Miracle Life: creative space

Showing posts with label creative space. Show all posts

Saturday

Creativity Wave Spreading

We are still celebrating the Sun with a global creativity wave!

To my ancestors, the June (summer) solstice - Jāņi - was a very special celebration with loads of fertility rituals.

Not many of us know and observe them now, but this is still the most important festivity of my nation, the Latvians, no matter where in the world we are scattered.

My plan was to create (or at least to start) a painting devoted to the Sun as our energy source and the symbol of God/Source around noon yesterday and to start it with a meditation outside.

My plans changed, as it was much too hot for me to leave the house. Believe me, +30C is a huge load here in the North! :)

So I gave in to a strong urge to clean and tidy up my space, then, I did this meditation and started a painting drumming on the canvas and spreading gesso over it.

When I started to glue down scraps of paper a thunder storm broke out behind my studio window, so I created the first layer of my work accompanied by thunder and rain! That was so super cool!!! It felt like the nature and the Sun her/himself was powerfully supporting my work.

By the end of the storm I put down the first layer of paint with my hands drumming on the canvas again. But that was all I could add to it yesterday.

After the thunderstorm, it got hot again pretty fast and all the evaporating water made the air so humid, that the acrylic paint I used (even with less water than mostly) did not dry at all.

Usually, I'd use a heat gun, but that was not an option yesterday, as it was too hot for me already.

As many of the more than 70 participants haven't finished their works either and we will have the largest and brightest full moon of this year at 23 June, I decided to extend the event and to include the celebration of Moon as well.

Some of our nations are traditionally celebrating the Solstice on another date anyway, including most of the Latvians. :)

This is, how my mixed media piece looks today after some more drumming on the canvas :)

I hope you continue connecting with the Heart of our planet system and our only natural satellite and the energy coming through them.

Please, share the way you are doing it, your WIPs and finished creations, so we all can become enriched!

Places to share:

Open Event page on Facebook

Event page in the closed A Piece A Week group on Facebook

Creative Every Day

Paint Party Friday

My Creative Space
A Piece A Week

If you need guidance in connecting with our Source-star, there are loads of great suggestions online. This is one of my favorites

And, here, you can listen to some Latvian solstice music

And you know I'm always happy to hear from you, right?

Please, feel free to leave a comment here or contact me at ritajc(at)inbox(dot)lv

The Dark Mother

Last week has been a bit of a crazy with my 55th birthday on June 3, both of my teenagers and me having health issues, while my youngest son is still in the middle of his graduation exam session, me having teleclasses one after another desperately trying to launch a new business to start earning more money quickly.

But, after The Sacred Dreamer with Shiloh Sofia, it was so hard not to paint. It feels like it's my mission now to let the Divine use me as a channel to materialize aspects of him/herself in forms tangible to people's physical senses.

Besides, look, what my oldest son sent me for my birthday!

On Wednesday, I was surprised to find a black feather lying right in front of our house entrance that felt like to be meant for me. So I picked it up and tried to figure out its message.

Somebody mentioned the Dark Mother. I looked it up on the www and started to feel a strong urge to create a portal for her to show up. So I started a painting with one of my new inks and water.

Then, I added some more inks, water, and even alcohol. It sounded like drumming, when the drops landed on the stretched canvas, one by one.

I always love this phase of painting the most, the unpredictability, the flow. And all the yummy prints and drops on the paper sheets I use to catch up the excess ink and water.

On Thursday, I found another black feather and the Dark Mother started to make her appearance step by step leaving me in the dark about what she wants until it was the right moment for the next detail to be revealed.

A truly mystical experience. This is, how far we have got today.

Our journey has only started. Stay tuned for updates!

To see more inspiring creativity jump over to any of these sites

I'm always happy to hear from you. Please, leave a comment here or contact me at ritajc(at)inbox(dot)lv

An Amazing Night

Last night, I participated in an amazing event: in a livestreamed painting class with Shiloh Sofia McCloud. It started at 9 pm for me after a pretty stressful day without a nap.

As I had done a class with this amazing woman, artist, and teacher in Life Book 2013 and have participated in the Soul Art Day, I wanted at least try to work together with others in real time again.

It turned out an extraordinary painting and connecting marathon of 9 hours for me! And it isn't over yet, as many are (still) working at their paintings and connecting through a Facebook group.

This is, how my painting (60x80 cm) started.

And this is, how it looks right now.

It still needs some finishing touches, but the main work is done and the main message from my heart depth received: I am a Healer and desire to touch as many people with my gifts as possible.

And there are much more gains for me from last night. The most important ones:

1. the wonderful feeling of being connected to the Divine and wonderful sisters all over the globe

2. no exhaustion at all without any stimulants until 6 am (a proof, that I can create and connect 9 hours on a row even at night, if I am with the right company :) )

3. more confidence about who I am and more trust in my intuition.

I AM EXTREMELY THANKFUL TO

SHILOH SOFIA, JONATHAN,

AND EVERYBODY WHO PARTICIPATED AND IS STILL PARTICIPATING!

To see more inspiring creativity jump over to any of these sites

I'm always happy to hear from you. Please, leave a comment here or contact me at ritajc(at)inbox(dot)lv

An Extremely Intense and Blissful Week

The last weeks has been an extremely intense and blissful for me.

As you know, I'm working through this book and, honestly, since the first day, some money is coming in EVERY SINGLE DAY! WOW!

We are in week 3 of the Awakening Your Unique Self course with Marc Gafni, and I'm just loving it! There is so much valuable content every week, and the daily practices and assessments are going deeper and deeper! I'm really starting to discover my unique self and to appreciate it and it's story.

On Monday, I received the regular Life Book 2013 content and was absolutely thrilled! It was a class with Shiloh Sofia McCloud! I haven't done many of this and even last years Life Book classes, because they didn't speak to me, but this was just perfect! And Monday was a holiday here, so I started to work through it right away and felt completely at home with the suggested process!

I was so consumed by it, that I forgot to shoot images of some of the stages! Sorry for that! But there are still some I can show you :)

The result was a huge surprise to me: I met my inner King with all his attributes! When I did some research on the symbolism, it just blew my mind away! It was the truth about me I hadn't let come to my conscious for a very long time!

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I went to the public studio to work on the painting I have started over there. Still not sure, where it is going, And it's a huge challenge to me to work 3 hours on a row on a set time. My usual method is to live next to my work and to add something to it, when I feel, what it wants.

On Thursday, was the Soul Art Day. It started only at 4 pm for me, and I wasn't prepared actually, but that was OK. I had so much fun watching the artists work in the studio and chat online and getting to know the process. Late at night, I could start the body mapping part.

On Friday morning, when the house was empty and quiet, I could dive into it and, very soon, I knew the answer to my question: "Starting a life coaching business is the right thing to do for me know!" The image is still developing, and I'm still receiving even more very specific information from it! But I have started to work at my new business already: enrolled in this free course and made an appointment with my potential webmaster. :)

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(Blogger is being naughty again! grrrrr)

Friday

More Circles

Like I said, I'm playing with circles. Do you remember the collage I showed you a week ago?

It turned into this painting by the end :)

And these are the stages it went through

As you can see (probably you can't and have to believe me :) ) I have added some of the blue glimmer mist from The Tattered Angels Paint System Fall/Winter from A New Day Art Studio to this piece as well.

To see more creative spaces and join the fun jump over to

My Creative Space - A Breakthrough

Last week, I was really busy with translation jobs until Monday afternoon, but, then, Tuesday happened, and made me take a pretty sharp turn back to my path as visual artist. For the last couple of months, I was pondering, how to use all my gifts and experience the best way to serve and fulfill my life's purpose in the next future. I have always known I am an artist, but I have so many other talents and such a rich human experience, that I could never stay "just" with the art. There are so many other things I have learned and shared with others and really enjoyed the process. I haven't even attended any art schools or courses off-line. So, for the past couple of weeks, I was even considering to give up on trying to develop myself as a selling artist and to start something new as a speaker, teacher, and facilitator. But, like I said, Tuesday happened :)

Firstly, I woke up knowing, what to do with 3 paintings I had been agonizing over for months.

This one could be finished.

It's hard to believe these are some of the phases it went through in the process :)

Secondly, my both youngest kids are showing interest in attending an art school for the last couple of weeks. So we gathered some information about the one next to us and, on Tuesday, I brought my son to what we thought would be a preparatory course for the entrance exams. It turned out to be an evening studio open to everybody. I felt a strong connection to the artist/art teacher Guntis Otaņķis right away, so I stayed as well :) Everybody was working at something different. As we had never met and he had never seen any of my works, Guntis gave me the task to draw some flowers "to see, if you are an impressionist, expressionist, romantic or something else". I sketched them, and, then, IT happened. He said: "You are most definitely an artist." And this must have been the first time I REALLY BELIEVED IT. (My eyes still get teary every time I think back to THAT MOMENT...) After 2 hours in a wonderful creative atmosphere the sheet looks like this.

It's far from a finished drawing, but that has never been the point of it, right? Guntis expects me back with my paints next time. I feel like the Universe has finally given me the answer to all the questions I struggled to find for 5 decades because of all the different talents and gifts I have. Or had I just refused to believe, what I have always known? Anyway, every piece seems to fall in place right now and I'm just over the moon! Everything feels so easy! Even my son is happy he can do this together with me, although he isn't even sure he wants to enter the art school next summer. And my daughter can't wait to join us :) It feels huge, almost unbelievable, but no doubt to be the right thing for the next future. I might still end up not earning most of my income selling my art, but I'm sure my place is in that evening studio at least for one more time :)

To see more creative spaces visit this site and be inspired

And join us for A Piece A Week or Creative Every Day

Thursday

My Creative Space

Last week, I had only a couple of small translation jobs. Money is tough and might get even tougher, if I don't get more work very soon. And my body decided to play naughty and jumped into a fibromyalgic flare as well. The constant pain and foggy brain makes me tired, but it's bearable.

Even more than that, talks about printing and gel plates in some of the art groups I'm in, and, especially, some videos about it inspired me to create some lovely paper sheets (20 to be precise) using monotyping for the first time ever and a couple of other techniques on top of the print. These are some of my favorites so far, but I haven't stopped working even on them :)

I really love the process (especially, the unpredictability of each print) and the fact, that I can use just what I have and get results I really like. Most of the sheets are pages from my kids' old school work books and I do the printing on my kitchen table (round 90 cm in diameter) just covering it up with some pretty thick plastic sheet. :) And creating series comes all natural with it as well, as there is always too much paint for just one sheet of paper :)

The creative juices are flowing even more at ease after I stumbled upon really inspiring and down-to-earth videos by the American artist Skye Taylor. This is the one I like the most so far.

To see more creative spaces visit this site and be inspired

Or even join us for A Piece A Week or Creative Every Day

My Creative Space

Another pretty productive week in my studio and even more so outside of it. I had almost no translation projects to work at (makes me a bit nervous about paying the bills, but I really appreciate the time & energy I can spend with my creative explorations) and no classes at school.

First of all, we got a new assignment in the CAPI course with Milliande. It was quite a challenge for me, as I'm used to work intuitively and not to know, what I'm actually creating until the last part of the process. For this assignment, we had to stay with one shape (or a combination of them) discovered on a sheet full of scribbles. And we were encouraged to use techniques not so usual to us. So I played with one figure on repurposed pieces of card board and restricted me to 4 materials: white gesso, black water soluble pencil, burnt umber acrylic paint and graphite pencil. And these are my results so far. And, honestly, I was pretty surprised about the development.

Another collection I have started to create are silhouettes of naked trees around my village. It's all covered and pretty dark here, so the image quality isn't the best, but they are good enough for me as a reference or maybe for some transfers. The unique pattern of each tree has always fascinated me, and this little collection makes me really happy, although to get a good silhouette of one tree is quite a challenge, as none of the trees is standing separately in a plain field here. These are the most expressive ones from the images I have gathered so far.

Another series/collection is emerging from my experiments with what's left in my coffee cup after I've had my coffee. I really love this process for so many reasons:
* the result is pretty much unpredictable, although, after more than 10 sheets, I have found some regularities & the right tool and refined my technique
* I don't "waste" expensive art supplies to play and explore, actually, I recycle, what I always love to do
* no hazardous fumes, the whole house smells like a coffee shop :)
etc. etc.
After the first layer is dry, the sheets look somewhat like this.

This one has the layer number 4 on it and isn't completely dry yet.

As you can see, I was all in shades of grey and brown last week. The only excerpt was this dramatic sunrise yesterday morning.

To see more creative spaces visit this site and be inspired

Or join us for A Piece A Week or Creative Every Day

My Creative Space

Last week has been pretty productive in my studio. The cold is gone, and, on some days, we can even see the sun. It feels like spring, and that always gives me heaps of creative energy.

I continued my research on Wabi Sabi in a more practical direction: did some more experiments with coffee...

And, one snowy morning, I took the camera with me, when I went out with the dog. To take shots holding our crazy girl on a leash was quite a task and, pretty soon, it started snowing too heavy and I had to pack in the camera not to damage it, but I managed to get some shots I really liked. You have seen them probably on Facebook already. This is one of them (by the way: I live in the house to the left in the background).

Visit this album to see more.

Another thing was to get rid of the cheery bright colors in some of my paintings, that I just couldn't stand any more. Do you remember images I showed you here about a month ago? Must have been sidetracked by all the bright and cheery paintings and art journal pages I see in the art groups. But my muse brought me back to my senses. :)

Just one example.

After these phases I thought the painting could be finished, but, somehow, I didn't like it (sorry for the blurry image, it was taken with the smartphone).

As soon, as I realized, it's the bright colors I don't like, I took some old flower wrap paper, brown and white acrylics, and black ink, and moved on.

Might still do some tweaking here and there (struggled a load with the left upper corner), but my muse is happy again. At least, for now. :)

And some more of my colorful WIPs have got a brown-black-grey-ish layer on top of the cheery stuff as well. :)

To see more creative spaces visit this site and be inspired

Or join us for A Piece A Week or Creative Every Day

My Creative Space

During the last week, I haven't created much.
First of all, because it has been really dark in my studio. It's all covered, grey and rainy outside, and the never ending twilight always weights down my creative activities.
But I have completed something this week: 4 papier-mache apples and their boxes for a good cause. When I worked the last layers on them in the dark studio, I had to think about the artists centuries ago, who created their masterpieces before electricity became available. :)

These are some of the phases they went through.

By the end, my hands were all golden :)

Secondly, the CAPI course with Milliande and some of the artist groups I'm in on Facebook have flung up impulses for intense inside work and research, mostly, about my place in the (art)world. There are thousands of artists using the same brands of art supplies and substrates. There seems not to be a chance, that I could get to them in a serious amount ever. I'm gradually ceasing to feel like I'm lacking something essential to create significant art. Instead, I'm pondering and researching, what resources I have and what ways are open for me. It even starts to be a privilege not to have too many of them, as there are less options to be weighted. :) As the motto for my latest research, could serve the words Daisetz T. Suzuki uses to define the Wabi Sabi in arts: "an active aesthetical appreciation of poverty", of a quasi (material) poverty, that is an actual (spiritual) abundance and blessing. For instance, I lately found a new use for my abandoned art journals: I'm using them as a kind of art grimoire, i.e., I'm trying out new ways of using all kinds of stuff in my art in them, even food. :) And fricken loving it!!! :)

To see more creative spaces visit this site and be inspired!

Or join us for A Piece A Week or Creative Every Day

My Creative Space

Last week has been very rich on stuff to ponder.

First, Milliande invited us to do some pondering about our Body of Work in the CAPI course. I had never heard of it, so I did some research and stumbled upon this article, that gave me quite a shock. "Generally speaking, people don't want to know how versatile you are! With very few excerptions, I think you have to specialize for a long time before you can allow yourself the luxury of versatility." says Martha Marshall. It gave me some really heavy stuff to ponder, as I always found series of art works boring as a creator and as a viewer as well. My conclusion so far: a series of cohesive art works is kind of one work in many (at least a dozen) pieces. And I discovered some small series among my creations already created without ever thinking about it. Another participant from the CAPI course showed us this article, that helped me even more to see the point in creating in series. So I have my pondering cap on and am ready to create more in series from now on :)

Another object to ponder emerged, when I started a new intuitive painting and discovered not for the first time, that I really like the first layer and am not sure, if and how much I should add to it.

This happens again and again, and not only once I've liked the end result after many layers less than the first ones. Maybe I should start looking for ways to sell my "backgrounds"? Discussing this in my favourite art groups and doing dome research, the theme of a focal point emerged as well, and this article by Dianne Mize helped me to move forward. So I started to add to the painting, but was doing it carefully not to loose, what I had. After the second layer it looked nice, but gave me a somewhat shallow and incomplete feeling.

That day, I stumbled upon the 7 Painting Tips by Daniel Edmondson and they helped me to be brave and push forward. After 3 days of intense painting-scrubbing off-painting, the "Blooms of the Night" as I call it could be overall finished.

I still see some spots, that need a little tweaking, but I really like the result and am happy I didn't stop earlier. I'm not sure, if this will help me with my next creation, but one thing I'll probably do never again. The pretty large piece (27x70 cm) of corrugated card board I used as the surface is all deformed and was really hard to handle in my tiny painting space of about 3 square meters, as I couldn't hang it on the wall.

Sorry for the many words in my strange English, but all that pondering was an important part of my last week's creative process. Sorry for the still shaky quality of the images as well. The card reader sent by a dear Facebook friend all the way from the US arrived (YAY!), but I haven't figured out yet, how to make it work with at least one of our computers.

To see more creative spaces visit this site and be inspired

Or join us for A Piece A Week or Creative Every Day

My Creative Space

The past 2 weeks were not easy for me with my daughter's birthday party, urgent translations to work at, and a virus my body is still fighting with. So my muse had to wait, until I had enough time and energy to serve her. That doesn't mean she was happy with that and didn't scream at me, until she got me into arting. So I made some Christmas cards

and continued working at the painting I have showed you 2 times already. It could be finished now, although this isn't the very final stage of it.

For the time being, it's almost impossible for me to show my works online, as my old cheap photo camera fairly died. My wonderful daughter in law sent me hers and I received it today, but it is a professional one, and I don't know, when I will dare to start using it. Besides, the USB cable and the instructions are missing. I hope to find the instructions online and learn at least to shoot pics soon, than I'll need to find and buy the right USB cable to upload the images to the compy. The pics you see in this post were shot with my daughter's smart phone and not very good, no matter how much I tried to edit them.

Therefore, I'll not even try to show you images of the 7(!) new cards I received from my artist friends, as they would no way do justice to the adorable miniature works of art they truly are. Please, bear with me, until I can depict them properly.

To make the waiting less hard, I can show you a piece of the winter wonderland we are living in right now (shot by my daughter and edited by me).

To see more creative spaces visit this site and be inspired

My Creative Space

Last week, I was pretty busy with translations, but I painted more or less every day, that I'm really happy about. First of all, the cards for the second swap are finished and I hope to send them out tomorrow. And I have received 2 new ones from my swap partners.

by Louisa Dubois

by Teresa Capaldo

And the mixed media piece I started last week has morphed quite a lot and looks like this now

To see more creative spaces visit this site and be inspired

My Creative Space

Last week has been busy for me with translation jobs, but something really exciting is brewing around me:

A YEAR LONG CHALLENGE "A PIECE A WEEK"

Taking inspiration from similar challenges, we started to play with the idea of doing some art at least once a week for one whole year in one of the art groups I'm in on Facebook, and, now, the idea is developing and spreading. I'm pretty much ready to host it here on my blog and to create the respective groups on Facebook and Flickr. As soon, as I have some free time, I'll start working on it. As it is planned to launch on January 1 2013, there is still enough time for that, right?

Fact is, it made me so excited, that I started to work at the largest painting in my life so far (60x80cm), in spite of the almost complete lack of day light here lately. The next morning after I had put down the collage layer on the canvas, it turned out, that the frame had twisted. It was kind of a bad news, as I liked, what I saw on it, but then I started to realize, how the belief, that the painting would most probably never be marketable other than as a print, gave me much more freedom just to play on it and enjoy the process. It looks somewhat like this now.

What else has happened in my creative space last week?

I received a new card :)

by Elin Folkesson

Sorry for the not so good images. I managed to get some better light into my studio/kitchen by getting rid of the shade and exchanging the usual light bulb with a day light one (many thanx to everyone, who helped me figure out that solution). That gives me the opportunity to paint and to see the colors right, but the amount of light still isn't enough for my cheap camera without tripod.

(Just remembered, that I have to finish the cards for the second swap ASAP, if I don't want to be late for the dead line :)

And I started to crochet a Holiday Wreath inspired by this young man's tutorial

To see more creative spaces jump over to this site and be even more inspired!