Newsletters: Worth Considering? (Plus Giveaway)

Yes, I’ve had a newsletter. Twice. Each time, it became too unwieldy to manage. Too much content. When I switched from newsletter to blog (which seemed sensible at the time), I deleted the newsletter address list, after I invited everyone over to the blog.

That left me with, umm, no announcement or contact list. Sure, the blog mentions my classes, but if you ask “Really? Where? ” you aren’t alone. The Workshops page on this blog is often overlooked. And updating it often happens only after I announce something on the blog. (See my upcoming demos at Arizona Art Supply).

I can’t really expect people who are waiting for me to announce the poetry-writing class to read the blog every day to see when it will run (Late July, early August start) or to check the Workshop page. A newsletter would be a great way to do that.  I am grateful to everyone who is signed up to the blog, and to everyone who tells me they start their day reading the blog. Realistically, though, a lot of people check in once a week, Or once a month.

So here is the question: Should I start a once-every-two-week newsletter? Or are newsletters passe? (I don’t want to create a business Facebook page. Yet)

More information:

• The newsletter would list my classes and demos, in person and online, local to me or local to you.
• It could contain a few other items not in this blog–a link to a clever tutorial (not necessarily mine), a book suggestion (creativity-related, including books I quit reading or didn’t enjoy), or a creative-life tip or quote from my reading.  It would be short (not like my blogs, I know).
• You’d be able to subscribe and unsubscribe anytime you wanted (you’ll have to unsubscribe from the same email you subscribed with). No questions asked.
• I’ll start small, just an email list I handle myself. No cookies, no tracking, no selling or renting your name. I have enough trouble managing my time.

Leave a comment if you have ideas, suggestions, or thoughts about a newsletter.

Giveaway

Oh, and of course there will be a drawing for leaving a comment and taking the poll:  a copy of Creating Time, by Marney  Makridakis. The subtitle is “Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life.” You can read my earlier review here.

Note: Thanks for the 76 percent of readers who would read a newsletter. Another 11 percent said “It depends if I like it.”  So, it looks like I’ll be starting a newsletter soon. Stay tuned–I have to create a space to sign up and get the first copy together. Thanks for voting!  Barbara I is the winner of Marney’s book!

–Quinn McDonald is curious, again.

Making The Commonplace Journaling

We’ve talked a lot about Commonplace Journals, and I thought it might be a good idea to show you mine. The purpose of a Commonplace Journal is to record items you need to remember, everything from the name of a book to an idea for a future art project. It’s not formal, it’s not meant to show to others or as a brag book. It’s your memory, your imagination, and the garden of your muse.

To hold my Commonplace ideas, I bought a hand-made journal from Val Bembenek. She makes wonderful, traditional Japanese-bound journals, about 8-1/2 inches  x 5-1/2 inches, with horizontal orientation. Val ties non traditional buttons on the front as decoration. She also uses paper bags as covers.  (You can buy them from her via email, too.) This one has a wine bag front cover and a bread bag back cover. Perfect combination!

I’m not showing you the front page, which is the same in all my books–the two crossed, curved arrows, and my email address so I can get the book back if I lose it. Because I travel with my Commonplace Journal, it has to fit in my bag. I generally put items in with a glue stick (which I normally hate, but hey, when you are on the road, you have to use what you have).

On the left side is the map to the hotel I was staying in. The hotel was great, with a fridge and microwave, but the complex was, well, complex. Thank goodness for the map. On the right side is information about the kinds of paper we made ad two samples. The page is dated, so I know when I made the papers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I was in Tucson taking the class, I stopped by an art store and bought some Neocolor II watercolor crayons by Caran D’Ache. On this page I rubbed the crayons and then showed the color and texture, both wet and dry and wrote the name and number next to it. If I buy some more (I may not be able to resist), I’ll have the number of the ones I already have, and I’ll add the new ones to this page.

When I went to Las Cruces, someone was handing out flyers for Earth Day. This was a good way to get the date right and remind me of the activities I participated in–including a film festival.

The ticket for the film festival is on the left, and a bit about the interesting documentaries about life along the backbone of travel (the Camino Real) in early New Mexico. On the right are the parking lot tickets for the days I was demonstrating at The Women’s Expo in Phoenix. I created marbled papers for Arizona Art Supply (and I’ll be doing local demos in June and July and teaching there in July, August and September!) More about that later this week.

You can see that this is a notebook is the real sense of the world. There is nothing beautiful about it, but it is practical and useful.

One of my big rants is young girls dressed up to be sexy. I found a great quote in the paper from a mother who addresses her daughter’s threat that she will just change to the clothes she wants to wear after she arrives at school. That’s on the left, with some marbled paper. On the right is a quick collage I put together with some phrases about the underwear women wear as outerwear and the stiletto with the phrase “it pays” as part of the image. It was satisfying to make the collage, although the composition is not excellent design.  The pages can be cut up to use in another collage. Great way to store pre-made design elements.

Have you ever tried to remember where you saw that article you need now? You can remember the side of the page it was on, but not the book or magazine. I’ve lost hours thumbing through my iPad, books and magazine stash, looking for that phrase, reference, or stitch. I’m working on a book of handmade papers, but it’s number four on my to-do list. I’ll need that kettle stitch to hold the signatures together. So I drew out the part of the stitch I forget, then added the page number and name of the book so I can find it when I need it.

The back cover of the book. I have many pages to write on before it’s done, but when it’s filled, it will be a useful reference book as well as reminder of when I did what.

If you are keeping a Commonplace Journal, leave a link in the comments, so we can visit others as well!

--Quinn McDonald is enjoying Memorial Day weekend in art projects. But she’s getting back to work on Monday. She’s a ghost writer for several blogs, and they are due this week.

Collage by Numbers

Words and letters are important to me. They shape my world, they help me see what others feel. And I almost always use some version of words in my art.

When I combine the love of collage with the love of letters, I got an interesting result. A collage made entirely of letters. OK, a few numbers, too.

It was in interesting experiment. It was fun to find the small and bold letters and figure out how to use them for detail and shadow.

I don’t want to continue this type of collage, because, odd as it sounds from someone who loves monochromatic work as much as I do, I would miss the color after a while. But meanwhile, I have another pear to add to the collection!

Here are a few other pears I’ve done:

Journal page with Maya Angelou’s pear recipe

Pears, watercolor pencil on journal page

Pear on free-standing journal page.

Pear mosaic on free-standing journal page

--Quinn McDonald does not feel compelled to move on to apples. Yet.

Stenciling Art Journal Pages

This gallery contains 6 photos.

Stencils have never really thrilled me; I’ve never believed I knew how to use them. While experimenting this weekend, I discovered what I’d missed–a simple, effective stencil technique that makes great art journal pages or, trimmed down and layered on … Continue reading →

Fun With Splash Inks (Part 2)

Splash Inks are acrylic inks invented by Karen Elaine and made by Yasutomo. I’ve posted on Splash inks previously. Today, Arizona Art Supply had a class in learning how to use the inks. Kari Foteff

Senior Account Manager Kari Foteff (L) from Strathmore, and inventor Karen Elaine.

from Strathmore Papers (L) and Karen Elaine were there and they taught a wicked good class. Strathmore papers were the first papers I loved when I was a papermaker, and it was great meeting someone who gets to work with Strathmore papers much of the time.

It’s fun meeting an inventor, particularly one who is modest and never mentioned her time on the Carol Duvall show. ( A popular show on the DIY Network several years ago) or the process of invention, just what the inks can do.

There are four inks, and they follow the CMYK colors: Cyan (blue) Magenta, Yellow and Black. You can mix them into over a hundred different colors.

We mixed several colors, and Kay, next to me, did a whole sampler of colors.

We then masked off a card and, using a stencil, scraped Golden’s regular gel (gloss) over the stencil and allowed the gel to dry, creating a resist.  We then mixed colors and applied them over the card. Kay did an attractive multi-colored card:

And I tried for a batik effect:

I’ll be demonstrating the inks at Arizona Art Supply’s booth the Women’s Expo at the Phoenix Convention Center April 27 and 28, 2013.

Karen Elaine helped me learn how to do some paper marbling with the basic colors. I have some more work to do (mixing new colors), but I’m really pleased with the basic marbling which is super easy:

And works with more complicated combing patterns, too.

Even the second pick-up works well:

I made these on cardstock, but you can also make them on sized watercolor paper. You can use them as art journal backgrounds, or just write in the lighter areas. You can use Golden’s regular gel as a resist and then write on it with a sharpie. Lots of experimentation still to go, but I’m having a lot of fun with Splash Inks.

-–Quinn McDonald has inky fingers again.

Disclaimer: I purchased the inks myself. I am receiving no compensation to blog about them.

Journal Page: Inventing an Alphabet

OK, I’m a writer, so I like different alphabets and codes. They also make great additions to a journal page. A new alphabet, a code–it’s a clever journaling piece that adds an easy design element through writing.

Could be someone cheering.

This morning on my walk, I saw interesting writing on the street. My mind went to an interesting story line–what if visitors from another planet came down and took notes on the street on what they saw and learned? What I saw on the street would be a kind of alien journal, written in code. That idea appealed to me, and I took some photos of the “writing.”

Looks like it could be a back-to-back letter.

That idea led to another one: why just use the regular alphabet in your journal? Why not add some new ones? New letter shapes, new designs are all around you. You can use alchemy symbols,  the Greek alphabet, numerical symbols.

A really interesting one is the Mormon Deseret alphabet (below). When you use shapes from an alphabet, you can invent what they mean to you–what the letter shapes are going to mean in your world. You can translate interesting letters into whole words if you like.

My favorite of the street was the one below–this is definitely the answer to the meaning of life, the universe, and everything:

I made a journal page with a new alphabet. First I collaged various shades of white and cream on the page, then I used a brush and wrote quickly, without hesitation, inventing as I went along. And here is what the journal page looks like with a new alphabet:

And if you want to check out a few more different alphabets, this page should get you started.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, and artist who makes things up as she goes along.

Mind Over Chatter: On the Road to Minneapolis

Minneapolis has an incredible resource called the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. It teaches book structure, printing, marbling, and other book arts skills. And best of all, I’ll be there on the weekend of May 18 and 19, teaching Mind Over Chatter: Confronting Your Inner Critic Through Deep Writing and Mixed Media Journaling.  There is also a round-table discussion on Inner Critics on May 17 (Friday) evening.

Loose leaf journal page: gilded, dried leaves, double-exposure film photograph, on painted and stained watercolor paper.

What will the participants do in two days? Deep writing and art journaling–a combination I love teaching because of the incredible results that come from giving yourself time to write what you feel.

Art journaling is often more about art and less about journaling. But deep writing as an intuitive and creative tool transforms your art journals into rich explorations instead of a collection of completed pages. Come explore and experiment with both writing and art techniques and then combine both on loose leaf journal pages. Students will make “Monsoon Papers” — a surface design technique that requires giving up control with astonishing results — and a folio for completed pages.

There will be a good deal of experimentation, and because the pages are loose-leaf, they can be re-worked and then selected and sequenced in various orders with different results.

Folder for loose-leaf journal pages. Monsoon papers, stitched.

I don’t teach often in the Midwest, and I’m already looking forward to meeting book contributor T.J. Goerlitz, whose enthusiasm for the Center made the connection for me. What a find! (Both TJ and the Book Arts Center).

You can register on this page, scroll down as the workshops are listed by date, and May 18-19 is closer to the bottom than the top.

There is early-bird pricing and joining the Center will give you a break in the price as well.

I’m so excited about this class.Deep writing, Monsoon Papers and loose-leaf journal pages all in two days–explore your journey, art journaling, and discover yourself in deep writing. I hope to see you in May in Minneapolis!

–Quinn McDonald will be doing a lot of traveling starting in May. There will be more announcements as the workshops develop.

Art Journaling Ideas

This gallery contains 5 photos.

Yes, I was supposed to finish my taxes, no I didn’t . Instead, I spent a lot of time in the studio, working on art journal pages. Splash Inks are really very interesting. There are just four of them: cyan, … Continue reading →

Quinn’s Ink Technique

This gallery contains 1 photos.

For the last four years or so, starting with Monsoon Papers, I’ve been working with ink, using it instead of paint. Then I developed this fun ink drop technique for backgrounds for found poetry or as part of a collage. … Continue reading →

Hearing Nicer Voices

Yesterday, I started a story about the negative chatter we all have in our head. Mine was running my life. It was negating what I was learning from books. When I was reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, I loved it. But afterwards, my negative self talk made me think the books was useless and being cynical was clever. Here, then, is what happened next. . .

Getting rid of negative chatter. . .
Once I started to meditate, I began to want the negative self-talk to stop. A friend suggested I replace the negative chatter with positive thoughts. Affirmations? Me? Impossible. Not me. I forced myself. “I am a creative person.” “I am good at problem solving.” “I am strong.” “I am talented.” At first, it seemed ridiculous, selfish, vain. Then I noticed that I WAS a good problem solver. People were asking me to help them with their problems.

Visualizing the Internet from Opte.org

. . . opens the door to powerful change
Something else happened. I began to lose the negativity I thought was part of me. I quit doing something I had always done well—using my wit to criticize others. . I stopped telling people why their idea wouldn’t work. I didn’t like the protection my public face gave me anymore. I wanted my life to contribute, not denigrate. I wasn’t quite ready to be vulnerable, but I was heading there.

Visualize change, create change
Using the same technique I used for meditation, hushing my mind, I began to imagine situations that seemed hard to me. Speaking to people. Explaining what I do. In my imagination, the people smiled at me. They were happy with what they heard. I had something useful to say. The more positive things I imagined, the more positive things I noticed when I was in training sessions or at art shows.

The next October, on a cool but sunny day, I recognized myself standing at an art show, laughing with some other artists. I was happy. It was exactly what I had envisioned in the leadership course from three years before.

Change isn’t instant, but it gets easier
Visualization works because you focus on what you can do to influence the outcome positively. And once you’ve envisioned something, you begin to work on making it happen. To make it happen, we push away the negative, and choose to replace it with positive thoughts and actions. The choices are sometimes hard, but they are fueled with small successes and moments of joy. Change does not happen in a day, or a week, but it grows with each decision you make to make a positive choice instead of a negative one.

The Alchemist returns
Eventually, I bought another copy of The Alchemist by Paul Coelho. It seemed to be a new book this time. Filled with deep truth in simple terms.

“The old man leafed through the book, and fell to reading a page he came to. The boy waited, and then interrupted the old man just as he himself had been interrupted. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because you are trying to realize your Personal Legend. And you are at the point where you’re about to give it all up.”
“And that’s when you always appear on the scene?”
“Not always in this way, but I always appear in one form or another. Sometimes I appear in the form of a solution, or a good idea. At other times, at a crucial moment, I make it easier for things to happen. There are other things I do, too, but most of the time, people don’t realize I’ve done them.” (p.25)

I finished reading the book and purchased 10 copies, which I’ve given away to people who want to transition into a different stage of their life. The negative self-talk will always be with you, but as a friend of mine says, “it’s always with me on the way to a show, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let it drive.”

–If you don’t want to tackle learning how to meditate, you can start with daydreaming. It’s easy and you get great results. Don’t focus on any one thing, let your mind drift. But if your mind drifts on negative thoughts, give it something to solve or a creative challenge.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer. She’s pushing hard on Chapter 6 of the Inner Hero book.