Hello and welcome! I'm so HAPPY that you've decided to come and visit my site! :0) I hope you find what you're looking for here! I offer online art classes, art for sale and you can find my in-person workshop schedule here too! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me on willowing.arts {at} gmail.com - Big hugs!
Hey wonderful creative friends, here a little blog post about creating a (Tam) Dreamboardthat helps you manifest your dreams and call into your life what you want more of. My version of the dream board is a bit different from the more traditional one (where you mostly and only cut out collage pieces and glue them together onto a board). By contrast I like including my own face, paint, collage, doodles, affirmations and quotes too!! :)
This is one of my favourite type of paintings to create. Whenever I create a painting like this I go into a ‘zone’ of gentle, soothing self care. As I paint & decorate my face, surrounding myself with affirming imagery and words, it’s like I lovingly caress and care for myself.
In this particular painting I first do an acrylics transfer of an image of my face, I then collage the background and layer over/ paint my face and background, adding imagery and positive affirmations + words & quotes that help soothe/ affirm me and call in the things I want to manifest. It’s a healing, sacred process, really. :)
My February lesson for Life Book 2017 has just been ‘aired’. I demonstrate in depth how I create the Dreamboard painting below. People are already loving it and sharing their beautiful versions of the painting! If you want to join Life Book 2017, you still can and you’ll get access to all previously posted content. Hope to see you there!
Hi Guys! Welcome to a series we run on the blog called: Tea & Cake with Gracie :) My awesome friend and colleague Gracie Howle interviews inspiring artists and posts the interviews (including some free offers not published elsewhere before) here on the blog every 2 months or so. I love to create art and bring amazing artists & people together in my classes, in person and on social media. As part of this drive, I want to help bring more exposure to some of the amazing artists out there! Today Gracie’s interviewing the awesome Melissa Dinwiddie. Make sure you check out Melissa’s giveaway, free video tutorial and gifts for you below! Tam xoxo
Hi awesome readers of Tam’s blog, Gracie here! :) I got to interview the lovely, multi-talented Melissa Dinwiddie AND she gave us a copy of her fab book, The Creative Sandbox Way: Your Path to a Full-Color Life, to giveaway to one lucky reader! :D PLUS she made us a free video art tutorial too! Check out all her gifts and interview below. Enjoy! :)
1. Welcome Melissa! Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.
I’m an artist, author, and speaker, but really what I am is a creativity instigator. My mission on the planet is to get people creating. You could call me a teacher, and I’ve taught art and calligraphy (and many other things, too) for years, but the bulk of what I teach now is not so much art techniques, but rather how to shed the “skins” that are no longer useful.
My superpower lies in helping people to reclaim their innate entitlement to creative play.
Here’s an example: Have you ever signed up for a course that you were super excited about, but then you never participated, or didn’t participate as much as you’d hoped, because everyone else’s work was so amazing that you just felt like crawling into a hole? The voices in your head said you weren’t good enough, you’re not really an artist, you can’t do it, and then you beat yourself up because you spent all that money, and you didn’t do anything with it? That’s where I come in. The people who come to me after that kind of experience emerge from our work transformed, creating every day, making more art than they ever thought possible, and loving it. In short, I help people transform their relationship with their creativity from one of angst and pain to one of joy and ease.
We have a copy of Melissa’s book, ‘The Creative Sandbox Way: Your Path to a Full-Color Life’, to giveaway to one lucky reader!
Here’s a bit about the book from Melissa:
‘Filled with paradigm-shifting lessons and stories, journal questions, thought-provoking creative prompts, and coloring pages, The Creative Sandbox Way offers 10 “guideposts” and “creative invitations” with each guidepost that will help you take the fear out of creating and bring back the joy.’
Thank you to everyone for joining in the giveaway and for your comments! The randomly drawn winner is:
Marsha Gulick
who said:
Congratulations Marsha! :)
Take a look at Melissa’s (brand new and just for us!) art vid: ‘Every Woman Is Exceptional – Altered Book – Book Poetry’ (note the singing and music in the video – it’s Melissa!):
(Click the ‘play button’ to watch this video or click on the review link here: Review Link)
Melissa’s also gifting the first 50 pages of her book: The Creative Sandbox Way, plus a printable download of her “5 Reminders” poster. Claim your gifts by clicking on the image below or clicking here: http://melissadinwiddie.com/willowing
Learn more about Melissa by reading the following interview:
2. You say: ‘You can’t just paint over the grey. A full-color life is colored from the inside, by paying attention to your true hungers and feeding them well‘. I love that! I can see how you live by that; you have many different outlets for your creativity (visual art, writing, music, theatre, podcasts, (public) speaking about creativity -wowsa! Did I miss anything out?!). Can you tell us which you are drawn to the most, or the most often, and why?
Visual art seems to be a consistent anchor for me, but as a passion pluralite (AKA a multipassionate, Renaissance soul, multipotentialite, etc.) I’m always loathe to pick a favorite anything. For a long time I wished I could pick a favorite, because oh, how I wished I could just stick with one and become “The Best” at something. But I’m simply not wired that way — I get bored! It took me into my 30s to finally figure out that I do get to do everything, just not all at the same time.
It was then that I landed on what I now call my Stovetop Model of Life Design. You know how we talk about putting something on the back burner? Well, my Stovetop Model takes this metaphor to the next level. It’s based on your typical, old-fashioned, four burner stovetop, because I’ve figured out that I can have about four “areas of adoration” simmering in metaphorical pots on my passion pluralite stovetop at any given time. Fewer than that and I start to get bored (your mileage may vary!) Any more than that and things start to get too crazy.
Think about it: even the most skilled chef wouldn’t be able to keep track of 100 pots cooking all at the same time! Even twenty would be too many. Four, though, that’s manageable. Maybe one of your pots is your family, and one is your business. Maybe one is your visual art, and one is Argentine Tango, which you’ve gotten really passionate about lately. It’s up to you. Or if you’re a new mom, maybe your new baby takes up three pots for now, until she’s grown up a bit. If you’re writing a book, as I just did at the end of last year, the book might take up two or three pots until it’s done.
Now here’s the beautiful part: the burners never move, but you can rotate pots at will, and you can adjust the flame — the amount of energy you give to the pots on each burner! The front, right burner, that’s the “hi-speed” burner, which cooks hotter than the rest, so when you’re really focused, right now, in the moment, guess where the pot is sitting? The front, right burner. The rest of the pots can simmer, and get a stir here and there, but your main focus is on that pot on the front, right burner, because in the moment, we can really only focus on one thing at a time.
Plus, here’s the other really beautiful part of this metaphor: not only can you move pots around on the stove, but you can take pots off the stove and swap them out for other pots that might be waiting in the fridge or the deep freeze. You can even whip up brand new pots from ingredients in your cupboard or in the grocery store! It’s an infinitely flexible metaphor that allows for passion pluralites like me to indulge our multiple passions, without feeling like we’re abandoning any of them forever, while still making space to focus. And it keeps us from overcommitting and stalling out from trying to take on too much at one time.
3. In your words you ‘lived a very grey life for decades at a time. It took (you) a long time to embrace the labels “Creative” and “Artist” … (you) figured out how to get past the struggle and on with the joy’. Can you tell us a bit about this, how you came out of the grey?
The first time I came out of the grey was the summer after I’d gotten married to my first husband. I’d recently completed a masters degree, and also recently decided not to pursue the academic career path I’d been on, so I felt pretty lost. I spent the summer after the wedding “trying” to be a writer, but I was so paralyzed by perfectionism that I barely wrote a thing.
And here’s an irony: I actually started doing arts and crafts as a form of procrastination! I hadn’t really created with my hands since I was a child, and I had forgotten how much fun it was. Coming back to this kind of creative expression was profoundly liberating, and it truly did feel like I’d suddenly discovered the color saturation knob on my life.
Of course, I was also filled with deep insecurity — I wasn’t a real artist! I hadn’t gone to art school! Who did I think I was? But thankfully I didn’t let my fears stop me. In fact, I ultimately turned my love of creating into full-fledged business as a calligrapher and ketubah artist (a ketubah is a Jewish marriage contract, a traditional part of every Jewish wedding ceremony). For a dozen years or so I made my living as a professional artist and teacher, but over time, there was so much pressure on my art to make money that I stopped making art for me.
Which leads us to the second time I came out of the grey, back in 2010, and my answer to your next question…
4. Can you tell us about your ‘Creative Sandbox‘ and how that started?
I’d been growing increasingly burned out on my art business, which by this point had become “just a job.” And meanwhile the U.S. economy had tanked, and my business had taken a nose dive. For a couple of years I “threw money at the problem,” trying to revive my ketubah business to its former glory, but I really only succeeded in driving myself into debt.
Then I lost a big sale, and my boyfriend betrayed me, all in the same two-week period. It was as if the Universe had walloped me upside the head with a 2×4.
I realized something had to change, and a big part of that was that I needed to get back to creating for joy, not just for money.
I was so mired in perfectionist paralysis, though, that I literally had to develop a set of “rules” for myself, in order to let go of the perfectionism learn how to play again! I needed to think like a small child playing in a sandbox, which is how the metaphor of a Creative Sandbox came about, and the “rules” I developed eventually evolved into the 10 Guideposts that I write about in my book, The Creative Sandbox Way.
Now I run an online community for women creators called the Creative Sandbox, where we practice these Creative Sandbox principles and support each other in living them daily. We share our creations, our challenges, and our successes, in an online forum, and I host live group calls twice a month so we can get together in real time, almost like open office hours around the coffee table in my living room. We also have monthly Studio Work Days, where we meet up in real time to get stuff done together, and ArtShares, where members gather to share what they’ve been creating, and share creative tools and resources. There’s an archive of art tutorials, interviews with creatives, and even business and marketing lessons for artists, in the membership site, but all the members say the real value is in the community. The heart connections and the support in the group is amazing, and the live calls I do are absolutely my favorite part of my job. I always leave feeling so energized!
5. Guide us through your usual work day and what it looks like.
Ha! Usual work day? There really is no usual work day! That said, I do try to maintain a morning routine, which evolves over time, but currently looks something like this:
Gentle spinal twist stretches in bed – about 10 minutes
Drink two big glasses of water
Meditate – 10 minutes
Journal in bed, including plotting out my priorities for the day – 10-20 minutes
Doodle in bed – 10-20 minutes
Intense stretches on the floor – 15 minutes
Feed cat, eat breakfast, make tea
From there, I typically hop on my computer and tackle my daily priorities. I have a standing desk, with a cheap little treadmill that my husband hacked for me to sit underneath it, so I can walk while I type. I average about 90 minutes of walking a day, which helps me not to feel so guilty if I don’t get a workout in!
I generally aim to keep my mornings free for creative work, which can include strategizing, writing, speech writing, podcast recording, art, and music. Afternoons are generally for phone calls, appointments, and administrative tasks. It should be noted that all of the above is the target I aim for, not necessarily what I achieve on a regular basis. I used to feel badly about myself when I would miss the mark, but I’ve learned to forgive myself for being human, and I now find it useful to have something to aim for, even if I don’t always hit the bullseye.
Also, while I don’t have a typical day, I’ve been working on a “block” scheduling my week, so that certain days — or chunks of days — are dedicated to specific tasks, or types of tasks. For example, some people I know take all their client calls on Mondays only. So far, however, except for Tuesdays as podcast creation days (which is fairly consistent, because my podcast goes live at 6:00 AM every Wednesday), this is definitely a work in progress for me.
Like everything else in life, I expect my schedule, and my relationship to it, to evolve as I do.
Follow the links below to find more about Melissa! :) Thanks for being here :) See you for Tea and Cake next time! Love Gracie x
Hello lovely people! Gracie here from Willowing – hello! :)
I’m super excited and proud to present our Artist Spotlight of the month (it’s a new type of feature we are running on the blog!)
We are featuring the one and only Carla Sonheim with a bit of an interview and she’s also giving away THREE spots on her BRAND NEW Year Long Course: 365 Activate Your Art Brain. How exciting is that!?!
Carla has been a wonderful contributor and teacher on Life Book and Ever After, and we here at Willowing are thrilled to be able to giveaway THREE spots on her FAB new course 365: Activate Your Art Brain (a Video Every Day), which is $198 US Dollar’s worth of awesome online class yumminess! The course started on 1st January 2017 and runs for the year, but you can still join throughout the year.
Here’s what Carla says:
…(it’s a) ‘Choose Your Own Adventure class… you can try to do the prompts daily, you can pick and choose the ones that speak to you, or you can simply work the class on more of a “thinking level” in those times of the year when you get really busy!‘
Giveaway Winners Announced – yayyy!
Thank you to everyone for your lovely comments and for joining the giveaway! The Giveaway is now closed and the 3 (randomly drawn) winners are:
1. Violet Davenport2. Jennifer Johnson Richey3. Jennie
Congratulations guys! :)
Find out more about the lovely Carla Sonheim:
1. Tell us a bit about yourself Carla and what you do.
First and most important, I am a mother of two and grandmother of three! I also love to draw and paint, and for the past six years my husband, Steve, and I have been producing online art classes via “Carla Sonheim Presents.”
In April 2010 I offered my first online class, a pdf worksheet-based class called “The Art of Silliness.” I launched it hoping to get people interested in my book, “Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists,” which came out a few months later.
The online class format was a great fit and so year laterSteve joined in with his video and business expertise and eventually we began adding other artist-teachers, including Diane Culhane, Lynn Whipple, Cat Bennett, Karine Swenson, Fred Lisaius, and Dar Hosta James, with classes in drawing, painting and mixed-media.
Each year I do an intensive year-long art/creativiy class, which keeps me busy! This is my fifth year; the previous four years were “2013: Year of the Giraffe,” “2014: Year of the Fairy Tale,” “2015 “Year of the Spark” (co-taught with Lynn Whipple), and “2016: Y is for Yellow.”
Our 2017 class is our most ambitious yet, and is really a collaboration with my husband and many other artists: “365: Activate Your Art Brain (A Video Every Day).”
We live/work in a studio in downtown Seattle.
2. On your site you talk about how your classes take on a ‘serious and silly’ approach to help students move through the nervousness of drawing and creating (LOVE this – it sounds so FUN!!). You say:
‘…when I began teaching adults…I found that many people felt nervous about drawing… “serious and silly” approach sums up what we do with our online classes…‘
You’ve even written books with your ‘serious and silly’ theme woven in (The Art of Silliness and 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun). Can you tell us a little about how you make your classes ‘serious and silly’ and maybe give us some examples?
I think I will answer this with a story: My youngest son, Wes, was very precocious when he was young and would get actually get indignant if I tried to read him books that sounded “simple.” For example, he wanted me to read him the REAL Bible or the ACTUAL Grimm’s Fairy Tale (not the children’s book versions).
When he was six I started teaching art in his 1st grade classroom as a volunteer, and by this time Wes had trained me not to “dumb things down” just because he was a kid.
But of course, the assignments needed to be FUN, because keeping 20 kids interested can be hard without the fun-factor!
So I took real drawing exercises — blind contours, contour drawings, observational drawing exercises — and made them as fun as I could. I had the kids bring in toys and stuffed animals to draw, or I had them draw a detail of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel with the paper taped under the desks. I found that the students were far more interested in drawing their own cars than they were a random group of fruit, for example… they were connected to their subjects on a much deeper level, which then produced better drawings!
I started teaching adults a few years later and found out very quickly that there was a lot of pain and shame around drawing… so I tried presenting the material in the same way I had to my group of 1st graders. We drew silly things (like stuffed animals) in a serious way: blind contours, contours, charcoal with shading etc. In addition, we drew serious things in “silly ways: portraits of our neighbors with our non-dominant hands, for example. What we found was that even though the resultant drawings might not be technically perfect, they had much more CHARM because they had been born from a place of fun and silliness rather than from a place of “should,s”
By the end of a 3-hour or 6-hour class, people were surprising themselves with how “good” they actually were at drawing and never knew it! In addition, they embraced the wonkiness of other drawings as “better” than anything they thought they wanted to do in the beginning.
So that is how I try to keep all of my classes, whether it is drawing, watercolor, or mixed-media: we draw serious things in silly ways and silly things in serious ways. We keep it fun for ourselves, which keeps us engaged in the process, which results in a better and more fulfilling experience (and the drawings are better too!).
Thank you, Gracie, that is nice of you to say! This series was what came out of me during my 2016 year-long class, “Y is for Yellow.” I had planned to do a series of children’s book” illustrations, but for some reason I kept coming back to the clouds and rain. :D
I had a pretty hard year emotionally for various reasons, and I do live in Seattle, Washington, so I think the clouds and rain were resultant of both of these things! I love that art is always a reflection of our lives, despite our own plans. ;)
They are made with watercolor (scraped down with a credit card), and collaged clouds.
Carla Sonheim Presents launches “2017: A Year-Long Online Class”.
A video every day to activate your art brain 365 days a year.
Inspiration, Prompts, Techniques, Ideas, Community
Begins January 1, 2017!
Carla Sonheim Presents, a ground breaking Seattle-based online art business is launching their latest year-long class for 2017. Called “365 A Year-Long Class”, the program promises to activate your art brain with a video every day that inspires, prompts, teaches techniques, introduces new ideas and builds an online community for artists of all ages and abilities. Class begins Sunday, January 1, 2017 and the cost is $198.00.
Watch the video here: http://carlasonheim.com/365-a-year-long-class/ to see Carla demonstrate techniques that will inspire you and your friends and bring a smile to your face. For only $198.00, class participants receive a video every day explaining that day’s assignment. They also join a private Facebook group where class participants are welcome to post their work. Carla and her team monitor the private Facebook group and provide encouragement, humor and advice.
Led by Carla Sonheim, an artist in her own right, and her talented videographer and business manager husband, Steve, Carla Sonheim Presents offers a variety of online art classes throughout the year. This year-long class is their annual signature event that new and returning students await with great anticipation.
Carla and Steve launched this business in 2011 and have built an adoring and loyal following in the United States and abroad. Their classes offer exceptional videography that enables students to fully understand the technique or approach being taught. Each class includes a private Facebook group to build community, share work and gain encouragement. A sense of humor and joyful approach to making art approachable is a cornerstone of their beliefs.
This is the first project we’ll do for Life Book 2017. I love it. It gives me hope and solace.
The title of the class is: “Journey with the Light” but I’ve affectionally come to call the girl; “Star Girl”. :) Stars speak to me, I love them a lot as most of you know. They appear in pretty much all of my work.
See the little basket by her side? In it are stars onto which we will write all we want to call in more of in the new year, the basket is a 3D basket in that it lifts up somewhat to put things into (like an accordion pocket).
These projects are always really meaningful to me. All the messages and symbols help me focus, set intentions, become more aware and mindful, slow down, unfurl, grow, develop and express myself creatively. It’s an act of pure kindness, listening and compassion towards myself.
I do this sort of art work, become softer towards myself, create more self awareness and connection and consequently I can be stronger and more available to others who need me. See by helping myself, by centring myself, I can be ‘better’ for the world. And that’s all I want: to have a better world. To have less suffering, to have a world with more compassion, love, connection and understanding. But to do that, I need to start with me. Can’t do it with me? Can’t do it with others.
And this is the deepest motivation of my work. :)
It can also just be about making pretty art of course, it isn’t only deep and meaningful. haha! :) But yes, a lot of what I do is to alleviate suffering, my own and the world’s.
Anyway, thought I’d share this with you guys.
Big hugs and hope to see you on Life Book. Join here.
Hey wonderful creative friends! A while back, the wonderful Gabrielle Javier-Cerulli invited me and some other amazing artists to be part of her book called: Art Journal Your Archetypes (check it out here: http://amzn.to/2hOVmpU). She asked us to provide 2 lessons for her book based on our own archetypes, after a long interesting chat with her, we decided that my main archetypes are: Comedian, Artist/ Creative, Queen, Teacher, Mother, Liberator and Engineer. My 2 lessons were inspired by the Mother and the Queen archetype. The image below is what I created for the Queen Archetype lesson and I just put a time lapsed version of the video up on youtube! Watch it here below! I recommend her book but ALSO: I recommend chatting with her F2F as a coach to find out your archetypes and listening to the resulting wisdom/ advice that comes from that discovery. :) <3
PS.
In case you haven’t joined yet: there are only 2 more weeks until
and starts handing out its wealth of creative MAGIC!! If you want to enjoy it all from the beginning and get your creative mojo going from the start, make sure to secure your spot on this fabulous year long course before the end of the year! (You can also ask Santa for a Life Book spot!)
Remember that you can get Life Book 2017 with a whopping 20% discount code!!!! Don’t lose out on snagging up this fantastic deal!
Over 52+ art lessons/ sessions for approx £1.50 per lesson, whaaat?! :D
Redeem your discounted course space by clicking here, use
You’ll learn so much! Have so much fun! Make many new friends! Grow personally and on and on it goes! :D We’ll play with paints, make colourful messes, express parts of our deeper selves and carve out the path to inner peace.
Almost 1700+ people have already joined (holy moly guacamole batman!)
Start the new year fresh and happy with a commitment to YOU. Carve out that bit of time each week to spend time with yourself, creating, having fun, connecting more deeply with yourself, growing, unfurling, SOARING. Time to invest in YOU dear friend. Don’t miss out. So many people tell us how enriching Life Book is to their lives! I hope you’ll join as well!
Let’s live the lives of artists!!
PPS.
Me and my crazy family wish you a HO HO HO
MERRY CHRISTMAS/ FANTASTIC FESTIVE SEASON
and a 2017 full of love, connection, beauty, kindness, joy, abundance, health and MAGIC! :)
Hi Guys! Welcome to a series we run on the blog called: Tea & Cake with Gracie :) My awesome friend and colleague Gracie Howle interviews inspiring artists and posts the interviews (including some free offers not published elsewhere before) here on the blog every 2 months or so. I love to create art and bring amazing artists & people together in my classes, in person and on social media. As part of this drive, I want to help bring more exposure to some of the amazing artists out there! Today Gracie’s interviewing the lovely Tascha Parkinson. Make sure you check out Tascha’s GIVEAWAY and free video tutorialbelow! Tam xoxo
Hello! Gracie here :) How are you? Are you busy prepping for the holiday season? Or ready to hibernate? However and where ever you are, how about you take a little time with me now to relax. Grab a cosy blanket and hot cuppa and read about this month’s inspiring artist the lovely Tascha Parkinson! Be sure to check out Tascha’s GIVEAWAY and free video art tutorial below too :)
1. Welcome Tascha! Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.
Hello! My name is Tascha Parkinson. I’m a Canadian aritst and illustrator living in downtown Toronto. I have been selling my art online since 2001. The dawn of self representing artist. I am inspired by my cat Lily and my love for all animals. I have been an animal rights activist since 2010. Animals are always a main focus in my paintings. My favorite media is acrylic paint on canvas. I like to experiment with mixed media and sculpture, but I always go back to painting. Thank you for joining me today!
One lucky reader will win a space on Tascha’s Modigliani Art Class! Wooo hoooo!! Here’s a little bit about the class from Tascha:
‘Modigliani’s style is so recognizable. It is loved the world over. I have painted many ladies in this style and I want to share my techniques with you. In this class we will try a few different medias all influenced by the lovely ladies of Modigliani. The video classes total 100 minutes of instruction to be watched at your leisure throughout the course.’
Thank you to everyone for your lovely comments and for joining the giveaway! The randomly drawn winner is:
Sylvia van Oorschot
who said:
Congratulations Sylvia! :)
Tascha’s also created for us a (not previously published before) art video: ‘Flying Angel‘:
(Click the ‘play button’ to watch this video or click on the review link here: Review Link)
Learn more about Tascha by reading the following interview:
2. You have alot of ‘Frida characters’ in your work. Can you tell us a bit about why that is?
I love Frida Kahlo! She was an artist in a time that the art scene was dominated by men. She is a true feminist. I love her strength. She is a role model for me as a woman and an artist. My paintings are celebrating Frida with joy and vibrant color.
3. You mention Modigliani as your favourite artist, you even run a ‘Modigliani class‘, can you tell us more about how and why he inspires you and your work?
I am in total admiration of Modigliani. He was one of my very first influences when I began to paint. I love the outlines he uses around the figures. He draws with his paint. I learned a lot from studying his work. He has a way of simplifying the figure that I found helpful in learning how to paint.
4. Your Art is very recognisable as yours, how do you think your personal style has evolved over time and what do you think helped do that?
I think that my color palette is a big part of what makes my art very recognizable. I have some favorite colors that seem to pop up in a lot of my paintings. Turquoise, red, pink, orange, lime green, beige. Those colors always make my eyes dance and make me feel good. There is a child like quality to my paintings that comes deep from my soul. I think that always shows through in each painting. I have painted thousands of paintings in my career. Yes, thousands! LOL! In that time you learn to paint like it is second nature. I am a firm believer in practicing your craft. Just keep painting every day. You will find your niche and fine tune your style over time.
5. Do you work on one piece at a time, or do you work on many pieces at once, and why?
I always work on one piece at a time. I lose myself in my art and am very focused when I paint. I dive in like it’s a pool and once I’m focusing on that one painting I don’t want to be distracted with anything else. I continue to paint that one painting until I am satisfied with the final result. There have been a few times where it doesn’t work out the way I had hoped. I will try to fix it, if after a couple of attempts it isn’t going well, I ditch that painting and start fresh on a new one.
Make sure you find more about Tascha by following the links below! :) Thanks for being here with me :) See you for Tea and Cake next time! Love Gracie x
Well, what a time we’re going through at the moment. I’m witnessing people both upset about and celebrating recent events. Emotions are running high in all sorts of ways, I can’t help feeling worried and anxious about the widening divide I’m witnessing. With this often comes judgement and blame. And then the confusion, upset and anger can be perpetuated – in what can be ever decreasing circles leading to the creation of people in silos.
When I’m feeling most separate and mis-understood what I’m longing for is love, unity and connection. Here are my thoughts on how to continue to foster love and unity for all in these turbulent times.
1.Care for yourself when you are in pain, shower yourself with buckets of empathy, spend time with loving family and friends who you can cry with and who will listen to you.
2.Care for others who need you, and where you feel able and safe to do so; be a safe space for people who feel sad/ stressed/ worried/ anxious. Help bring awareness to their plight in the way that it serves them.
3.Reach out to bridge the gap/ the divide – this may well be the hardest one – we all, at times, are tempted to sit in our “rightness” and judge others for their “wrongness”. In times of these, we may naturally want to ‘tribe up’ and ‘stick with our safe group’ as this may give us the feeling of being most comfortable, safe and ok. However, for true healing and reconciliation to happen we need, where possible, to try and reach out to those who perhaps we may not normally reach out to (don’t get me wrong, I’m not always able to do this myself, it’s super hard to do particularly when we feel deflated, in pain and alienated, this is a step to take when you feel able and have looked after your hurt self first).
In my experience it’s important to reach out, when we feel able to, not in a way that justifies anyone’s violent methods of meeting their needs, but to create understanding on all sides so that they may come together and so that all people can find mutually beneficial ways to move forward. When I say: unite/ bridge the gap/ be kind, I don’t mean: be ok with violence, I mean: try to see the humanity in the person, try to understand where their choice-making comes from so we can create connection, understanding and compassion for each other.
The more judgement, condemnation and dismissal of ‘others’, the more their position may become hardened; and the cooperative and peaceful outcome we hope for will unlikely be achieved. Judgement, can often create more division, not the healing we may so long for. What is the alternative to judgement? What else can you do to express how ‘not okay’ you are with what’s happening without judging? —>
Many of you know that I am a great believer in something called: ‘nonviolent communication‘. I don’t normally promote it solely here but refer to it often in my work, today I want to highlight it as an incredible way to heal & transform conflict. If you’re feeling stuck, worried, anxious and want to learn how to move towards healing and transforming conflict, I recommend checking out NVC.
I don’t get paid for promoting these guys, so this is purely a recommendation from my heart to yours, the first is an online place you can learn NVC, the second is the UK NVC website, you can also find out more here: cnvc.org.
I send all of you so much love,
big hugs and light
from me Tam x
I’m posting this bird print again, even though I’ve posted it a couple of times, pls print it out, send it to your friends or whoever needs it! <3
“The astonishing light of your own being.” – I want to give you guys this high res print for free with a colourful bird and a quote by Hafiz on it that I feel speaks to some of what is needed in this world today. Pls feel free to share it with your friends, print it out for personal use and use it to create awareness. Download it for printing out here: YourLightBird-HIGHRES.jpg
I was featured on Donna Downey’s ‘Find out Friday’ last month! It was so much fun, she sent us a box of art supplies and asked us to create art with the supplies! You can watch the video I did for the project by clicking ‘play’ on the video below:
YAYYYY, time for another in depth – full LIFE BOOK LESSON TASTER for you my gorgeous friends! :)
Over here at Willowing HQ we are still celebrating the launch of Life Book 2017 (ZOMG OVER almost 850 people have already joined it in only 3 weeks!!!) and I wanted to give those of you who have never done Life Book before, a lovely taster session, et voila here is one of my Life Book 2016 lessons for you to play with and try out, download, share with your friends (pls do!) and have a little cuddle or dance with, haha. :). This free lesson will be available for until the end of January 2017, then, it will go back up as a standalone lesson. So enjoy it now while you can!
If you love it, please know that this is a great example of the types of lessons I provide throughout the year on Life Book, I go into huge depth, I give my lessons my all. I dig deep inside myself and share in great detail all the techniques I’ve learned and refined over the many years I’ve been doing this work (since 2008!). I create beautiful in depth PDFs and I really care about you, your experience and try to create my classes so they can be understood by beginners and more experienced alike! :)
Many Life Book students say that just 3 of my lessons are worth the £89 you pay for the entire year, never mind that you get another 49 other offerings from myself and different teachers. Hello value for money!?
And guess what?! At the moment YOU can get Life Book 2017 at a WHOPPING 20% OFF!! Simply use the discount code;
FIREWORKS2017
upon check out to redeem the 20%, woohooo!! :)
So what are you waiting for? :) Join Life Book 2017 by clicking here. A whole year of creative inspiration, art techniques, encouragement, personal development and community! I hope you’ll decide to be part of it too! :)
And enjoy my free gift to you below! :) <3 Thank you for being here and supporting the arts and good ol’ lil me too! <3.
Hi guys!
In this week’s class we are going to be creating our ‘Happy Traveller’ painting. :)
Specifically we will be including 1 or more ‘sacred soul animals’ that will be with you on your journey this year. The idea is that you can invoke or refer to these animals as ‘animal medicine’, they are creatures that can guide you/ help you on your way.
I enjoy creating supporting/ affirmative “protective” type characters that can then be ‘with you’ or be ‘referred to’ as a symbolic kind of support system.
In past years on Life Book we have created: “The Beacon of Light”, “Inner Artist Guardian” and a “Fairy Art God Mother”. :)
For the lesson today we will create a front-facing girl with 1 or more sacred soul animals surrounding her.
I’ve included a guided meditation that can help you to release fear and welcome in the new.
Enjoy!
Tam x
Guided Meditation – Releasing Fears & Welcoming in the New
If you want to download the videos please do the following:
1. Click on the video review link under the video
2. No password needed
3. Navigate to the ‘download’ button under the video
4. Choose which version you want to download 5. Right click (don’t left click as that doesn’t work in some browsers) on the video link and choose ‘save target or link as’. 6. Or use the ‘Alternative download link’ by doing the following: right click (don’t left click as that doesn’t work in some browsers) on the alternative download link and choose ‘save target or link as’.
Supporting PDF:
(to download pls left-click on image or right-click on image and choose ‘save target or link as:)
Hi Guys! Welcome to a series we run on the blog called: Tea & Cake with Gracie :) My awesome friend and colleague Gracie Howle interviews inspiring artists and posts the interviews (including some free offers not published elsewhere before) here on the blog every 2 months or so. I love to create art and bring amazing artists & people together in my classes, in person and on social media. As part of this drive, I want to help bring more exposure to some of the amazing artists out there! Today Gracie’s interviewing the lovely Susana Tavares. Be sure to check out Susana’s GIVEAWAY, free video tutorial and Etsy shop discountbelow! Tam xoxo
Hello! Gracie here :) How are you? It’s busy over here at Willowing Arts at the moment as Life Book 2017 has just opened for registration (check the bottom of this page for more details on Life Book 2017 and how to get a 20% discount! xx). I LOVE this time of year. Here in the UK, it feels cosy indoors and crisp outside as we wave goodbye to Summer and say hello to Autumn :) It’s the perfect time to settle down, grab a cuppa (and some cake!) and have a read about an inspiring artist! ;) I hope you enjoy my interview with Susana Tavares today :) Be sure to check out Susana’s GIVEAWAY, free art tutorial and (for a limited time) Susana is also offering all readers a 25% discount in her Etsy Shop! :)
1. Hi Susana and welcome! Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.
Hi! I am Susana Tavares and I am a mixed media artist from Portugal, now living in Brussels with my love, 3 kids and 2 dogs.
In this moment of my life I am really interested in watercolor, fluid mediums and crystals. I sell my art around the world through my Etsy shop and also teach online art classes.
Susana is giving away a spot on one of her art classes!
One lucky reader will win a space on one of Susana’s art classes and that lucky reader can choose which class they want too! Awesome right!
YOU can enter this giveaway by leaving a comment in the box below (near the bottom of this page). The winner will be chosen at random on 1st November and announced right here on this page :)
Learn more about Susana by reading the following interview:
2. You recently made a big move from Portugal to Brussels, wow! Can you tell us a bit about your new art space in Brussels and how you will make it welcoming for you and your art?
Yes big changes are happening in my life. My husband is working in Brussels and I can work everywhere. For our family it was really important to stay all together, so we moved.
3. During your move how have you kept your creative juices flowing, or have you had a break from art during the move?
Being pretty honest I really had to take a break and totally focus on the move, since I was in Lisbon with the kids while my husband was in Brussels, for five months. It was a lot to handle. That’s why I am really happy, this move is done and I can start this new beginning, all together again as a family.
Now I feel again inspired to create from a relaxed state of mind and that feels really good.
4. I love your art so much! Many of your pieces include cute whimsy girls, can you tell us a little about why that is?
Thank you dear Gracie :) yes, cute little girls are a recurrent subject on my art because I really love to create them, they make me smile. The idea of making art, for me, is to go to a happy place, full of magic where through color, movement, textures and shapes you express your world, your inner world. When I create, my inner child is often invited to play and we spend a really great time together.
Connecting with your inner child, brings you a natural well being, a more playful approach to life and helps you to relax and not take life so seriously.
5. A couple of weeks ago you made these gorgeous handmade clips (I spotted them on Instagram here: Susana’s Clips), can you tell us a little bit about how they came about and what prompted you to create them?
We were born with the freedom to choose, you have that power to choose what you want, where you want to go and what you want to create in your life. You are a really powerful being!
When you create in a intentional way, you have first to choose clearly. That’s why I use “the making of art” often, in a way of practicing my intentions and what I want to create.
I choose harmony – what can feel better than a sense of harmony and peace inside of you.
I choose joy – don’t you want to be filled with joy, shining your light wherever you go and feeling flow and ease? Yes!
I choose clarity- knowing exactly what to do, aligned with who you are. Perfection!
I choose creativity- what is more delicious than to feel creative and express it, let it out and have fun with it. When you express your creativity you are expressing a sacred part of you. You are co-creating with source, you are at your best.
Susana thank you for joining us for Tea and Cake! :)
To find out more about Susana follow the links below.
…AND if you want to sign up to Life Book 2017 with a 20% discount use FIREWORKS 2017 in the checkout. Just use coupon code: FIREWORKS2017 upon check out to redeem your 20% discount!
PS. You can only use this code before LB2017 starts, so if you want to use it, sign up before 1st Jan 2017! x
2. You say: 
Think about it: even the most skilled chef wouldn’t be able to keep track of 100 pots cooking all at the same time! Even twenty would be too many. Four, though, that’s manageable. Maybe one of your pots is your family, and one is your business. Maybe one is your visual art, and one is Argentine Tango, which you’ve gotten really passionate about lately. It’s up to you. Or if you’re a new mom, maybe your new baby takes up three pots for now, until she’s grown up a bit. If you’re writing a book, as I just did at the end of last year, the book might take up two or three pots until it’s done.
3. In your words you 
2. You have alot of ‘Frida characters’ in your work. Can you tell us a bit about why that is?
3. You mention Modigliani as your favourite artist, you even run a ‘
H
2. You recently made a big move from Portugal to Brussels, wow! Can you tell us a bit about 
4. I love your art so much! Many of your pieces include cute whimsy girls, can you tell us a little about why that is?
5. A couple of weeks ago you made these gorgeous handmade clips (I spotted them on Instagram here: 
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