Tag Archives: artist

art, art journal, artist, expression, journey

Long journey of art

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Long journey of art is what you do in life as an artist. So many things change, but expression is something that calls from within. Have you felt the call but also the resistance?

It’s in human nature to procrastinate even though we know better. But you’d better begin because the journey is long as I said, yet, you can make a piece of art today!

I have gone through many incarnations as an artist in this lifetime.

I copied pictures from magazines, had a stint as a primitive country artist, a longer stint as an abstract painter, mosaic artist, many years of art journaling and mixed media. I still do that, but I also feel a pull towards something new, which can only be a deeper expression of who I am. I don’t want to copy or do a particular style any more.

I had a lovely chat with local artist and friend Joanna Mazurek

She went the traditional way of attending several art schools, and then left it all behind after twenty years as an artist. But, once an artist, always an artist…

I love to hear other artists’ perspective and get inspired by their inner drive to express themselves.

You need to express yourself.  What else is there? As you go deeper into the art, you also go deeper into yourself.

If you’re expression is something else, go explore it.

The pull to express yourself is your God-given gift to share with the world and with yourself.

Take the long view. You don’t have to be a sprinter. There is no competition or anyone standing over you with a stop watch.

We live life like that, rushing from one thing to another, and I have come to understand it’s so wrong. I spent so many years living other people’s dreams.

Even tiny baby steps towards expressing yourself is worth weeks of conditioned living. You can’t measure the impact on a grander scale, but the impact can be great.

A tiny flame starts a forest fire. The more tiny steps into exploration become a great sucking pull to express wildly, freely, and happily.

It’s worth finding your life. Find the mystery!

It’s also necessary to go through the “ugly” stages to get to a place in the process where you look at your art in wonder. It takes courage.

I will probably make art for the rest of my life, but as in the past, there has been ebb and flow.

The meandering long journey of art, oh how you challenge me, but I do love you! 🙂

Heed that call; it’s never too late!

Happy Halloween.

Lots of love,

Maria

P.S. My etsy shop is brimming with goodies for Christmas! Earth and Faery.

 

art journaling, creativity, female principle, multi passionate women

Multi passionate women

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Multi passionate women are rising all over the planet. The feminine qualities are becoming more and more prominent as the old patriarchal system crumbles to dust. It’s exciting though somewhat scary.

I dabble in many things that I like, but I haven’t dived very deeply into them except three things (so far,) writing, intuitive development, and art. It’s never too late to learn something new.

I have long admired this Medicine woman, Rosemari Roast who seems to have the energy of ten people. 🙂 She is currently the July guest artist in my free 2017 art journaling journey (link at the end.)

I grabbed some info off her website and you can find all her links there, Walk In The Woods, LLC. 

Rosemari Roast
multi passionate woman

Greetings! My name is Rosemari Roast. I am owner of and caretaker to Walk in the Woods, LLC, a holistic wellness practice and creative studio at Whiting Mills in sunny Winsted, Connecticut. I am called herbalist, Medicine womyn, artist and backyard farmer (among other things).

I’m passionate about many things. Some say, too many. I say, they’re all connected! For me, the realm of Herbs, Nature, Art and Spirit are one realm. My realm.

As a herbalist and Medicine womyn, I am dedicated to *returning home* the Medicine of the People. I do this by offering you opportunities to reconnect with your own power through exploring the wellness choices that you have – and have always had. I strive to help you to see, acknowledge, honor and act on the choices and behaviors that nourish and sustain you, and that may best serve you in your life.

Everything I do, I teach. I feel that my name, originally spelled Rosemary, like the herb, is a key to my life purpose, for it is often described as the herb of remembrance. That my maternal grandmother clung to and adapted the ways of the “old country” to a “new” country is a holistic taproot for me, for it both saddens and motivates me to remember and revive the empowering practices that she employed. Practices that were discounted and forgotten in a single generation. She wild harvested, made Medicines and engaged some mystical healing practices as well. I feel a a duty to keep these practices alive, for they are surely overflowing with Medicine of meaning and value!When I was a little girl just starting school, the teachers and administrators were worried about me because I wouldn’t talk to the teachers. I was responsive with my peers, but not the authorities. I can say that, in many ways, this behavior is still with me. But I digress… I was sent to the school psychologist. I wouldn’t talk to him either. So he gave me paper and crayons. I drew. And from those drawings he made the judgement that I was fine, and the recommendation to return me to my class, and allow me to evolve in my own way. In this experience is another taproot to an important Medicine in my life: Creative expression, also known as art.These taproots are, from my perspective, rooted in Mystery. So it is that herbs, art and spirit guide my Life with the Medicine that they all offer.

I do my best to share my Medicine-experiences through workshops, lectures, private consultations and classes.Private consultations take on many flavors, from conventional holistic approaches to instructional sessions, which may include customized herbals, eclectic healing sessions, plant spirit healing, meditation, creative expression or some other intuitively guided wellness option that is fitting for you.

If herbalism is of interest to you, My School of Herbal Wellness offers one way for you to explore your botanical choices and your holistic power. It’s a pay-as-you-go course of facilitated self-study currently offered to folks in my region, so you learn and grow at your own pace. You can learn more about these offerings here.

Other self-care workshops offered regionally include Reiki training, guided and free-form meditation, herbal, holistic and creative workshops, lectures, weedwalks and more! An herbal apothecary is also available to you for all those supplies for the home and village herbalist. Spiritual counseling and rites of passage are offered as well.

I’m a champion for personal healing and growth through the arts and creative expression – journaling, drumming, chant, movement, art, craft, tarot and Crone Stone readings. Creative expression is a vital tool that supports holistic healing, growth and awareness on all levels as we explore our personal relationships with symbols, metaphors, archetypes and stories. I can support you in this journey, and – more importantly – offer you ways to support yourself.

With every service that I offer, I strive to help you re-discover the natural healer within, so that you may nurture peace with yourSelf, love yourSelf, and offer these qualities to those you love … and to help bring the Medicine of the People back home – to all of us.

I invite you to join me in working together to return wisdom, wellness, healing back to the hands of their rightful and most grateful owners – To us. To all of us. Together let’s reclaim our power and return the Medicine of the people back to the people.
Let’s bring it home together!
Are you a multi passionate woman? That is a GOOD thing! 🙂
Check out Rose’s website and all the things she offers.
If you’d like to join the email list for the free 2017 art journaling journey, you can do so HERE.
You can also access the monthly prompts in the Facebook group Art Exploration with Maria Greene.
A video chat we had recently: Alchemy of Life and Art
art, commitment, motivational, trust

Trusting yourself?

Trusting yourself can be an iffy business. I can say that I do for the most part, but then something happens to make me doubt my choices as in “am I insane?” 🙂

It happens to all of us since we live in a society that does not promote trust. It actually promotes the opposite.

However, we have a choice.  If you have the insight that you’re your ultimate judge of what is best for you, you can cultivate trust and see it grow from within.

We seek validation from others. That’s something ingrained in every cell from childhood. It’s a revolutionary concept to know you can trust your own inner wisdom and act on it.

How do you do that? You decide to begin trusting yourself. The trust can show up as a gut feeling, a sense of right or wrong, a strong desire to NOT do something that others want you to do. Ask your body before you make a choice. It will tell you the truth.  You can tell the difference between avoidance and truth. It might take some practice.

It take guts to go against the grain.  It’s likely you will encounter resistance from others and yourself. The more you trust and see that you chose the right thing, the stronger the trust grows.

Then there is the spiritual insight: life is everlasting so there is nothing to fear. Trust is the very essence of life. A small child has nothing but trust until it’s taken away.

What does this have to do with art you ask.

In art making, do you look for validation from others? Is what you painted okay or do you trust your own process however difficult or stumbling it appears? 
mixed media

I made this mixed media art in 2015 and put it in my etsy shop for sale. It never sold, and upon critical review I decided that the big bird was not right. At the time I liked the art.

We change and so does the art. I decided to reuse the canvas so I covered the art work with lots of papers that I proceeded to paint.  I have come this far now but I’m filled with uncertainty.

mixed media art

Should I paint something popular like a mermaid or some cute primitive animals or….? An abstract maybe?

The mind jumps in with suggestions all the time. Play it safe. Paint what sells, be smart. MONETIZE!

That takes away a lot of individual choice, doesn’t it? I wrote about the wisdom of the body to create a while back. It all comes back to trust. Do you trust yourself to make the right paint choices or mixed media combinations?

Who cares? Is it a matter of life or death?

Screw it all up and start again. There are no right answers. The art will tell you via your “good feeling” if it hit the mark of something awesome.

I’d say 90% of my art never hits the “awesome” status. Awesome is when something unexpected appears that could only come from the deepest inner inspiration.  It is inexplicable yet unmistakable.

Every time I paint I wish for that genius to step forward. It takes a lot of patience and ruined canvases. It takes commitment. Hard traits to cultivate. It takes a lifetime (or more.)

However, I have traveled the path of creating art on canvas for a long while now so the trust is there. I cultivated it by showing up at the project.

Maybe this one will be AWESOME!

What are you creating today?

Have a great weekend.

Lots of love,

Maria

UPDATE: here is the video I created as I finished the art project above. VIDEO.

P.S. Check out my awesome  🙂 self-paced paper creating e-course. Lots of varied papers and ephemera and some art journaling spreads how-tos as well, about 9 videos. ONLY $24. LIFE’S SONG.

 

 

art, dream, excuses, fear, motivational, writing

Fear holding you back?

Fear holding you back from pursuing your dreams? It happens to all of us, at least to those who accept they have a dream.

fear
fear

It was not random that we came into this world, and as we grew we showed certain talents and skills. Some were good at math, some at the gym, some showed artistic talent.

When I was a kid I knew I had a talent for words.  I loved expressive art, but it developed later. Words have always flowed easily for me so I ended up becoming a writer until that interest kind of petered out. But as they say, a writer is always a writer.

I have to say visual art is a tougher dream, but I love it passionately. There are so many ways to express oneself. Where to start?

art palette
art palette

There are two things I want to mention:

You often look at other people’s art and then try to copy it because you like it.

Or you encounter massive resistance.

That is the fear / ego kicking in saying lots of nasty stuff about your lack of talent and sense of color or whatever. Your fear will find something wrong with you no matter what. I wrote a blog post about resistance a while back: Who is in charge…

If you have no clue where to start, copy other people’s art that you love. As you get more sure about your art supplies and what they can do, you start to experiment with what you have learned.

As you grow bolder with each experiment, you start to feel more secure, but the fear is always lurking in the background.

Do the art processes that feel good to you. If it doesn’t feel right, try something else. There are so many techniques and tools it can be bewildering.  The only way through is to keep trying and doing.

If you hit a block, know that things are about to change. It usually shows up before a major breakthrough, but you can get stuck in procrastination. That is a sneaky way for the inner critic to attack you when you’re down. I wrote a post about that, available here: Procrastination is an ugly beast…

There are no shortcuts of easy fixes. Each artistic journey is so individual it’s hard to give advice that fits everyone.

One thing is for sure: A dream is worth pursuing, and the way to do it is to give it some time every day. Create a discipline for your dream. If it is important enough you will do it.

Is it?

Well then, what are you waiting for?

When all is said and done we have to do things that light us up, otherwise, what is the point?

Have a great creative week!

xo

Maria

P.S. I have some handmade art journals in my etsy shop that might help to get you started. CLICK HERE to check out my offerings.

art, art journal, art journaling, artist, inspiration, interview, video

Inspired by emotion

Inspired by emotion is the title for the art journal video interview I had with artist Mel Bunny Sparkles. It was so much fun and she is full of inspiration and suggestions for new artists and veterans alike.

You will want to check out this video!

Bunny is the guest artist for June in my free 2017 Art Journaling Journey. If you haven’t signed up for the free prompts, you can do so HERE. You will receive all the prompts for this year via email. You can also join my Facebook group that is brimming with inspiration. CLICK HERE.

If you sign up for my regular art newsletter (top right corner of this page,) you will receive an art journal primer and a project to make. Great for beginners!  You have to start somewhere.

I also have many helpful art journal videos on YouTube under my own name. YOUTUBE CHANNEL. There are videos for beginners and for those who are looking for tips and tricks to jazz up their art journals.

art journaling
life at the beach

Have some fun, summer is here!

Lots of love and inspiration!

Maria

P.S I’m selling art journals ready-to-use in my etsy shop EARTH AND FAERY.

art, art journaling, artist, craft, creativity, painting, selling art

You want to sell art?

You want to sell art? Well, why not. We need more art in the world and yours makes a difference. Everyone’s art perspective counts.

People usually advise against becoming an artist since they always equate such a creature with a “starving artist.” Side note: I feed a feral cat and many people do, so why would we not feed starving artists??

There are many ways around the starvation syndrome, one is to become a creative thinker and produce many streams of income. (You can always get a sugar daddy or mama… joking.)

rainbow rose
rainbow rose

I painted the rose above in ’06 and I sold 7 versions of the same painting. I still own this one but I might put it in my etsy shop.

I paint, make mixed media art, art journaling, and several crafts. I enjoy them all. I started selling paintings on eBay back in 2003 (how time flies!) What did I learn from that?

  • Always add hanging mechanisms on the back of the art. All I did was varnish the paintings and send them off. 🙂 Small paintings work well with sawtooth hangers. Large paintings require picture wire and eye hooks. Apply the eye hook to the INSIDE edge of the stretcher bars so that the picture will hang flat against the walls once you attach the wire.
  • Paint on gallery wrapped canvas or some other professional surface. If you paint on cheap stretched canvas and the staples show on the sides, you give the impression of “starving artist.” (Gallery wrapped canvas is the kind that is stapled to the back of the stretcher frame.)
  • If you can afford it, always buy stretched canvases with the deep 1″ edge.  They look so much better, and definitely don’t need a frame, which is a selling point. If you’re handy, stretch your own canvas. You can get rolled canvas for great deals on eBay. Other surfaces that are usable are Masonite and luon-covered plywood. Places like the Home Depot can cut them to size right there. You need to gesso the surfaces and they need to be framed (by the buyer.)
  • Write eye-catching descriptions if you sell online. That is a make or break point besides awesome art.  Use TAGS, as many as you can think of, so that peeps can find your art during a search.
sisterhood painting
Sisterhood

Sisterhood was a painting I ended up making eight versions of and they all sold. This was back in 2008. People have wanted to use the art for their business cards. I think women loved these paintings because of the sisterhood idea.

  • When something works, make several versions that show the same theme, different shapes and colors. I get tired of repeating myself, but I make as many as I can stand.
  • If you use mixed media, make sure the papers and ephemera are glued down securely. Nothing is more annoying than flimsy edges and corners that stick up.
  • Use a quality acrylic varnish to finish off the artwork.
  • Try lots of different styles until something clicks and you come home to yourself.
  • Master some kind of fun craft and sell the things you make.
polymer clay mosaic art
polymer clay mosaic

Crafts are like a meditation for me.

If you can only focus on one kind of artistic expression, do what you love the most and hold a part time job to pay the bills until your art takes off.

In this day and age, you can find our art spread all over the internet. I sell art and crafts all over the world through my two etsy shops. I find that my crafts sell better, but painting is my first love.

Arts and crafts shows were never something I wanted to do, but I know artists who do well with those. Whatever floats your boat.

Today I focus online and I have been creating art e-courses for the last couple years. Talk about a giant learning curve… lots of fun!

The bottom line: MAKE ART EVERY DAY, and you will sell some, guaranteed!

xo

Maria

P.S. I have lots of lovely and affordable gifts in my etsy shop EARTH AND FAERY. Support a successful living artist today! 🙂