Stormy weather

There should be more creative challenges with this theme - as it seems to have prompted the opposite in reality. The past week has been a positive delight - a taste of Summer, teasing us into our t-shirts. Bliss!

So I'm back to painting. I am getting acrylic all over the furniture and up the walls. I have very dirty fingernails. It feels good!

I've had an amazing week. I've launched my eCourse through my new creative business - The Wright Brain Stuff. I've also kicked off a book group picking up where us 'wreckers' left off a couple of summers ago when we destroyed our Keri Smith journals. We're going to attack another of her books this year - I'd love it if you got messy with us too - all the joining details are here.

Back to the art... These were really free and loose. I googled a couple of images of stormy scenes as my inspiration then just got messy with paints and oil pastels. No paintbrushes allowed. Although I loved the final results (below), I couldn't reist a little enhancement with some textures and extra layers in PhotoShop (above).

I can't believe I paint like this now - so carefree. Just a few years ago, the same painting would have been trying very hard to look exactly the same as the original photograph. I just couldn't 'see' the way I do now. It is so much more fun! It's why I wanted to run my course - I feel I have so much passion to share - I want to inspire you all to create words and pictures.

Posting for the Inspiration Avenue 'Stormy weather' challenge and Paint Party Friday.

I'm also having a Giveaway - don't miss out!

Let's get messy

I'm copying this over from my new creative business blog. It's a bit of free fun and a wonderful challenge for you all! I would so love it if you joined in!


Three summers ago I joined a group that helped change my life. I  know that sounds a bit far fetched - and you'll be even more dubious when I tell you what the book was - but it's the truth. It awoke something inside me that had been lying dormant for a very long time.

The book was Wreck This Journal: To Create is to Destroy by Keri Smith and the group was run by coach Jamie of Jamie Ridler Studios. Over the summer of 2009 around 40 of us destroyed our journals in the most creative ways imaginable and underwent a transformation. Suddenly we realised that art did not have to be about carefully positioned paint or strategically structured design. Art could be the messy stain left over after you squashed your spaghetti between the pages of the book. Art was words, dirt, stickers, fluff. Creativity was burning, cutting, smearing. Supplies were everywhere - from the long forgotten impulse buys from the craft shop to flora and fauna or even your own hair picked up off the floor of the salon!

We mixed in some guts and a whole heap of fun and just let go. Our Muses were given free rein and they loved it! We shared our wrecking each week on Jamie's blog and inspired each other to be more revolutionary, daring and downright dastardly to our books. 

Our friends and families, at first bemused, began to join in too. By the end of our adventure we each held something really special. I for one, was truly inspired. I knew that from that day forward, my house would never again be tidy and nor would I ever be far from a tube of paint. Magic had happened!

• Does that sound good to you?
• Do you fancy quite literally letting rip?
• Want your creativity to be let loose to have a mash up with your Muse?

Well, let's do it! Join me for a couple of months of messy play with another of Keri's books Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes. Every week we can return to my blog and share our creative adventures, inspiring each other onto more daring devilment with every page.

Are you in?

Just subscribe to the list below, so I can email you the details you'll need. All you need to play is your imagination, somewhere to post your week's mess and plenty of wild, crazy abandon! Let's start sharing our first forays into letting loose on Friday 6th April.


 Please spread the word Tweet: Join the Wright Brainers for a Messy Book Club

Are you in? Register here

Buy your copy

A Special Announcement and a Giveway

Sophia

I am bursting with excitement, nerves are tingling, butterflies tickle my tummy and my eyes are bright with anticipation.

The time has finally come to announce my new creative business venture! I'm still working hard on finalising content, but today I woke up and just knew that today I just had to launch. Maybe there's some alignment in the stars, or the Universe is just getting fed up with waiting. So, I draw in a deep breath, pull myself up to my full height and invite you to...

Please open your minds to The Wright Brain Stuff. We begin our adventure with an 8 week eCourse designed to set fire to your imaginations, open your inspiration and bring your Muse out to play.

I would love if you popped over to my website to find out more and discover how, for the weekly price of a coffee and a cake, you could find the resources to dig deep into your creativity.

While you're there, if you want to become a follower and sign up to my mailing list I'll also enter you into a giveaway to win this little lady. Her name had to be Sophia as, if you look very carefully, you'll notice it written across the bridge of her nose! It's also rather appropriate as I'm sharing her with Sunday Sketches hosted by.... Sophia!

If you go down in the woods...

Every evening this week, just before lights out, I have been taking a trip into the Nevernever - the land of Fairy and Elf where you have be careful what you promise to talking cats and danger hides behind every tangled trunk in an enchanted forest. It's a parallel universe whose entrances exist only where there is belief... Do you believe in magic? Be careful next time you open your fairy tales... you may just find yourself falling in... The Iron King by Julie Kagawa.

If you wonder why you've never seen a fairy, it's because they are so well camoflaged. I'm warning you though - try not to look too deeply into those dark eyes. This one is looking for a new plaything and I'd advise against it being you...

I've also been sucked into devouring episode after episode of The Vampire Diaries... After watching the first couple of shows and laughing at the absurdity and craving drama with 'grown ups', somehow I became mesmerized... Must be something to do with those beguiling eyes... Sorry Twilight fans - but, much as love Edward's broodiness, this one gets my vote!

It's Paint Party Friday today. Zip on over and enjoy the fun!

An outpouring

It's not alway easy to come up with something to blog about. Indeed sometimes I'm not sure who I'm doing this for. Is this a diary that just happens to be shared with the Universe or an editorial, a magazine page where subscribers visit expecting to be entertained?

It doesn't really matter either way. This blog is a place for me to hone my craft. At first that was just writing, but then the tendrils of creativity crept right through me and it became a gateway to my soul.

Necessity has forced me to restrict my visits here in the past few weeks and also my art output; but to be honest I just don't quite feel the same without it - it's rather like cutting one's arm off! I need this introspection, this sharing, this tribe. It's like family and with today being Mothers' Day here in the UK, I find myself coming over all maternal.

I know that many of you who read this blog are just like me - souls for whom art and creativity play an almost magical part of your lives. It's your get-up-and-go. I'm working hard on my creative business but constantly felt like I was hitting a wall. There was some vital component missing. Turns out it was the simple act of creation. I've spent the last two evenings sketching and painting and I am as soothed as a week of perfect sleeps. The grit has been swept away and there's a smoother passage for train of thought.

I'm ready to take the final leap and get this business launched.

Sharing the output from last night today with the lovely crew at Sunday Sketches. Mixed media portrait - prismacolors, water-soluble oil pastels, oil pastels, acrylics and watercolour - if you've got it; use it!

The Crimson and the ... Scarlet

I just love those adjectives. Don't they just ooze lush and sensuality? What is it about red that makes us wish to lose our inhibitions? To inbibe fermented fruit; to turn up the volume and just dance like nobody is watching?

OK, I admit it. I did actually do that this evening - but nobody was watching... so who cares?

This is Donna. I'm not sure she actually looks very Donna-esque, but I painted her from a Donna Karen advert so felt obliged to give a nod in that designer's direction. I think I once owned a Donna Karen skirt (but that is pretty irrelevant to this post).

I'm having a personal soirée of music, art and dance ... with a drop of Sauvignon Blanc.

Some red art for The Butterfly Effect... which for some reason makes me think of making toast and marmite... can't think why?

The scariest thing in this wood

There's a monster under the bed. I can hear his soft growls as he plots his strategic attack. He is licking his lips and flexing his claws. He's a wily beast. He knows that just his presence will keep me in my place. But is he right?

Will that terrifying growl stop me from taking tentative steps away from my security? Will the imagined feel of his claws ripping at my gut push me back away from my goals?

I have a whole tribe of monsters under my bed. Fear and his brood - Procrastination, Rejection, Shame, Self-worth - they're all there nipping and scratching at me, but you know what? It's time for change.

It's time for the Big Bad Mouse to show his face and put that Gruffalo back in his place.

I will not allow Fear to rob me of my dreams. Do you hear that you great ugly lump, you over-grown ball of disgruntlement and underachievement. You've met your match.

Be off with you!

Silly old Lisa... Don't you know? There's no such thing as a Gruffalo...