Giveaway winner!

Thank you for participating in the giveaway. It was really fun getting to know you better. The winner is a lovely lady from Austria. Congratulations Susi! I hope you'll enjoy the class :-)

What nourishes your creative soul?

Did you hear about Soul Food - a mixed media class with 39 instructors that will be pouring their souls into classes? The class will run from December 30th through June 30th, with unlimited access to materials to the end of 2014. 

Here are the faces of all instructors.

Can you see me in one of the little boxes?

And here is a better way to see the teachers, a full list of names:

It will be a fun art experience, but not only that - everyone will share their favorite recipe, so it will be nourishing for the body and soul.

You can read meet the instructors by reading their interviews here, find out more about payment plans here, and learn more about the class HERE. With so many enthusiastic people involved it has to be fun and informative. I hope that you will join us!

Learning something new

This past Saturday I went to a day long workshop, where I learned how to make rings from silver clay (just the basics, of course). How exciting! I've made bracelets, earrings, and pendants before, but have never seen a ring made ever, so for me this was like science fiction. I took several photos of the process (not too many), and thought you might like to see them.

I admit that I was totally distracted while driving home. I kept looking at my rings, not believing that I made them from a small lump of sliver clay.

So, here they are after being fired, tumbled, blackened and polished. Notice how the color of glass changed! They turned into completely different colors! I know that they are not delicate, but I figured that my soul is delicate enough, so other things about me don't have to be.

Pretty or not, I feel like a kid in kindergarten, so proud of what I made! I think I just might wear them every day and stop people on the street to tell them "look what I made!".

Or maybe not :-)

Have a happy week!

Cuteness in my journal

A line of sweet characters lives in my journal. Ok - the last one on the right is not cute at all and I don't like her and she might quietly disappear into the night, but the other three are sweet enough to make me smile.

I love taking online workshops! As there are more and more of them, I became very picky. But I still do it because I am curious and because they make me feel like I'm not alone in my studio. I adore watching how others paint and how their magic happens.

"Paint Happy" - a workshop by The Secret Hermit (aka Micki Wilde) made me really happy. It is probably one of the best workshops I ever had. It made me want to paint - you know the feeling when you can't wait to wake up in the morning so you can paint? That's pretty much how I felt.

I actually did many of the exercises she shows. One of them is a combination of words and paint, but in way that I have never seen before. The process was really healing so I plan to use often.

So that's mostly what I've been doing this week. I made something less cheerful too, but I will leave it for a separate post. It's Friday and almost June! Happy weekend!

Feelings shown

I am enjoying my big journal very much!

So many things fit on a big page...  it's like all that space allows the story to unfold.

This page started with a tiny torn out piece of paper. I found that little scrap on a street at least two years ago (probably more) and it kept showing up on my desk. I decided it was time to use it.

I don't use faces from magazines, but sometimes I use other, unrecognizable parts for color or texture. The girl and boy were in my throw-away pile. Something about the way they were accidentally cropped (while I was tearing paper around them) made me like it, so I added that piece to my page. And the one above it too. 

After that it was easy to add found words from a book and form some kind of a story... 

Speaking of stories, two amazing story-tellers are sharing their knowledge - Katie Kendrick extended sign up for her online workshop, and Lynne Hoppe is generously sharing how she paints her magical people. So much inspiration...