Holiday Cards

OK, so the holiday cards are a bit behind. I figure if they get there before New Year’s, it counts. Below are two images I took of ornaments in the orange tree. One of them will wind up on my holiday cards. And I will not have to shovel a white anything this year. Excellent.

Snowflake in the orange tree © Quinn McDonald, 200

I like the snowflake idea, but I also tried a striped ornament to see what it looked like.

Red stripe in an orange tree.

Did you send cards this year? What did you choose?

Theme Thursday: #26 12.17.09

Theme Thursday is back. In the hectic week of holiday stress, relax with creative play. A new photography craze is to take a picture of a person while holding up a photo of a different person on currency. Sound confusing? Take a look at the Intense Zone for banknotes/ people and it will become obvious. And funny!

Creative Play fun dust left over from Theme Thursday. Or maybe it's Palo Verde pollen.

Ready for some eye candy? Check out Notebook Stories’ blog on Lynda Barry’s 2008 book, What It Is.  You’ll want to run out and buy it. My favorite sentence, “Can we remember something we can’t imagine?”

There is an association for journal writers. Of course there is. If you are interested in a community of journalers, prompts, journaling software, information and activity, the International Association of Journal Writers is your group. It costs $49 a year to join.

Bomomo let’s you doodle on your computer screen. I’m sure there is an explanation for how to do something specific, but I was having too much fun clicking choices and seeing what happens. It’s a great, colorful stress reducer. Prefer a little more direction? Have fun with Mr. Picassohead–choose hair, eyebrows, face shape,colors and more in a face you assemble. You can erase a step if it doesn’t match your mood.

Enjoy your creative play!

Five Most Recent  Theme Thursdays:  * * *   Creative Play 11.19.09 * * * Creative Play 11.5.09 * * * Creative Play 10.29.09 * * * Creative Play 10.22.09 * * *  Creative Play 10.15.09 * * *

—Quinn McDonald is a life- and certified creativity coach. She teaches people how to write and give presentations. She also wonders what you would like to say that you didn’t?

Do-Over Postcards

Lynn and Marguerite's do-over postcards

We’ve all done it–left something unsaid, said it wrong. This is your chance to get it right, say it better, say the right thing.

Say what needs to be said on a postcard and send it to:
QuinnCreative, P.O. Box 12183, Glendale AZ 85318

Won’t make you rich, but will make you feel better. At left: Lynn and Marguerite sent cards. Lynn’s says, “I create fine art. . . anything I create is fine with me!” Marguerite gets a hug for being brave. Life can be damn hard.

–Quinn McDonald suggests you get it off your chest, shoulders and back: send a card with what you should have said to P.O. Box 12183, Glendale, AZ 85318. Write it down, send it off. If the post office takes it as a postcard, so will I.

Creative Risk. Worth It?

Roadsign: Dangerous but passable

This sign is on one of my favorite motorcycle rides. It seems so much more than a road sign. For me, it was an invitation to do some creative work. Dangerous? Well,  I could make mistakes, I could not like the finished piece. (It’s just a piece of paper.)  It also might be an interesting ride, if I can get over the fear. A little danger can be fun.

A lot of creative work is dangerous, but passable. the ride takes some skill, but that’s the fun.

Journal prompt: In your creative work, what seems dangerous to you?

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach. She runs workshops and seminars in raw-art journals.

Make Your Dream Come True. Then What?

We sure spend a lot of time chasing dreams. Working hard, staying focused. And then, suddenly, like a cat chasing a butterfly, one day you reach and catch the dream. Now what?

The winning line: twlcasinos.co.uk

Catching up to your dream and making it real can be scary. This is your dream and part of you didn’t believe you could do it. Your negative self talk told you often enough how out of reach it was. You might have chased that dream because it was good exercise, but deep inside you may not have thought you’d catch it. And now you did.

At this very point–the point of reaching your dream or goal, we jump back. After all, if we hold the dream, we suddenly become responsible for it. We doubt ourselves. Is that dream good or big enough? After all, if we reached it, was it really worthwhile?

When you reach a goal, there are no instructions and no magic wand that comes with it. The biggest burden of reaching a goal is that the same ol’ you has reached it. Along the way we might have become older, wiser, thinner, but it is still you. Getting that dream doesn’t come with a limo and posse for most of us. It comes with responsibility. You reached your goal, now you have to acknowledge it, and account for it. You have to admit that you got what you wanted. Some people will say “So what?”, others will snort, others will be envious. A few people will be mad at you. None of this should stop you from admitting you reached your goal. None of this should make you belittle yourself or your goal.

The important part is knowing what you did to get here, knowing that you could have stopped to avoid having the responsibility and pretended to change the goal. It’s a brave thing to reach your goal. Unlike running a marathon, once you cross the finish line with a goal, you realize you can’t declare a finish time and stop. Goals we set for ourselves continue. They grow as we do. When you reach a goal, you have made meaning out of your life. You understand what you can learn and manage. You have succeeded.

Before you feel dipped in fear, acknowledge your growth. Be proud. Making meaning is growth. Celebrate!

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, trainer, and creativity coach.

Raw-Art Journaling–the Book

On Friday morning, just as I started teaching the business communication section of a class I teach for a local college, I noticed a text message on my phone. It was the one I’d been waiting for. But when you are teaching, your complete focus needs to be on the students. So I waited till  they began their next exercise, then I checked the message. There it was: I had a book contract for Raw Art Journals–Making Meaning, Making Art. My book proposal was accepted by North Light Book–F+W Publications.

Page from a raw-art journal © Quinn McDonald, 2009

It’s a hold-your-breath moment. I’ve been waiting for a long time, that one moment seems both huge and fragile. I don’t know what happens next, but I know that one day in the future, the book will arrive in the warehouses at amazon.com, ready to ship. And for just that second, that’s all I wanted to know.

Now, of course, the writing begins. When you write non-fiction, you don’t write the book first, you write the outline and develop a book proposal. When the proposal gets accepted, you get a contract and write the book.

Along with writing the book, I am starting to plan how to market it. Yes, it is a book about keeping an art journal for people who can’t draw and don’t have the time or inclination to write a lot. But it is also a book about making meaning with your art. That means it can help creativity coaches work with their clients. It can help people who want to be creative but don’t know how get a start. At this very second, the book is pure possibility. The next step is to make it real, to make it as good as it can be.

I wrote a book for hire many years ago. I was assigned a topic and paid a set price. Yes it was a book, but it wasn’t the one I wanted to write. Since I was seven years old and wrote a multi-chapter book (in a spiral notebook), I’ve wanted to write a book about a topic I cared deeply about. And now’s the time.

Raw-art journal page by Quinn McDonald © All rights reserved, 2009

What’s your dream? What steps do you need to get there? Will it take a while? Don’t let time keep you back. If it takes five years or 10, that time will pass anyway. You will never again be as young as you are today. Start with me, tell me what you want to commit to.

–Quinn McDonald is a trainer, coach, and a writer starting to write a book on raw-art journaling.

Art Journaling with Dina Wakley

Last Friday night I took an art journaling class with the energetic and easy-to-like Dina Wakley.  (Of course art journalers take classes–it’s how we explore. Most of us are life-long learners.) Dina is energetic, comforting, and it seemed perfectly natural to be encouraged to listen to the paint. Or, in the case of Dina’s class–listen to the gesso, paint, ink and oil pastels.

Woman cut-out used as a mask, along with alphabet, paint, gesso and oil pastel.

Dina’s joy is to see class participants heading in different directions with their own ideas. At one point, when a participant held up inked and paint-smeared hands, Dina said, “Happy Hands!” The class was light-hearted and fun, and for all the tips, techniques and information,  there were no strict rules.  As we began to loosen up and risk, Dina gave out a lot of tips and showed us pages from her own journals. Time flew and we worked fast so we wouldn’t get bogged in doubt.

Embellished background. Stencil, sprayed ink, water color, oil pastel

The major idea is to layer colors and use cut-outs as both stencils and masks–in other words, use the piece we cut out (either a star or the outline of a woman) as a mask and apply ink or paint over the cut-out, then remove it to show the paint layer underneath. Or, as a stencil, using the cut out space from the page as a way to put down a layer of color.

Gesso, watercolor, sprayed ink, stencil, applique of paper cut outs, stamped with ink, embellished with pen and oil pastel.

Dina’s book samples are amazing. She uses big books with watercolor paper and fills them with great images, stuffed with color, ideas, and thoughts.

Dina’s blog, Ponderings, is a great place to visit–Dina is generous with images and advice.  Be sure to take a peek at the class samples from a class Dina taught in Spain.

I enjoyed the freedom of trying techniques and moving fast. I’m generally a deliberate worker and I liked the idea that “it’s just paper” and the serendipity of working quickly and adding layers to adjust color or texture. The top layer on the piece at the left was made by stamping the wet stencil that I used to spray through on the first image, above.

Taking classes is an important step in developing skills no matter what level you are working on. Explore more, panic less.

–Quinn McDonald is a raw-art journal keeper who loves taking classes and teaching them.

The Danger of “Should”

It’s been a hectic few days. Things are not going as planned. It’s been up and down. Clients are changing dates, appointments are piling up. Friends are “helping” by saying obvious things with great authority.

As I get grumpy, I start to add “should” to my vocabulary more and more. “I should have seen that coming.” “I should have not booked so many appointments into one day.” “I should have been more assertive.” The list goes on and on. Often, friends add to the “should” list. These shoulds fall into two categories–things that are blindingly obvious that I’ve done weeks ago or thing they wouldn’t take on themselves but will ask others to do.

In the first category, I hear, “Having trouble with that new CD player? You should read the directions first.” “Have you checked your air conditioning filter? You should do that every month, on the 1st or 15th.” That gets a secret smile. If I did all the thing I was supposed to do on the 1st or 15th of the month, I’d have to take two vacation days a month to get them done. I can store that list right next to all the original boxes I “should” keep to return defective appliances.

In the second category, I hear, “Have you gotten the check from the client yet? You should call the CEO and tell him you are going to sit in his office till he hands over the check.” This from someone who hasn’t confronted a client in 10 years. Or, “The loaf of bread grew mold? You should threaten to sue and then take a big cash settlement,” from someone who has no idea of the time, money and effort it takes to work with a lawyer.  It’s a head-shaker.

“Should” is a dangerous word. Slippery. Demanding. Posturing. It turns empathy into passive-aggressive pushing and motivation into negative self-talk. Someone once said, “Stop should-ing all over yourself.” And it was Yoda who wisely counceled, “Do or don’t do. But don’t ‘try’.” The best view of all.

—Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach. See her work at QuinnCreative.com Image: DC arboretum wall, photograph by Quinn McDonald. (c) 2008-9 All rights reserved.

Noticing (Found Art)

Last weekend, I went to the giant Tempe Art Festival. Lots of tents, lots of people, lots of art, food, sunshine. It was cool, but perfect weather. Hot is not as good as cool for an art festival.

Out of habit, I parked in the shuttle lot and waited in vain for the bus. No shuttle. Cutbacks. I decided to walk the mile and a half to the show. I joined a stranger who looked at her Blackberry most of the time. Meanwhile, I watched planes lining up for landing at nearby Sky Harbor,  noticed you could see Tempe Town Lake from some places and not from others, that an old bridge had been repurposed for the light rail, that the sidewalk changed to blocks that fit together.

The entire walk, I felt like I was picking up information, feeling my internal GPS system adding information, feeling centered and rooted. My walking companion was fussing and texting. Finally she said to me, “This is a long &*%! walk, I should have taken my car.” She was easily 10 years younger, and a good deal slimmer.  She was doing too much work, and it was wearing her out.

It that very act of being OK with doing nothing, with “noticing” that lets you make great discoveries. I call them Found Art, because they are a lot  like found poetry. You notice something, look closely and there it is.

I saw this petrified jelly bean on the sidewalk, worn shiny from being scuffed over by many shoes:

Stepped-on heart. Photo © Quinn McDonald

It looks just like a heart. It IS a heart. And that made me think of all of our hearts, unseen, scuffed over, but made all the more beautiful for the discovery.

I stopped my companion and pointed, but she showed me the hand and continued to talk into her phone.

The moment was exquisite all by itself. I felt happy and light. Over what? Seeing a squished, petrified jelly bean embedded on the sidewalk. Yep. That sums it up.

Taking photographs of perfectly ordinary items helps me create a world I inhabit out of noticing. It is a very different world from the one my walking companion inhabits.

Here is a photo of a block wall with a big, top-heavy climbing plant. I’m interested in the hard-water stain, though. At the bottom of the photo. It’s not a chalk line, it’s chemicals from the water that have been sucked up into the block wall. To me, it looks like a mountain range, the plant could be a big thunder cloud.

Chemicals in the hard water make a mountain range.

This one is even more ephemeral. It’s a spot on the sidewalk–some stain, coffee, maybe, that someone splatted down. At first glance it looked like a dragonfly. Later on, I could see a dove in it. It’s a little hard to describe the dove, so below it, I’m including a drawing of a dove I did. You can sort of see the relation.

Found Art: dragonfly? Dove?

What’s the purpose in all this? Exactly nothing. It’s simply noticing. It doesn’t make money, it simply pleases me. I find it fun, interesting. I find it part of meaning-making. Seeing one thing in another can come in handy some day.

Flight. Reductive charcoal drawing © Quinn McDonald

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–Quinn McDonald is an artist and writer who teaches writing and journaling, including raw-art journals for people who can’t draw.

My Mom’s Chicken Soup Recipe

Flu season is here, and I’ve avoided the flu through such clever methods as teaching lots of public classes with people who sneeze on me, going to the grocery store and not wiping the handle off with one of those bacteria sheets and not owning a bottle of hand sanitizer.

Chicken Soup: cure for colds, loneliness, or whatever ails you.

Instead, I wash my hands frequently and eat blueberries to build up my immune system. I happen to believe that we have too many antibacterials in our life, and those antibacterials kill off a lot of what helps us stay healthy over time. Just my opinion, of course.

The other excellent activity is eating chicken soup. You don’t have to be ill to eat chicken soup, but if you are ill, it is comforting and delicious. It’s my mom’s recipe, which she got from her mom. It’s been comforting Jews and gentiles alike for more than 100 years.

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My Mom’s Chicken Soup (make it when you are home all day)

Mom always used a kosher chicken for her soup. So do I.

• 1 small, plump chicken, about 4 pounds
• OR, 4 pounds of raw chicken parts, including necks and backs
• 2 leeks washed spotlessly clean of sand
• 4 carrots
• 4 celery stalks (plus leaves)
• curly parsley (not Italian or cilantro)
• two bay leaves
• salt to taste

For after the stock making:

• 3 carrots
• 1 leek
• generous handful of green beans
• rough chopped mushrooms–white buttons OK, but shitake are better
• noodles or rice–1/2 cup cooked per person
• curly parsley

Wash chicken in cold, running water.  Cut into manageable parts–they have to fit in the pot. Wash and scrub carrots and celery, don’t peel the carrots.

Cut carrots into fat coins, celery stalks into 3-inch pieces.

Cut off tops of leeks, so that you have about 2 inches of green and the rest white. Trim off the roots, too. Cut them in half lengthwise, then into fat slices.

Use all of the parsley, stems and all.

Curly parsley, from en.fotolia.com

Put the chicken in a big stock pot and cover with cold, clean water, up to 2 gallons. Less is fine, more depends on the size of the pot. Add all vegetables and two bay leaves.

Put on medium heat till the soup boils. Do not boil so hard that it foams over. The soup will form a scum in about 10-15  minutes,  it’s supposed to. Skim the scum several times, using a big spoon. Discard the scum. Once the stock stops forming scum, reduce the heat to a very slow boil, even a simmer is fine, and let it boil for about 4 hours. If you already have a cold, or live in a dry climate, don’t cover. If you don’t want the house to fill with comforting steam, cover the pot. Check on the chicken to make sure it remains covered with water.

After four hours, turn off the heat and pour through a fine sieve or colander. Make sure you use a big enough pot to strain the liquid into. I do not strain through cheesecloth because I don’t want a clear broth, I want soup.

Fill the sink with ice cubes and put the broth into the sink. When it is about body temperature (shouldn’t feel warm to the touch) put it in the fridge until the fat solidifies on top. Take off the fat and discard. (Sorry, Mom, all that lovely schmaltz!)

While the soup is cooling, pull the meat off the bones of the chicken. Discard the bones and  all vegetable matter.

What you have now is the base for your chicken soup. You can freeze some and use as stock, or use all of it to make a giant pot of chicken soup, depending on the size of your family or number of friends.

Let’s say you are making the entire pot of soup. Put the cut-up chicken back in the pot, along with the cut-up vegetables, including parsley, which you cut fine. This time, discard the stems. Cook gently till vegetables are tender–about half an hour.

Prepare noodles, rice, bulger wheat, or potatoes–about 1/2 cup per person, after preparation. My mom didn’t like the starch from these products in her soup, so she cooked them separately and then added them to the soup.

Serve with a side salad, corn bread, or popovers. Or all by itself.

–Quinn McDonald is a life- and creativity coach who trains businesses how to communicate effectively with their clients and helps people who don’t draw or write to keep art journals.