Creative Awakenings - Book Review & What If?

 

I will be resuming my twice monthly book reviews of the books that I have brought over the years and have had a chance to work through them and see how I liked their lessons.  I think it is important for us to be continually learning and expanding the mind, especially creatively, there are so many tools, supplies and techniques that you can learn that might add something to your own creative practice.

Todays book is Creative Awakenings by Sherry Gainer 

The back reads - what if you could unlatch the doors to your heart and allow yourself to explore hopes and dreams that you haven't visited for a very long time?

Creative awakenings is the key to opening those doors showing you how to use art making to set your intentions creativity coach sherry gainer will guide you through the mile posts of this exciting journey.  Creative Awakenings envisioning a life of your dreams through art which is such a lovely way to look at things. 

It has got several chapters and in between each chapter a mile mile markers.  In the first chapter she talks about how it all came about and connecting with other artists and how she how she contacted with them and building your dream journal.  She's also got examples of supplies that you can use and setting yourself up for the journey so the envision process is a specific process that she walks you through step by step.

Check out the video on Amazon for more details HERE

Playing Card Art and the Art Bundle Sale

 

Art Bundles for Good On Sale

This is your last chance to get the 105 art classes and resources in Art Bundles for Good #6. If you missed out last November, you have 5 more days to get this fantastic deal on online art classes.

Visit the Art Bundle website to see all the amazing courses included this year. They are all listed on the homepage.

My offering in the bundle is my Course - Playing Card Art and a Mixed Media Art Digital Download Bundle  

Playing Card Art shows you how to create art on a playing card and use a range of recycled elements, adding texture and creating a pocket for your card in your Art Journal

I loved the texture that I was able to create on the card, and working on the card you can either have them loose in pockets like the one that you create on my course, or you can attach them to the page, either way they are great fun to create and come with a set of my mixed media art papers for you to experiment with too.

When you purchase the Art Bundle for Good #6, you will get lifetime access to my course, so you can take your time - there are a lot of courses to get through in this bundle!!

With over $5000 worth of art courses and other resources on topics like watercolor painting, art journaling, sketching, mixed media, acrylic painting, oil painting, stencils, collage, pastel pencils, colored pencils, stamp carving, mandalas, and much more all bundled together for one low price. An opportunity to get 105 art resources at such a low price. With so many products, it works out to about $1 per course!

25% of the Art Bundle profits are going to support Courageous Kitchen, a Bangkok-based charity helping refugees. We’ve raised US$95,354 for charity so far!!

The Art Bundle is also backed by a 30-Day Money Back Guarantee. Try out the courses for a couple of weeks. If you are not happy, John, from Art Bundles for Good, will refund your money.

Check out the Bundle HERE

If you want to just access my Playing Card Art Course, you can check it out HERE

Celebrating Textiles - Textile Challenge.

Celebrating Textiles

A couple of years ago I was asked by the previous curator of The Queens Park Gallery - Janice Whittle to take part in an exhibition - my first exhibiting some of my new textile work.  She also mentioned Boro Shashiko which I was not familiar with at the time and gave me two challenges to explore Boro and to go much larger in size with my work than I had previously gone.  

You can check out the video below of the exhibition

What is Boro?

Derived from the Japanese Boro, meaning something tattered or repaired, boro refers to the practice of reworking and repairing textiles (often clothes or bedding) through piecing, patching and stitching, in order to extend their use.

At first I couldn't imagine how I would tackle such a large piece and also learn a new technique and create a piece for an exhibition but Janice encouraged  and I became excited at how I would execute the challenge.

It took me months to get started - just as well she had given me 10 months notice!  I decided to create a series of small pieces, the size that I was used to and then join them all together.

This made the world of difference, I could just focus on that piece and then move on.  I found the stitches to be also relaxing, Boro is also known as 'The Mending Stitch'

I gathered my jeans fabric and set about creating stitches on them

I also added elements such as painted fabric, laying  and using alternative colors on the fabric.

This is the finished piece.  The wood is Moringa and Cotton Tree wood harvested from my garden

Art by Amanda Trought - Wall Hanging

My challenge for this piece was to learn something new and go much bigger in size than I normally do.  What have you challenged yourself with this month that has stretched you?

Stay blessed and be a Blessing

Amanda

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I am also taking part in the Ultimate Blog Challenge and you can check out all the posts HERE

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Mixed Media Art Courses to Check out

SALE - Enjoy $10 OFF all courses until 30th April Click on the image to see the course.

Use the Code at the checkout - create2

Fabric and Textile Art - Slow Stitching

Over the years I have been combining a lot of slow stitch and working with fabric within my work and have really enjoyed the process.  It started getting serious at the beginning of lockdown when the whole world seem to changed overnight and we had to come to terms with a new normal.

As I looked at the creative activities that I was doing none of them seem to still my mind until I remembered the work that I had done the previous year for a textile exhibition in Barbados at the Queens Park Gallery called Celebrating Textiles ( I will share about the exhibition tomorrow).

I realized that I liked the detail that you could get with stitch, fabric and paint - I was keen to experiment, learn new stitches and it set me on an amazing adventure of embroidery, fabric and textile art.

I had done a few fabric projects and made things from fabric as you can see in some of my 'Material Monday projects'  which mostly included crochet pieces.  The stitching, painting, dyeing started to grow.

I combined my love for painting with stitching and haven't looked back.  I start out painting my backgrounds, adding the figure and then the stitching process continues until the piece feels done, learning new embroidery stitches and being comfortable with the supplies.

I am still learning about fabrics and how to work with all the different supplies to create the look and feel that I am after.  I have been enjoying the process and continue to allow my imagination to come up with different characters and scenes.

I  immersed myself into all the fabric, threads, beads and more that I had collected over the years.  It was all there waiting for me to recognize their importance in my creative journey, and so I set about stitching, dyeing, embellishing and bringing together an array of techniques that I had developed over the years into a needle, my sewing machine and all the supplies that welcomed me with open arms, and I have not looked back.

What creative activities have you immersed yourself in over the past 2 years that has helped with your health and well-being?

Stay blessed and be a blessing.