The Next Book

On Friday, I heard from North Light Books (a division of F+W Media) , the publisher of my book, Raw Art Journaling: Making Meaning, Making Art, with the good news. My book proposal was accepted and I’ll be writing another book!

Yes, I am excited beyond belief!

What’s the book about? The inner critic and you. Most of us face the inner critic, and know the constant message of lack and attack: “You aren’t good enough,” “You don’t know enough,” and “Other people will take what you have.” That inner critic.

Most people talk about ignoring the inner critic, throwing him/her out of the studio, or ignoring all the demolishing talk.

After doing a lot of research, I thought there might be a better way to deal with the draining emotions, the disappointment, the self-doubt.

If you have an inner critic, you also have inner strengths--maybe you are a great problem solver, or you can pull good ideas out of a hat like a magician pulls scarves. Maybe you have sharp critical thinking skills or can find your way out of your mental maze. All those strengths can be used to confront your inner critic.

Each one of those skills belongs to one of your inner heroes–and each one of us has different heroes. We don’t often use them, because we struggle so hard to get rid of the critic. Or distract, evade, or ignore the critic. No more.

Here’s a question to see if you access your inner hero: You take a test. You get a 98 percent. You immediately check to see what you got wrong, rather than spend a few seconds enjoying how many you got right. That’s you, feeding the ego of the inner critic.

The book will help you finding that inner hero who can confront the inner critic. And you are going to use intuitive art and deep writing skills to get there. The book will show you how. With lots of different techniques.

There are writing techniques and art techniques. None of them require special skills–that’s why it’s a how-to book. You already have enough and know enough–but the book will make it interesting to talk to your inner critic seriously.

I’ve been teaching classes already, and I’ll be teaching more classes, looking for your techniques and your art for the book. And yes, I’ll come teach your group if you want me to. Find between five and ten people, and we can probably make it work out. I’ll also be posting upcoming classes in a few days.

The working title? The Inner Hero Art Journal: Mixed Media Messages to Your Inner Critic. I hope you’ll join me in developing and trying out the book. Either in classes or here on the blog.

–Quinn McDonald is now officially working on her next book!

Combining Websites

It’s finally complete–I’ve merged my two websites into one, using my company name, QuinnCreative. The former Raw Art Journaling forwards viewers to the new site. There were practical reasons to do it–keeping up two websites and a blog didn’t make much sense anymore. And while I love having the website just for the book, it quickly became my art site, leaving the business site static, never a good thing for any website.

A few interesting changes about the new website:

–It’s totally green. Not the color, but the impact. All the servers used to create and run the website are 100 percent wind powered. Not such a big deal, but small contributions add up.

–The slider on the front page highlights the different divisions of QuinnCreative. It’s hard to explain to people that I both write and deliver training programs and do raw art journaling. Having a moving slide show does a good job of it–and you can click on the text box (or the dot below the slider images) to stop the movement and read the whole box.

–The book page links to the amazon site for the book, but also has a link for a Flickr Group so people can post their own raw art journaling examples. I thought that added a nice touch. Eventually, I’ll sell signed copies of the book on that page, too.

–Events, Workshops and Tutorials are not separate header tabs. They are grouped under What’s New and appear on every page of the website.  Putting them on every page makes them easy to find.

–Jen Wolfe of Wolfe Creative did the design work and WebWorksandDesign is the host. In addition to the green site, I like the prices for hosting. Without the separate price for the web-design tool, I save a good deal of money.

I hope you take a peek at the new site and enjoy it. I’m sure there are some hidden typos and errors there, but I’m pleased with the new design and the slimmed-down look.

QuinnCreative: Changes Coming in July

Usually when I say “changes” people cringe. I’m going to do something different. It may be hard. What if you hate the change? Upcoming changes will make sense to you, because they are, well, sensible.

1. One website. When I began to write the book, I opened a website, RawArtJournaling.com to talk about he book. Then I moved all the creative work over to that site. I had a business website, QuinnCreative.com which covered my training, writing, business coaching. The time has come to combine the websites.

2. What are you going to call it? My business name is QuinnCreative. My one site will be at QuinnCreative.com (There’s no link now, so I can put in the new link when the site debuts).

3. Are you designing it? No. I’m not an expert in web design, so I hired Jen Wolfe, who created my logo, is designing the site. Target date for the new site to open is July 15.

4. One person, one site. For a long time, I thought my business clients would run if they knew I was an artist. Turns out, I show up as a creative all the time, and the clients who appreciate creativity want to bring that part to their business as well.  The clients who don’t want a creative approach discover my type withing two minutes of talking. If they don’t want a creative approach, they will be unhappy working with me.

5. Say goodbye to the newsletter. For years, I’ve had a newsletter. With social media taking the place of newsletters, I’m depending more and more on my blog, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to keep in touch. With the book coming out, I need more time to concentrate on creative work. I want to develop more classes, both online and in person. That requires time, and a way to get back some of that time, is to discontinue the newsletter. I’d suggest subscribing to the blog, either via RSS feed or email.  There will also be a “what’s new” page on my website, allowing you to check in and see updates. More convenient all the way around.

6. Coaching prices are going up, and two gifts. As a gift to current clients, I will keep my coaching prices where they are for now. Coaching prices for new clients will rise (to $350 for 3 sessions a month and $150 for a one-time occasional coach) when the new website opens.

Second gift: To celebrate change, I will hold the old prices ($275 for 3X a month and $100 for a one-time occasional coach) until the end of July for anyone who mentions the blog. The old prices will stay in effect until the end of 2011 for anyone who begins coaching by the end of July.

I hope to see many of you at the new website as well as continuing on with me here. This blog will not move. It’s been here for almost five years and 1,500 blog posts, and it will stay right here.

Creative Play: Theme Thursday 5/14/09

Thursdays are good play days. Especially creative play. So here is a round-up of ideas, how-tos, and other creative play.

I’ve started QuinnCreative’s end of the 1001 Journals Project. I’ve registered four red journals, and they are starting to circulate. Themes are:

• Travel (real and imagined)
• Dreams (Daydreams count)
• Summer in Phoenix
• Unthemed for people who have their own ideas.

I’ll be posting who has the journals and updates of where they are as well as images. A full first posting will be up on this blog on Monday, May 18. Yes, you can participate.

Wonder how all that color gets swirled onto shibori silk? Sue Bleiweiss demos on this video. Watch, and you’ll want to do it, too. Best of all, at the end, you see the finished product. Nice touch!

I often wonder how other people do raw art, or doodling. Is it planned? Here’s an interesting step-by-step from Joyfuldia.

Nell Greenfieldboyce is a constant doodler; she says it helps her concentrate. She’s a science report for NPR, and this video shows her doing some fast abstract work. You’ll have to click on the blue/white/black video on the left side, halfway down the page. It won’t let me copy it. Which is fine, because then you can read “Oodles of Doodles” on the same page, it discusses the benefits of doodling.

Modern Gypsy has a great art journal, the link goes to a page of type and navigation tips. If you are in a hurry, just click the butterfly on the bottom right corner.

Gustav Klimt was a dreaming raw-art painter. I love looking at his work for a long time, seeing the colors first, the shapes next, the whole effect washing over me. Here is the picture of the month, but I prefer the whole gallery, where you can choose to enlarge images.

Pete’s Pond is in Botswana, Africa. You can be there, too, and watch what’s happening at the pond day and night. You can see interesting things at night, too. The camera zooms in, centers zebras, owls, and occasional food-chain incidents.

If you enjoyed these, and missed last week’s, enjoy it, too.

Enjoy!

One-Sentence Journaling

Keeping a journal is a way to provide a map of your journey. It can be as private as you want it to be–from a public blog to a journal kept in a locked box.

Handmade journals, (c) Quinn McDonald

Journal writing is not complicated. While I know journalers who prefer to keep detailed accounts of book plots, movie summaries, menus and restaurant reviews, I also know journalers who keep a bare-bones journal. A few details of the day, and they are done.

Some years ago, I introduced a new journaling experience– a course called “Once Sentence Journaling.” It was meant for busy people, those who collapsed into bed each night, with no hope of creating a deep interior dialogue with themselves.

Interestingly enough, other people came to the workshops, too. Poets who wanted to encapsulate worlds of emotions into a few words, parents who wanted to slow down the race of childhood, people who thought they couldn’t write. The classes filled up with people who had no time, people who never kept a journal, but thought this sounded easy enough, people who had a dozen journals, but never filled any of them.

The classes grew and the content changed constantly. I now teach the class in person, online, and in phone-in workshops. Every time I teach it, the mix of students changes, and we discover new exercises, new words, and new sentences.

Because one-sentence journaling is a door to experiencing your life in small pieces and making meaning of it.

Follow Quinn on Twitter.

–-Quinn McDonald teaches a variety of journaling courses, including one-sentence journaling, journaling for perfectionists, and wabi sabi journaling. For more information, contact Quinn at

Wabi Sabi Journaling in Tempe, AZ

March 12: Wabi Sabi Journaling In-Person at

Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, AZ

Wabi sabi, a Japanese aesthetic, honors the old, the incomplete and the unfinished. It’s an interesting topic for journal writing, because a study of the aesthetic leads to choosing the real over the artificial; simple over fussy; handmade over mass produced.

I’m running a seminar at Changing Hands this Wednesday, March 12, 2008. You’ll get an idea of what creativity coaching looks like as well as learn more about Wabi Sabi. Bring a journal for maximum fun.

It should be an interesting evening at Changing Hands bookstore in Tempe, at the Southwest corner of McClintock and Guadalupe. The class runs from 6:30 pm to 8:30pm. Bring a journal! The class is $20 and you can register, by calling the store at 480-730-0205.

Art on a Budget (tutorial)

This gallery contains 3 photos.

A few days ago, I spent $50 on art supplies so I could get back to making art. I discovered that the only paper I had was my journal, so that meant small format art. I also discovered that I … Continue reading →

Welcome to QuinnCreative’s Blog!

I’m Quinn McDonald, and I spend my time as an artist, helping other artists as a certified creativity coach. In case you need a trainer or speaker, I do that, too. And I’m a writer, as well.

The latest additions to the blog are listed on the right under Recent Posts. You can also search under Categories, on the left. And the most-often read posts are there, under Most Often Read. There’s a calendar on the right, and you can click on dates to go to the post for that day. The tag cloud on the right shows the categories of the posts. The bigger the category word, the more posts in that category.

If you’d like to comment, feel free. I welcome comments of all sorts, whether you agree with me or not. The only comments that get removed are hate messages or spam.

You can check out my website for the schedules of my art classes, journal-writing classes, topics of my seminars, and free tutorials. If you want to contact me, you can reach me at QuinnCreative [at] yahoo [dot] com.

This is the only post under the Home category, so go on and browse the rest of the site, and enjoy!