When Things are Worth the Effort, My Holiday Hopes for You, and My Workshop in Collage-Lab's Virtual Retreat!!

Today after a long day, I was moving suitcases out of the way to get to my family’s wrapping paper stash from last year to wrap a present for my mom. There was already a perfectly good roll out on the desk that I could have used. However, the thought of all the packages being wrapped in the same paper just felt blah. It wouldn’t be the joyous cacophony of pattern under the tree. It just wouldn’t be as fun. I decided it was worth it to put forth the extra effort. Suitcases were moved, doors were opened, digging was done, and voilà! More lovely wrapping paper. More fun. Worth it.

I hope that in this holiday season, whether you are near or far from home, you encounter a thing that requires a bit of effort, that delivers some kind of small reward that makes it all worth it. I also hope that you take some deep breaths, take care of yourself, and treat yourself to something a little fun, whether it’s bubblegum or a bubble bath.

Speaking of fun, if you enjoy learning and my collages, you can now sign up for Collage-Lab’s Virtual Mixed Media Collage Retreat, happening the entire month of April 2023! I’m teaching a workshop about creating dreamy unified landscapes with depth and color. You can find out more on Collage-Lab’s website. Early bird pricing is $125 for a whole month of collage fun! I was an attendee last year and I loved it. I hope you can join us!

Happy Holidays!

Productivity, Rest, And Other Tips

So I’m taking this Skillshare class on Productivity by Brooke Glaser and she said that your super productive days are usually followed by a day where you are not as productive. When I watched this lesson, I was like, oh my gosh, so true! She also said that as a creative entrepreneur, you need to take your weekends off to rest, do fun things, relax, etc, so that you can maximize your productivity during the week.

I took these things to heart. My super productive day was Friday. Saturday, I knew, would be unproductive and that would be okay because Weekend! So I ran some errands, did some fun web surfing, then I thought, what if I worked on project X for just a little bit? I’ve been a Photoshop girl for 20 years now, but I’ve been learning about Illustrator so I thought I would just draw my cute idea and it would be easy breezy because Simple Project.

I ended up running into a problem with no answer on the forums, it seemed, and I got incredibly frustrated to the point of wanting to cry if I was just a little closer to the edge. I figured out the solution after digging through every post about the topic that I could find. But I’m writing about this because I didn’t enjoy what I was doing anymore because I had expended so much physical and mental energy the day before, and I needed to do something fun and rest. I learned my lesson. And I will probably have to relearn it many times because I do love crossing things off my to do list and conquering tasks, no matter what day it is.

So, now for your reading pleasure, my list of other major productivity tips, as I have learned at this point:

1. Rest. (See above)

2. Do something you would normally do, but do it in a novel way (also from Brooke Glaser’s Skillshare class). If you have an ongoing project that starts to feel like a drag, mix it up! Do your work in a coffee shop or reserve a study room at the library. Take yourself to a picnic table at the park.

3. Play. In The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, she emphasizes that our creative spirit thrives on play, and losing that ability is what causes artist’s block and emotional fatigue. Having fun is a form of taking care of yourself, and is what makes life livable. Take a class that sounds fun, do something you enjoyed as a child, go for a walk and look for interesting rocks, whatever you can think of. I recommend The Artist’s Way to anyone who pursues creative work or anyone who feels stuck in life, especially the audio book because her voice is so soothing.

4. Stretch and take breaks often. Repetitive strain injury is real. I have plantar fasciitis because I stood on one foot for too long while I was painting. Stretching, getting up and walking around (or sitting down, in my case), or getting a drink of water and playing on your phone for ten minutes are vital for your mental and physical health. Experts recommend taking some kind of break for your physical health every 20 minutes, and as someone who likes to be in the zone for three hours, I struggle with that. I’m still trying to find the right balance, but at least my body and mind get a break every so often, and hopefully more often as I figure out how to get in the zone as soon as I sit down to work.

5. The Pomodoro Technique. When I’m doing something more administrative than artsy and my to do list is extremely long, I start at the top, set a timer for 20 minutes, and tackle each thing for that amount of time, rotating until I finish as many as I can. And also taking breaks every two chunks of time to keep my brain from getting fatigued.

6. Scheduling two to three major tasks each day, and then tackling smaller things after those major things are complete. No need to overload oneself. This is the method of the Flourish planner by Bonnie Christine, surface pattern designer and lover of productivity. When she first started her creative journey, she resolved to do at least one thing each day that would bring her closer to her goals. And if you think about it, that’s 30-31 things a month, 365 things a year. That’s a lot of productivity! Two to three tasks are manageable, but if you can only do one because life happens, you’re still making progress.

Those are my methods for now. I am not done with my Skillshare class, so there are many more things to learn, but these have helped me and will continue to help me. My major goal now is to focus on three things: making time for rest and play, pattern design, and my second coloring book. Let’s see how this goes! What are some of your favorite productivity tips?

Five Painting Tips For Beginners

So I’ve been working on a portrait of a human being and his noble canine (whose identities I cannot reveal because it’s Christmas related), and I’ve had so many Hagrid moments (“Oop. Shouldna [done] that”) that I thought I would write this post to help others on their painting journeys. I feel like I’ve had time to reflect on the process now that I’ve done so many in the Bella Bright style, so I will share these insights for any other poor soul who is trying to paint something realistically and may not have a lot of experience with it. Here goes:

1. Whatever you’re painting will look horrible for about 80% of the time you’re working on it because you’re building up all those layers, and it’s best to think of that 80% as adding muscles to the basic structures of your subject. And everyone knows how ghastly naked muscles look without skin over them. Ghastly!

2. To make something look three dimensional, you’ll need lots of layers that include a range of light, medium, and dark tones. Also, highlights don’t always have to be white. Sometimes they can be pale blue or pink or yellow. This brings me to my next point.

3. Purple is great for shading skin because it doesn’t make it look dirty like pure black or mixing brown and blue does. Sometimes I’ll use Payne’s Gray to shade, but it’s very rare. (Thank you, Sarah Mattingly Benson, for sharing this secret with me back in college:)

4. If you’re painting something complex like a human face, which I think is challenging no matter what your skill level, you’ll need to paint for shorter durations than if you were painting a simplified background, say. First of all, you need to give your brain and your emotions a break. Secondly, it helps to step back from your painting and really study it to make note of how you want to fix things or just proceed in general.

5. Go ahead and seriously think about giving up. Entertain the idea. Almost do it. Then get back to painting. I have discovered that as soon as I start thinking, “Screw this!” and then rally, I make a breakthrough and the painting begins to enter the skin/last 20% stage. Then I have a Dr. Frankenstein moment as the lightning strikes and yell, “It’s working! It’s alive! IT’S ALIVE!” Which motivates me to finish.

   That is it, folks! Hopefully these five tips will save you some heartache with your painting projects. There is one caveat, though. If you start to feel like you are about to throw the painting out of the window in frustration, then a break is definitely called for! So take frequent breaks to prevent frustration burnout and muscle stress. The think-about-giving-up-then-rally tip is a save for last resort thing. Happy painting, and have a wonderful week!
   
   

26 Things to Do When You're Alone and Lonely

Hello, all! I’m back with some fun things to do when feeling alone and lonely. I am using both of these words because one can feel lonely while in a group, and alone when no one is around, but not necessarily lonely. I am currently living by myself for a few months, and as the holidays are coming up, and COVID continues to require people to isolate themselves, I thought I would do a lil post on what to do when you find yourself alone and lonely. There are some no to low contact things and some mid to high contact things, some indoors and outdoors things, but hopefully there is enough variety that some might suit your situation. And now, the list!

1. Reach out to someone you haven’t talked to in a while, for whatever reason. If you are 18+ years old, I’m sure you have someone on your friends list on Facebook that you can message, even if it feels a little weird to do. If Facebook is not a healthy step for you, keep reading. If you are still on Facebook, here are some conversation starters: “Hey, I was just thinking about you! I hope all is well!” Or, “Hey, I just had a random dream with you in it, haha! Just wanted to check and see how you’re doing! The Universe be crazy sometimes!” Note that these openers are not emotionally loaded or creepy (the dream one could be, so please use wisely.) But everyone is going through something, and maybe no one has actually asked how they’re doing and actually cared about the answer. So, you might be reaching out to someone at just the right time.

2. If you are not on Facebook, there’s Reddit! Reddit can be totally anonymous (or not), but I am recommending it because the community is 95% of the time very encouraging and positive. Over 30, tired of dating fiascos, and need to vent? There’s r/datingoverthirty. Need your faith in humanity restored? There’s r/HumansBeingBros. Need to see something cute so you don’t fall into the dark gaping maw of politics? There’s r/EyeBleach. These topics are called subreddits, because they are little branches under the larger canopy of Reddit. There is a subreddit for anything and everything. Some art ones that I like are r/ArtistLounge, r/trippingthroughtime, and r/ArtTimelapse. If you’re already on Reddit, and it’s not as interactive as you would like, search via Google “forum” “+niche interest you have”. There probably is one, and if not, it could be time to start one!

3. Sign up for a pen pal. This Travel and Leisure article shares seven platforms that will connect you with a pen pal from anywhere in the world, and it doesn’t have to be through snail mail, although a few prefer that. Some services offer video chatting, texting, or virtual meetups. Postcrossing sounds neat to me! There are also senior care centers around the US asking for pen pals to combat isolation. If you are in Pennsylvania, here is a list of several places who have requested pen pals.

4. Go to your local library and sign up for a library card. Ask them to show you how to borrow books electronically.

5. Go on a walk or hike.

6. Go on an adventure! See what sights are within an hour’s drive of your location. If it’s a restaurant, go try the food. If it’s a comedy club, go check it out. If it’s a museum, see what they have on their walls.

7. Along the same vein, take yourself out on a date, IRL or virtually. Dress up and go all out, pick up your favorite beverage and cook something special that you wouldn’t normally. Get a movie you’ve been wanting to see on your digital device. If going out IRL, check out that new place you’ve been wanting to try. Take your phone, journal, or sketchpad with you and write about what you see and hear. Draw your meal or your surroundings. Pretend you are a food critic and you’re doing a write up. Being alone and dining out isn’t embarrassing when you look fantastic and you’re treating yoself! Also, go you for being brave! A lot of people would rather sit at home in misery than be seen out by themselves, so hell yeah for doing the damn thing!

8. Have a slumber party for one in your living room! Get all your favorite snacks and drinks and funny movies (or Schitt’s Creek!) and pillows and blankets to the floor! Watch all those movies til the early morning and fall asleep where you’re laying, then get up when the sun rises and go back to your comfy bed until noon. Aw yeah, that’s a slumber party done right!

9. Get a cat. Or a fish, if that’s more your level. I say these because they are somewhat low maintenance and provide someone to talk to at the end of your day. According to the CDC, pet ownership can help you manage loneliness and depression, as well provide health benefits like decreased blood pressure and cholesterol. Cats are great because they are affectionate, but independent as well, so if you need be away from home for long periods during the day, you won’t have to worry about your cat. Or your fish. The pluses are really adding up here. Here are more scientific benefits about cat ownership. I currently have two kitties, so I am a tad biased, but here are the benefits to owning fish:)

10. Do NaNoWriMo. It stands for National Novel Writing Month, and the main event takes place in November, but prep for it starts in September. Got a story in you? NaNoWriMo says yes, you do. There are writer’s groups and meetups, pep talks by famous authors (here’s Neil Gaiman’s), and tools to help you build the world that will be your novel. I’m going to do it next year (2021) because I was not fully prepared this year, but I will persevere, and my novel will get written. WHO’S WITH ME?!

11. Draw on your windows with chalk markers, or your sidewalk with sidewalk chalk and tell your neighbors a joke, inspiring quote, or fun trivia fact per day. Goal: lift up oneself and one’s neighbors with knowledge and positivity. Side note: if you decide to use spray chalk, you need to wash it off within 24 hours or it will stain. Speaking from experience.

12. Learn TikTok dances or funny skits and post them.

13. Volunteer to walk dogs at the shelter. Or sign up for Rover and get paid to walk them.

14. Help someone, somehow. Cook a meal for a neighbor. Volunteer at a food bank, soup kitchen, or homeless shelter. Leave a nice note at the bus stop. Buy socks (or go through your sock drawer) and hygiene products and donate them to the homeless. Socks are the least donated, but most needed items for homeless shelters.

15. Go minimal! Watch Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix. Get rid of the excess baggage and keep the things that spark joy. Go through all your things and donate, sell, recycle, or trash all that extra stuff. Feel how nice a clean, uncluttered space feels. Ah. Breathing room.

16. Sign up for a virtual meetup. Meetup.com is still active, some virtually, some IRL. I’ve seen hiking ones, life drawing ones, free and almost free ones, the possibilities are endless!

17. Organize a silly walk parade in your neighborhood. Put up some flyers and ask everyone to join in the fun. Keep your six feet of distance, but be as silly as possible on two feet.

18. Cut out some magazine pictures and grab a glue stick. Glue them to places around town! Paper is biodegradable and if the glue is water soluble, it won’t permanently damage what you’re gluing it to. Be wise about where you glue though. No store windows or super public places. Let it be a little treasure for someone to find.

19. Pretend you’re Kevin McAllister in Home Alone and do all the things you are not allowed to do when people are around, like dance naked or make a tower of ice cream, then eat it for dinner.

20. Take the bus and get coffee in a neighborhood you don’t normally visit.

21. Go outside and use your phone to take pictures of ten different textures or all the yellow things you see around your neighborhood.

22. Start a gratitude journal and start small, then think bigger. To begin: I am thankful that I can blink. And the middle/daily stuff: I am thankful I got up the second time my alarm went off. And get bigger: I am thankful that the moon is always there, even when I can’t see it.

23. Practice a hobby that involves working with your hands or using your creative brain powers. It’s hard to feel lonely when you’re in the flow of making something.

24. Fashion show! Put on ridiculous outfits and strut in front of your mirror. Or get the mail.

25. Listen to podcasts while you do chores around the house. One of my favorites is The Moth, a storytelling podcast and live event. They are doing a virtual gala to honor Padma Lakshmi on November 17th, and the theme is LIFT OFF: Stories of Going Above and Beyond. Other favorite podcasts include Optimal Living Daily, Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness, Rebel Eaters Club, The Jealous Curator: Art for Your Ear, and Creative Pep Talk with Andy J. Pizza.

26. Support an artist on Patreon and participate in their community. If you support an artist on Patreon with a monthly donation, you get some cool rewards, including an exclusive private feed for fans, and the ability to contact the artist directly. There are musicians, YouTube creators, podcast hosts, visual artists, and more. It’s definitely worth checking out because you can donate as little as $1-$3 per month and get inside info and a community led by your favorite artists. I’ll be launching my Patreon soon, so stay tuned!

That is all, friends. I hope some of these activities inspire you to be brave and take loneliness by the hand and trot into the sunset of the joy of being alone ( or together, depending on your activity of choice). Being lonely can make you feel lost and helpless, but hopefully this list will inspire you to take some control over your situation and help you forget about it for a bit. Let me know if you try them in the comments or via the Contact form! I wish everyone good health and a good weekend:)

60 Things to Do When Boredom Strikes During Quarantine

Hello, all. Here is a list of things to do if you’re by yourself or just plain bored during quarantine. A little silly, a little serious, and a little of the unexpected. Enjoy.

Self

1..Write down your best qualities and why you’re a wonderful individual to have around, from the silliest to the most serious. Tuck your list away somewhere safe so you can read it when you’re having a bad day. I did this in group therapy a few years ago.

2. Write a letter to yourself in the future, seal it, and don’t open it for five years.

3. Write in a journal or check out one of these journaling apps.

4. Write down the things that you can be grateful for.

5. Take a bath with a candle lit somewhere and get romantic with yourself.

6. Create a vision board for where you’d like to see yourself in 5 years.

7. Do a life audit per Life By Grit. Write your goals on Post It notes and put them in envelopes to be opened at the intervals you’ve chosen.

8. Listen to a guided meditation on YouTube before you go to sleep. The ones for kids are really cute, but there are three hour long ones for adults that are equally high quality and will send you snoring peacefully.

Explore

9. See what you need to do to volunteer at The Panda Centers in China, just to dream.

10. Look for Best Of lists for music, movies, shows, or books from previous years. That’s how I found Jake Bugg. Thanks Rolling Stone!

11. Look up what the life cycle of a frog looks like.

12. Look up flights to far flung places and dream a little. Think about what you would do there.

13. Start with a random topic on Wikipedia and see where the rabbit hole goes. I recommend starting with Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland, the book and all the films it has spawned, like the 1988 stop motion one by Czech director Jan Svankmajer. Donate a $3 tip to Wikipedia if you enjoyed your journey.

14. What does whimsical mean? Go to dictionary.com and read definitions for common words that we take for granted like hope, love, prayer, spirit, happy, humor, divine, agnostic, food, soul, kiss, hug, smile, sadness, depression, grief, mourning, sun, light. Do you agree with the definitions?

15. Look up some cool quotes or verses that you can hang around your house and draw inspiration from. One of my favorites is from Van Gogh: “Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. And great things are not accidental, but must certainly be willed.”

Create

16. Create a map of your home and use a dotted line to trace everywhere you’ve been in a day, a la Billy on Family Circus.

17. Plan a 24 hour day for what you’ll do once quarantine is over down to the hour.

18. Create a mini zine of the definitions you looked up on dictionary.com and illustrate it with magazine pics or markers. If you have a printer that copies/scans, copy it 10 times, fold up your zines, and mail them to your friends.

19. Write a letter to someone famous you admire, look up their official mailing address, and send it. Decorate the envelope so it stands out.

20. Trace your hands on a piece of paper and make each finger a different character with hair, eyewear, three items of clothing/accessories, and then write a scene where they’re five friends or strangers stuck in an elevator.

21. Write a limerick and illustrate it.

22. Draw an hourly comic about what you did for the past 24 hours, like these.

23. Rewrite the 8th season of Game of Thrones as it should have been, then perform it in your bathroom mirror.

24. Write a haiku. Use 5-7-5 and concrete, specific detail.

25. Roast some chickpeas and snack on them.

26. Try to memorize your favorite poem or piece of writing and recite it in your mirror. Bonus points if it’s from Shakespeare or another language. Now try backwards.

27. If you’re a person who sews, make masks for your local medical providers.

Social

28. Create a bulleted plan that would solve all the world’s greatest problems from poverty to dealing with all of our garbage efficiently to getting everyone access to clean water.

29. Read up on harm reduction, intersectional feminism, body positivity, or another social issue.

30. Drink some water. Check out Water.org, a charity to get clean water and sanitation to people around the world who need it.

31. Say hello to all of your household appliances and thank them for being so helpful.

32. Email your senators, representatives, governor, Lt. governor, or mayor about the things you care about. See if they’re already doing something worth your attention.

33. Update your voter registration if you’ve recently moved.

34. Find your childhood best friend on Facebook and say hey, thinking of you, remember that time we…

35. See what local organizations are doing to help others in your community.

36. Make a sign for your neighbors and put it in your window to encourage them.

37. Get on Reddit and look up every subreddit that may possibly interest you, like r/grandpajoehate or r/Eyebleach.

YouTube

38. Learn how to chop vegetables and fruits properly.

39. Check out this video on waterbears/tardigrades. They can survive in space!

40. Watch cute giant panda videos where they fall all over themselves like this one.

Music/Physical

41. Find a yoga or workout video on YouTube. The Fitness Marshall is funny, inclusive, and dancy, and the length of his workouts vary, so you can choose what’s right for you. He is also on Instagram.

42. Look up all the albums from your favorite musical artists and listen to every song to find hidden gems

43. Follow the DJ D-Nice @dnice on Instagram and tune in to his live dance party broadcast, Club Quarantine, on 4/4/20 at 4pm Pacific Time (7pm EST). I either heard about this from NPR or the NYTimes, I can’t remember.

44. Try to do a headstand. Carefully.

45. Do some stretching or exercises as though you were in elementary school PE. Circle arms, big then small, then big again, are my favorite. Be careful not to knock something over.

Read

46. Reread your all-time favorite book

47. Turn out all the lights, get under a blanket, turn your flashlight on, and read like a naughty kid staying up past bed time. Ghost story telling would also work.

48. Listen to or read The Art of Flaneuring by Erika Owen, then take a leisurely stroll outside and see what’s out there.

49. Read The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation by Thich Nhat Hanh, (it’s pretty short) then try one mindfulness exercise a day until you find one or a few you’re comfortable with. My favorite ones are following your breath and having a day of mindfulness with light housekeeping/organizing and reading, among other activities. You’ll never think of cleaning your house or doing the dishes the same way.

50. Read every Roald Dahl book out loud to your cat/dog/fish/plant/couch pillow. Matilda is my ultimate favorite, but The BFG and The Witches are close behind.

Clean/Organize

51. Organize books on shelves and look for ones you didn’t actually read, then read them.

52. Go through the pictures on your phone or computer and delete the ones that don’t bring joy (The Marie Kondo way).

53. Look through all of your screenshots and delete the ones you don’t need anymore.

54. Back up your files from your computer, flash drives, SD card(s), onto an external hard drive so everything is nice and safe in the same place. Organize them if you so choose.

55. Go through all of your important papers and organize them, throwing out things you don’t need any more and grouping like things together.

56. Clean the dust off your ceiling fan, air conditioner, or standing fan. I need to do this.

57. Go through all of your old electronics and see what you can sell, donate, or recycle. Do you need all those cords?

58. Try to gather all your change from around your house and put it in a ziplock bag so you can cash it in at a Coinstar.

59. Go through your closet and see what you can sell on Poshmark or donate. Mix and match what’s left and have a fashion show with blaring music and all the lights on. Holy crap, you can sell more than clothes on Poshmark, check it out!

60. Rearrange your furniture if nothing’s too heavy.

Whew! I hope that’ll give you a few things to try, but I hope we won’t need all of them in the coming weeks. Stay safe and healthy, friends. Sending love your way!

Oh, Lawd, Another Holiday!/Little Things to Celebrate You! (Self-Love Day)

Happy Valentine’s Day to my Lovelies!

If you are like me and are perpetually single on Valentine’s Day, or just in general feeling unloved and especially miserable today, do something to treat yourself!

I was incredibly down about Valentine’s Day around the beginning of February because it occurred to me that the holiday approacheth and I still had not found my True Love. This hurts my feelings and triggers some things in me mentally due to my previous psychotic experiences (which I’ll talk about later in a YouTube series). So when I talked to my therapist about my feelings and triggers, she suggested that I make it a Self-Love Day and do something that would bring me joy. So, I decided to make February Self-Love Month, and I’ve been doing a few things here and there that make me feel good, like applying a milky facial sheet mask or reading the Cosmo with Gina Rodriguez on it, having a bath or baking brownies (which are super easy to make from scratch and my mom’s recipe is magical.)

I did go hard the day of Valentine’s Day, though. I had brunch with a friend, got myself flowers, a llama stick balloon, and heart-shaped Reese’s Peanut Butter cups. I got a steak for me and for my wee doggie, and my plan is to either roast some Brussels sprouts or sautee some green beans with mushrooms and onions…I have about 30 minutes to decide. Oh, and I also sent about 20 Valentines to family and friends, which I thoroughly enjoyed putting together using stuff from Dollar Tree, Wal-Mart, and the William and Mary Gift Shoppe, Inc., a local shop with neat little things in it. That was me spreading love to others, yet also taking care of myself.

The point is, make today an occasion that brings you joy, that you would want to repeat and build on in subsequent years. Make it something that might start a tradition where you can celebrate you and anyone who needs love.

Here are some ideas of my own to help you celebrate Self-Love Day, plus some that my best friend gave to me when I talked to her about it:

0. Walk dogs at a local animal shelter

1. Spread a blanket on the floor of the living room and have a PB&J sandwich cut into the shape of a heart.

2. Get dressed up and sing your favorite song in the bathroom mirror.

3. Make Valentine’s Day cards for a local nursing home.

4. Take yourself to a movie and get the little snack pack with the popcorn AND the candy.

5. Cook an elaborate meal that you wouldn’t normally cook for yourself, but that you enjoy immensely.

6. Buy or pick yourself flowers.

7. Get some form of chocolate or other sweet goodness for dessert.

8. Go to a museum! I know some that have later hours on Thursdays.

9. Go for a drive and sing a long to the radio.

10. Curl up with hot chocolate and a book you’ve been wanting to read.

I would love to hear some of your ideas in the comments. :) Enjoy your Day of YOU!

Tips for Nervous Flyers

Hello, all!  Summer 'tis upon us and with summer comes air travel for many people.  With the people I've talked to on flights, typically everyone is hoping we stay safely in the air.  So, you're not alone if you're a nervous flyer!  It's totally normal to be anxious!  I've only met one or two people in my lifetime who think absolutely nothing about sitting in a chair 37,000 feet above the ground.  I myself stay on high alert the whole time I am in flight, so that I can keep the plane in the air with my thoughts!  On my recent flights this summer, however, I flew armed with a "Relaxation for Panic Attacks when Flying" script from my therapist (http://www.innerhealthstudio.com/panic-attacks-when-flying.html), and it gave me some tools to cope with my anxiety and the confidence to finally say that I might be able to relax more on many flights to come.

Here are 10 tips from the script and from me (towards the end):

1. Focus on relaxing your whole body with focused attention on each part of it, especially the movement of your stomach as you inhale and exhale.

2. Acknowledge all the scary thoughts you have about flying and how they make you feel, then wave them goodbye as you focus on more positive and constructive thoughts.

3.  Repeat to yourself that you are safe and that you are A-OK.  Everything is copacetic.

4. Imagine a happy place down to the very last detail.

5. Imagine yourself arriving at your destination.  How happy, relaxed, and victorious you are: you faced your fears and did the scary thing!

6. Activate the right side of your brain through drawing every detail you see or coloring in a coloring book.

7. Read a book that you've been excited about reading.

8. Talk to your neighbors.

9. Meditate on the wonder that is your hand.  Really think about and appreciate every detail.

10. Listen to music that makes you laugh with happiness, sing along (silently), or dance in your seat.  Here are a few songs on my playlist that invoke positive vibes for me:

Na-NaNa-Na--Nelly
As Long As You Love Me--Justin Bieber
If I Ain't Got You--Alicia Keys
Move Along--The All-American Rejects
Rockin' the Suburbs--Ben Folds
Work It Out (Radio Edit)--Beyonce'
Gotta Have You--The Weepies (helps me picture a happy place where I'm lying on my back in a blue boat, humming a tune. :) )

So there you have it, Nervous Flyers!  Take the scary thing by the horns and remember, if you hit rough air or turbulence, know that it is a natural result of flying through the sky!  Everything is okay!

Art making and The Funk

I was thinking that I didn't have any art news to share, but then I realized that I've been making things pretty consistently for the last month or so.  Mainly I've been working on my coloring book pages in between other projects.  Other projects like:

1. My mom's Mother's Day present (a titmouse, a yellow finch, and a chickadee sitting on an oval branch in gray scale marker, minus the yellow for the finch)

2. The "In The Beginning" collage (so much picture prep, so many ways to create a composition!)

3. The 10x10x10 works ("Glass" and "Mountain/Orange." Making something 10x10 was really fun!  I thought about making it a regular size to work with whenever I collage.  Only problem is that frames aren't available in 10x10 unless they're shadow boxes, or at least that's the case at Hobby Lobby.)

4. My new digital works (I'd been wanting to make an abstract digital version of The Annunciation for months. Once I got the ball rolling with that, I decided to do two more to flex my creative muscles and have a little fun.  Plus, I had found a cool image of gold and I wanted to use it more than once.)

Then, The Funk hit.  

I just had this heavy feeling of gloom and doom descend upon me.  I didn't feel positive about anything I needed to make: my father's day present, my mom's birthday card, my G page.  None of it excited me, everything I did was bad, and my insides rebelled at the thought of working on my G page, which I think was the catalyst for the whole thing.  My F page was tough to top.  I left it propped up as inspiration for me to soldier on through the alphabet, but the subjects I had picked out for my G page just paled in comparison to two foxes eating fast food and French fries under a fan, with oodles of fish surrounding them.  The subject of my G page was a gardening guinea pig and guinea fowl surrounded by gifts and geese.  I drew the geese and gift boxes first and abandoned the project.  I thought the geese looked bad, I thought the gift boxes looked bad.  I decided I'd come back to it later.  I needed to work on my father's day present anyway.

5. My father's day present (Two wood ducks, a male and a female, sitting on a log.  Done with Sharpies and my gray scale markers, everything looked great from beginning to end.  And it didn't take me long to complete.  Maybe that had something to do with The Funk too.  I didn't think I had long enough to finish my father's day present AND my mom's birthday card AND the G page.

6. My mom's birthday card (My mom and I in her car holding big drinks with Bella in the backseat.  We all have huge smiles on our faces.  It's really cute.  The card turned out so well, I was finally ready to get back to that G page and get that guinea pig to garden.

7. My G page (Geese, gifts, guineas-pig and fowl, greens, garden, gloves, grass, gondola, gecko.  And to make things more difficult for anyone trying to guess all the G words on the page: ground, too.  I had several starts and stops.  I started the gondola three times.  I drew a giraffe twice, a goldfish thrice, and a gecko twice.  I finally settled on the gecko.  Once I started outlining to create the finished piece, I started to feel better about it.  The guinea pig turned out well, as did the garden greens, and the guinea fowl look pretty perfect.  My attitude really made a turnabout after I had outlined the main action.  I finally felt ready to tackle the top frame with the gondola and the bottom frame with the giraffe/goldfish/gecko.  Once I saw everything all together as a finished piece, I felt The Funk melt away.  I propped the page up beside the F page and decided that it was actually worthy of the series and I was ready to tackle even more pages.

Lesson learned about The Funk: just power through!  I had read this advice in the book I've been reading, "Creative Block: Advice and Projects from 50 Successful Artists" by Danielle Krysa, The Jealous Curator (www.thejealouscurator.com/blog/), but I just thought, wow I'm not one of those who can just work through a block like that.  I had just said last week that if I wasn't feeling it, I wasn't making anything because I thought my work suffered if I tried to force myself to create.  As it turns out, it's not the work that suffers, it's my inner artist who suffers from the battle with my inner critic.  If I give power to my inner artist over my inner critic, then The Funk has no hold on me.

I also read about Wayne White and the documentary based on his life, "Beauty is Embarrassing" in "Creative Block" and I'm very grateful.  What an inspiring artist with a life artfully led.  In the book the author asks everyone which artist's life they're jealous of, and after seeing the documentary, I would have to say Wayne White.  He constantly creates anything and everything that interests him, from puppets to his word paintings on landscapes.  Everything is so cool and visually unique and well-crafted.  He's Southern by birth and upbringing, with supportive parents, a cool artist wife, and artist kids.  Most of all, his mission is to bring humor to fine art, and thank goodness.  It was getting a little too serious out there.  I hope that because of Wayne White's artwork and philosophy, the art world as a whole will get a little more fun and a little more open minded.  

Now, it's time to reconnect with my family and self at the beach.  Roadtrips are always good for renewing the spirit.  Adios to The Funk!