Read more about the article #68 Are You Accountable?

#68 Are You Accountable?

When you are self-employed and creating your own business, you need to be held accountable for making your own art and doing all the necessary business tasks. In this episode I give you great ideas of how to find accountability partners from your art community both in person and online. I also talk about getting accountability from business experts who can help you with tasks you either don’t want to do or don’t know how to do. And finally, I give you some tips for getting out of an art block and being accountable to make art on a daily basis.

Listen here or download from iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, CastBox, or Stitcher.

These are some friends of mine from the local artist group the Wellington Art Society. This group keeps me accountable because I go to their monthly meetings and I'm inspired to make art that I can show to them. From left: Edrian Thomidis (I interviewed her in Episode #63), Andrew Hollimon (painter), Lara Chapman (photographer), me, and Carolina King (mosaic artist and President of the Wellington Art Society.
I made my own goal of posting an artwork a day on Instagram. I was only accountable to myself, but I felt like I was accountable to everyone on Instagram. I established an every day practice of making art, and I made 45 of these watercolor and pen pieces, plus 16 collages in another series.

Look for accountability groups online in meetup.com. You can search by city.

Join Facebook groups and message people to create a small accountability group, like I did with a podcast group I’m in. 

Look for art challenges online — just search using key words like 30 day challenge, 100 day project, or 52 prompts.

Read more about the article #67 Lisa Sonora: Traveling Artist in Oaxaca, Mexico

#67 Lisa Sonora: Traveling Artist in Oaxaca, Mexico

Today’s episode is with artist Lisa Sonora. Lisa is an artist who travels the world taking and teaching art classes, and a few years ago she settled in Oaxaca, Mexico. She now hosts art retreats at Art House Oaxaca, and other artists teach there as well.  Her website and blog feature many free resources and she has online classes to help you effortlessly create art. 

Listen here or download from iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, CastBox, or Stitcher.

Lisa Sonora

Lisa invites artists to be in Mexico to experience The Day of the Dead.

Lisa's book The Creative Entrepreneur can be found on Amazon.

Lisa Sonora’s website is lisasonora.com. 

You can also find her on Instagram.

You can find the list of retreats hosted at Art House Oaxaca on her website here.

Lisa will be hosting write Phil Cousineau at Art House Oaxaca in 2010. Visit her website later for information. You can find out more about Phil Cousineau at his website here.

Lisa hosts Connie Solera for retreats in Oaxaca a couple times a year. You can find out more about Connie and the retreats that she hosts at her website.

Here are a few takeaways from this episode:

  1. When we develop our non-dominant skills, we actually become better at what we’re good at.
  2. Lisa teaches people to travel like an artist and keep a richly layered travel journal. She recommends that after you collect your mementos, you write and sketch about what you have done.
  3. Women are relationship-oriented in how they do their business, and you can use that as your strength.
  4. Our art-making is influenced by all aspects of our personality. For example, if you are introverted or extroverted, or if you are a leader or a follower.
  5. When you work alone, you risk falling into the danger of not having an external deadline. You need to give yourself your own accountability.
  6. Lisa recommends to everyone that they combine creating with traveling.
  7. Start your January by budgeting the time and money to take an artful adventure this year with a teacher that you really like.
  8. It takes a lot of energy to travel, but it’s worth it.
Read more about the article #66 The Art of Visual Journaling

#66 The Art of Visual Journaling

Art journaling is extremely popular for artists as a way to work out their thoughts, try new art techniques, or record their life milestones. Whether you call it art journaling, visual journaling, or something else, it can include writing, painting, pasting, and can use many different tools and techniques. As Amanda Grace in episode #65 tells her students, it can be a way to get back to your creative self. Today’s episode will talk about the different kinds of journaling and why you may enjoy doing them.

Listen here or download from iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, CastBox, or Stitcher.

Here are a few books that I own that give you some great art journaling ideas. You can find many more in the library or bookstore. You can also find how-to videos on YouTube or through artist websites.

These are some art journal pages that I’ve made, The first was the cover for a collaborative book swap. In the center photo, I was practicing backgrounds as well as my ability to draw faces. And the third one is a spread I did based on some prompts in Connie Solera’s 21 Secrets series of classes. (This was not the current 21 Secrets, but a few years ago.)

What are your favorite tools for art journaling?

Read more about the article #65 Amanda Grace: Artist and Pilgrim Soul

#65 Amanda Grace: Artist and Pilgrim Soul

Artist Amanda Grace has the mission is to help people recover, express, and care for their creative expression of Self. She’s used journaling for self-expression and discovery in her live classes for years, and now she is offering some great online classes as well as two art retreats in Ireland in 2019. Her journaling classes help you to develop a creative practice using a combination of writing, painting, and collage.

Listen here or download from iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, CastBox, or Stitcher.

Amanda Grace

Here are some links to Amanda’s offerings and other things we discussed in this episode:

You can visit Amanda’s website at amandagrace.ie.

You can also find Amanda on Instagram @amandajgrace.

Her Facebook account is Pilgrim Soul, and you can join her free Facebook community called Pilgrims on Deck.

Amanda offers a Sunday newsletter.  Subscribe for exclusive content, inspiration, reflection and resources for your creative recovery, here.

Amanda’s retreat on the west coast of Ireland will be held April 3-7, 2019 and September 28- October 2, 2019. These are 5-day all-inclusive retreats. Here is the link for more information.  Croí: The Art of Receiving. 

Amanda’s RAW 4 Week Online Course is a deep dive into creative freedom. You can Register here for her wait list and to receive a FREE journal lesson: Harbour & The Art of Dwelling.

Amanda has just launched RAW (e)nergy, a 30-day email course to energize and inspire creative process and practice. Amanda is offering a 15% discount to the listeners of this podcast. You can register here with the promo code: MYLEFTBRAIN.

Here are some great takeaways from this episode:

  1. Recognize that your self-expression is inherently creative, whether you call yourself an artist or not.
  2. Being creative does not mean that you can draw well. You can be creative through many things that you do, in how you do them and why you do them.
  3. Journaling can be used as a form of self-expression, and it can include art with it or it can be just words.
  4. Journaling is a creative practice through which you use a combination of writing, painting, and collage, in a way that connects you to your inner wisdom, clarity, and guidance.
  5. Anyone who feels they are not creative can still recover their creative self if they take the journey back to the essence of who they are.
  6. In a pilgrimage it can be a solitary thing, but there is room for others to go on all of it or some of it with you.
  7. Self-expression is valuable because of the process. The outcome is not what matters.
  8. Journaling is a vehicle for all you know and an oracle for all you have yet to know.

Check out my Episode #66: The Art of Visual Journaling.

Read more about the article #64 Making Goals for the New Year
Wandering the Wetlands Trail, 11" x 14" on canvas paper

#64 Making Goals for the New Year

If you’re not still on a Christmas vacation from social media, you will have noticed that everyone is talking about their resolutions or goals for the new year, or they are evaluating what they accomplished during the last year. I think you can’t help but think about new goals this time of year. January seems to give you a creative energy and hope for good things to come. In this episode I give book recommendations to help you create new habits for a happier life, and provide resources for learning how to do specific art goals.

Listen here or download from iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, CastBox, or Stitcher.

In 2018, I made a goal of making art almost every day. I held myself accountable by posting them to Instagram. While I didn't do it every day, I came pretty close, and I've greatly stretched my art muscles.

Here are some links to things I’ve discussed in this episode:

I highly recommend Gretchen Ruben’s books, starting with The Happiness Project, Better than Before, and The Four Tendencies. These can help you create habits and get things done to make your life happier. 

She talks about her 19 for 2019 goals in her podcast episodes 199 and 201.

On Instagram, look for these hashtags: #18for2018 and #19for2019 to see what others have listed for their goals.

Here are links to some of my podcast episodes which can give you the steps to take for specific art goals:

Episode #35 Tonia Jenny: Creatively Editing, Writing, and Coaching (Tonia can help you if your goal is to write a book about your art or art techniques.)

Episode #27 Anthony Burks: Creating Beauty with Colored Pencils  (Anthony talks about how he started pop-up art exhibits in his own home.)

Bonus Episode #28 Hosting a Home Art Show

Episode #29 Trina Slade-Burks: Artist and Businesswoman (Anthony’s wife Trina talks about how they started pop-up galleries in empty store fronts.)

Bonus Episode #30 Creating a Pop-up Gallery

Bonus Episode #20 Keeping Track of Your Art Inventory

Bonus Episode #10 Everything You Need to Know about Online Classes

Here are some artists who have hosted their own art retreats:

Episode #39 Jana Freeman: Creator of Way Art Yonder Studio

Episode #45 Connie Solera: 21 Secrets, Art Retreats, and Classes

Episode #57 Laura Horn: Australian Artist, Instructor, and Social Media Master

If your goal is to attend an art retreat, you can search for them on the internet or specifically on Instagram.