Have it Your Way

I was at an Open Studio Project workshop over the weekend with 8 other women. We had such a fabulous time diving into our creative process. We were drawing, painting, collaging, assembling and writing our little hearts out.

We talked about the process and what it means to us. How we use it in our lives and how we want to share it with others. It is so great to be in community with other women who love this type of work as much as I do.

At one point one of the women explained how difficult she finds it to try to explain the process to others who aren't familiar with it. I quietly agreed and the entire group erupted in laughter and said, "Join the club! We don't know how to explain it either!" We all had a good laugh and kind of moved on to the next topic.

But it got me thinking...how do you get women in a process that you cannot clearly articulate? How can you get them excited about when they really don't understand it. What a dilemma!

Part of the problem is that the process is so unique to everyone. This is what I think makes it so powerful because it meets you where you are. It doesn't force you to do anything you don't want to do or to experience anything you don't want to experience.

If your soul is looking for a little light fun to let loose and step into creative flow, that is exactly what you will be able to experience. If you are looking to understand yourself a little more, go for it. If you want to heal some past pain or get more in touch with your body, this process can be used powerfully for all of those. It is a completely open and unique creative practice!

I offer a variety of classes to give everyone a chance to experience Freedom Art the way they need it. I have a light hearted Creative Dance Class that is just pure fun. I have Freedom Art drawing and painting classes that are more structured with a beginning, middle and end. This format  lets each individual create their own experience that is perfectly tailored to where they are at that moment. It is all completely unique. There is even a class coming up that is all about nurturing yourself and taking care of yourself.

Perhaps I haven't been able to completely define what this practice is and guess what, I don't think you will fully understand it until you give it a try. If you would like to learn more, you can go to my website and sign up for my newsletter. You will get my free ebook, Take Back Your Life With Freedom Art when you sign up. That ebook with take you through the steps of Freedom Art and show you how you can try it for yourself.

I'm also teaching some classes that will give you an opportunity to come and try it out. All the supplies are here and all you have to do is show up ready to play. If you'd like to work one on one I am available to do that in the studio or online. There are so many options available to you. Isn't that amazing?!

Have it Your Way

I was at an Open Studio Project workshop over the weekend with 8 other women. We had such a fabulous time diving into our creative process. We were drawing, painting, collaging, assembling and writing our little hearts out.

We talked about the process and what it means to us. How we use it in our lives and how we want to share it with others. It is so great to be in community with other women who love this type of work as much as I do.

At one point one of the women explained how difficult she finds it to try to explain the process to others who aren't familiar with it. I quietly agreed and the entire group erupted in laughter and said, "Join the club! We don't know how to explain it either!" We all had a good laugh and kind of moved on to the next topic.

But it got me thinking...how do you get women in a process that you cannot clearly articulate? How can you get them excited about when they really don't understand it. What a dilemma!

Part of the problem is that the process is so unique to everyone. This is what I think makes it so powerful because it meets you where you are. It doesn't force you to do anything you don't want to do or to experience anything you don't want to experience.

If your soul is looking for a little light fun to let loose and step into creative flow, that is exactly what you will be able to experience. If you are looking to understand yourself a little more, go for it. If you want to heal some past pain or get more in touch with your body, this process can be used powerfully for all of those. It is a completely open and unique creative practice!

I offer a variety of classes to give everyone a chance to experience Freedom Art the way they need it. I have a light hearted Creative Dance Class that is just pure fun. I have Freedom Art drawing and painting classes that are more structured with a beginning, middle and end. This format  lets each individual create their own experience that is perfectly tailored to where they are at that moment. It is all completely unique. There is even a class coming up that is all about nurturing yourself and taking care of yourself.

Perhaps I haven't been able to completely define what this practice is and guess what, I don't think you will fully understand it until you give it a try. If you would like to learn more, you can go to my website and sign up for my newsletter. You will get my free ebook, Take Back Your Life With Freedom Art when you sign up. That ebook with take you through the steps of Freedom Art and show you how you can try it for yourself.

I'm also teaching some classes that will give you an opportunity to come and try it out. All the supplies are here and all you have to do is show up ready to play. If you'd like to work one on one I am available to do that in the studio or online. There are so many options available to you. Isn't that amazing?!

Mixing Business and Pleasure

My husband had a business trip to San Diego and asked me if I wanted to tag along.

San Diego?

Of course!

We decided to extend the tip a few days and make a vacation out of it. We fit a lot in and had such a great time.

And then it was time for him to go to work and what's a girl to do with all that free time?

Create of course!

I found an awesome Expressive Art Studio online before I even boarded the plane. I signed up for classes and even arranged to rent the studio for a little one on one time with paints. 

On the first day I arrived a bit early and decided to hang out at Santo's,  the local coffee shop. It was such a cute place and I really got myself in the right frame of mind while relaxing on the patio. 

 And the coffee was delicious!

Then it was time to play! It was such a fun space filled with color and tons of art supplies! I felt like a kid in a candy store!

The first day we played with collage. Working with color, image and texture we created pieces that reflected how we were feeling in the moment. 

  

Day two began with my private studio time. I taped up a large piece of paper to the wall...oooh the possibilities!

The tempera paints were especially vibrant and I just went to town. What pure joy it was to just play. There are a few little monsters that decided to show up. I welcomed them and let them speak their peace. 

She had a whole room just for sand play. I had never done anything like this before so I decided to spend a little time in there. 

The process was meditative and relaxing. It reminded me of my mosaic days a bit. No pressure though, just playing in the sand. 

I headed across the street for a bit of lunch and reflection time. 

Then it was time for Painting Aerobics. A wonderful bunch of women, paint, paper and some fun music. It was time to let my paintbrush dance. 

It was such a fun experience. No thought, no worries, just dancing around and splashing paint. 

The whole trip was great and my little art retreat was amazing. 

As women we need to refuel ourselves and fill our well. A creative retreat is absolutely perfect because tapping into the creative energy flow shifts you out of the everyday. It brings you to a place of infinite possibility and allows you to play in wonder. 

You don't have to go anywhere to give yourself the gift of a creative retreat. 

You can bring some crayons and paper outside and sit in the sun and color. 

You can play with magazines and cut and paste into a journal. 

You can play in the sand at your local beach and make patterns. 

But, if you're in San Diego or just passing through, you should definitely stop by and visit Tish for a little fun!

An Artful Journey

What a wonderful time I had in California at the Artful Journey Retreat. Cindy is a really great woman who planned a terrific event. Look at the welcome gift I received. It was beautiful! She was my angel on the last day when I lost the keys to my rental car! She went above and beyond to help me out and I am forever grateful.

I signed up to take Jesse Reno's class. I told you a little about him the day I left. I wasn't sure what to expect. I thought he might be a little rough around the edges. Let me tell you, he was great. He was really funny too. He told so many great stories and he genuinely wanted to teach us all he could. I even appreciated his grumpiness in the mornings. It reminded me of my 17 year old. :o)

His supply list was basic. Inexpensive paints, inexpensive paper and some brushes. That's it. Look how neat and clean everything looked when I first got there.

Nothing stayed neat for long. The first thing we did was apply the paint with our hands. It was fun. The idea is that you create this interesting "ground" with texture and color. This is done exclusively with your hands. We weren't allowed any brushes until day two. Can you imagine?


Once you have your ground down you begin to block out shapes and forms. I had THE HARDEST time with this part. I am telling you that I was so angry with myself. This flower was my first attempt and he brought it up the front of the room to show everyone what NOT to do. Hee hee.

The idea is that you are supposed to let things emerge slowly instead of making a hard shape. Now it was going to be a lot harder for this painting to be anything other than a flower.

We worked on 2-3 paintings at a time. He works on 10-15 in his studio. I had my grounds down on 3 of them and a flower on one and I was STUCK. He told me what to do to help me and I got back to my seat and forgot everything he said. I left for lunch so pissed off. I really could have punched someone. He kept looking over at me and he knew I was all kinds of messed up.

When we got back from lunch he sussed out the energy in the room. I don't think I was the only one struggling but I was definitely the most vocal about it :o) He told us that sometimes you just needed to get something blocked out so he was giving us 5 minutes to do it. What?! I about died.

I was frozen and he walked by and said, "You now have 4 minutes, now 3." Ugh! I finally just jumped in and created some weird animal like thing. Some people thought it was a dog. Others, a horse and still others thought a sea horse. I didn't know what the hell it was and I didn't like the looks of it but I felt so much better. My energy shifted immensely and I thanked him for pushing.

The painting continued to morph. I added a woman.

And then I stole the bottom of my creature and gave it to the woman. Now I had some funky animal woman. I have no idea.

I kept playing with it...blocking out the eye and repainting it (about 10 times), playing with the colors. Jesse called me his "every five minute girl" because I kept going up there to pick his brain. I figured I was there to learn his techniques and the best way to do that was to ask questions. He helped me so much.

This is pretty close to the final product. Like I said, who knows what or why. :o)



One of my favorite exercises was when he had us draw random things. He would say, "Draw a face. Now put a face coming out of the side. Now have an appendage coming out of the head." We just followed along. I have to say we were a bit taken back when he told us to paint a skull. What? We were a bunch of girls. We didn't want to paint a skull. He said he was going to be the only guy in a room of girls all weekend and since he knew about accessories we could paint a skull. We all laughed and painted our skulls.

My flower managed to transform itself into a face. A wacky face for sure. I worked on it for quite a while to get it to this stage. When I brought it up to him he asked me if I liked it and I said no, not really. So he told me to change the shape of it. To wreck it. In fact, he said that if we didn't wreck our painting at least twice it wasn't done.


I was a bit timid to wreck it I guess but I did change the shape and I hated it even more. So, change it again.

When I created this shape in the head it began to like a mask to me. You can see how the layering can really change things up. Suddenly my blue background made stripes so I put some lines and shapes on top to integrate it so it looked like one piece.

I tweaked the background a bit and we were out of time. This was my finished painting.

I really enjoyed learning this type of painting. He makes it look so easy but it is REALLY HARD! It is sort of the opposite of what you would normally do. Instead of building up shapes you are blocking shapes out of the background and then layering and blocking some more and on and on.

I have to tell you that I loved Jesse's take on life. I wrote down a bunch of things he said and I will share them with you in my next post.

I've Got a Little Secret!

I am heading back to California for ANOTHER painting workshop today! I know, it's so exciting! I have to tell you that 2011 is starting out fantastic for me!

I am going to The Presentation Center in Los Gatos, CA for a 3 day retreat called An Artful Journey. I am signed up to take a class with Jesse Reno! I am so excited.

I first saw his work in the fall of 2010 and I have to tell you that I fell in love. Well, not so much with his actual paintings. They are a bit too primitive for me...you know, kind of dark. But let me tell you, when I watched a video of him painting I was hooked.

He is paints with his hands, smearing the paint and working it onto the surface. You can see that he is painting intuitively. His paintings are layers and layers deep which gives them a richness and depth that is beautiful.

I've embedded a video to watch. If you enjoy it you can go to Vimeo and watch a 20 min video where he is working on several paintings at once.



Wish me luck!

Month of Hearts Day 16

This is one of my paintings from the Wild Heart Painting retreat. I didn't write about it in my previous posts but my friend Carrie asked me to so here you go.

This painting was done fairly early in the retreat. It was fun to play around with the paint. The background was done by painting colors over other colors and carving squiggles into the wet paint with the back of a paintbrush.

It just sort of emerged into this childlike painting and the fun part for me is that this is exactly how I used to draw when I was little. I remember making my dogs and cats like that. This was just a light-hearted, fun painting.

Wild Heart Painting Retreat Part 3

This is part three in my Wild Heart Painting Retreat posts. You can read post one here and post two here.

After my big, life-changing painting I told you about yesterday my next painting was completely different. I new I was going to paint a face but that was all I knew. I had this feeling of serenity and empowerment as I began. I wasn't wrapped up with the way it looked or worrying about being perfect. I stood before the paper feeling like an artist. Every brush stroke felt right. It didn't matter what I painted or how it looked. I was a painter. I felt amazing. I completed it so quickly and it felt fantastic.


My next painting began by creating blue waves all over the paper and had no idea what was going to come of this. I added some eyes all over it and stood back to look at it. I had moments where I thought it was going to go south and I was going to hate it but it didn't happen. I stayed with it and all of the sudden I saw a face in the upper right corner. It took my breath away and I gasped with excitement and started painting furiously.

I continued and when I painted the face in the bottom left it got ugly but it didn't bother me. I made it uglier and it started looking cool. When things went bad I didn't even care. I just kept going.

It's funny because I had THE BEST TIME painting this. It reminded me of being a kid. I saw things in everything. I remember seeing shapes in drops of water that spilled on the table, finding faces in abstract fabric, and of course seeing all kinds of things in clouds. This felt so good.

Near the end of painting it I realized that this represented all the parts of me. There was the beautiful woman, the mean woman, the nurturing mom, the hairy beast, the tough chick, the lion (I'm a leo), the fun woman, and the wild and crazy lady. That's when I decided to add the words, "embrace your inner Sybil."


This next painting was wild. I started painting it with this incredible energy pushing me along. I knew I was going to paint a woman. My paintbrush was working furiously. I am not kidding when I tell you that there was energy. It was moving through me and I didn't know what to do with it all. I had to keep taking deep breaths and slowing myself down. There were moments where I thought I might hyperventilate.

I had worked on the upper portion of this woman who was naked and then I needed to work on the lower portion and I got a little nervous. I didn't know what was going to come out. I started procrastinating. I got fresh water from my brushes, went to the bathroom, got a drink, looked at everyone's paintings and finally I was faced with it.

I got some support from Chris' assistant Ellen and got started. She ended up having a pregnant belly and was giving birth to this golden orb. Don't know why but I can tell you that as soon as I finished painting it, my energy slowed and became consistent. I felt more peaceful and there was no more heavy breathing. It was like a mini labor...without the pain. :o)

I added some other things... a little gnome (that ended up looking like Harry Potter and gave me a good laugh when I stepped back), a little fairy, fire, a ladybug, water, and a swirl of wind and then I was done. I even had a little monster show up from behind the tree.


My last painting is a culmination of two big days I had watching the sunrise. I went out early in the morning one day to see the sun come up. I got out there at about 7:05 and the sky was beautiful. The colors were brilliant and the moon was still up. I sat there mesmerized.

Soon, however, the moon was gone and the beautiful colors were gone and I found myself sitting there looking at a blue sky with no sun. I looked at my watch, it was 7:25. Where was the sun? I didn't bring anything with me. No camera, no journal, no phone...nothing.

I started getting a little antsy. How long was this going to take? My anxiety over this started to grow and all of the sudden I had this realization that this is what I do. As soon as the beauty is gone, the sparkle, the excitement, I'm done. I can't ever stick it out through the boring parts.

In that moment I became determined to see that sun creep over the trees. I paced, I meditated, I envisioned myself as a tree with roots reaching deep in the ground to keep me rooted. I have to tell you that as crazy as it seems, this was SOOOO DIFFICULT for me!

Finally, the sun came up (7:50!) and I was elated. It felt like a small victory for me and certainly a big life lesson.

The next day I went up to see the sunrise again. This time I brought my camera so I could take some pictures. As I reached the top of the lookout I realized the sun must have come up a bit earlier and I had missed the prettiest part.

In that moment I fell. I took a hard fall, twisting my ankle and banging my arm on the deck. I lay there with my ankle throbbing feeling quite sorry for myself. I picked myself up and sat on the bench. In my mind I went back to the moment I had fallen to access the thought I was having and I realized I was angry at myself for being so stupid. It's certainly a pattern in my life...beating myself up and being angry with myself.

I did an emotional release exercise on myself and cleared out some past memories of this feeling and in the end I got this message that I am "perfectly imperfect" and it's OK.


So here I am at the end of the retreat in front of all my paintings. It was a wonderful, life-changing experience I feel privileged to have experienced.