London Calling - So much to do, so little time!

We are getting ready to see family and friends in London. 

We were visited by quite a few people over the past few months.  We started to get really home sick amidst the usual running around.

Mothers day treat with sister-in-law

quality time by the sea

Chilling out and connecting

Anyway I won't be taking my computer with me but phone so will be sharing on social media.  I will be sharing more on the blog when I get back.  I will be sharing some of the Art Journal Pages that I have been doing and hope that it gets you all creatively fired up to take some classes with me.  

There will be a lot going on over the next few months, new opportunities that I am bursting to share with you and some great connections to come.  

Check out my Realityarts Facebook page, or my Instagram page to see some of the stories of our trip to the UK coming up, and remember to keep on creating, stay blessed and be a blessing

BADASS Art Journal Page - All of Me....

Embracing all parts of me and surrounded by miracles - Art Journal Page

I found a couple of passports photos of myself recently and I was criticizing them because I felt that the man who took the picture could have done better.

I don't like throwing photos away unless they are blurry, so decided that I would incorporate them into a journal page.

As I began to think about what I didn't like about the photographs I realized that it wasn't the photo but my criticism was aimed at myself.  I decided that I needed to show myself some love.

What I started to remind myself was that I needed to embrace all the parts of me and focus on all the great parts, no one is perfect, we all have something we feel needs working on.

 Over the next few weeks I will be sharing some of the sessions that I have done, as we come to the end of the teaching.  

No one is perfect and we learn as we grow older that we have to give and take and apply a bit of grace in all circumstances.  Each one of us has a unique superpower, not one that may be recognized by the world but one that in a crisis comes into action for a friend in need.

When was the last time you showed up as a super hero in your own life and save yourself, and stop focusing on things you feel are not right?

Stay blessed and be a blessing.

Hacking the Color Wheel - I'm Teaching

CHECK OUT THE COURSE HERE

I am so excited to share this with you, but I will be teaching on this course Hacking the Color Wheel, hosted by Kiala Givehand

There is an early bird discount and a two bundle offer.  The course is split into two sessions and I will be teaching in Session 2, coming out later this year.

I have shared more on my Mixed media Art site so mosey on over there if you would like to know a bit more.  Over the coming months I will be giving you some tasters, hints and tips how you can get your creative juices flowing and get the most out of my class.  I will also be doing a giveaway for those who are signed up to my mailing list for one spot in session 2, and loads of other goodies if your on the mailing list.

As ever looking forward to working with you and sharing some more exciting things that are in the pipeline.

Stay blessed and be a blessing!

One BADASS Art Journal Course - Week 6 - Your BADASS Sisterhood

Sisterhood, Joy, Hope, Grace and Faith

Welcome to today's Art Journal page for the One BADASS Art Journal Course. One of the things that I really like about the course is that despite being one of the teachers I can play along as well like one of the students.  Each teacher is bringing their own style and it is great to try out the techniques they use and see what elements of it that you might incorporate into your own way of creating.  Tiare brought this lesson, and I took elements of the session and added my own spice.

I like the simplicity of creating these characters, and I kept the colors simple as well, playing about with the background before finding the characters that wanted to be represented on the page.

Having a close circle of friends that you can call on is important and the next journal page brought to mind a friend who sadly passed away, and we had known each other from our teenage years.

Friendships in Time

We thought we would grow old seeing each others grandchildren, we were there for each other over the years - Barbara was a dear friend who told it like it is and always had your back.

She became the friend she wanted to have......

In loving my sisters I am reminded to love myself equally.  We can often forget ourselves in the mix of taking care of others, but we have to show ourselves love, understanding and patience.

We have to remember to listen and not break our promises to ourselves. It all starts and ends with love.

 She became the friend she wanted to have in her life and started to love herself.  Come back next week to see what I have done

Being More Mindful - You can make a change

mind·ful·ness

• 1.the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something:"their mindfulness of the wider cinematic tradition"
• 2.a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

I see Me - Mixed media Art Journal Page - Amanda Trought

It is funny how the simple small things we do can get us taking action, and I had reached what felt like a slump - I knew what I wanted to do, but couldn't seem to move myself into taking action.  The feeling seem to linger and no matter what I tried nothing seem to work long term.

It only takes a slice of cake

After eating a slice of fruit cake one evening, I was met with the usual feelings of aching joints and lethargy which quickly followed by irritated skin.  I vowed not to eat anymore cake, I was done!  I thought of the pain I was feeling and I didn't want to feel it anymore, I wanted to finally take my decisions and life into my own hands.  My family looked at me with amusement as they had heard it all before, they said they would believe it when the see it, but this felt different.  I went further and told my son that if he were to see me eating cake he should rip it out of my hands, and then after thinking about how messy it would be I offered to pay him. My husband decided that he wanted to get in on what he saw as free money and they both rubbed their hands with glee mentally calculating how much they would make off me as I succumbed to the cake.  

I listened to their voices telling me that I couldn't do it and made a decision that I was going to do it, this time would be different!

Making the decision

They laughed and joked about it, but the way I was feeling I felt for sure that I would stick to it.  The more and more I thought about it I felt if I could give up cake then there were other habits that I wanted to address, it was more than just about the cake, and I was up for this challenge!  

After thinking about it for a while I realized that by paying them I was putting the responsibility of not eating cake onto them catching me.  Rather than punish myself for doing wrong I needed to celebrate looking after my body and getting on with the things I wanted to do.  I reasoned that if I really wanted to give up cake then I could, equally whatever other changes that I wanted to make I could put these in place as well.  It all had to do with a mindset change that I needed to just go for it!

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage - Anais Nin

Flipping the switch

A switch flipped and I immediately felt different about how I wanted to treat myself.  If I could change my mind about eating things that were physically affecting me then what else could I do.  I decided that I needed to really look after 'me' rather than just talking about it, but I also had to support myself by gaining wisdom from others who had achieved their goals, and also create a little cheer leading team for myself. 

Wisdom is like the baobab tree; no one individual can embrace it ...

When you are not feeling yourself other things are impacted as well, my creativity suffered the ideas that I would normally work on in my studio couldn't find me as I was dulled by inactivity and I really didn't feel like getting on with the very things that made me feel good or needed to get done.  

As I thought of all these things I knew that change and taking care of myself meant that I needed to really see who I was, wanted to be, do, and all the rest of it.

I SEE ME - Mixed media art

So my mindful acts are a way of getting to know myself, what I want to do, spend time doing the things that nurture and encourage, and included the following:

• Daily morning walks
• Getting to bed by 11.30pm - or as close to
• Daily reading 15 mins minimum
• Improve Diet -Wheat and dairy free diet, lots of fruit and veg and whole foods, no processed foods
• Daily Art & Journal writing
• Listening to motivational and inspiring daily recordings
• Daily family time
• End of day review and scheduling work and goals 

All of these things on the list are to get me kick started to change, and to achieve the things that I have been saying I don't have time for, and get me back to the me that I wanted.  When I focus on these things I am reminding myself that I do matter, that showing up for myself reaffirms my own value.

Problems are only opportunities with thorns on them - Hugh Miller

Making a Commitment

When I am feeling tired I remind myself that I made a commitment and that seems to propel me into action, I get my walking gear and within minutes I am out the door.  I have been constantly reminding myself that each action is about showing up for me, and the time is much better spent.  Even reading and committing to doing some reading every day means all the books that I have promising to read I can make time for them now because they are part of my schedule.

Every day that passes I am being shown new insights and ideas and I am learning to value the time that I do have and make the most of the things that I want to do, and celebrating my achievements!  We are all given the same amount of time it depends how we use it, and the value that we place on on our lives.  There is no replay button or do over, so we need to be getting on with these things today!

Walking in your blessings.....

I would love to hear about any changes that you have decided to make in your day to day activities, 

What is it that you have always wanted to do but convinced yourself that you don't have time?

What ways are you going to nurture yourself today?

One BADASS Art Journal Course - Week 5 - Late Night Conversations

Welcome to my interpretation of the class led by Cristin Stephenson in the BADASS Art Journal Class.  For this class as with the others I did 3 pages, one double spread and then two that came after that could either follow the same theme that I had worked with in the main page or be totally different.

Magic at midnight

For my main page below I started out with random shapes on the page, then as I thought about the late night conversations the song 'Dancing in the Moonlight' by Thin Lizzy came to mind

That connection with the moon, the music, and the sea also came in as well.  My characters that came out on the page seem to want to go on an adventure, perhaps a Thelma and Louise type of adventure in a car on a raft on the ocean with the music blazing...and free.... who knows

Adventure awaits

Some times you have to take that leap of faith, not knowing how everything is going to work out.  Some times we prevent ourselves from doing things because of fear. It is either we fear failing or we fear changing and things working out so we don't fit in our neat little boxes.  Fear to laugh and be yourself, fear to say yes to something or no.

Follow your dreams

Listening to a speaker called Lisa Nicols she was talking about her life and saying that fear can paralyze you and that you should use it instead as your fuel to get you to where you want to go.  We can sometimes fear using a particular art material, or fear that creative play because of what might reveal about you.  You can put anything in there that you might be feeling fearful about, and think about what the worse that could happen.

It is time to let go, step out, step into but make that change!  This page then came out of all of that, she chose to step out and be who she knew she could be, she stepped out and is 'Dancing' as well, not worried who might be looking or that 'its always been done this way' or about anything else that could get in the way.

Come join me next Friday and see how I interpreted the next lesson

One BADASS Art Journal Workshop Week 4 - Creating and Using Painted Papers

In week 4 of the course we looked at creating and using your own painted pages which was led by Effy Wild.  I love creating pages and find that they don't normally last long in my studio, as I always find faces emerging out of them and end up painting them.  I decided to do my own thing for this lesson.  You can see last weeks session HERE

I treated the page as if I were creating a background page with different elements, shapes and colors.  I then kept adding different layers which sometimes covered up the layer below or allowed them to show through.  This is a technique that you can get using tissue paper on a page, the underlying image will come through.

The more layers added the more it began to mimic my feeling of being surrounded by things that needed to find a home. I had to force myself to stop as I kept adding doodling and crowding it out, then covering it with paint and then going again.

Sometimes my mind be like.....and then I need to tidy up

On the first side of the main page I then drew a group of 4 simple figures.  It was almost as a way of  clearing up, and expressing aspects of my creative process, purposely not going into any detail but keeping it as plain as possible.

The many sides - keeping it simple

It then became more about an expression of the me I wanted to see.  How is it that you see yourself within your journal, do you express yourself freely or are you hiding something even from yourself.  The art journal for me can hold answers, but you got to let go of your perception of what you think others will want to see.

I see You Me

All of the pages for me are all linked and are about expression and the different forms it can take.  The way I create using many different mediums and styles seems to feed my desire to create.  I find working with different mediums suits me and the impatience I sometimes feel, there doesn't have to be the one thing there is always something I want to create, or try, and Mixed media art enables me to explore as many as I choose.

Again the style is kept very simple, but the textures and the colors ones that I find interesting.  If you are following along with the lessons, perhaps you can try putting changing something and seeing where it takes you.  You don't have to do each lesson just once, you can do it as many times as you wish and with different mediums.  Come back next week Friday to see how I worked with the next lesson.

One BADASS Journal Workshop - Week 3 - Explore, Dream, Discover

Week 3 of the One BADASS Art Journal workshop was called Explore, Dream, Discover with teacher Tracy Scott.  You can still sign up to this workshop as you get lifetime access.  Why not check out some of the other class bundles that is on offer.  You can check them out HERE 

For this painting I worked on black card and started out creating the flowers on the page.  I love creating faces with a story and so this character came through to tell hers.

I called the page Escaping to the gardens of the mind.  Working in an art journal can be very therapeutic and I find that the pages that I create usually have some bearing on either something I am working through or needing to put to rest.

An art journal can express many different sides to you, and those who have visited my blog from the 1st April to the 30  of April will see some of the different types of art journals that I have created in the blog series 30 Days of Journals that I am doing as part of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

When you want to escape to a place that is nurturing you don't always have to go far, turn to your journal.  Sometimes I can be sitting for hours working on different pages in my journal, playing with color and different textures and expressing those things that I cannot yet put into words.

As I mentioned in last weeks post either side of the main page I will be painting corresponding images that pick up elements or sentiments of the main journal page.

Remember that the journal that you create or alter is entirely for your use, you decide how you want to use it and what you want to have in it, so dive in and have some fun.

I will be posting another page from my BADASS Art Journal next week Friday, but you will also see my A-Z challenge that is also being done in April, going to be quite a busy month, so do stop by, there will be something practically every day.

Stay blessed and be a blessing.

One BADASS Art Journal Workshop - Journal Pages - Week 1 and 2

Well for those of you who signed up for the workshop you know that it is in full flow, and we have had some great lessons so far.  You can still sign up as you get lifetime access.  Why not check out some of the other class bundles that she is offering.  You can check them out HERE

I have been taking my time and really savoring the lessons and I decided to slightly change the way that I create my pages this time round.  

Badass Art Journal

Kiala Givehand lead the journal construction in week 1.  I used an old canvas that I felt wasn't working for me as a painting.  As soon as I used it for the cover of the journal it felt right.  I made a loop attachment so that the journal could expand especially if I collaged some of the pages.

Everything was stitched together and I have left the inside cover so that it can be an activity at a later date, possibly with some doodling or ephemera addition.

The other thing that I decided was to do the lessons on a double page spread, but I didn't want to leave blank pages on either side of the double spread, so I have kept these pages all about the main page.  Tiare Smith led week 2's journal page entitled Dream Girls.

For me this page expresses the dreams that I have when I sleep and the ones that I have when I wake.  I may add additional journaling on some pages or use just one word to express what I want the journal page to say.

I really love the finish I used textured card and acrylic paints alongside some Inktense pencils which give you a very vibrant look

On the front and back of the double page spread I wanted to pick up elements of the main page.  On this one I focused on the lips.  Again, some dreams we can speak into existence.  Many dreams started out with a declaration of what is to come.

An then the back of the two pages, I focused on the word dream and the eyes that can express so much - are they seeing the dream pass by or come to reality?

Amanda Trought, Mixed media Art

I really enjoyed getting back into the journal again.  I will be posting another couple of pages on Friday, so do come back and see what I do.  

Not another Challenge - Welcome to the Overflow - Tips for overload

Do you want to take part in a challenge, 

course or webinar?? 

How many resolutions have you made?

I think most of us do at some point or another, and in January everyone wants to get set to make the most of the ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ and see changes in their life. By February, we are a bit shocked at how quickly the time has passed and now that we are in the middle of March how many courses have you signed up for now??

  

How many challenges, courses and webinars can you really do?  We take on them on because we want to progress, there can be some great teaching that comes out of a challenge or course your insights and perspectives can be changed, if only you could keep up and stick to the end.  

10 Day Challenge in your own time

I recently created a 10 day Challenge, where you take 10 minutes each day for 10 days and I give you a creative prompt to try.  You may or may not have been able to keep up as finding the time for ourselves can be hard.  The great thing about the challenge that I created is that you can get the prompts all in one booklet for you to go at your own pace and it is entirely free when you sign up to my mailing list.  I had to really discipline myself to stick to the challenge.

Old Habits ......

Mixed Media Art - Amanda Trought, Realityarts

Are you one of those people that like to sign up for a lot of challenges, courses or webinars and then don't follow through.  It is very easy to do, we sign up for a challenge and then do not complete it, we feel guilty, can you relate to this dilemma?  It is the dreaded signup for 'lots of different things' and then the realization that you really can't see them all to the end.

You start out with the best of intentions but you totally over estimate how much time you actually have, whether you have the tools for the job and even if you are in the right frame of mind to stick to it.  You can also end up confirming the thoughts that 'I can never stick to anything' or 'why am I always giving up on things' syndrome, or hearing the critic who says (see I told you!  You never finish anything do you????)

If you can relate I want you to stop now and think about the following things:

• Take stock of where you are in this very moment;
• Think about what you have on your plate;
• Can you really fit another thing in or should you be letting something go? and 
• What would it need to look like for you to manage the additional tasks?

You are worth it!

You have to decide what you are worth and the things that you need to say yes to.  You have to recognize how you work best and what your creative style is like - Do you thrive in having multiple balls up in the air, or pieces of art unfinished around you, or does it send you in a spin and then immobilize you like a dear in headlights?

Solutions - There are some key points

When you work out how much you are worth to yourself, (and that’s a whole different post) you will also start to consider what it would take to make the things you have committed to happen.

Don't try and overload yourself with courses, there is only so much you can do.  It is better to finish one and then start another one than to have two half finished courses given up because you found another one you really like.  You should think about what you want to achieve at the end and the rewards may outweigh the sacrifice and hard work.  You need to get some perspective and when you really take a step back, you can objectively see what needs to be done and start taking the steps to see things move along.

Ultimately you have to be realistic about the time you do have and what you’re going to do to get the jobs done, or whether you have to walk away from the challenge. My advice if you are like me is to keep it simple.  I love getting involved with different challenges, sharing and knowing that something I enjoy can help someone else.   

Mixed Media Art

So the long and short of it is to go for it but take these points into consideration: 

Conclusion

In a nutshell here are the main pointers for you:

1. Take stock of where you are;

2. Ask yourself what you need to manage the additional tasks;

3. Decide your worth, how much do you value your time;

4. What is your creative working style like – (lots of things on the go or one at a time);

5. What it would take to make it all happen and complete the journey;

6. What do you want to achieve at the end, does rewards outweigh the sacrifice and hard work;

7. How much time do you really have - Be realistic - do you need to take on this additional challenge/course now?  Are you willing to walk away, or reschedule for a later date?

8. Keep it simple, break it down into doable chunks and don't feel guilty! 

  

I hope you continue to join me on this creative journey, and where I can share creative hints and tips I will be more than happy.
. 
Think about the things that take up your time and how you can change things to work better for you – there’s a challenge for you!!

Let me know how you get on, what are you working on at the moment, what do you find challenging?