe he screamed. No toes were safe from that girl until she learned to walk!

A different kind of painting

I´m an instant gratification kind of painter. 

I´ve tried aquarelles but the building up of colour takes time. I´ve also tried oils, but the drying times are not to my liking. My favourite kind of paints are acrylics. Specially applying them directly to the piece I´m working on which my painting teacher says is quite unusual and I´m the only one of her students that works this way. Trust me to be the odd one. ;) *grin*

I usually work on small size wood pieces or A5 paper. A4 being the biggest I´ve used with just one exception of a big cardboard.

Taking into account my taste for big, fast coverage I was truly happy with this painting project:

First we had to go through a deep decluttering stage to empty that bookcase. Many old magazines and frames found new homes through FB, boxes of letters and cards were purged and archived, old class notes went to the recycle bin. The sofa was moved downstairs.

The second stage was to remove the first layer of the wall paper, the decorative one which was easy enough.

The base layer was another matter. Armed with a bucket of warm water and detergent and a roller brush I got sections of the paper really wet and then scrapped it.

Whew! I see the walls again.

Mistake: we painted the bookcase over without realizing the varnish would prevent the paint to stick..  Lesson: sand all the wood surfaces.

We used water based interior sheer paint. Three layers of red later:

The other side of the attic. It doesn´t have a door and the fourth wall is a half wall. We painted the staircase white but have plans for a second painting stage. Stay tuned!

Julia Elmore shares her decluttering process to create space for her art

This month Jamie Ridler studios is focusing on making space, just like we are. Here are a few ways you can honour whichever stage of your creative cycle you’re in and Create Space this month.

If you have been procastinating about decluttering I highly recommend reading Julia Elmore´s post "Clearing the clutter to make way for clarity and productivity. I was cheering for her all through the post and it has a happy ending. :D

This month at the Keep it simple, make it work decluttering and organizing series we are looking at the entry ways but today we´ll look at the other side of the house. Recently Julia has conquered another space, a gateway between the kitchen and the back garden and she invites us to see the process. Then I´ll show you some of her beautiful paintings too.

Today has been all about creating a space to play, says Julia.

I have, for rather too long, been working on the dining room table or floor, spreading out and making my art, only to have to clear it all up again in order for my children and I to eat at the table. For too long now, I have been dumping my half-finished projects in a corner of the room until I have a little window to work on them again. Today, all that changed.

Today, I set about clearing the lean-to at the back of my house and making space for my art. It had previously been a dumping ground; an obstacle course between kitchen and garden; a nuisance of a place, dirty and half falling down. However, in taking my art and my passions more seriously, and determined not to let them take over our living space any longer, I made a decision to change this good-for-nothing space into an inspiring place for me to store my art materials and perhaps use to make art. There is no big table out there, so I could continue to use the dining room table or the big table at the bottom of the garden, housing my projects safely in this new space in between bursts of art. Or, I could use one of the wooden boards out there either balanced on top of the drawers or leaning against the wall, paper taped to it, as I have done indoors or in the garden in the past. It is not big, but it is enough.

In truth, it is the message I am giving myself that matters.

It was only in doing this today, in sweeping up the cobwebs and putting the remainder of my ex’s stuff into boxes, that I realised how truly vital a playspace is to productivity and happy home life for me. It is about giving value to my art and what matters to me and separating that from the necessities of family life, such as eating at the table. Simple, but true. Just took me a while to realise this.

Do you have a playspace for your passions? If so, what inspires you about this place? If not, what could you do to create one? I would love to hear your thoughts.

It has been a pleasure to read Julia´s story and I´m certainly going to keep an eye on her site "Be creative daily"  and her gallery of work. One of her pieces will be the illustration for Week 25 next Monday. Come back to see that one!

Self portrait

Fearless

Self portrait Spanish style

Ginny Lennox explains Creativity coaching for your daily life

                                                                                                                                        

Ginny, a certified Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coach, believes that each and every day is filled with special moments to be enjoyed and treasured.  On her blog, Special Moments in Time ( http://www.ginnylennox.weebly.com ), Ginny encourages everyone to recognize and celebrate their own special moments each day.

I met Ginny years ago at Jamie Ridler Studios and got to know her better through our weekly creative meetings. I saw her bloom as artist through Paint Party Friday and I asked her to share one of her favourite paintings to illustrate week #22. This is the one she chose and why:

This is a pastel I painted of the beach which is my favorite place to be. I never felt that I could call myself an artist but when I painted this I felt that I could claim the title even though I was mostly self taught. -- Ginny

There is so much more I wanted to know about her creative work that I invited her to talk about it. 

Living a Creative Life – One Small Step at a Time

I was really excited when Paula asked if anyone wanted to join her as a guest blogger.  It is always fun to have an opportunity to meet other bloggers and tell them a little about my world. 

Seven years ago my world changed quite a bit when I retired from teaching.  At first I was lost but then I found a wonderful new creative community and I haven’t looked back since.  It all started when I took yoga classes which opened up a whole new world for me.  After yoga I ventured into writing and then painting.  Each step led me to what I am doing now which is working with all types of people as a certified Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coach.

The first thing people usually ask me is “What is a creativity coach?”  The answer is simple really.  I work with people of all ages to help them overcome anything that is standing in their way of making their dreams come true.  So many of us suffer from procrastination, from perfectionism, and from just plain old fear of not really knowing what we want to do next.  It’s normal to have those feelings.  What I love to do is to work with creative dreamers to help them discover how they can overcome those nasty old gremlins that we all seem to have from time to time.

 The next question I am asked is “How does the creativity in creative coaching come into play?”  When we are working together we might write something, draw something, or have a guided meditation.  We might take five or ten minutes to write a list or begin a blog post.  Doodling is always encouraged and thinking outside of the box is definitely something that helps.  But if this type of thing does not work for you, then a simple conversation between two friends can be very creative in its own right.  I’ve been fortunate to work with people on Facetime, through Skype, and of course in person.  It is exciting to meet and work with people from all over the world.

Many people believe that they are not creative.  I disagree.  I believe that we are all creative individuals.  We may show our creativity in different ways but we are all creative.  From the clothes we choose to wear, to the way we decorate our house, to the pictures we take, or the stories we write we are expressing our individual creativity.  I have learned that when we recognize and celebrate our unique creativity it makes our world just that much richer. 

One of the Kaizen-Muse strategies that helps just about everyone is the concept of taking small steps to get where you want to go.  It is easy to become so overwhelmed with a project or a transition in life that we don’t know what to do first.  But when you take the project and break it down into teeny tiny steps it makes even the most overwhelming task become not only manageable but enjoyable.  And that is the other thing that happens when we work together.  We laugh, we have fun, and we make things easy.  One of my clients said that it was like having your own personal cheerleader. 

I believe that in this world we all need support and we all need to be surrounded by supportive people.  Sometimes we are very lucky and we see and talk to supportive people every day.  Sometime we receive the support we need from our friends in the blogging world.  And sometimes the extra support you get from a coach makes your creative circle complete.  I have had a great deal of support from a wide variety of people throughout my life. I just want to do for others what those people have done for me. 

If you are thinking about starting a new project and don’t know where to begin, give yourself time to think and to plan.  Then start by taking one small step at a time.  If you get stuck, ask yourself, “What’s worked in the past?”  These are some of the very basic things that will help you get over the initial obstacles that may stand in your way.  I have many other Kaizen-Muse strategies that I write about on my blog "Special Moments In Time" ( www.ginnylennox.weebly.com ) each Wednesday.  Two of the topics I talk about which are near and dear to my heart are self-awareness and self-care.   When we know who we are and what we love to do, making decisions becomes easier.  Part of living a full rich life begins with self-care.     

I’d like to thank Paula once again for having me as a guest.  Because of her I have read The Artist’s Way with a wonderful group of women, have learned lots and lots about taking pictures and scrapbooking, and have a much neater kitchen.  She is a great friend to have and one of those wonderful people who gives lots and lots of support to others.  Thank you Paula for all that you do!

Something to remember:  When you share your gifts and talents with the world magic happens!

                                                                   Let the magic begin today!

You can find my dear friend, talented artist and Creativity Coach Ginny Lennox on line:

Website      Special Moments In Time                       http://www.ginnylennox.weebly.com

Email                                                                                ginny.lennox@comcast.net

It´s been a real pleasure to have you as my guest Ginny! Looking forward to following your art and your coaching posts.

Cristina Svihalek working on canvas

For Creative Every Day challenge 2013 by Leah Piken Kolidas, I´m taking at least a picture a day for the whole year. And each week I invite an artist to illustrate the week.

Cristina Svihalek works in a multitude of different media. She has the most delightful pieces for home decor on her Manos Creativas Facebook Page. Go have a look!

Last year Cristina was my guest with a cork garland tutorial that you can follow by clicking on the link, this week she shares her work with canvases.

To begin with our week #18 piece: a canvas with 18 dried flowers. Deep burgundy for the background and her own handwriting. Lovely!

And now more pieces: same concept with different colours. Isn´t that bouquet absolutely adorable?

 Stamping hearts on the background for an old key. Click on the picture to see the interesting texture of teh key´s patina.

 Part of the canvas was left white while she painted other section. The elegant, glittery crown adds sparkle to the piece.

 WOnderful mix of flowers with the cute touch of the wooden forms.

Thanks for being my guest today Cristina!
Want to see more? Check her Facebook gallery out!

Denise Thewissen on Paint Party Friday

For Creative Every Day challenge 2013 by Leah Piken Kolidas, I´m taking at least a picture a day for the whole year. Each week I have an international artists as a guest to illustrate the week.

This week is llustrated by the very talented and fun Denise Thewissen. I found Denise through her blog Denthe: Vibrant art for colourful people. Her step by step process photographs of her paintings are fascinating. I love to see the pieces develop and change right in front of my eyes.

The piece she created for this ocassion is powerful and full of meaning as it is linked to Anzac Day.

Here´s what she wrote about it:

ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and on the 25th of April the Australians who have died in wars are commemorated. Originally it was a remembrance of the battle at Gallipoli during World War I.

I decided to draw 17 young guys, surrounding part of a beautiful poem by Laurence Binyon. I felt it was a fitting tribute to this week, and a reminder of the lunacy of war, which has taken (and still takes) so many young lives."

Thank you so much Denise for your contribution to this project! The 17 faces are so expressive, each has its own personality. 

Where can you find Denise on line?

* Her blog, Denthe: www.denthe.blogspot.com
* Her Facebook page: www.facebook.com/dentheART
* Her cute Etsy shop: www.etsy.com/shop/dentheARTS
* Her site: www.denthe.com

BJ Lantz Studio on Paint Party Friday

For this Paint Party Friday I will share with you BJ Lantz´s Studio Space. A lot of painting gets done here!

The front part of the studio where BJ sits when she wants to sketch, read, rest while something is drying or just stare at her space and dream.

And now step into where the paint flows!

1) When did you start dreaming about having your own creative space? Did you have one as a child?

I have always been creative and done artsy projects, but I don't recall ever having a creative space as a child. It was wherever I would drag my supplies to.

I was a graphic designer for 18 years before I began my art licensing career. For many of those years, I worked in agencies, then freelanced from my own small rented office space, then moved into a spare bedroom at home. During those times, I never really felt the need for a creative space, per se. My work was on the computer for the most part. But when I started transitioning into licensing and doing more illustration and painting, the need grew. I expanded into yet another bedroom, and after several years there, I really began dreaming of a large, open, airy space where I could make a big mess, walls and floor be damned. I wanted to work on larger canvases, and many at once. My little 10 x 12 space wasn't cutting it, despite the fact that I'd already ruined the carpet. I decided at the end of 2011 that I would begin looking for that space I was dreaming of. A death in the family brought that to a halt for six months. Then, miraculously one day I drove by the perfect spot ~ 650 Sq Ft of office/warehouse space close enough to ride my bike, inexpensive enough to be doable! Oh happy day!!

2) The day you stepped into your space for the first time, did you already know how you wanted your studio to look like or did the design evolve from the actual space?

I actually have three creative spaces now ~ my "tech suite" (all the computers and equipment), the art/craft/sewing room (which once housed my painting work space as well), and the warehouse space.

With the warehouse painting studio I immediately knew what to do with the space the moment I walked in. I saw it all in my head and it is now exactly as I saw it, but still evolving ~ I've only been there for 9 months now.

With both the tech suite and the art room, they have evolved many times over the last 12 years to fit and refit my work needs and they have often been influenced by the space itself because of the space limitations. I've had to be very creative with storage!

Since I moved my painting stuff to the warehouse studio space, I was able to fit a daybed into my art/craft/sewing room. Not only am I happy to again have space for guests, but it is also a great place to have coffee in the morning with my journal.

3) After the work is done, do you clean up after each piece, after each day or whenever you can´t find the table any more?

I most often clean up after working on a particular project or piece, however I often have to clean up during the process because I can't find the table :-))

4) Do you have a system to keep all your materials or do you have your most favourites always at hand?

I don't know that I would call it a system...but I am organized fairly well. You have to be when working with a small space like my craft/sewing room, but I have always been an organizer. My motto is "like with like" ~ in other words, store things with other things that make sense and you'll always be able to find things and know right where to put them when you're through with them.

In my warehouse painting studio I have several organized areas and one thing I do hoard are containers of all sorts (see photo of containers under table). They always come in handy for keeping things together. I swear I use a new one or two weekly.

Where you can find BJ on line:
Website:  BJ Lantz Illustration & Design
Facebook: BJ Lantz Studio
Etsy: BJ Lantz Original Artwork
Pinterest: BJ Lantz

My guest today: Carolyn Dube

For Paint Party Friday I want to introduce to you my guest this week. To illustrate Week #10 of  2013 for my blog: the extraordinary and über talented Carolyn Dube. 

You can find sweet  Carolyn at her blog: A Colorful Journey. She also has a new colourful workshop: Gelli Printing, where you can learn a lot about this fun tool, creating one-of-a-kind papers! Colourful layers that play with texture and design.   The workshop will have new videos each week on Mon., Wed. and Fri for 5 full weeks.  You’ll be looking right over her shoulder as she makes her gelli prints.  You’ll see it all- including the oops and how she handles them. Click here to read a sampling of what you´ll learn! Hurry! The workshop starts on April 1st.

Here is Carolyn´s piece and the story behind it:

Ten, my favorite number from math class because it was so easy for multiplication and division! Remember multiplying by ten? Just multiply by 1 and add a zero to the end. The background was the 1- a 1 layer Gelli print. Sometimes I add layer after layer and sometimes just 1 layer. This time -1 layer and it felt ready. The zero- zero stress. Having a strong background makes it easy to add the embellishments! The chipboard letters and tabs needed just a touch of balance so I added green watercolor crayons to the blue flowers.

Thank you Carolyn!

Feb 2013 summary / March 2013 plans

For Creative Every Day challenge 2013 by Leah Piken Kolidas, I´m taking at least a picture a day for the whole year. This is my fourth time around with the Pic-a-day project and at the end of each month I make a mosaic of the month´s pictures and also summarize it in numbers for the My month in numbers feature by Julie Kirk.  Here are some inspirational instructions on how to go about it. I´ve taken 059 out of the possible  059 pictures for 2013 so far.

Final 12 out of the 29 Faces for February, a project By Ayala Art. There were some more doodles but not big ones like these. Sharing them for PPF

28 (one-a-day) out of the 166 pictures I will keep for Feb ´13. Click on the mosaic to see it bigger.

I turned 46 and our son Mati turned 17 on the same day, the 12th.
We tried 2 new places to eat: La Leonilda (San Isidro) and Chegusán (Villa Ballester)
2 animé exhibitions: one at the Japanese Gardens and the other one at the San Isidro horse track

We met Cristina Hernández, who is the voice in Spanish for Natalie Portman and Anne Hathaway plus characters like Blossom from The Powerpuff girls.

Numbers for the rest of the year:

Last month I asked you if you´d be up for a seconds series of decluttering and organizing your home spaces. Sooooooo, by popular demand: "Keep it simple, make it work" starts this Sunday! Yay!

In case you´re wondering what we´ll be doing:

9 months to streamline your home spaces and systems

3 months for the practical spaces: kitchen, bathrooms, laundyroom

3 months for the shared areas: entry hall, livingroom, diningroom

3 months for the personal spaces: bedrooms, office, craftroom

1 big task each week and daily {gentle} reminders, tips and cheering at my Facebook page. 

More plans for March? 

* Keep scrapbooking for my UKScrappers´ team 

* A tiny bit of painting once a week for Paint Party Fridays.

* My month in numbers feature

* Participate in Wishcasting Wednesdays and Full Moon Boards projects 

Want to be a guest here? You can show me your space or illustrate the week´s number. Send me a message to paulabuenosairesblog@gmail.com !

More faces for February 2013

I´m participating in Ayala Art´s project 29 Faces this February. It is my third time with this series as I really enjoy seeing the different styles of portraits, make new friends and I´ve also seen the progress I´ve made with it in each round . I´m up to 12 and I´m sharing these at Paint Party Friday.

You can click on each picture to make it bigger. :)

A strange thing happened this week. I made the sketches first and I felt I was going backwards instead of forward!  The previous faces looked better. Hopefully this week´s will look better with colour. Or I might just go on with the faces themselves until I have some I like.
This is where I copied the faces from:

The faces: