Art Journal Freedom: Book Review (and Giveaway)

Note:  The three people who won the random drawing for Dina’s book fromare Shannon Ganshorn, Annettte Geistfeld, and Ann M. Philli. Congratulations to all of you!

Dina Wakley’s book is great. I could end the review there, but it wouldn’t tempt you enough to buy the book. And this is an art journaling book you should own, whether you are a beginner or an experienced art journaler.

I’ve taken classes from Dina, and I love her dedication to her art, her insistent encouraging to try new things or delight in familiar ones, and her easy way to bring out ideas and share them freely.

A few weeks ago, when I went to her book signing, I asked her just to sign the book (rather than sign it to me specifically) as I was planning on giving it away. But in the course of doing projects to review it, I got a bit enthusiastic, and splashed paint here and there and maybe dribbled a bit of gesso on the pages as well. So the giveaway book will be a fresh new one, but it won’t be here for about 10 days or so. If you are the winner, please be patient.

Details of Dina Wakley’s book: Journal Freedom: How to Journal Creativity with Color and Composition.
Publisher: North Light. Paperback, 128 pages long.
Chapters:

• Tools and Materials
• Symmetry and Asymmetry
• White Space, Continuance and Closure
• Proximity
• Dominance and Repetition
• Color Basics
• Contrast with Color
• Color as a Composition Tool
• The Power of Black and White
• Putting it All Together

On the table of contents page, there is a QR code that will take you to bonus content from Dina. A nice touch.

What I like about the book: It’s a real how-to, with basic creative art instruction. Many art journalers are self taught, and don’t want to go to school to learn color theory, the rule of thirds and other pedantic necessities. The genius in this book is that Dina teaches all the things you need to know to create beautifully composed pages by doing exercises that are fun and manageable.

She keeps the tone light and fun, and takes you along in a logical pattern that makes you want to learn. Her signature silhouettes are there, and in addition to seeing several ways to use silhouettes cut from magazines, you learn placement and balance.

I mean this next statement in the best possible way: Dina’s book is all hers. She doesn’t aggregate the work of 20 people, she teaches what she knows. I find it refreshing. Yes, it is nice to see different interpretations of an idea, but in this book having just one artist explain composition and color through her own work is a really good idea. It keeps lessons simple and allow the reader to try out personal ideas without having too many examples to choose from.

What I didn’t like: I kept a list and when I was done, I squinted at it to see if it was my preference, or an objective critique. The things I would have done differently would have made the book not Dina’s. So I am going to be happy that Dina’s fingerprints (colorful ones!) make the book what it is. I’m glad I spilled gesso on it and get to keep it.

This is more than a reference book, this is an enjoyable project and reference book.

Giveaway: If you want to win the book, leave a comment. I’ll be giving it away on Saturday morning, so you have time. And yes, partly that’s a stall to wait for the ordered book to arrive. The rest of it is that I am up to my armpits in paperwork this week.

—Quinn McDonald loves seeing books with so much heart and soul of the artist on every page.

Book Review: Flavor for Mixed Media (+Giveaway)

Note: Ms. Lillypads is the winner of Mary Beth Shaw’s book.Congratulations! Send me your address and the book will be on its way!

Mary Beth Shaw‘s book, Flavor for Mixed Media, caught my attention because it used food as a metaphor for art. Two favorites in one book! The book expands the meaning of mixed media by including favorite recipes from contributors. That made it interesting to Kent, who is a personal chef, and loves a good recipe. We both decided to try projects from Mary Beth’s book–I’d try an art project, Kent would cook one of the recipes.

Paper Mosaic is one of my favorite collage approaches, and Mary Beth’s book has a section on using a color theory exercise to help expand your use of color. I built on that technique to create one of my free-standing journal pages. Here’s the video–about 6 minutes long, and a project from start to finish.

Artists mix colors, but we often mix our favorite colors over and over and don’t expand to different hues, tints, and values. The chapter’s guest artist is Sarah Ahearn Bellemare, and her color triad theory helps you mix and keep information on colors you love and that work together.

Page 26 and 27 of Mary Beth Shaw’s book shows color triad theory.

The book is full of projects and ideas, but be sure to check out Mary Beth Shaw‘s website, too.

Color
Painting Without Paint, guest artist Misty Mawn
Triad Color Theory, guest artist Sarah Ahearn Bellemare
Organic Abstract Painting, guest artist Elizabeth MacCrellish
Texture
Clayboard Book, guest artist Shari Beaubien
Texture Sampler, guest artist Susan Tuttle
Candle Shade, guest artist Laura Lein-Svencner
Layers
Collagraph Plate, guest artist Julie Snidle
Plexi Squared, guest artist Tonia Jenny
Three-Dimensional Painting, guest artist Dolan Geiman

Project from page 112.

Flavors
Icing Panels, guest artist Heather Haymart
Taste of Klimt, guest artist Deb Trotter
Collage Painting, guest artist Claudine Hellmuth
Combinations
Cardboard Collage, guest artist Katie Kendrick
Abstract Letter Forms, guest artist John Hammons
Abstract With Discarded Material, guest artist Judy Wise

Don’t take that “discarded material” too seriously. These are ideas for recycling materials and keep your art supply costs down.  I’m all for seeing materials in a new way, particularly if I don’t have to create a shopping list for them.

Project from page 77

The eye candy in the links alone is richly satisfying–but what I really like is the variety of the projects. You get enough help to make the project through the step-by-steps, and the luscious photos of finished projects encourage you to keep going.

One of the joys of mixed media is choosing what you are interested in and exploring it. No problem veering into the kitchen for some of the guest authors’ recipes, either. I asked Kent to make Katie Kendrick’s  coconut lentil soup because I like lentil soup, it freezes well, and it’s satisfying without damaging my diet. But you can also make your own tortillas,  sugar cookies from a recipe that’s as versatile as the artwork, and Mary Beth’s own secret Brownies. (Yum!)

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a how-to book that you can take to the grocery store with the same great results as if you take it to the studio!

Front of art journal page I made from instructions on pgs. 24-27.

Giveaway: Mary Beth generously donated a signed copy of the book to my blog readers. Leave a comment that you’d like the book, and your name goes in the drawing that will be held on Wednesday evening, Phoenix time.  The winner (international entries are fine) will be announced on Thursday’s blog and at the top of this blog post.

—Quinn McDonald is learning how to shoot and edit videos to teach online classes. She wishes she had another four hands and a side porch on her brain to provide more room for learning new skills.

Writing Through Revelations, Visions and Dreams

Stella Pope Duarte‘s new book, Writing through Revelations, Visions, and Dreams, the memoir of a writers’s soul, is an intriguing book. Stella does much more than tell stories from her own life, she invites us to wake up and pay attention to the signs in our lives.

Dreams may well be prophecies, but “To become reality a prophecy needs the cooperation from the one who received the message,” she writes.

She struggled for weeks to understand the dream she had about her father, who said to her, “It’s right there, mija, in front of you, what you have to do next.” What was she supposed to see? Why wouldn’t her father tell her? But she didn’t let it go or forget it. She stayed aware, waiting for more information. She didn’t run to look up what the dream meant in a dream book, because only the dreamer can untangle the meanings of dreams. She continued to question the dream until she was in a bookstore, and a book fell off the shelf at her feet. It was a book abou a  South African woman of mixed race and the love and hate she experienced. It dawned on Stella that this woman’s values were similar to her own, even if they lived thousands of miles apart. “She wrote what she knew,” and at that moment, Stella understood that it was the hallmark of every writer, and she could no longer distance herself from her own past.

In her talk at Changing Hands Bookstore on Thursday night, Stella told us she finally discovered that her father had foretold her becoming a writer. As a family therapist and a college professor, she had thought her career was in place, but her life of writing hadn’t begun. (Stella won the National Book Award for If I Die in Juárez in 2009)

Stella tells rapid-fire stories about growing up in Phoenix’s poorest barrio and living with domestic violence for years. She is brutally honest about this time in her life and what she learned from it. She shows the following slide:

It says, “If you come to terms with the dark parts of who you are,  you won’t have to marry them.” It was a profound moment. We are so attracted to what we are not, and feel it missing in our lives. It seems tempting and exotic, and yet, once we marry it, it becomes the foreign irritant in our lives that we struggle to change. We all know about the futility of changing other people, but that is the dance we do–we see the dark other parts of ourselves in a lover, we want it manifested, and when it does, we want to distance ourselves from it. You can’t do both, at least not at the same time.

The book is a combination of memoir, self-help for writers, and a comfort for those of us who have dreams that confuse and inspire us. The slim, 162-page volume is a quick read and an interesting view into the heart of a writer.

--Quinn McDonald couldn’t stay home and write; she had to go hear Stella Pope Duarte speak. And she’s glad she did.

Book Review: Extreme Origami (+ a Giveaway)

 Book winner: Congratulations to Kristin McNamara Freeman, who is the winner of the book!

A book review on a different paper art: origami. I’ll give the book away on Tuesday morning, and the winner will be posted here. To win the book, let me know in the comments. The book is hardback, and heavy, so this time its new home is in the 48 contiguous states.

Book cover

Title: Extreme Origami
Sub-title: Transforming dollar bills into priceless works of art.
Author: Won Park

 Details:  Hardback. Race Point Publishing, 2012. Size: 11.25 inches x 8.25 inches.  Page count: 144. 20 projects and more than 1000 illustrations on folding. Price; $25.00 U.S. $28 Canada, £16.99 UK.

Content:

• Introduction
• Terms and Symbols
• Are You Ready to Take the Extreme Origami Challenge?
• Instructions for: butterfly, toilet, tank, spider, fox, pig, swordfish, sea turtle, ox, Pegasus, praying mantis, stag beetle, car, fighter jet, bat, scorpion, koi fish, stegosaurus, dragon, formula 1 race car.
• Acknowledgments
• About the author

What I liked: You have to like a book that uses only American dollar bills to fold into shapes of everything from a toilet to a formula one race car.

The hardback book is beautifully designed. The pages are rich, cream-colored stock with clean black type.

In the front there are explanations of lines, folds, directions.

The completed pieces make the best use of the printing on the dollar bill, so that the pieces appear to have eyes in the right place.

The instructions are always on the right side, or start on the right side, making it easy to keep the book open flat while you follow directions.

The illustrations (of which there are many) are in clean olive green and white and clear.

What I didn’t like: I discovered that Won Park used dollar bills because they are hard to tear during the hundreds of folds and bends it takes. In other words, it’s too intricate for me. I realize it’s called Extreme Origami, and that means it’s way over my head. And it is. You have to have some experience with origami to be able to complete any of these.

Some of the large photographs don’t look as appealing as the smaller photographs that accompany the directions. It would have been been fine to show the completed work at 150 percent instead of much larger.

–-Quinn McDonald is a writer who is busy writing a book about conversations with the inner critic.

Two Book Reviews (on Felting) and a Giveaway

Winners of the Felting books: Congratulations to Traci Johnson and LaTrecia Rafferty, the winners of the two felting books mentioned in this article!

Winners of the 3 journals:  The winners for the traveling journals have been drawn– Congratulations to Lisa “Salt and Light” Brown, Stephanie Hansen and Wendy from Late Start Studio!  Now, on to the next giveaway!

This week, I’m celebrating my 1,500th blog post with a series of giveaways. Today, it’s two fresh-off-the-press books on felting. Leave a comment letting me know you want one of the books. If you have a preference for the bird book or the complete photo guide  book, mention it in the comments. I’ll draw the winner on Thursday evening, 5 p.m. Phoenix time.      The books:

• The Complete Photo Guide to Felting by Ruth Lane
• Felted Feathered Friends by Laurie Sharp

The reviews:

Title:  The Complete Photo Guide to Felting

Author: Ruth Lane

Details: Creative Publishing International, soft cover, 240 pages, 800 photos, $24.99

Content: Introduction, five instructional chapters, a gallery of photos, and five sections of acknowledgements, resources, glossary, etc.

• All about wool and other fibers
• Preparing to Felt
• Traditional wet felting
• Nuno or Laminate Felting
• Needle Felting

What I like about the book: The scope of the book will satisfy both beginning and advanced felters.

The book begins with an exploration of what fibers are suitable for felting and which won’t work. It describes how to choose fibers and how to clean then, a chart of needle sizes and what each needle is best suited for.

There is a step-by-step, photograph-rich instruction to each of the different kinds of felting: wet, laminate (nuno) and needle felting.

There are technique tips on almost every page. Both positive and negative (You know it’s not working when. . .)

A two-page, step-by-step section on how to figure shrinkage in both size and percentage. Since felting is based on shrinking fiber, this is very useful.

There are both projects and techniques in the book, from wall hangings to dolls (including how to do faces and hands).

Color-coded bands at the top of the page help you find sections easily.

What I don’t like about the book: The project headings are just a point size or two larger than the body text and in a lighter color, making it hard to find the beginning of a project. If it hadn’t been for the picture of the giraffe and one of a doll, I would have thought they were the same project.

* * *

Title:  Felted Feathered Friends: Techniques and Projects for Needle-Felted Birds.

Author: Laurie Sharp, with photos by Kevin Sharp.

Details: Creative Publishing International, hardbound, 128 pages, $19.99

Content: Introduction, materials and tools, basic technique, 20 bird projects, gallery, resources.

What I like about the book: It is simple and direct: 20 projects on how to make needle felted birds, using one kind of barbed needle and wool roving. Birds include a variety from bluebird, swan, owl, peacock, flamingo, and pelican. There is also a mobile and an ornament.

The photographs are all taken on a warm-colored background, creating unity throughout the book.

There are step-by-step photographs to show different stages of the project.

Each project starts with a large photo of the finished project along with suggestions of how to individualize your project and a list of materials, including how much wool you will need.

If you love the idea of making whimsical figures of birds, this is your book. It’s got a tight focus and a big range.

What I don’t like about the book: The sans-serif type is too light weight to make for easy instruction reading if you are working on a project and checking instructions.

The background of the photographs should have been varied for better contrast. A yellow bird on a warm tan background is not appealing.

You know how large the finished project is only by seeing it in context with hands. Measurements would have been welcome.

There needs to be more “how” in the how-to. I will admit this is a particular complaint of mine in how-to books. Telling me to “shape a crescent” or “pull some wool loose from one end” to make the tail requires me to see that the crescent changes shape and to guess how to make that happen as well.

The instructions for shaping legs and feet need one more step to make them three dimensional. It’s easy to get lost when the entire bird-foot shaping instruction is, “use pliers to make five bends in the stem. Pinch the bends to make three claws.” Even looking at the photos, I can’t figure out how to get from 5-bend stage to claw stage.

For the pelican, the big pre-instruction photo shows a blue “fish” in the birds mouth. The caption says, “If your pelican is hungry, needle felt a tiny fish to put in his mouth.” The step-by-step bird is shown with fish in mouth, but there are no instructions how to make the fish or how to get it into the beak, which seems to be solid, and closed

The beak instructions say, “Roll a wisp of orange wool into a cone shape,” without telling you how much a wisp is or how long the cone should be. There are photos, and I’m willing to admit I may need more instructions than others.

* * * Full disclosure statement: A publicist for both books asked if I’d like a review copy; I did not pay for the books.

-–Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach and writer who designs and makes art journals she uses.

The Creative Chew

Micahel Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, wrote Food Rules, an Eater’s Manual in 2009. It is a light, funny, serious, simple, wise book on how to eat well. “Eating has gotten complicated,” Pollan writes, “needlessly so.”

Reading the book on feeding yourself  to give yourself a healthy body and agile mind made me wonder if we could take what Pollan writes and make it work for nurturing our creativity.  What Pollan says about eating—being careful what we put in our bodies—was also true about creativity. The more I read, the more fascinating it was to see that what is true about food is true about creative work.

Pollan’s rule # 44: Pay more, eat less. Quinn’s creative corollary: Pay more for good art supplies if you use them often. Don’t buy the junk food of art supplies just to have them. And if you did pile up a lot of art supplies you won’t ever use, give it away. Your local public high school will be grateful and you won’t fret over trying to use what you will never need.

Pollan’s rule #27: Eat animals that have themselves eaten well. Quinn’s creative corollary: Take classes from people who are good at what they do and who have the additional talent of knowing how to teach. It’s hard to learn from someone who is impatient, speaks too fast, or has favorites in class that get most of the attention.

Pollan’s rule #34: Sweeten and salt your food yourself. Quinn’s creative corollary: Do your own work. Don’t try to outdo what someone else is doing; don’t spend a lot of time looking over your shoulder to see who is doing what you are doing. Experiment with ideas until you know they won’t work or until they shine with the gloss of your own effort.

Pollan’s rule #1: Eat food. Quinn’s creative corollary: Create what helps your creativity grow. Take time to peel away your tough outer layer. Get to the tender heart and work there. Ignore what is fast to assemble–you’ll be yearning to be creative half an hour later.

Pollan’s rule #43: Have a glass of wine with dinner. Quinn’s creative corollary: Have a glass of wine with dinner.

–-Quinn McDonald is a reader and creativity coach who keeps a journal and works on her creativity.

Books on the Nightstand

Do you have a pile of books someplace–a waiting list of books that you want to get to in some order? My pile is balancing precariously on the nightstand. Some of them are partially read, some new and waiting.

We read for many reasons–to learn, to relax, to satisfy curiosity. I belong to Goodreads, and you can certainly categorize and chat about book choices there. But I’m curious about that stack and why you are reading what you are reading.

Here’s the top seven of my stack, along with reasons:

Refuge, by Terry Tempest Williams. About half read. Just started it. A book about the loss of a wildlife habitat combined with the loss of the writer’s mother to cancer. The balance of loss in nature and in family is carefully written, never mawkish. I’m a naturalist, and this book is a natural for me.

A Thousand Names for Joy by Byron Katie with Stephen Mitchell. A gift book and one I’m curious about. After discovering “the work” that Katie does, I’m interested in this topic: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are.

Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life by Marney Makridakis. An interesting collection of essays on re-imagining time and how to make it appear to slow down or speed up. Lavishly illustrated by the coaches Marney trains. I love other people’s perspctives on time and how time controls your life.

Stung by “B”s by Theresa JK Drinka and Jeni Synnes. A survival guide to help identify and overcome the damage of the disruptive people in our lives. When you are a coach, reading books about people who push your buttons is an excellent idea. Just ordered it, but am delighted to know it’s on the way.

The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry. The workplace is taking on creativity as a desirable trait, and I can see it being pushed into little cookie-cutter shapes already. I’ve heard of “disruptive ideas” and it makes me roll my eyes. I also read a lot of books on creativity so I can listen knowledgeably to people who speak about it.

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman. Suspense novel. Lippman worked for the Baltimore Sun and her novel takes place in Baltimore. I’ve lived there, so it’s interesting to hear the details I recognize about the city. This novel is a page turner and I’m hooked. The woman who should be a protagonist is not likable, and may be a narcissistic liar or an innocent victim. The male protagonist is a cynical cop. I’m almost done and have no idea who did what. I like the Tess Monaghan novels, and I like this one.

The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt by Caroline Preston. A fascinating collage book. Preston collected vintage (1920s-1930s) ephemera and then created a story around it. You turn the pages of the book like a scrapbook, get caught up in ticket stubs, photos, photos of old cans and labels as well as the story of Frankie, a young woman with a wandering heart and a Corona manual typewriter. Great concept.

What is in your reading stack? What’s the one you are choosing next?

--Quinn McDonald is a writer and creativity coach who loves to read.

Scared? Smart? It’s a Wild World

Martha Beck spoke at Changing Hands bookstore tonight, and packed so much information, power, inspiration, laughter and honesty into just over an hour, that I took notes faster than an Angry Bird slingshots at a green pig.

Her new book, Finding Your Way in a Wild New World is subtitled Reclaiming Your True Nature to Create the Life You Want. It’s not only a mouthful, it’s a mindful. And maybe a heartful.

Martha spoke about fear in a fascinating way. She was learning to track rhinoceros and as most trackers, followed footprints that led through the bush in South Africa. She kept her eyes glued to the ground as the tracks grew less visible until she heard a companion gasp. Looking up for the first time she realized that she was within 20 feet of a mother rhinoceros and her baby. And the mother rhino was angry.

Martha Beck at Changing Hands bookstore.

Martha is a slight woman, and could have easily been trampled to death. What happened in the next second was that she thought she was going to die, and felt a wave of fear and panic. And then she wondered about the two questions that form the cornerstone of the book–”How the hell did I get here?” and “What the hell should I do now?”

instead of being filled with fear and panic, Martha realizes that this second fulfills a lifelong dream of adventure, being fully engaged in the natural world, and living in the moment with friends. Were she to die, it would be with a “joyful pounding heart.”

As she was standing in front of us, she did not die, (and the way the story concludes–it’s in Chapter 1– is worth the price of the book) but she knows that each life has an angry rhino, and we all must bring ourselves to decide what to do in that moment of truth.

After the rhino encounter and its amazing resolution, Martha spent the next five years speaking to many people in many cultures so she could answer those two cornerstone questions. She realized that the answers she heard from wise women, shaman, medicine men (and women) were the same–that all of us on earth are facing huge change–economic, climatic, geographic, historic, and cultural. This change is roaring down on us like a giant wave. We can either drown in it or surf through it. If we want to survive, we have to become surfers skilled in surviving change.

I had an image of a tiny nimble figure negotiating through the curl of a giant wave with wits and grace. It made a great image of survival, always staying ahead of the crushing wave, and feeling exhilaration in your own skill.

She spoke of our basic mission while we are here on earth–healing the earth. I wrote about it recently as the mystical ideal of Tikkun Olan (Hebrew for healing the world.) It’s one of my favorite images–that each of us is not only capable, but bound to heal what we can–the ecosystem, our hearts, the pain of others.

“Our culture trained us to be factory workers–to sit still and take limited action when we were created to solve huge problems as they occur, spontaneously,” she told us.

Her book explains the four steps that contain the wisdom she gathered during her years of research:

• Wordlessness
• Oneness
• Imagine That Which Has Never Existed
• Forming (not forcing) your art, your life

I’m looking forward to reading her book, not just as a reader, but as a life coach who knows that each of us can have a fulfilling life, rather than a life of drudgery and soul-snuffing work.

—Quinn McDonald agrees with Benjamin Franklin who said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

Book Review: True Nature by Barbara Bash

Day 11: Several people have noticed there dreams becoming more colorful and memorable. Have you noticed a change? Tomorrow we’ll talk about setting a ritual and intention for your journaling. What’s this sentence doing here?

*      *     *    *
Nature journals make me swoon with joy. I know they aren’t wildly popular, and I don’t care. I collect them, I make them, I love them. They capture the essence of life and time in one book. For me, it’s what art journaling is about.

Cover of True Nature by Barbara Bash

I also admire artists who create from the heart. Creating from the heart is the bravest work, because you have to trust yourself. Listen to your intuition. Choose with your soul. That’s a big risk. Particularly in a world of commerce and retail therapy, many artists feel pressure to make creative decisions through their bank account. “How much can I cut back and still have enough quality to sell well?” It’s a real question asked by many artists. It’s a realistic question to ask.

Loose wash drawing on pg. 45 in the "Summer" section

And then there are the artists who say, “I have a question in my heart that needs answering. That’s where I’ll be for the next while. Working. Making meaning.”

From the "Autumn" section. Bash asks, "Where does pressure come from?"

Barbara Bash has done both a nature journal and a work of the heart. She kept a nature journal for a year while doing a series of solitary, contemplative retreats. Her watercolors, pen and ink drawings and meditations are gathered in her book, True Nature. It’s a book of inspiration, of small, measured steps, of awe and wonder.

Bash's calligraphy, emphasizing her heart-felt questions of meditation.

It’s hand-written, with quotes and thoughts scattered throughout. Bash “enters the drawing world of endless time and curiosity” and, with meditation, “everything becomes worthy of study and affection.”

This gentle book would make a lovely gift for a meditator, an artist, a writer, or a naturalist. Almost everyone on your gift list. It’s a holding book, a page-turning book, not for the e-reader.  Oh, and don’t forget a copy for your bedside table.

–Quinn McDonald is a naturalist and the author of Raw Art Journaling, Making Meaning, Making Art. The book is available on Quinn’s website with a code for free shipping. The code will expire in 10 days, so don’t wait.