Journalfest Explored

For the last three days, I have been in classes at Journalfest in Port Townsend, WA. It was a memorable experience for many reasons, but the one I wanted to point to, before I collapse into bed, exhausted, is the benefit of risking. It’s hard to stay open and curious in a class full of talented artists. The normal inclination is to compete and do the “right” thing–to use the talent you have to create what you know how to do. In all of my classes, I chose instead to risk making mistakes, to risk people laughing at my work, to risk not liking what I created. It’s hard.

Gesso, watercolor, collage, conte crayon, charcoal risk. Result? Truth.

In one class, I was asked to use a conté crayon to sketch a frog puppet. On the paper I was using, the stick felt scratchy and dry, unpleasant. But I risked and sketched the frog. I didn’t like the result, either. It was the wrong proportion, the wrong shape, just wrong.I could have torn out the page and started over. Nope, I pressed ahead. Risking.

In the next section of the class, we learned how to work with an unsuccessful image. I obliterated all but the eyes of the frog. The technique was good, but I didn’t like the result. I rotated the page, and the image shifted dramatically. I continued working on the technique, feeling ahead blindly, not knowing what would happen. Big risk.

Three techniques later, I had created an imaginary creature–part koi, part salamander, part dragon and part . . .fun. In the process I had made choices, abandoned dead-end paths, made peace with bad decisions, accepted the simple force of putting hand to paper. In the end,  I liked the creature. Not for its realism (there is none) but because I could like a figment of my imagination that was neither perfect nor real. Most of us fail at drawing because we put an object in front of us and draw it. Ahhh, certain failure. The two-dimensional rendering will never look just like the three-dimensional object. So we hate ourselves, then say we can’t draw, then quit doing art.

Instead, I started from a place of not knowing, reached into what appeared on the page, and imagination, created the unknown. In that case, the result could not be wrong or imperfect. The drawing defines itself. I like the result, not because I think it’s beautiful, but because I think it is true. I recognize my own truth revealed in it. And that is the heart and soul of art.

--Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach.

Raw Art Journals launch

For years, I’ve been playing with the idea that everyone can draw. Maybe not a perfect portrait or a watercolor, but draw something meaningful. I’m not an illustrator, either, but put me in a meeting and I’ll fill up the page with symbols and doodles. In fact, when I take notes, I use a lot of symbols.

Raw-art-journals is the website I developed for those who can’t draw, but would like to keep an art journal.

The Idea (c) Quinn McDonald, 2009

Well, now there’s an idea. Suppose you could develop symbols that were meaningful to you? Suppose that you could use existing symbols–including numbers and letters–and create interesting pages in your journal? Well, you can.

Those symbols, doodles, sketches and abstract art pieces in your journal is raw art journaling. The ideas are yours, and you don’t need anything fancy to create it. A pencil or pen, eraser, and good paper, and you’re off!

The one on the left is my idea or raw art journaling. It combines an exclamation mark, a lightbub shape (for the idea) and a plant (made out of journal pages), and you have my symbol for a raw art journal.

I’m a word person, so I add words to a lot of my designs. In the one below, it says, “Writing helps me untangle my thoughts–or learn to love them all tangled.” One sentence journaling at its

Untangled (c) Quinn McDonald

best–and a fun way to express myself. Sure, you could do it in colored pencil, and I have done that, too.

Stop by and start your raw art journal, too!

–-Quinn McDonald is a writer and creativity coach. She’s going to have workshops on raw art journals, too.

Her other website, Raw-Art-Journals, is about her art life. Follow Quinn on Twitter.

The Lie Behind “I Can’t Draw”

The “I Can’t Draw” Fallacy.
If you are an adult, and someone asks if you can draw,  you most likely would answer:  “I can’t draw a stick figure or a straight line.” You have believed this since you were seven or eight.  Ask a five-year old to draw anything, from the people that live in the moon to the Battle of Gettysburg, and the child will set about with crayons and enthusiasm.

Light up your imagination

The enthusiastic child doesn’t have extraordinary talent. What that child has is a lack of fear. The assignment sounds like fun, a challenge to their imagination. The same challenge, to your ears, sounds like an uncovering of everything you don’t know about the topic.

In fact, if you spent 10 days with the right teacher, you would “remember” how to draw. But you had that knowledge taken away from you at just the time you were most creative.

Get back that lost skill, and get rid of that fear. In January, I’m starting a class for visual journaling that will let you keep the journal you always wanted–with colorful drawings and symbols. You don’t have to know how to draw anything. You don’t need a single talented bone in your body.  All you have to have is the desire to keep a visual journal an a sense of fun and wonder.

You’ll discover the world of ideaglyphs–symbols and designs of your own invention that will delight you and spark your creativity and imagination.

To read about the class, which will be  held online and start on January 6, 2009, and continue on January 11 and 15, see the second column of my December 15 newsletter. There’s a link to send me an email if you have questions.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and creativity coach. She runs workshops in visual journaling.