ARTstarters:

A Spiritual Process for

Using Creativity and

Art-Making

to Ignite Your Life

More than 100 creative prompts

and projects that spark inspiration!

ARTstarters

A Spiritual Process for Using Creativity

and Art-Making to Ignite Your Life

ISBN:  978-0-9914582-1-9

Copyright © Nicole Steiman 2014

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, without the written permission of Nicole Steiman.

Nicole can be reached at www.NicoleSteiman.com

Editing by:

Tami Call of Artifex Learning LLC

Maria D. Laso of Elders Editorial Services

Nicole’s Disclaimer:  Any typos that exist in this manuscript are solely because I kept adding new stuff after the final edits!

Cover by Margaret Lestina of Graphic Connections Group and Nicole Steiman

Published by Experience Learning Group, Laguna Beach, California

www.ExperienceLearningGroup.com

“Your spark can become a flame and change everything.”

Edgar D. Nixon (1899-1987),
American Civil Rights Leader

This book is dedicated to you.

And me.

And everyone else who is searching for more . . .

. . . because we are curious and brave enough to

ask questions about what that “more” is.

Introduction

This book is about using your God-given creativity to get inspired about life.  It’s a spiritual process rather than an instructional manual on art technique.

When you slow down to create art, you will start to notice things about your life.  The same qualities that strike an artist with inspiration can also bring you ideas about your purpose, your relationships, your spirituality, your careers, your life balance and more.  The great news is that you don’t have to consider yourself an “artist” to create art and access this inspiration!

Perhaps you picked up this book with excitement because you are:

- Curious about what creativity can do for you

- Already flowing with inspiration and ready for more

- Yearning to create art that is more connected to your soul

Or maybe you were drawn to this book because you feel:

- Lost in the mundane shuffle of everyday life

- Buried alive with stress and responsibility

- Certain you have veered off your true path somewhere along the way

- Disconnected to your Creator or even unsure if there is one out there

No matter your specific reasons for reading this book, chances are that you want more of something in your life.  Artistic inspiration can be the spark that ignites your life!  Once inspiration is flowing, your whole life can open up to possibilities you may never have considered.

We’ll use a variety of creative tools on your journey through this book including:

- Creative Rituals:  easy routines to make creativity part of your day

- Creativity @ pLaY:  fun art projects to bring the chapter topic to life

- Journal Prompts:  questions to help you discover insights about yourself

I’ll explain all of these tools in detail in Section I, along with supplies you’ll need and options of how to use this book as a process rather than just as something to read.

Whether or not you think you are creative, you CAN create art!  Think back to the joy you had as a child expressing yourself with crayons and paints -- even before you could read or write.  You created because it was fun and because you had something beyond words that you wanted to express:  an idea, a feeling or a picture in your head.  The art exercises in this book are designed to take you back to those feelings of expression and joy!

Although you will create many beautiful pieces of art along the way, we’ll be using art as a tool rather than as an end result. No fine art portfolios, snobby galleries, or juried art shows here!

What you will find here are some questions to ask yourself about your life, and a fun way to discover your answers through art.  As most Creativity and Life Coaches will tell you, questions can be very powerful.

After 20 years of focusing my life’s mission on awakening creativity in myself and others, I decided to work with an expert to help me take my business to the next level.  Instead of answering my how questions, Coach Barbara Wilber first asked me this simple and direct question:  “Why is creativity so important to you?”   As a corporate consultant, art instructor and studio owner, I was eating, sleeping and breathing creativity for most of my life so it was a very fair question to ask.

Yet all of my answers seemed superficial to me, as if something crucial was missing that I couldn’t put into words.  Coach Barbara asked me to think about it and to keep asking myself “why” until I got to the heart of it.  Of course I wrote (and drew and painted and created) until I had my answer.

And when I did, it rocked my world to the core.

From that day forward, I could no longer create just for the sake of creating.  And I could no longer share creativity with others just to help them make better art.

Because I know in my heart of hearts there’s something more to creativity, something that even I had been searching for in all my years of teaching it:

From the very start of our creation, God imagined us creating together with Him.

This gift of creativity that God gave us is for more than simply making art.   Creativity helps us open our hearts.  It’s a crucial part of how He relates to us, and us to Him, beyond our logical mind.

Yet it’s true that creativity can be its own destination.  There are many benefits to making art, including relaxation and productivity to name a few.  Even top business consultants are calling for art to be restored in education and the workplace.  And yes, you can gain a lot of inspiration from the techniques in this book, even without acknowledging God as the Source of it.  (That’s the book I thought I was going to write.)

But you may end up feeling, as I once did, that something is still missing.

Aligning your personal faith with this process will allow you to explore your creativity in a much more meaningful way. In the Resources Section in the back of the book, I have also shared Faith Musings, Lyrics and Scriptures that were special to me during my writing process.  These will also be great discussion starters for faith-based readers and Christian Creativity Circles. Please share your musings with me as well!

So just like with Coach Barbara, before we get into the how, let’s start by exploring the why:  some basic beliefs about creativity and why they are so important to you.

I am so excited and honored to be part of this journey with you!

Nicole Steiman

Your Creativity Coach

Creator of The ARTbar Hands-on Studio

M. A. Human Resources Development, Chapman University

B. A. Psychology

Certified Creativity & Life Coach

www.ARTstartersBook.com

www.NicoleSteiman.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Section I:  Getting Started

Basic Beliefs & Creative Mindsets

God the Great Creator

Think Like an Artist

The 5 Mindsets of Creativity

Connecting to the Source of Creativity

Creativity @ pLaY: Starting with a Prayer

The Process:  How Does ARTstarters Work?

Option 1:  The Overview and Quick-Start Plan

Option 2:  The 10-Week Experiment

Option 3:  The 5-Month Experience

Option 4:  The Creativity Circle

Option 5:  Become an ARTstarter Facilitator

The Supplies:  What Do I Need?

Creativity @ pLaY: On Your Mark!

Creativity @ pLaY: My Letter to Me

Section II:  The 5 Mindsets of Creativity

Mindset 1: Possibility

The Creative Ritual of Daydreaming

Creativity @ pLaY: Superhero Paper Doll

Creativity @ pLaY: Starting Over

Creativity @ pLaY: Curiosity Map

Journal Prompts: Possibility

Summary of Insights

Mindset 2: Listening

The Creative Ritual of Drawing

Creativity @ pLaY: Drawing Exercises

Basic Shape Sketches

Linear Outline Drawings

Gesture Drawings

Continuous Line Contour Drawings

Creativity @ pLaY: Blind Self-Portrait

Creativity @ pLaY: Scribble Drawings

Creativity @ pLaY:  Eye to Eye Life Drawing

Creativity @ pLaY: Visual Prayer

Journal Prompts: Listening

Summary of Insights

Mindset 3: Beauty

The Creative Ritual of Slow Motion

Creativity @ pLaY: Diamond in the Rough

Creativity @ pLaY: Growing Gratitude Tree

Creativity @ pLaY: Wabi-Sabi Walk

Creativity @ pLaY: Scavenger Sculpture

Journal Prompts: Beauty

Summary of Insights

Mindset 4: Vulnerability

The Creative Ritual of Spill ‘N’ Fill

Creativity @ pLaY: Raw Art Graffiti

Creativity @ pLaY: Chalk Monsters

Creativity @ pLaY: The Give-it-to-God Box

Journal Prompts: Vulnerability

Summary of Insights

Mindset 5: Passion

The Creative Ritual of ARTrageous Love

Creativity @ pLaY: Changing Heart

Creativity @ pLaY: The Jealousy Puzzle

Creativity @ pLaY: Recipe for Desire

Creativity @ pLaY: Passion Poster

Journal Prompts: Passion

Summary of Insights

Celebrating Your Journey

Creative Mindset Inventory

Reflection:  My Letter to Me

Creativity @ pLaY: Celebration Creativity Candle

Section III:  Resources

Creativity Circles: The ARTstarters Group Process

Faith Musings, Lyrics & Scripture

Templates

AcknowledgmentsEndnotes

Section I:

Getting Started

Basic Beliefs & Creative Mindsets

As a Creativity Coach over the past two decades, I have had a unique view into the yearning that people have to create something beautiful. Sometimes it’s art; sometimes it’s a happy childhood for our kids; sometimes it’s an amazing dinner surrounded by friends.  Creativity has no limits and shows up in our life in so many ways.  Usually beneath it all is the deep desire to create more meaning with our life.

Maybe you are an artist, or maybe you have never picked up a paintbrush.  Here’s the good news: Unlike most art schools, creativity is nonexclusive.  To make art, you don’t need a fancy portfolio or even proof that you can draw a straight line.

All you need to begin in art, and in life, is a belief that you were created by a very creative God and that He gifted you with creativity as well.  The rest of your unique journey will awaken as you move forward from there.

God the Great Creator

Look at the world around you, scientists estimate that there are:

- 5,000 types of mammals,

- 10,000 types of birds,

- 30,000 types of fish

- 300,000 plant species

- 1 million types of insects

- another undocumented 2 million organisms living in the sea[1]

- and a whopping 100 BILLION or more planets in the Milky Way alone.[2]

Clearly, our Creator is an artist!  More than just quantity, His portfolio includes natural masterpieces such as the Grand Canyon, the Aurora Borealis, the Great Barrier Reef and Mount Everest.  And that doesn’t even touch on the full scope of His artistry or His greatest masterpiece – us.

Among the billions of His living artworks, only we were created to be creative: able to imagine possibilities and then, based on free will, to make conscious choices to bring those possibilities into reality.  When He gave us the breath of life, He also gave us the “creative spark” to breathe life into the world around us.  In essence, we were created in His image to think like an artist.  We were created to CREATE.

Think Like An Artist

Whether or not you see yourself as an “artist,” you are wired to think like one!  The very mindsets of creativity that God Himself exhibits and has gifted artists with throughout time have in fact been gifted to each one of US.  We simply may have forgotten how to access and use those mindsets.  Looking at how artists access their creativity can provide clues to help us remember our true nature.

Despite the extreme stereotype of the “tortured artist,” most of us look at creative people and see something we admire.  Why? We are drawn to something beyond their talent.  Maybe it’s how they look at things differently or the way they bravely embrace the unknown.  Maybe it’s the courage to create in spite of the reaction of others.  Artists tend to be some of the most interesting people we meet, their lives overflowing with inspiration, ideas, and projects.  Perhaps they remind us of something that’s missing in our own lives that used to be a part of us too?

For the past 20 years, my art studios have been in the midst of some of the most creative people in Southern California, from the eclectic and urban areas of Los Angeles to the vibrant artist communities of Laguna Beach.  The historic Santora Arts Building in the Santa Ana Artists Village, where my studio is now, is filled with unique energy and talent, with dozens of events and exhibits constantly changing.  Street artists fill the brick-paved plaza with diverse talents.[3]  Hundreds of artists and art lovers drift in and out of our galleries every day sharing ideas and soaking in inspiration. Frequently our conversations turn into long discussions about what makes someone an “artist” and what makes something “art.”  I am convinced that the key ingredient is inspiration.

in·spi·ra·tion noun \ˌin(t)-spə-ˈrā-shən, -(ˌ)spi-\

from Merriam-Webster Dictionary

: something that makes someone want to do something or that gives someone an idea about what to do or create : a force or influence that inspires someone

: a person, place, experience, etc., that makes someone want to do or create something

: a good idea

:  a divine influence or action on a person believed to qualify him or her to receive and communicate sacred revelation

:  the action or power of moving the intellect or emotions

:  the act of drawing in; specifically :  the drawing of air into the lungs

Transforming Life Experience into Creative Expression

Like air, the more we draw in the life around us, the more we can draw from as we live out our life.   Inspiration is a creative conversion of information into ideas.

Inspiration is what can cause us to consider bold new actions that take our artwork, and our life, in new directions.  Often described as epiphanies, life-changing ideas can come anywhere, any time, usually when you least expect them —bubbling up in the shower or waiting for you when you wake.  Where do these ideas come from?

Steven Johnson, author of Where Good Ideas Come From, explains that although an idea is perceived as arriving in a flash of insight, a “eureka” moment, it is usually nurtured and built over time in what he calls the “slow hunch.” He gives the example of how Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web from his experiences over many years, starting with his childhood fascination of an old, musty encyclopedia and building to his later attempts to store small blocks of information in connected networks.  Curiosity, experimentation and documentation provided a way for smaller hunches to connect into a much bigger idea.[4]

Great artists get great ideas because they are consistently open to receiving inspiration, even actively seeking it, from their Creator, from others, and from the world around them.  This constant flow of inspiration is what keeps their art so alive!

When ideas stop flowing, artists are said to feel “blocked.”  When I started my work as a Creativity Coach, my focus was to help artists “unblock” and create more art.  I soon realized that the process was doing far more than merely inspiring more paintings and books; it was in fact changing the way these artists thought and lived.  They were embracing the mindsets of truly inspired people, influencing how they think and act, day in and day out.  And once these artists got inspired in life, their passion was ignited, they felt less stress, and they began to go through their days with true purpose and more joy.

The Mindsets of Creativity

When you invite inspiration into your life, you do more than become an “artist”; you become more of yourself.

Developing the mindsets that foster creativity will bring more inspiration into your life, leading to more passion, purpose and joy. And it works for EVERYONE!

The same mindsets that artists, and God as well, use to create are already inside you.  Forgetting them leads to feelings of uncertainty and imbalance.   Accessing them will help remind you that you hold the paintbrush to create your life.

I am so excited to explore the five Creative Mindsets with you here in the chapters of this book.

Creative Mindset #1 – Possibility

Cultivating Curiosity, Imagination and a Belief in the Impossible:

Artists see each answer as the start of a new question, following their curiosity in a constant search for something new.  In our own lives, we can play with possibilities and not only find new ideas but also find fun in the adventure itself.

Creative Mindset #2 – Listening

Drawing Insights From Beyond Just What We See:

Artists constantly listen to the world around them, to themselves and to their creative source.  Drawing, praying and paying close attention are all ways we can invite inspiration into our lives.

Creative Mindset #3 – Beauty

Seeing the Extraordinary in the Ordinary:

Instead of finding beauty or striving for it in the obvious, artists open their eyes and see it in the most unlikely places. When we slow down to nurture the Mindset of Beauty in our own lives, we start to notice the inspiration that has been around us all along.

Creative Mindset #4 – Vulnerability

Embracing Imperfection to Be Who We Really Are:

Many times artists create one step at a time without knowing their full vision. When they share their art, they don’t know who will like it. We too can show courage by stepping out in faith, even when we don’t know exactly where it will lead us, leaving the safety of perfection behind.

Creative Mindset #5 – Passion

Pouring Out Devotion and Desire in Pursuit of Our Art:

Artists can no more stop creating than they can stop breathing.  As long as you are still breathing, living your life out loud through love is your calling.

You, being YOU, is the best art you can make in this world.

To help you explore these Creative Mindsets, I’ll share how artists use them when creating. For illustrative purposes, I will refer to artists as “they” or “them,” as compared to “us” as we live our ordinary, extraordinary lives.  Although I believe we are all created to be artistic, this structure will allow us to compare the mindset as it applies to Art in specific with the mindset as it applies to Life in general.

The ideas and projects described in this book will help anyone bring “creativity to life” through fun techniques and reflection.

At the core of this process is the Creator who brings them all to life in the world around us. He is the very Source of creativity itself, even when He’s not acknowledged.  At the beginning of each ARTstarters chapter is an invitation to create a prayer in any way that you like.  At the end of each chapter, you’ll have a chance to reflect on how God Himself is the Creator of each mindset and how He speaks to you through each.

When you rediscover these creative ways of thinking and begin to apply them to your life, you will be inspired to create more than amazing art; you will be inspired to co-create with God the art that is your life!

Connecting to the Source of Creativity

Unlike God’s other creations, only we are designed with an artist’s heart like His.  I believe our creativity was a special seed He planted in us, specially designed to enable us to connect to Him and choose Him, to ask questions, to make decisions, to see beauty, to embrace vulnerability, and to ignite a desire to truly live.  Once we water that creative seed, it cannot help but blossom into a deep relationship with Him.

Co-creating with the Master Artist

Art is a spiritual process, as is life.  Unlike children who feel they have outgrown their parents’ advice, we can never outgrow our Creator.  I never fail to stumble in life and in my art, when I take an inspired idea, gratefully say “Thank you, God”  . . . and then run off with the idea on my own.

I do not believe that our Creator created us, threw some ideas at us, and then left us to knock ourselves into extinction.  He’s not the kind of parent who would drop us off at school and pick us up 80 years later and ask, “So, what did you do?”  He’s here with us, and He wants to co-create our world with us, just as He did when He first created us.

From the very start of our creation, God imagined us creating together with Him.

That is why I believe all great art-making starts with a prayer.  Prayer doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s a simple act of connecting with God and asking Him for inspiration . . . and then being open to receive His creative answers.

Let’s create a simple prayer now, before the journey begins.

Creativity @ pLaY:  Starting with a Prayer

You may feel confused about who God is, who you want Him to be, and how He fits in with the images you’ve been taught.  Don’t let any of that hold you back.  Just as with art, you don’t need all the answers to begin.  Just begin.

Your prayer can be anything you want to share with your Great Creator, the Master Artist.  Draw it, dance it around the yard, sing it out loud, write it or whisper your words into the air.  He hears us in more than mere words.  He hears our very soul, whether or not we are able to express it.

Write out the words of your prayer, or describe it, or draw something to remind yourself of what your prayer sounds like, looks like or feels like.  Use the space on the next page or a blank sheet of paper to insert into your journal later.

My prayer:

Each time you create, you can revisit this prayer or create a new one.  Make copies of it and keep it where you can see it often.  Eventually you may not even feel an end to your prayer; when this happens, allow it to carry you right into the creative process.

Reflection:  Starting With a Prayer

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions here on this page or on a blank sheet of paper that you can insert into your journal later:

1. What do you believe about creativity?

2. Why is creativity so important to you?

3. What do you believe about our God who gave us creativity?

4. What role do you believe He wants to play in inspiring your life?

5. What questions do you have for God?

As you play and skip your way through this book, I am confident that you will awaken the artist soul that was breathed into you on the day you were created.

My prayer for you is that you remember who God created you to be.

The Process:  How Does ARTstarters Work?

As a Creativity Coach, I run a hands-on studio called The ARTbar, which I opened in 2002 as a way to help people discover that they are creative.  I love watching them come into the studio for the first time.  There is an overwhelming moment as they look around at all the canvases, paints, papers, ribbons, markers, charms and bins and bins of art materials. The more skeptical sit back and watch others dive in, saying they don’t know what to do.  Yet inevitably they soon join in, eyes lighting up with an idea to try.

As with anything new, creativity can be overwhelming at first!  Structured exercises like the ones in this book can help channel any feelings of uncertainty you may experience into creative energy and give you a focus or goal.  With ARTstarters I’m sharing some of the most life-changing projects I have used over the past decade with individuals, couples, parties, youth groups, events and corporate team buildings.

In working with thousands of clients, in my studio and through various organizations, I have found that often the biggest or most meaningful insights come through an interesting two-part process: first comes the fun of making art and then follows the reflection of asking ourselves questions about the process and the outcome.

Absolutely no prior art experience or talent is necessary for the exercises in this book.  Art-making and journaling are simply tools we will use to open up our minds and hearts to new insights.

Using art as a tool instead of the end result is not a new concept.  Art therapy has been around professionally since the 1940’s and has proven that the process of creation itself can bring insight and healing.[5]  Unfortunately, art therapy today is considered primarily for those struggling with addiction, those trying to overcome the effects of traumatic events or situations, and those with a psychological diagnosis.

Yet it is my belief that in this predominately logical, multi-tasking, stressed-out world, we all need to recover, heal and overcome the stresses of everyday life. We all can benefit from more insights and healing.  We are all in need of some form of “everyday art therapy.”

The word “therapy” can sometimes lead us to worry about what is imperfect about us, what is missing or not working.  We might in the moment be excited about playing with the art but then afterward stew on it, suspicious about what we made and why. Instead, view what comes after as the richest part of the gift. Instead of stewing, try reflecting. Instead of worrying about what “imperfections” your art reveals about you, use the process of creation and the process of reflection afterward as a path of discovery to what is good and possible rather than what is flawed or needs fixing.

Creativity coaching is not meant to fix us but instead to move us forward toward what we want more of.  In the process of working through this book, it’s so important to not stop with the art but to spend time with the reflection questions afterward.  They will remind you to celebrate and include God in the process.   I love how He speaks to us through art: God takes our gaze off what’s missing and puts it on what can fill it!  Although self-discovery can feel scary, creating with our Creator makes the process safe.

How Creativity Helps Us Achieve Wholeness

Without our creativity (sometimes referred to as “right-brain thinking”), we are incomplete.  We lack the wholeness that will enable us to reach out for true joy. One blessing of the creative process is that we gain access to who we really are.

The creative exercises in ARTstarters are designed to unbury, awaken and strengthen our creative brain while also integrating that aspect of ourselves with our logical brain.   Many refer to this functioning as “right-brain” and “left-brain” thinking.[6]  Even though the idea of “creative brain” and “logical brain” is an overly simplified view of the immense complexity of brain functioning, it is helpful to refer to these extremes because it is easy for most of us to understand ourselves operating in those terms.

Why Wholeness Matters

When we sit too long at school or at work dealing with facts and figures, our “creative brain” yearns to stretch its imagination.  Yet when we get lost in daydreams or creative thinking, our “logical brain” will scold us to be more productive.  Truly we need them both!  It means nothing to envision and plant a beautiful garden if we don’t remember to water the plants!

In essence, our logical side helps us survive, reminding us that we would not be here to enjoy life if it weren’t for meeting our responsibilities.   Our creative side helps us thrive, inspiring us with the possibility that there is more to life than simply making it through another day.  Learning to use both functions of our brain simultaneously and in harmony helps us to go through life “mind-full,” using more of our brain’s capacity than either the creative or logical side alone could provide.

Unfortunately for most people modern life is designed to concretely reward us more for thinking logically.  From the moment we wake to the moment we go to sleep, we are considered most valuable to society when we stay on task, check things off, impose or maintain order and of course prepare for the next day, when we will do it all again.  You might say that, as a muscle, the logical side of the brain gets the bigger work out.  Our creative side, meanwhile, is usually reserved for hobbies, side projects or field trips to be enjoyed only after all the other important and productive work is done.   As a result, a part of us begins to wither away. Like a physical muscle, our creative muscle can atrophy when not worked out.  No wonder we can begin to feel disconnected from who we really are.

Whitney (Ferré) Freya, author of The Artist Within, shares her thoughts on the importance of using creativity to create change:

“Your artist within has a plethora of ideas for you, new ways to approach the elements of your life, new perspectives, people you should call, a new direction to take, or a hobby you should pursue.  There is knowledge in your right brain that is just as valuable, in its own way, as left-brain knowledge.”[7]

The consequence of not paying attention to creativity, unfortunately, is that it becomes easier to get stuck by problems and much harder to think of new ideas.  We may become too focused on what can’t happen and lose sight of the possibility of what can.  This altered vision is not only detrimental to us personally, but to our society as a whole.

Daniel Pink believes that there is economic and social urgency for creativity in this world.  In his book A Whole New Mind, he shares this vision:

“Today, the defining skills of the previous era – the ‘left-brain’ capabilities that powered the Information Age – are necessary but no longer sufficient.  And the capabilities we once disdained or thought frivolous – the ‘right-brain’ qualities of inventiveness, empathy, joyfulness, and meaning – increasingly will determine who flourishes and who flounders.”[8]

If you feel like you’ve been floundering more than flourishing, it’s time to open your whole mind to inspiration!

This book will give your creative muscle a playful “workout” through art-making exercises and then integrate that increasingly creative you with your logical side through a series of reflection questions designed to help you use your insights “in the real world.”  I call it “bringing creativity to life.”  You may never use your newly built-up creative muscle for painting the next Picasso, or to earn a living as a professional artist, but your life will become full of more creative options, joy, and meaning as a result of playing through this book.

The ARTstarters Process:  Your Big Creative Experiment

In 2008, I introduced the first series of ARTstarters calendars, consisting of journaling prompts organized around monthly themes.

The idea was modeled from my daughter’s kindergarten homework.  We were challenged to choose a fun exercise here or there and then check off the ones we did.  We didn’t need to do them all, nor do them on the day they were listed.

My right brain LOVED this flexibility!  I created the ARTstarters calendar in a similar format, choosing monthly themes based on the concepts in which I was coaching clients.  Of course, instead of checking off squares, we colored them with bright colors so we could see our progress visually and vibrantly!  As months went by, more requests came in from all over the Internet asking for the next month’s calendar.  I realized then how important the monthly structure is for people.

It is amazing to see how that early idea has evolved into a full coaching program with related workshops, studio play time, online galleries, discussion boards and videos all tying in to the monthly themes.  Links to these resources are now available throughout this book so you too can use them.

FREE RESOURCES:

Interested in more resources to use with your ARTstarters book?

Visit us at:

www.ARTstartersBook.com

Whether you commit to a full process or skip around throughout this book, stay curious.  Consider this a “play” book instead of a workbook.  If it’s not fun, you won’t keep doing it.  However, if you don’t commit to some sort of process, you might never start.

To appease both sides of our brain, we need an analogy to keep us motivated to not merely read this book but to try it.  So I invite you to consider ARTstarters your Big Experiment.  In a moment, I’ll introduce you to one of your most useful tools, a journal that you can think of as a visual log of your activity.  Imagine that you are both the scientist AND the main subject, filling your log with colors and drawings and insights. You will keep lots of notes, explore lots of theories and see what works for you in your life. If ARTstarters works for you as is, keep doing it.  If it doesn’t, change something.  We will share lots of variations along the way.  And like any good scientist, instead of reading stories about how creativity has inspired other people, you will be creating your own evidence.

How It Works

Each chapter will explore one of the five Creative Mindsets introduced earlier.   After discussing each mindset and how it applies in our life, you’ll have four additional sections to play with:

1. Creative Ritual

2. Creativity @ pLaY and Reflection

3. Journal Prompts

4. Summary Questions

The table below explains more about each section to help you dig in and start playing:

Chapter section

What it is

Note

Creative Mindsets:

1.  Possibility

2.  Listening

3.  Beauty

4. Vulnerability

5.  Passion

Descriptions and thoughts about the concepts as they apply to artists as well as to us in our lives

I will refer to artists as “they” or “them,” as compared to “us” as we live our lives, even though we are all created to be artistic.

Creative Ritual

A routine that is quick and easy to practice, usually daily, to help make the creative mindset part of your everyday life

If you commit to the ritual, think of it as a variable in your experiment.  Challenge yourself to follow through and record your results so you can go back and look for patterns or additional insights.

Creativity @ pLaY and Reflection

Playful art projects to do in your journal, as larger-scale art projects, or even with groups

Time estimates and supply lists are included for each one.

Afterward, reflect on your art-making using the journal questions to help you capture insights.

Journal Prompts

Suggestions to keep you journaling throughout the month on the topic in each chapter

These are listed near the end of each chapter and also are available for free online in a more visual calendar format, as mentioned above.

Journal about anything you want at any time.  The prompts are there just to get you started.

Mindset Summary

Summary questions to capture your insights from the entire chapter and reflect on how God is speaking to you through them

This is a place to track your progress, summarize your ideas and celebrate your creative journey!

ARTstarters Implementation Options

Using the chapter sections all together will give you an opportunity to fully embrace the Creative Mindsets to gain insights in your life.  However, not everyone has the same time to dedicate to the process or the same level of commitment. Therefore, you can choose how you would like to implement ARTstarters by selecting from the five ARTstarters options listed below:

Option 1:  The Overview and Quick Start Plan

Option 2:  The 10-Week Experiment

Option 3:  The 5-Month Experience

Option 4:  The Creativity Circle

Option 5:  Become an ARTstarter Facilitator

Option 1:  The ARTstarters Overview and Quick Start Plan

Let’s be honest. You’re going to flip through this book before you do ANY of the art-making exercises.  It is way more comfortable to just read them, nodding in agreement along the way, than to actually do them.  I am guilty of this too when learning or trying new things.  My husband laughs at me when I plop down on the couch to watch new exercise videos!

A 10-week or 5-month process takes commitment, and right now may not be the right time for you.  Yet there is a reason you picked up ARTstarters in the first place. Before putting this book back on the shelf, consider this simple plan:

1. As you flip through the book, read through the descriptions of each chapter.  Notice any topics that seem to resonate with you.

2. Try following the Creative Ritual for a few days and notice any changes in yourself that might be opening up.

3. From there, schedule a chunk of time (when you can) to play with one of the art exercises.

This simple process may be just the start you need to get you going in the right direction.  Although the mindsets really do work best when building on one another, the rest of the book will be here waiting for you when you need it.

Option 2: The ARTstarters 10-Week Experiment

Experiments are designed to be most effective when tested consistently under controlled environments so that scientists can notice change and identify what is causing it.  Likewise, working your way through this book systematically will allow you to try everything it has to offer and to best experience how it all works together.

Plan to go through the five chapters in about two weeks each, either by yourself, with a buddy, or as a small group.

Week 1:

Focus on reading through a chapter and commit to the Creative Ritual.

Week 2:

Do one or more of the chapter’s related Creativity @ pLaY exercises.

Repeat this two-week process for each chapter for a total of 10 weeks.

Make sure to journal about each chapter’s reflection questions after each two-week period so that you can look back later and see the scope of change occurring in your life.

Option 3:  The ARTstarters 5-Month Transformation Program

Studies show that to truly form a habit takes repetition for at least 21 days.  By focusing on each chapter for a full month, you’ll have time to apply each mindset to your life and give it a chance to create change you might not otherwise experience.

Follow this suggested plan for each chapter, one per month:

First day of month:

Download the ARTstarters Monthly Calendar that goes with the chapter and keep it in your journal.

Every morning:

Set aside 15 - 30 minutes to do the Creative Ritual.

Every night:

Set aside 15 – 30 minutes to journal with the prompts on the Calendar.

Weekly/bi-weekly:

Plan a 1-2 hour “artist play date” to do a Creativity @ pLaY exercise from the chapter.  Read the section of the chapter that goes with it and use the Reflection Questions afterward.

Last day of month:

Set aside some quiet time reviewing the chapter and your journal pages from the month.  Use the Mindset Summary questions to reflect on the insights you’ve gleaned during the month.  Consider sharing your findings with the online ARTstarters community to get encouragement from others and give it as well.

Connect to the ARTstarters Community:

Interested in getting personalized encouragement on your journey through the ARTstarters book?  An ARTstarters membership will get you access to the monthly journaling calendar, handouts, galleries, discussion boards, videos and live calls!

Get started with a membership today!

Visit us online at:

www.ARTstartersBook.com

Option 4:  The ARTstarters Creativity Circle

The ARTstarters program has the best results when others are running alongside you, encouraging and motivating you.  Sharing insights with a friend or small group will multiply your inspiration and give you personal support.  You might decide to meet weekly or monthly to share insights, depending on which time frame you are using.  Your group can also use the link above to connect to our private online community for even more insights, or our public group on Facebook:  www.Facebook.com/ARTstarters.

For groups that want to go much deeper in connecting to God through the Bible, I have included additional resources in the back of the book for faith-based or Christian Creativity Circles.

You may enjoy hosting your ARTstarters group so much that you want to continue introducing the process to others.  To offer more structured group experiences, consider becoming part of our Facilitator’s Circle (see below).

Option 5:  Become an ARTstarters Facilitator

Whether you are offering ARTstarters professionally, or opening your home to host a Creativity Circle, you are facilitating a unique experience for your group that will change their life.  Remember to allow extra time along with the art exercises for reflection.  Most people are eager for artistic expression yet even hungrier for meaning in their life.  You can help them connect with both in a fun way by using these tools.

If you are a teacher or therapist, you may feel inspired to use one or more of the exercises with corporate teams, youth groups, churches or schools without offering the full process.  Choose the exercises that fit the theme you are teaching and tailor the reflection questions to match your objective.  Let us know if we can help.

Working with groups is our passion, and we’d love to share our free ARTstarters facilitator resources with you at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/facilitators

No matter which option you choose for using this book, remember that it is much more than simply a collection of art projects.  It’s a process of art and reflection that will change your life in relation to how much you put into it.  Best of all — because the journey is so much fun and because creativity has been inside you all along, what you gain through the process will stay with you long after you put down this book!

The Supplies:  What do I Need?

Basic Supplies to Get Started

The only materials that you really need are:

- a journal

- a pen or pencil to write and draw with

- any simple art supplies to add color, such as colored pencils, markers or watercolors

The Creativity @ pLaY exercises will list additional supplies with the detailed instructions.  Feel free to adapt them for what you have.

This is a great book to use with all those arts and crafts supplies you may have accumulated over the years. Keep them handy in a bin; the most random supplies can add the perfect touch just when and where you need it!  And after years of selling art supplies to people who admitted they were just hoarding them, I love helping people use the supplies they already have!

Other Fun Supplies

For those of you hoping for a more extensive supply list so you can go shopping, here are supplies I like to keep handy. Most are available at any stationary, art supply or crafting store:

- Fine-point gel pens in various colors

- Pencils and erasers (although we won’t erase a lot!)

- Colored markers for drawing and doodling (permanent fine-tip markers are nice)

- Water-soluble crayons: similar to crayons but they blend with water

- Watercolor pencils: great for adding soft color or to blend with water

- Ink pads: to rub or sponge onto journal pages for colored backgrounds

- Images: photos, magazines, printed papers

- Watercolor paints

- Acrylic paints: they dry fast, unlike oil paints

- Paint markers: acrylic paint in a pen format.  How awesome is that!  They dry opaque over dark colors, magazine images and even over acrylic paint itself.

ARTstarters Kits:

Want it all in a convenient package?

Our kits may be just the kickstart you need!

Visit us online at:

www.ARTstartersBooks/kits

Any paper scraps, calligraphy inks, acrylic inks, stencils, stamps, beads, fibers and interesting images may come in handy.  If you begin with only a few supplies, you may decide to add to your collection over time.  There will always be more art supplies to buy!

Over the years I have amassed quite a collection of random art supplies.  It’s one reason The ARTbar is such a fun studio to play in!  I am constantly discovering new supplies, but I have tried-and-true favorites that I use over and over.  You can get up-to-date information on new supplies I’m falling in love with and order convenient kits from the website listed above.

About Journaling

A journal will be a crucial part of this journey. Journals are designed to keep a record of information.  There are many types of journals, almost as many as there are interests in the world:  garden journals, photo journals, dream journals, wine journals, travel journals, reading journals, gratitude journals, and more!

I realize that there are people out there who yearn for creativity yet resist journaling. It’s been my experience that most either love it or hate it.  If you’re one of the haters, consider these benefits to beginning a journal for this ARTstarters experiment:

- To create a visual of what you’re feeling.

- To slow down your mind for reflection.

- To allow your creativity to get a little more practice than it usually gets.

- To show your progress and success, because, yes, your logical side wants to see that!

What is Expressive Journaling?

ARTstarters uses an expressive journaling process to help you capture your unedited thoughts and feelings.  If you are unsure what to journal about, you will have plenty of prompts to choose from in each chapter.  You’ll want to use your journal for almost everything you do in this book, except perhaps for the larger Creativity @ pLaY projects, although even these can be photographed, printed and then glued onto a journal page.

At the end of your journey, some pages of your journal will have drawings, some will have writing, and some might have both.  You can answer the reflection questions right in your journal by photocopying the corresponding pages from the book or simply by writing your answers in and around your artwork.  Most importantly, having a journal means you can use it any time you want to express yourself about anything at all. The prompts in this book are just to get you started.

How to Journal

Since your journal is a place to express yourself, there is no right or wrong way to use it.  Like most things in life, however, the more techniques you know, the easier it is to pull from them when you need them.  Here are some fun things to try anytime in your journal or along with the journal prompts in every chapter.

Keeping an expressive journal can be simple:

- Date your pages, anywhere on them, as a reference for when you look back.

- Put anything and everything in it. Don’t judge it.

- Just use it!

Here are some other creative ideas to try in your journal:

Adding images:

- Draw your ideas.

- Use symbols to express your feelings

- Glue a printed picture or magazine image to your page, and then write out your feelings around it.

Adding colored backgrounds:

- Ink pads:  generally used for stamping, these are perfect for sponging or smearing on your page because they dry fairly quickly.  You can then easily write over the colored page.

- Crayons can allow you to add color.  When writing over it be aware that it will be too waxy for most pens.  Sharpie or paint markers will work.

- Colored Pencils can be used to color over paragraphs or individual words to highlight things that you wrote.

- Background papers can be glued down and then written over.

Adding Paint

A good rule to follow when adding paint in your journal is to also add the same paint to the other side of the page to keep it from curling.  You may want to attach pages together to make them thicker

- Acrylic paint: Use a brush or sponge to cover your page with color or combine different colors. Use an old credit card to scrape different colors across and keep your layers thin.

- Glazes:  Paint can be thinned down with water to create a wash, or with glaze to make a translucent color to blend with other colors.

- Watercolor:  brush on watercolor paints and blend different colors together for various effects

- Water-soluable crayons will add dry color around the pages, with the added bonus of turning into watercolors when you add water.

Adding words:

- Write around your images. You can even write upside down, around in circles.

- Draw random wavy lines that you draw across your page.  Let your lettering fill up the spaces between the lines, getting bigger and smaller.

- Cut words or letters out of magazines or print them from various fonts.

- Experiment with funky lettering – make up your own style!

Other cool effects:

- Stencils and stamps can add bold designs

- Negative space can be created from cut out designs placed on your page while applying color all around it.  When you lift up your shape, a silhouette will remain for you to write in.

- Pieces of glued on paper from special places (menus, grocery lists, post-it notes, invitations, receipts, envelopes, there are no limits . . . )

- If you want both sides of your new page to show in your journal, simply cut out an old page from your journal, leaving an inch from the spine for you to attach your new page onto.

If you agree to trust the process, you soon will see that journaling gets much easier with practice. You may well discover your own personal journaling style.  What you write or draw is totally up to you, so your journal will be unique, unlike anyone else’s.  You can write in it one day, splash color and images in it the next, or just sketch with pencil. You can turn a page every day or keep adding things to a single page until you are ready to move on.

We have an online gallery and additional ideas to inspire you.  There are no right or wrong ways for your ARTstarters exercises or journal pages to look, so you may want to visit our online gallery after you create, just to keep your mind open: www.ARTstartersBooks.com/gallery

What Makes Expressive Journaling Different?

An expressive journal is different than what some refer to as an “art journal” or an “artist book.”  Using the phrase “art journal” can put pressure on us to only create things in it that look like “art.”   If you like expressing yourself with images and color, you may want to call it a “visual journal” to remind yourself that it is more of an expressive play space than a polished gallery.  It’s where seeds of ideas might start but rarely where they appear all perfectly blossomed and beautiful!

Some of your pages may take your breath away.  You may look at them and be instantly transported to the moment you made them.  They may even look like finished art!  However, the main goal with your journal should not be to make “pretty art.”  Most pages will probably end up looking like messy lists, scribbles or scratch papers.  Those pages are just as important, maybe more so, because they will help you work through your thoughts and feelings, and in essence, help you get to the “prettier” pages.

Journal for Yourself…NOT for Anyone Else

I rarely let people thumb through my expressive journals because they are a place of safe expression for me.  I may copy pages as examples to share in a blog or class, but usually with some explanation about it that shares my insights.  Some of my journal pages have inspired additional journaling pages or even bigger pieces of art, starting with ideas I have sketched or written about.  However, most of what I put in them is far from pretty – art-wise and thought-wise!

If we use our journals with the intention to share them, we may unknowingly edit what we put it in.  The type of journaling we are doing in the ARTstarters process should be raw and uncensored.  Don’t get discouraged or compare your pages to other journals.  Ever journal is a unique expression of its owner.  Without even trying, by the end of this process you will have many favorite pages you love!

Some say that a journal page is an authentic view of someone.  I don’t agree.  I think it’s an emotional peek into how I am feeling at any given moment.   I may read a page later and realize how I let my emotions carry me away from what is really true for me.  At my most emotional times, my journal allows me to vent in a healthy way and then reflect on it afterward.  Ironically, by letting it pour out, I see those feelings in a new way, much like you might talk about something out loud and then realize something about your ideas by hearing it said aloud.  Venting serves a purpose in getting me to my next step, emotionally and physically.

Journal pages also are a reflection of what materials I had handy at the time I wanted to express myself.  Instead of waiting until I can sit at my art table and have access to all my colorful supplies, I may have just grabbed the nearest pen and started scribbling or writing.  Later I can reflect further by adding color or even by starting a new drawing or page about the same topic.

I encourage you to use lots of colors, images and all your fun art supplies!  But most of all, I encourage you to make a mark in your journal, any mark, as often as you can, even if you only use a cheap crayon or a handy ball-point pen.

Some of the more complex or adventurous exercises in this book can be done directly in your journal or, if you choose, on a larger scale such as in sculpture or on canvas.  If you do an exercise outside of your journal, remember to photograph it.  You may even want to print and glue the photo into your journal.  You can write your insights around the photo and have a visual reference of it

Expressive Journaling Gallery:

We have lots of ideas to get you started!

www.ARTstartersBook.com/gallery

In summary, don’t let your journal become a place where you have “pressure to perform.”  The purpose is not to journal your authentic self on paper; instead, you are using the process of journaling to discover your authentic self.  The journaling is just a tool – you are the art!

Choosing Your Journal

Journals come in all sorts and sizes, and I love to switch them up for creative bursts.  The best size, however, is one that is not too large, not too small, easy to slip into a tote bag, and gives you open space to brainstorm, doodle and draw.   My favorite size is about 8 x 10 (like the size of a composition book) with a flexible cover with blank pages stitched in, but you might like something different.   I’ve even used plain composition books and just created right over the lines.

There are no rules in choosing a journal so go with your heart.  Your journal needs to inspire you when you hold it, look at it, and write in it.  You may choose a very different journal from someone else.  If you are using this book with a group, it’s fun to see all the different types that people will choose.

For those who are having a hard time choosing, here are my recommendations for this program:

- Use an inexpensive and flexible sketchbook for your first journal. The everyday feel of it will help you let go of your fear of creating in it.

- Less pages will make it more portable and allow you to fill it up faster so you can then start a new one. You’ll find out real fast what you like and don’t like about it to help you choose your next one.

- Use paint, markers, or collage to decorate the cover. Personalized journals are easier to express yourself in because you instantly recognize it as your own space.

- You’ll find some of my favorite journal options at: www.ARTstartersBooks.com/kits

You do not need to carry your journal with you everywhere, although you’ll probably want it handy for insights and drawings.  Regardless of where you tote your journal around with you during the day, remember to take it out of your bag and keep it near you at night.  If you keep it tucked away, you may forget your Creative Ritual for the day or miss an opportunity to capture that brilliant insight!  Many an awesome journal has been lost for weeks in a purse or briefcase, left in the car or the office or a locker, often thought of but never used.  At the end of the day, even if all you do is lean over to your nightstand and draw a circle with a word by it to describe how you are feeling at that very moment, then you have succeeded in expressing yourself!

Electronic Journaling

What about computers, tablets and smartphones?  It used to be that a paper journal was more portable and accessible for curling up on a chair or throwing in a backpack for a quick walk.  These days, however, all the latest and coolest art apps can be loaded onto one handheld device.   You can take a photo, paint over it with endless color combinations and brush sizes, and then add words and backgrounds, all directly on a few inches of screen with no more than your finger or a tiny stylus.  It would take quite a bit more space and effort to carry all those art supplies with us everywhere we go!

Some of these are valid points for using an electronic journal:

- I can password protect it.

- I can keep it secure from getting lost or damaged by archiving it

- I can take my words and photos and use them for other pieces of artwork

- I want a standard process of opening a file and inputting my thoughts regularly.

- My words and images flow faster from the keyboards then my pencil

- I will have more options for expressing myself faster with tools that are readily available

There are no rules because this process is ultimately about you becoming more inspired.  If you feel you can create the ultimate expressive play space with your keyboard, then go for it.

Keep in mind, however, that although the computer is great to create with, it is a little more difficult for most of us to express ourselves with it.

Consider:

- From the moment you turn it on, a computer or tablet may remind you of “work” and all the left-brain words that go along with that:  polished, professional, completed, improved, etc.

- Instead of raw, unedited expression of many of the exercises, you may be tempted to edit as you write or draw.

- You won’t be able to touch and smell the wax of the crayon or feel your wrist move across the texture of the paper.

- You may forget that the point is not to create the artwork, but rather what we learn from making it.  Artist software can make it easy to create a beautiful outcome, but we may miss something without the struggle of mixing just the right shade or the hunt for just the right scrap of collage paper.

A great way to get the benefits of both is to use a paper journal to express yourself and then use technology to capture, archive, edit and manipulate your art.  The fun of this process is that inspiration may strike in either tool with an idea that will take your finished journal page in a whole new direction.  You may decide to play with your hand-drawn art on the computer, print out a new creation, and then change it even more in your journal with art supplies, working between the two systems as many times as you want.

Another way to use technology is to take pictures of your journal pages.  Because my phone camera is always on me, I frequently capture what I journal to save later to my computer files.  Even if my journal is lost, I will have my most insightful pages archived!  Pages that I don’t want to be seen by anyone can be photographed and safely stored away, while the original pages in my journal are covered up with paint or paper.

Most likely you will decide that some combination of both a paper journal and an electronic process is the ultimate solution for you – and then create back and forth between the two.

Grab a Journal and Get Started!

Whether you are the most or the least creative person in the world, getting started is usually the hardest part.  If you feel your ego or critical voice is holding you back, just recognize it for what it is.    Instead of ignoring it (it will come back), answer it:  “I can do this and I won’t quit this time!” You may even want to write your answer all over a journal page in case the critical voice comes back.

Or ask yourself, “What would a child do?”  Finding your inner child will help you tap into what is fun about creating.  And always allow yourself to make really “bad” art in order to get to the really good insights.

Here are a few tips for initiating your journal:

- Write on the first page, “This is my journal.  I can create whatever I want in it!”  Make sure to date it.

- Avoid casual glances or prying eyes. Wrap a rubber band or ribbon around your journal to keep it closed.  Although it can still be easily opened, it will take an intentional act to untie it.

- Start at the back of the journal and work forward.  Your logical brain will think that you are saving the best for last so it will be okay to have your “worst” pages hidden at the back.  The pressure of the first page in a journal is sometimes too much for even the most creative of us!

In Summary:

Use this journal to capture everything during this process:  exercises, reflection questions and answers, journal prompts, mindless doodles, random ideas, and any other ways you want to express yourself.  For the Creativity @ pLaY art projects, you can print and glue a picture of your project into your journal. If you like the structure of the Reflection and Mindset Summary sections, you may simply photocopy them into your journal instead of rewriting the questions. Or you may prefer to answer the questions loosely by writing around the images in your journal.  Either way, you’ll want to have all of your play work together when you look back on your journey.

When you run out of space in your journal, simply start a new one.  Remember to date them!

As we create art through the exercises, we’ll be reminded that our life is our biggest canvas for expression!

Ready?  Grab your journal, something fun to write and draw with, and let’s begin!

Creativity @ pLaY:  On Your Mark!

Time estimate:  1 – 20 minutes

Supplies:

- Your journal

- Any drawing, writing or art supplies

Open your journal to any page and make your mark, any mark!  Draw how you are feeling about starting this process, even if it’s just a random mark or splotch of color.

Reflection:  On Your Mark!

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. What was the hardest part about starting your journal?

2. How is this similar or different from starting other things in your life?

3. How can God be part of your starting process with new things in life?

4. How can you keep Him involved along the way in this process?

5. Glue your “Starting With a Prayer” pages from the previous chapter into your journal so you can see them often.

Now that you’ve had an opportunity to open your journal, it’s time to open your heart. Writing a personal letter to yourself will remind you of what’s important and stop you from settling for less.

Creativity @ pLaY:  My Letter to Me

Time estimate:  10 – 20 minutes

Supplies:

- Paper (separate from journal)

- Any writing, drawing or art supplies

- An envelope and your journal (to store your completed letter)

Write down and reflect on your answers to these questions in your journal:

1. What would you love to see happen in your life as a result of ARTstarters?

2. What would you love to see happen in your relationship with God?

3. What are you most afraid will happen?

4. What will you do to commit to the process?

5. Why is this SO important to you?

Imagine you have accomplished everything you wanted from your answers above and that you are standing at the end of your ARTstarters journey looking back!

Write a personal letter to yourself on a separate piece of paper that you can keep in an envelope in your journal:

- Tell yourself all the amazing things that happened because of your journey.

- What encouraging words would you tell yourself if you feel like giving up during the process?

- If there’s a particular area of your life that you are hoping to get inspired about, add specifics about what it looks and feels like once you got to the end of the process.

- Add any drawings, doodles, color, quotes, verses or designs that inspire you.

(You may want to put a copy of this in a sealed, self-addressed envelope to open when you need it most.  You can attach the envelope right in your journal, inside the back cover, or keep it in another safe place.  If you are doing ARTstarters with a group, have a buddy hold on to it and send it to you near the end of the process -- or sooner if you need it!)

Example Letter to Me:

“ Dear Me,

Nicole, guess what -- I’ve arrived!  After finishing the ARTstarters process, I was inspired with all sorts of new insights.  I have already started acting on some of them (I actually think I should write a book)!  I can’t believe how fast the ideas are flowing for new things I want to add into my life, specifically with my business that was starting to wear me out, and how I was running around all the time feeling stressed and tired.  Now instead of burned up, I am fired UP!

I got real busy in the middle of the book, but something made me keep going instead of giving up!  Maybe it was a “God Thing,” because the process reminded me to keep God central to my whole journey.  And even though it was hard to make time to be creative, the art exercises were fun!  Even the weird ones.  Yeah - those were the ones that seemed to bring me the most insight, ironically.

So keep going with the process!  Don’t give up!  It’s going to change your life!  If you put this book down, I swear I will be so mad!  I will never be where I am today, writing this letter, ready to move to my next step and create some of these new ideas I have.  So don’t ruin it for me, OK?

And hey - don’t forget that I believe in you!”

Love me

Section II:

The Mindsets of Creativity

“Every child is born an artist.

The problems begin once we start to grow up.”

– Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973)

Creative Mindset 1:

Possibility

Cultivating Curiosity, Imagination and

a Belief in the Impossible

A Prayer for Possibility:

Dear God,

You are the very definition of what the world considers impossible, the very Creator of Possibility itself!  Nothing I could ever create on canvas or in my life could ever compare to You and Your vision for me.  Help me to understand that there is so much more to the world than just what I can see right now.  Thank you for your gift of creativity to imagine new possibilities for my life!

Amen.

The prayer above is an example of how you might connect with God.  Create your own personal prayer before you begin this chapter.

Remember, your prayer can be anything you want to share with your Great Creator, the Master Artist.  Draw it, dance it around the yard, sing it out loud, write it or speak the words into the air.

Write the words of your prayer, describe it, or draw something to remind yourself of what your prayer sounds like, looks like or feels like.  Use your journal or the space on the next page.  Make a copy of your prayer and keep it where you can see it often (for example your bathroom mirror, car, or desk).

For more prayers and spiritual resources, see Section III:

Faith Musings, Lyrics & Scriptures

Create your own Prayer of Possibility here or in your journal:

Creative Mindset 1: Possibility

Curiosity, Imagination and a Belief in the Impossible

Possibility as the Foundation of Reality

The world would have us believe imagination and reality are polar opposites. Things we imagine are often labeled “things that aren’t real.”  While most people see them as opposite, an artist sees the two as points in a journey from A to B.  To create art, we start with something imaginary – an idea or possibility—and turn it into something real.  Everything we see around us once started as an idea in somebody’s head.

Possibility is the mindset that enables us to leap back and forth between what is imaginary and what is real.  Without a bridge, we either stay lost in our daydreams or, perhaps worse, stuck only in the world of what already is.

Daydreams and imagination are often considered child’s play, but they are keys to unlocking the unseen possibilities around us!  Unlike most adults, an artist remembers how to be curious and to enjoy the process of imagining all the possibilities in the most creative ways possible.  There are always new techniques, materials and mediums to try.  Best of all, it’s usually in the midst of the most fun when the greatest ideas flow the most freely.

The Creative Ritual for Possibility: Daydreaming

To nurture the mindset of Possibility, create a habit of daydreaming a little bit every day.  Choose how many days you want to commit to the ritual and then choose your start and end date.  Show you take the commitment seriously by signing the contract on the next page or creating your own.  Rewriting and decorating this contract in your journal will make the commitment even more solid.

To make the process even more fun, ask others to join you and be part of our Facebook page for encouragement:  www.Facebook.com/ARTstarters.

Some things you may want to daydream about:

- Your ideal today or tomorrow

- A perfect day in the future

- A conversation with God or a mentor

- An interview you grant with Oprah or a national magazine

- Something you want to create

- What you would like to be when you “grow up”

- Solutions, especially outrageous ones, to problems

- Something “impossible”!

Daydreaming tips:

- Keep your mind wanderings future-focused

- Keep your journal handy for insights

- Daydream while you walk or do some other undemanding, routine activity

- Choose your best time to daydream or keep it spontaneous – it doesn’t need to be before breakfast!

“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'

I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Lewis Caroll, Alice in Wonderland

(original illustration by John Tenniel pictured above)

Creative Ritual Contract:  Daydreaming

To nurture the Possibility Mindset that artists have, I will commit to:

Daydream daily about something for at least 5 minutes and then briefly write or draw about it in my journal.

Start date:

End date:

Signature:

Time estimate:  5 – 15 minutes daily

Decorate and post this commitment where you can see it!

The Benefits of Daydreaming

“Paradoxical though it sounds, daydreaming is what makes us organized,” claims Eric Klinger, professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota. “Daydreams help us to get the most out of our brain power and are an essential personal resource for coping with life.”  Some of the many benefits he lists are:

- keeping our life’s agenda in front of us

- reminding us of what’s coming up

- rehearsing new situations

- planning the future

- scanning past experiences to learn from them

Much of this daydreaming can happen simultaneously while we are performing other, more routine, tasks.  That is why many times you will get a great idea when doing something mundane like taking a shower or doing the dishes.  Daydreaming uses what scientists call your “default network” and actually allows the brain to make connections through various stored information -- connections that focused thinking can’t make.[9]

Amy Fries, author of Daydreams at Work:  Wake Up Your Creative Powers, gives a magical description of this process:

“While daydreaming, your thoughts are gliding and ricocheting all over the place – past, present, future – accessing all your stored knowledge, memories, experiences, etc.”[10]

Virginia Woolf, in her novel written in 1927, To the Lighthouse, gives another creative view of daydreaming, as described by the character Lily:

“Certainly she was losing consciousness of outer things. And as she lost consciousness of outer things … her mind kept throwing up from its depths, scenes, and names, and sayings, and memories and ideas, like a fountain spurting.”[11]

Stepping away from the reality of life intentionally for small periods of time can give you access to new ideas in and about your life.  "Mind wandering seems to be very useful for planning and creative thought," says Dr. Jonathan Schooler of University of California Santa Barbara’s department of psychological and brain sciences.  "It seems that allowing people an incubation period in which to let their minds wander really helps the creative process."[12]

Many creative minds attribute their ideas to daydreaming.  Einstein credited his Theory of Relativity after taking a break from his mathematic formulas and once famously said:

“I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination.  Imagination is more important than knowledge.  Knowledge is limited.  Imagination encircles the world.”[13]

The Bronte sisters spent much of their childhoods playing in elaborate imaginary worlds of their own creation, later turning those experiences into book ideas.[14]  Even Mozart is said to have created many of his symphonies while walking or riding around.[15]

Possibility is a mindset that we can nurture. Inviting more curiosity and imagination into our lives is a great way to begin sparking inspiration!  By intentionally engaging in daydreaming, we too can turn our unlimited imagination into our next big insight.  Simply begin with a few daydreams and a lot of questions and then play around with answers to those questions.

Creativity @ pLaY: Superhero Paper Doll

Time Estimate: 30 minutes – 2 hours

Supplies:

- Your journal (or paper to journal on)

- Old magazines

- Paper, assorted colors and patterns

- Pencil

- Glue or glue stick

- Photocopy of your face

- Optional:  any paper doll or Superhero Template (see the Templates section)

- Optional: office brads or colored craft brads

- Optional: any other art and craft supplies such as paints, stickers, charms, rubber stamps, markers or even online images printed out

1. Imagine that you can do anything and be anyone.  What would you want your life to look like in 5 or 10 years?  Daydream for at least 5 full minutes about the best, most fulfilling day in the future that you can imagine.  Include as many details as possible, as if you were really living that day, from the moment you get up until the moment you go to sleep.

2. Create a superhero version of you from your daydream.  In your journal describe the “super skills” you would have.  Feel free to exaggerate and dramatize!

3. Create a name, motto and/or theme for your superhero.  What is his/her mission?

4. Create a paper cutout of your superhero.  You can cut out a character from a magazine or use a template.  You may want to use brads to create movable arms and legs, so that your hero is ready to be on the move!

5. Every superhero has a costume to fit their mission.  What would your superhero’s costume look like?  Draw and cut out an outfit to glue onto your figure.

6. What tools and gadgets would come in handy?  Would your superhero be holding a book, writing a book, carrying a briefcase, sporting a fitness bag, or saving the world with a stethoscope? Draw, stamp, or print out accessories for your figure to wear, hold or keep near.

7. Keep your superhero where you can see it often.  Imagine as often as possible that YOU are your superhero come to life!

8. You may want to make a copy of your superhero to paste into your journal and write around it using your answers to the reflection questions below.

Creative variations:

9. For a quicker exercise, simply draw your superhero directly in your journal and decorate it without cutting it out.

10. Use a dimensional doll form, such as an old Barbie or action figure, papier-mache torso or even a life-size mannequin.

11. Tear out magazine images and words that inspire you.  Collage the images/words as skin or clothing for your superhero, using clear-drying glue, gel medium or decoupage glue.

12. Create a paper chain of dolls by folding paper and drawing your template so that the hands and feet are on the crease (see Templates section).  When you open them, they will all be connected.  Decorate your dolls with all the roles you play in life or all the skills you use as the superhero of your own life story.

There is no right or wrong way for this project to look when finished. View examples at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/gallery

Reflection: Superhero Paper Doll

Now that you’ve had a chance to step into the life of your superhero, it’s time for your superhero to step into yours!   A superhero is an exaggerated version of our best qualities.  In reality, they probably would be very hard to live with!

Let’s make them more realistic by bringing their best qualities into who we are today:

1. If your superhero was living your life, what is the first thing he or she would start or stop doing?

2. What characteristics would your superhero say you have in common?  In real life, how can you play to those strengths?

3. What risks would your superhero encourage you to take?

4. What aspects of your life or opportunities in your life would your superhero be most excited about that would help you live the mission (should you choose to accept it)?

5. What questions would your superhero ask you that might help you become more like him/her?  And how would you answer them?

6. How can God help bring you closer to your superhero image?

Starting Over: Imagining New Beginnings

As we get better and better at things in life, sometimes it feels harder and harder to learn.  We think we are expected to already know the answers so we may not ask as many questions, and we probably don’t take as many risks.  Children are expected to fall down when they learn to walk yet adults are supposed to “hit the ground running.”  Early childhood masterpieces get hung up on the refrigerator while adults discouragingly compare their earliest attempts against those who have been working at it for years.

Unknowingly we send messages to ourselves that we are too old to be learners.  Yet how can we stay curious and open to possibilities if we are afraid to start over?  Consider what’s possible for us if we allow ourselves to begin again—and again!

At The ARTbar, we start our parties and events by saying, “Raise your hand if you’re an artist!” The younger the age of the group, the more hands go up.   Children haven’t yet developed the mindset of fear and judgment that many of us learn as we get older.  To them every day is an adventure into the unknown.

I love the story told by artist and teacher Howard Ikemoto. “When my daughter was seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work.  I told her I worked at the college – that my job was to teach people how to draw.  She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, ‘You mean they forget?’”[16]

Apparently children know way more about art than we do!  This next exercise will help us learn from the young masters.

Creativity @ pLaY: Starting Over

Time estimate: 15 minutes – 1 hour

Supplies:

- Artwork created by children

- Paper, paints, crayons or markers (similar supplies used in the artwork above)

1. Find a few drawings or paintings from children under age 6 that inspire your inner child.  Search around your home or on the Internet.

2. Imagine that they are famous artists and you are eager to master their technique.

3. Copy their artwork.  If they finger-painted, dip your fingers in the paint and make your mark!  If their lines are crooked, try to replicate the choppy flow.  Try to see yourself as that child to feel their motions and choices of color.

4. Try using your non-dominant hand.

5. Love the artwork you just created, as a child under 6 would love theirs.  You might even hang it on the fridge.

Creative variations

- If you are doing this exercise with a group, print various examples of children’s artwork for them to choose.  You may even hang them as an exhibit.  If you are at a school, perhaps visit lower grade-level classrooms to see what they have on the walls.

- Talk with younger kids about their artwork.  What were they thinking about when they made it?   What do they love about it?  What creative choices did they make? What might they try differently next time?

- Visit the children’s submissions at a local art exhibition or county fair with the goal of getting new ideas.

- Look through old artwork that you did as a child.  Hang up one of your craziest pieces to remind yourself that playing leads to learning.

There is no right or wrong way for this project to look when finished.  View examples at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/gallery

Reflection: Starting Over

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. How did you feel when you were copying the children’s artwork?  What did you like about the exercise?  What was difficult?

2. Think of 5 things you loved learning when you were a child.  Which do you still do?  What have you stopped learning?

3. What are you afraid to do in your life right now because you fear you’ll be bad at it?  If you remain afraid, how much better at it will you be in 5 years?  What about if you take a first step right now?

4. What “artwork” from your life right now can you “hang on the fridge” to show that you are proud of yourself?

5. What “artwork” from your life would God “hang on His fridge” to show that He is proud of you?

Asking Questions

Beyond playful curiosity, artists use the Mindset of Possibility to take their imaginative daydreams and ask “What if?”  They aren’t convinced that what’s not real is what can’t be. They keep asking questions to examine and discover the possibilities.  History is filled with creative geniuses including scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs who tried many hunches before finding the ones that worked.  They stared failure in the face over and over.

If we lose our sense of curiosity, what will drive us to keep trying and keep learning through all the things that don’t work?  What will add the spark of fun that allows us to consider ideas we might not have discovered but for that curiosity?

As we get older and continue to learn, there is an unspoken expectation that we are getting closer to knowing “it all.”  In school there is a set curriculum that we must accomplish to pass the grade.  The goal is to learn it, correctly answer the questions on the test and then be finished.

But what if we see each answered question as the start to another question?  What is possible for us then? As a coach, I am trained in the art of powerful questioning.  We are paid hundreds of dollars for our services yet rarely give concrete advice.  Our biggest value is in listening at a very deep level then asking that one big question our clients are afraid to ask themselves, the question that may change everything once they hear themselves answer it out loud.  Because what then? Once something is spoken out loud, it becomes possible.  And that leads to the next question, and the next, and the next . . .

Brooke (name changed) became a client of mine at a very busy time in her life.  She yearned to do more with her life but didn’t see where it fit into her current reality of taking care of her kids and dealing with health problems in her family.  In a perfect world, she dreamed of being a writer.  Together we imagined her life as a writer a few years from now.  She played with the question, “What is possible for me later in life because of what I am doing now?”  With the Mindset of Possibility, she stopped seeing the writer as a different person and started imagining that she is already her, just a few years earlier.  While she believes that finishing her book isn’t a realistic goal for her right now, what is possible for her right now is taking time to explore the history she is so interested in and seeing it through the eyes of her main character.  By seeing it as fun, she is actually writing more than she ever was before.

While most people only see what is probable, an artist sees what is possible, even in seemingly impossible situations.  When the world says, “This probably won’t work. I have no time. I need to earn money now. I can’t be a writer,” an artist imagines what it would feel like and then says, “How can I make that imaginary life real?”  A person coming from a Mindset of Possibility may first sketch out their imaginary life visually to start to bring it into existence.

Mapping the Possibilities

As far back as the Third Century, philosophers have been mapping out ideas visually to help them conceptualize and memorize complex ideas.  Other famous people, such as Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein, have also used some form of mapping out ideas. In the early 1960’s, researchers Dr. Allan Collins and M. Ross Quillian theorized how mind mapping coordinates with brain functioning.[17]

It wasn’t however until Tony Buzan brought his version of Mind Maps to the world in the late 1960’s, that it became a buzz word for brainstorming.[18] Since then millions of people all over the world have been drawing ideas with bubbles, wavy lines, pictures and lots and lots of color!  Students have used them for taking notes, companies have used them for solving problems and project management, and I’ve even used them for my own grocery lists, among many other uses.

List-making and outlines can slow down the brainstorming process by limiting the ideas to just what comes next in the list, essentially making it a sequential and linear process that doesn’t allow for relationships or random ideas.  When you’re looking for inspiration about possibility, a visual map is a creative way to think of and capture lots of options.  And when you’re ready for action, it’s also a great way to break down big goals into all the small manageable steps that are floating around in your head and stressing you out.

Almost every book, goal or project that I have created (including my own dream wedding) has started with a mind-mapping process.  It’s more than a way to organize my thoughts; it’s also a way to find them!

Marketing Strategist Tami Call created a mind map to help her brainstorm content for a recent course she created.  She was so proud of it that she even included it in her course manual -- three different times![19]

Now you’ll try your own creative brainstorming by mapping out a question that you have been pondering or curious about.

Creativity @ pLaY: Curiosity Map

Time estimate: 15  – 45 minutes

Supplies:

- Journal page or blank paper

- Colored pens (at least 3)

- Optional:  Crayons or colored pencils

1. Choose a color to start with.  Hold a few other colored pens in your non-writing hand so you are always ready to switch colors.

2. In the middle of the page write a question that has been on your mind.  You might want to refer to one of your reflection questions from the exercise in the Basic Beliefs section: “Starting With Prayer” or some of the Creative Variations below.*

3. Draw a circle around it and maybe even add an image.

4. Write any possible answers to this question on lines that “branch out” from the circle.  Use your colors and draw lots of images.  Add additional branches for new thoughts or questions.

5. Repeat with as many answers and questions as you can think of for each of the branches.  Continue to add new levels of branches until you feel you are done.

Mapping Guidelines:

- Remember that there is no wrong way to create a Mind Map.  Don’t worry about which branch to put things on, just keep your ideas flowing.

- Use lots of colors and pictures whenever you can.

- Do not overthink or judge as you write them.  Go with your instinct and include all possibilities.

If you like, you can also:

- Pray that God will speak to you through your questions.

- Be okay with not having one right answer.

- Daydream about possible answers.

- Daydream about impossible answers.

- Turn your map into a more linear outline or project list (afterward).

- Color any related or “same level” bubbles with crayons or colored pencils to help you more easily see the relationships.

*Creative variations:

Instead of a question, consider using any of the following topics as the starting circle for your Curiosity Map:

- “My Life Purpose”

- “My Life Now”

- A family mission statement

- A long-term goal or special project

- Your job, career or business idea

- Current priorities or roles

- Anything you need to organize (my husband and I have a “House Beautiful Map”)

- Christmas or grocery list

- A book you are writing with possible topics (which may become chapter headings)

- Hobbies or recreation ideas

- Anything else you want to brainstorm!

There is no right or wrong way for this project to look when finished.  View examples at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/gallery

Reflection: Curiosity Map

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. What answers or options did you come up with that resonate with your heart?

2. What new questions are you now pondering?

3. Is there an action step for you to do now?  (If you don’t know then start a new Curiosity Map to find out!)

Journal Prompts for the Mindset of Possibility

(Download a monthly calendar version to keep in your journal:

www.ARTstartersBook.com/Possibility)

- Write a poem to God expressing gratitude for His Mindset of Possibility (see Section III: Faith Musings, Lyrics and Scripture.)

- Write a poem to God expressing gratitude for your Mindset of Possibility!

- Write for 10 minutes about a perfect day you would love to live in your future.

- Draw the perfect day from your future -- even simple, sketchy doodles -- to remind you of what you daydreamed about.

- Imagine your perfect day.  Write three characteristics that describe YOU in that day.

- Write one thing you can do this week to bring your perfect-day vision into your NOW.

- Write a letter or draw a picture about what you see for yourself next month.  Set aside this letter to give to yourself in 30 days.

- Cut out images from magazines that remind you of your daydreams.  Glue them into your journal and write about them.

- Cut out words from magazines that remind you of your daydreams.  Glue them into your journal and write about them.

- Choose a word you cut out and then draw it.

- Choose an image you cut out or drew about your daydreams.  Paint it, sing it, dance it, write about it or create a poem about it.

- Look through photos of yourself over time.  Copy and write about any that speak to you of your strengths.

- Draw or journal about something you liked to do as a child.  Schedule a time to try it again.

- Imagine yourself in a new home or new career.  Draw or write about it.

- Drive to work using a new route!  Draw or write about it.

- Exercise your creativity in a new way.  Draw or write about it.

- Drink or eat something you have never tried before.  Draw or write about it.

- Go somewhere you have never been or do something you have never done before.  Draw or write about it.

- Look at all the fun journal pages you created.  Imagine jumping right into one and having a good time.

- Create a Possibility Poster and include images, words and pieces of journal pages from everything you have created this month.

- Draw, photograph or cut out a picture of a new pair of shoes.  Imagine a day in those shoes.  Where would you go?  What would you do?

- Imagine yourself in a future day when you are living your best self.  Go for a walk as that person.  Go through the rest of the day as that person – or the rest of the week – how about the rest of your life.

Summary Questions: The Mindset of Possibility

After working with the concepts in this chapter, use your journal to capture your insights:

1. What can the Mindset of Possibility do for me in my life?  What is it doing already?

2. What new possibilities have come to light for me during this chapter?

3. How does God show me that He is the Creator of Possibility?

4. How can I continue to partner with the Master Artist to create the best possibilities for my life?

5. My biggest insights from this chapter:

Summary Log:

# of Creative Rituals:  __________

# of Creativity @ pLaY:  __________

# of Journal Prompts:  __________

Celebrate your success with this chapter!

For more resources on the Mindset of Possibility, visit

www.ARTstartersBook.com/Possibility

In Summary:

Artists don’t settle for what is already here.  They see each answer as the start of a new question, following their curiosity in a constant search for something new.

In our own lives, we can play with possibilities and not only find new ideas but also find fun in the adventure itself.  When we embrace this Mindset of Possibility, we will spark inspiration with our curiosity, imagination and belief in the impossible.

Instead of settling for only what we have now, we will be driven forward by our very real belief that there is always something else out there that God wants us to find.

“Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it,

I must listen to my life telling me who I am.”

-- Parker J. Palmer, author, educator and activist

Creative Mindset 2:

Listening

Drawing Insights from Beyond Just What We See

A Prayer for Listening:

Dear God,

You are a personal God, a God who listens and also yearns to be listened to!  While the world around me is spinning faster and faster, time stands still with You.  Thank you for always listening to me.

And even though You know it all, You speak to me with a voice so quiet and so calm that I can only hear it when I put my full attention on You.  Help me to keep my heart open to what I see, think and feel.  Thank you for the Mindset of Listening to awaken my creativity so I can hear the inspiration You are breathing my way.

Amen.

The prayer above is an example of how you might connect with God.  Create your own prayer before you begin this chapter.

Remember, your prayer can be anything you want to share with your Great Creator, the Master Artist.  Draw it, dance it around the yard, sing it out loud, write it or speak the words into the air.

Write the words of your prayer, describe it, or draw something to remind yourself of what your prayer sounds like, looks like or feels like.  Use your journal or the space on the next page.  Make copies of your prayer and keep it where you can see it often!

For more prayers and spiritual resources, see Section III:

Faith Musings, Lyrics & Scriptures

Create your own Listening Prayer for this chapter here or in your journal:

Creative Mindset 2: Listening

Drawing Insights From Beyond Just What We See

Curiosity can lead us to more questions, but to receive inspiration, it’s important to also listen for answers.  Listening is done in a variety of ways.  Musicians listen to what they hear, even between the notes.  Sculptors listen to what they feel in the clay.  Culinary artists listen to tastes and smells.

Visual artists listen to what they see and feel. They listen with their pen and their paintbrush.  In fact, when they want to really see something at its deepest level, they draw it slowly, tracing every curve and line with their eyes and their pens, as if they are actually touching it.  When they are done, they feel like they have heard something really profound from their subject.  Most artists keep a sketchbook ready for inspiration whenever and wherever it may come.  Although writing ideas is helpful, drawing them starts to bring them to life.

Drawing can be helpful in life beyond simply as a way to create art.  Re-creating something on paper helps improve perception skills, which are crucial to unlocking the power of the creative mind.  Betty Edwards revolutionized the world of art in 1979 with her book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.  Now in its fourth edition, it is still a popular textbook for many art classes.  Edwards’ main purpose for encouraging millions of people to draw was “to teach readers how to see in new ways, with hopes that they would discover how to transfer perceptual skills to thinking and problem solving.”[20]

Don’t worry if you think you can’t draw.  Drawing can be intimidating for many people.  But as with almost every other skill in life, the more you do it, the more you’ll improve.  As you draw your way through this chapter, remember that these are exercises in listening not in drawing. It’s a chance to see your subjects so deeply that you can hear them speaking to you.

The Creative Ritual for Listening: A Drawing-a-Day!

To nurture the Mindset of Listening with all of our senses, it’s important to create a habit of drawing a little bit every day.  Drawing is a way of visually capturing the world around you, allowing it to speak to you.  This chapter will give you tips for sketching, scribbling and even some doodling.  I promise that you CAN do this.  Just make a mark, any mark, and you are already drawing!

Before you start, choose how many days you want to commit to this Creative Ritual, and then choose your start and end dates.  Show you take the commitment seriously by signing the contract. Rewriting and decorating this contract in your journal will make the commitment even more solid.

To make the process even more fun, ask others to join you and be part of our Facebook page for encouragement:  www.Facebook.com/ARTstarters.

Other tips:

- Use the exercises in this chapter to help you with easy drawing techniques.

- Remind yourself that it is not about how good your drawings look but about connecting with your environment.

- Draw simple sketches with pens, so you don’t agonize with erasers and details.

- Choose subjects (people, places, shapes, feelings, moments, etc.) that are important to you. Include everyday items you usually take for granted.

- Be serious about the daily commitment.  If you are rolling into bed and haven’t yet drawn anything that day, pick up your pen and draw the last thing you’ll see before falling asleep or even just a scribble.

Creative Ritual Contract: Draw Something Every Day

To nurture the LISTENING mindset that artists have, I will commit to:

Draw something I see every day, even if it’s a simple shape or quick stick figure.

Start date:

End date:

Signature:

Time estimate:  1 minute – 15 minutes daily.

Decorate and post this commitment where you can see it!

Listening to the World Around You

Most people who think they can’t draw are comparing what they create on paper to what the object looks like in real life.  You might be thinking, “Isn’t that the point”?  It’s actually not.  Drawing is a way for the artist to express how they experience the subject they are drawing.  A single object will look different when drawn by different artists and from different perspectives.

To get better at drawing things, get better at experiencing them.  One of the best books ever on drawing was published in 1941 by Kimon Nicolaides, who wrote, “Learning to draw is really a matter of learning to see – to see correctly – and that means a good deal more than merely looking with the eye.”[21]

When we are young, we are usually not taught to draw this way.  We begin with scribbling and progress toward more accepted pictures of basic forms.  By the age of six, most of us have developed symbols for things we draw frequently.  Symbols get us closer to the goal of portraying something in a standard way that everyone will recognize.  This is similar to how we learn to draw letters, with our logical mind.

Sadly, that is about the age that drawing is removed from the curriculum of learning and replaced with language as the sole form of expression.  As a result, at age 40, without further drawing classes, we may still be drawing from our old schemas, convinced that “we can’t draw.”[22]

For example, when asked to draw a house, many of us might revert back to a time when we drew the typical square house with the typical triangle on top.   You might even add the typical tree off to one side.

Did you actually live in a house that looked like this?  I grew up in a suburb of Chicago, where many of the houses were actually sort of square.  My house, however, had a porch and bushes in front instead of trees.  The porch wasn’t big enough to put furniture on it, so when it rained, I sat inside by the screen door because I loved watching the rain pour down.  The actual shape was not as tall as the typical square because my house had one story above ground and one below, where all the fun stuff was.  The lawn out front was divided by the sidewalk into two sections.  I still remember how much bigger it seemed on the days I had to mow it!  The actual basic shapes of my childhood house would look more like this:

Even though it’s a simple sketch, I actually feel a tug at my heart as I am drawing and thinking about it.  I am experiencing my old house!  Drawing helped me capture details and memories, regardless of my artistic skill.  You may want to stop here and draw the childhood house that you remember.

Yet if all of our houses look different, why is it that many of us will still draw the square house with a single door between two windows?  Most likely it’s because we learned to draw something that someone recognized and then kept using that shape as a symbol to express ourselves.  It feels safer to draw the universal shape than to draw something from our unique experience.

For many people, drawing has become a short cut to symbolizing something general rather than specifically drawing what we are experiencing as we look at or imagine our subject.

Not surprisingly, we go through life this way too:  generalizing thoughts and opinions without taking the time to really experience whatever unique thing we are seeing or listening to.

Listening Through Drawing

To help you focus on experiencing what you are drawing in a variety of ways, I’ve included exercises that will help you take the pressure off of your results.  Consider them like warm-up laps or musical scales, simply part of getting ready.  Don’t worry if they look a little funky. You shouldn’t expect a warm-up drawing to be gallery-worthy any more than you would expect an opera singer to perform musical scales during a performance.

Drawing exercises help you flex your listening muscles by going beyond what you see while also giving you drawing techniques for visual expression that you can use when doing the journal prompts at the end of each chapter.  Allow yourself to have fun with these practice exercises:

- Basic Shape Drawings

- Linear Outline Drawings

- Contour Drawings

- Gesture Drawings

- Self-Portrait Drawings

- Scribble Drawings

- Life Drawings

Creativity @ pLaY: Basic Shape Sketches

Time estimate:  5 -20 minutes

Supplies:

- Pencil

- Your journal or any blank paper

- Subjects to draw – any objects in the room or park or wherever you are

With quick sketches, the emphasis is on the dimensional shapes that make up an object.  All objects are made up of combinations of geometric shapes: squares, ovals, rectangles, triangles, circles, semi-circles, etc.

By lightly sketching in these overlapping shapes, we can easily see the form and dimension that make up our subject. Their shapes give us a frame of reference for proportion and then allows us to fill in the details.  Rather than seeing only the edges, we see it as a whole object, something we can wrap our arms around.

1. Look around and choose an object you would like to draw.  Sit in front of it and look at it for a moment as a whole object.

2. Notice the shapes of your subject, how they combine or overlap.  What shapes would you use to build your subject? Squares? Semi-circles? Rectangles?

3. Lightly sketch in these overlapping shapes to create a rough form of your subject. Don’t worry about adding in details.

4. Repeat this exercise with a variety of objects around the room.  See how many everyday objects around you can be reduced to basic shapes.

Options

1. Still drawing lightly, sketch in the outline of your subject to combine all of the shapes together.  Sketch in some details.

2. Once you have your sketch, darken the lines you want to keep.  Allow the lighter ones to become part of the texture of sketch or you can erase them.

Creative Variation

Use clay to create the shapes of your object.  Stack or assemble the shapes and then smooth out where they meet to make a single cohesive sculpture.

Notice the basic shapes that you see overlapping in the subject.

Reflection: Basic Shape Sketches

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. What was easy about this exercise?  What was hard?

2. What, if any, negative thoughts did you notice as you started drawing?

3. Did you feel the moment when your logical brain let your creative brain take over?

4. How was this experience similar to the creative process in other aspects of your life?

Creativity @ PLaY: Linear Outline Drawings

Time estimate: 5 -20 minutes

Supplies:

- Pen or fine point marker (there is no erasing!)

- Your journal or any blank paper

- Subjects to draw – any objects in the room

With outline drawings, the focus is on the outermost line that wraps around the very edge of what we are drawing.  This outer edge represents where it begins and the space around it ends.  When drawing a linear outline, reduce the object to a flattened, two-dimensional version of what you are looking at, like a blackened silhouette, without any suggestion of its three-dimensional form or any details within that form.  Imagine that you have traced around the object onto paper and are cutting it out as one big shape.

While drawing the object slowly, let your gaze trace around the item, noticing all of the details of its edges and how it interacts with the space around it.

1. Look around the room and choose an object you would like to draw.

2. Raise your index finger into the air as if it were a pen and follow around the outer edges of the object SLOWLY, tracing it in the air.  You may want to squint to help align your finger.

3. Now do the same motion on your paper with your pen.  Start at one side of the object and draw the outer edges of it in one continuous line as your gaze traces around the outline of what you are looking at.  Glance down at your paper if you need to, but only draw when you are looking at the object.  Don’t worry about the details, contours or shading within the outline.

4. Repeat with a variety of objects around the room.

Creative variation:

Draw the silhouette of someone you care about by taping a large white sheet of paper on the wall.  Have your subject sit on a stool in front of the paper, not facing the paper but so that one ear is toward the paper and one is toward you. Dim the lights and shine a light source toward the paper.  Trace your subject’s silhouette on the paper. Later you can paint the shape black (or another color) and even frame it.

Reflection: Linear Outline Drawing

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. What was easy about this exercise?  What was hard?

2. What, if any, negative thoughts did you notice as you started drawing?

3. Did you feel the moment when your logical brain let your creative brain take over?

4. What, if anything, did you notice about your subjects that you may not have realized or appreciated before?

Creativity @ pLaY: Gesture Drawings

Time estimate:  5 -20 minutes

Supplies:

- Pen or fine point marker (no erasing!)

- Your journal or any blank paper

- Subjects to draw – any objects in the space around you

I like to think of gesture drawing as expressive mark-making!  Your goal is to capture the idea of your subject, their motivation and energy, rather than its details or the elements that make up its form.  In this exercise, work as rapidly as you can on a subject in action and then move on to another subject doing another action.

1. Look around and choose a subject that is or was in action: a pet stretching, a sibling catching a ball, a coat thrown over a chair.  Public spaces such as parks, malls or train stations can be inspiring places to do gesture drawings.

2. Very rapidly, without even lifting your pen, sketch the essence of the subject, using very rough lines and even scribbles.

3. Repeat with a variety of subjects in action or objects in motion.

Reflection: Gesture Drawings

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. What was easy about this exercise?  What was hard?

2. How are gesture drawings different than regular stick drawings?

3. How can this experience help you get started with other creative projects?

4. For fun, imagine that each of your drawings wants to reveal something to you.  Write a talking bubble for what each would say.

“A line drawing is like taking a dot for a walk.” -- Paul Klee

Creativity @ pLaY: Continuous Line Contour Drawings

Time estimate:  5 -20 minutes

Supplies:

- Pen or fine point marker (no erasing)

- Your journal or any blank paper

- Simple objects to use as still-life subjects: cup, vase, gourd, fruit, bowl

- A timer (kitchen timer, stop watch or even a clock alarm on your phone)

Another way to quiet your mind and listen while drawing is to create something called a continuous line contour drawing.  Where gesture drawings are done rapidly, contour drawings are done very slowly.  The purpose is to slow your eye as you follow the dimensional shape and structure of a subject.  Instead of simply noticing the edges of the object’s flat silhouette, you move around all the contours of its surface, even inside the edges of its outline, as if you are actually touching it.

Blind drawings can prevent you from judging your drawing as you are creating it, because you can’t see how it is turning out.  Do the first few without looking at your subject at all so that you have every excuse for it to turn out looking inaccurate or even silly.

1. Set a simple object in front of you as your subject.

2. Without picking up your pen from the page and without looking at your subject, very slowly draw the dimensional outline of the subject, starting at one point and following it around all its curves and lines.  Imagine you are taking a walk along the surface of your subject over all of its bump and turns.  If you need to look at your paper, stop drawing and look down, but only draw when you are looking at your subject and not at your paper, your pen or even your hand.

3. When you first do this, it is common to lose the scale and proportion of your object and have it run off the page because you are drawing blindly with a continuous line.  If this happens, finish it or start over.  Some of the most skewed drawings can be quiet charming!

4. Repeat the process with a variety of simple objects.  After doing a few blind drawings, you may want to allow yourself to look back and forth between object and paper as needed.  With complex subjects, you may need to pick up your pen once in awhile.  But see how long you can draw before doing so!

Reflection: Continuous Line Contour Drawings

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. What was easy about this exercise?  What was hard?

2. Did you notice anything about your subjects that you may not have known or realized before?

3. How can this experience help you get started with other creative projects?

4. For fun, imagine that each of your drawings wants to reveal something to you.  Write a talking bubble for what each one would say.

Listening with color!

Basic practice drawings may look messy and childish, but with a few swipes of color they can suddenly transform into something very artsy!  Although art supplies sell specialty paper for different mediums, you can experiment using pastels, watercolors and all sorts of pens right in the pages of your journal

Pastels

- Experiment with the exercises above by drawing with oil pastels, soft pastels or even sidewalk chalk.  You might find you prefer one medium over the others.

- After using pastels, spray your drawings with a fixative so they don’t smear (hairspray also works!).

Watercolor

- After drawing with a waterproof pen, add some touches of watercolor paint.  A cheap set from an office supply store or pharmacy will do the trick.  Simply swipe a wet brush on your paint and then dab a dot of color onto your drawing. Rinse your brush and then swipe water onto your color to spread it around, creating diluted shades.  Repeat with another color and watch them blend.

- Add watercolor pencil to your finished drawings. When you brush on a touch of water, the pencil lines will smear into watercolor paint.  You can also try drawing directly with the pencils and adding water to your drawn lines afterward to pull out some color.

- Draw with water-soluable crayons and then add water afterward to pull out some color.

Other watercolor tips:

- Start with just a touch of color so that you have room to blend into the white spaces.

- Keep your color loose and even let it go outside of your sketched lines.

- Have a paper towel ready in case you need to blot off excess water.

- If your paper buckles from too much water as it dries, simply place it under a heavy book to flatten it.

Alternative Drawing Tools

- Experiment with various pens you find around the house.  Try a watercolor marker or one that will smear if you wet it.   One of my favorite happy accidents was when I drew with a regular writing pen with blue gel ink.  When I added a little watercolor, I was at first upset because the blue gel smeared.  As I worked with it, I decided that the blue highlights added an interesting contrast.  After that, I used gel pens a lot for watercoloring!

- Experiment by applying ink or paint with various tools from around the house that would normally NOT be used for drawing:  sticks, toothpicks, eyeliner, straws . . . see how creative you can get!

There is no right or wrong way for your drawings to look when finished.

You can view a variety of examples at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/Gallery

Listening to Ourselves

Not only can drawing help you listen to objects in the world around you, but it can also be a great way to listen to yourself.

Self-Portraits

Contour drawings, like the ones you did earlier in this chapter, can also be a great way to really experience yourself. Drawing a blind self-portrait, without looking down at your paper at all, will keep you from worrying about how “good” your drawing is.  With blind contour drawing, it is okay to lift up your pen or pencil to capture details without trying to draw in a continuous line.

When Elizabeth Layton did her first contour drawing at age 68, she had no idea it would begin her recovery from a clinical depression from which she had suffered nearly half her life.   She enrolled in an art class at the suggestion of her sister, even though she had never drawn before.  She sat at the table with a mirror, a pencil and an assignment to draw herself. Each wrinkle and mark on her face had a story to tell, and she was an eager listener, seeing herself through the lens of an artist/observer.

Through drawing and listening, she eventually cured herself.  Using the process of blind contour drawing, she let go of trying to make her drawings anything but what they were and simply captured what she saw.  The process of drawing was more important to her than the actual drawings themselves. More than 1,000 drawings later, still using a mirror most of the time, she had created a visual timeline of how she saw herself over a span of more 20 years.[23]

Reporter and art representative Don Lambert discovered Layton while covering a local exhibit.  He described her blind contour method:

“Obviously, if an artist does not look at his paper, he will get distorted drawings.  The eyes are never the same size; lines have crooks in them; one arm may come out too large, the other too small.  None of that matters in contour drawing.  In fact, the distortions are often more interesting than the reality, and they reflect the reality more closely than one would expect.”[24]

Lambert describes the uniqueness of her drawings:

“No art looks like this. It's pure, it's honest and it comes from deep within her. She's not concerned with art history. She draws feelings, that's all, pure and simple, and we're not used to seeing that in art, pure feeling."[25]

“Grandma Layton,” as she famously signed her artwork, never allowed her pieces to be sold. Although she passed away in 1993, her work continues to be shown in exhibits including the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. [26]  Information about Elizabeth Layton, including a large collection of her drawings, can be found at www.ElizabethLayton.com.

Creativity @ pLaY:  Blind Contour Self-Portrait

(This drawing is not a continuous line drawing as in the previous Contour Drawing exercise. You can lift up your pen or pencil.)

Time estimate: 15 – 45 minutes

Supplies:

- Your journal or any blank paper

- Mirror

- Lead Pencil or any drawing pen

Step-by-step process, as described by Elizabeth “Grandma” Layton in a handout for the Northeast Kansas Library System:

1. Tape a sheet of paper to your desk top so it won’t slip around.  Sit sideways in your seat.  Position your lead pencil on your paper.  Hold up or prop up your mirror so you can see your face in it.

2. O.K.  What do you want to draw? Your happy face? Sad? Mad? Make the face as you look into your mirror.

3. Draw that face as you look into the mirror but never look at the paper.  Draw the edges or outlines that you see.  Slowly, carefully creep along these edges with your eyes.  Notice every little jiggle of these lines and draw them.

4. When you are through, put your mirror away.  Look at your face on the paper that is still taped down.  It is like magic!

Reflection: Blind Contour Self-Portrait Drawing

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. What was the hardest part about this exercise?  The easiest?

2. As you look at your completed Blind Contour Self Portrait, what stories do you see in the details of your face?

3. Think of the contour line as a boundary between “what is” and “the space around it.”  What boundaries do you have in life that define who you are?  Are there any that you want to re-draw?

4. Think about the people and things in your life that you want to experience more fully.  Besides drawing them, how else can you do this?

5.              How would you draw God?

Expressing What We Feel

Making art allows you to process your feelings, to sit with them over time as you work with the paint or clay or other media.

In addition to drawing something we SEE, we can also draw something we FEEL, referred to as expressive art. Unlike drawing or sculpting everyday objects, expressive art allows us to process things that don’t have edges and solid contours, those intangibles that are deep within us.  Many times we approach our journal, pencil in hand, only to be frozen by what to put in it.  We’re ready to capture the insights, even ready perhaps to draw, but we just don’t know how to get down to where they are buried.

Scribble drawing can be a great journaling tool, especially for feelings that can’t be described through words.[27] Having a bad day?  Just grab a color and fill the page with it!

A quick loose scribble can even end up looking like a picture with a personal message.  Every single time I have used the scribble drawing technique with clients, their random scribbles transform into new insights.  It’s almost as if the scribbling itself is the question they were afraid to ask and the image they see in it gives them a reminder about an answer that perhaps they knew or suspected all along.

It’s important to note that the “magic” of the drawing is in the drawer’s own interpretation.  Instead of viewing it as a “mystical answer from the great unknown” sent to you as a permanent truth, think of it as a question posed by your heart for you to ponder.  Don’t settle on what you see in the drawing until it feels true for you.

If you’re skeptical that a little scribbling can deliver this kind of insight, I encourage you to try the next exercise and see what comes up for you. Sometimes the exercises you doubt or resist turn out to be the most powerful and transformative!

Creativity @ pLaY: Scribble Drawings

Time estimate: 10 – 30 minutes

Supplies:

- Chalk or oil pastel, any color

- Large scrap paper (largest you can find)

- Another option: work directly in your journal and simply use a crayon, colored pencil or even a pen.  (Chalks and pastels will smear if not sprayed with a fixative.)

1. Tape a large piece of paper to the wall.

2. Close your eyes and scribble with your whole arm and shoulder for 3 seconds.  Draw in one continuous motion, randomly overlapping lines and resisting the urge to draw any shape in particular.

3. After you count to three, stop drawing and open your eyes.

4. Ponder your scribble drawing and see if it resembles, even remotely, anything you recognize.  Take your time looking until you see something, even a vague impression or loose outline.

5. With a different color, define the shape of what you see in your scribble and add detail to let the new image emerge.  You might want to continue adding color to fill in sections.

Here’s the insights I received from some of my very first Scribble Drawings:

1) my need to get busy instead of procrastinating

2) zooming out into the world and remembering to have fun

3) taking off my mask and learning how to be myself

f

The drawing in the lower right corner was done by my daughter at age 7.  It reminded her of going to Disneyworld and meeting Mickey Mouse with her Grandma.

Reflection: Scribble Drawings

Use these journal questions to reflect on your art making in the previous exercise and bring your creativity to life:

1. What image(s) do you see in your scribble drawing?   What do you think it is doing?

2. Give your scribble a title.

3. How does this image relate to anything in your life right now?  What might it be telling you?

4. Ask God about the image you are seeing.  What truth do you feel He might be speaking to your heart about it?

Random scribbles can express an emotion rather than a particular image (pictured left);  Coloring in scribbles can create a calm emotion (pictured right – artwork by Thalia C., Age 7, Gilbert, AZ)

Creative variations:

- Create colorful abstract designs from your scribbles by meditatively coloring in the spaces.

- Use Scribble Drawings to create calm when having intense emotions. For kids, put out a bunch of fun art supplies and see what they create.

- Do a Scribble Drawing with string.  Add color by dipping your string in paint or carefully rolling sections of it in different colors.  Drop the painted string randomly on a large piece of paper.  When you pick up the string, it will leave the paint behind like a scribble.  Add detail to the string scribble with markers or pastels to bring your image to life.

Listening to Others

It might seem that artists do all their work in isolation as they spend hours of time alone in their studios adding paint onto the canvas.  The truth is that when they are not creating, they are constantly taking in inspiration from others around them.  Even the greatest artists continue learning from other artists.  Most importantly, they are constantly listening to life and then translating what they hear into new artwork.  Truly listening to others is what makes the subjects in their artwork come alive.

Artist colonies are also a valuable way for artists to gather together to listen, share their art and inspire new ideas.  The magic of this creative environment is similar to the soirees and salons of Paris that were popular in the late 1800’s.

Ideas can percolate and even explode when people interact.  When historians and economists track increases in cultural innovations they find correlations to when people are gathered together.  The Renaissance that happened in Northern Italy happened after a rise in urban growth in a newly settled hill town.  Some of the most important ideas from scientists were discovered during regular lab meetings.  Even today in corporate environments, one of the most useful places for generating ideas is the conference room.  [28]

Steven Johnson, author of Where Do Good Ideas Come From, credits the sharing of ideas from these clustered environments to “information spillover.”  His theory is that “the most productive tool for generating good ideas remains a circle of humans at a table, talking shop.”[29]

Journaling about just our own thoughts without the balance of truly listening to others, we risk the danger of becoming self-absorbed.  We would then limit our well of creativity to only our own thoughts and feelings.  There is so much inspiration to be heard from others around us.

Creativity @ pLaY: Eye to Eye Life Drawing

Supplies:

- Your journal or any blank paper

- Drawing pencils

- Eraser

- Friend that is willing to have you draw their eyes

1. Find a quiet place where you can be alone or at least free from distractions.

2. Have your friend sit comfortably in a chair facing you, and arrange your drawing space so that you can comfortably look at your loved ones eyes.

3. Ask your friend to talk about something important to them:  a life passion, value or strong belief, maybe even something you don’t share the same opinion about.  Let them know that you are going to listen intently without talking in return.  If they stop talking, ask them gently to tell you more.

4. Draw their eyes as realistically as you can while they continue talking and you listen to what they say.

5. Repeat this exercise with other willing friends.  If gathering as a group, partner up and take turns drawing each other.

Reflection: Life Drawing

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. What do you remember most about what your friend talked about?

2. What was it like to only listen without responding?

3. What did you gain most from this experience?

Listening to God

When I bought my first Mac computer, I was so glad I purchased a year of AppleCare.  The peace I felt knowing that I could walk into the store anytime and consult with the experts was priceless.

If we want more inspiration in our lives, we need to know that we can draw on that same type of peace. You might say that we all come with lifetime access to GodCare. We can pray anytime and ask for inspiration and guidance. It simply makes sense to consult with our Master Creator as we strive to become creative.  It’s an opportunity too great to pass up!

When George Frideric Handel finished writing what became known as the Hallelujah Chorus he said, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God himself.”[30]

If we knew for sure that God had some important ideas to share with us about our life’s purpose, I think we would all stop and listen.

Noticing Signs

As you awaken your creativity, you will start to notice things fall into place in your life. Even the tiniest details will come to your attention and seem miraculous!  A new opportunity will appear from “nowhere.” A person you haven’t heard from in years might call; a book you have been searching for will appear at the next bookstore.. There is no end to the creative ways that God will use to get our attention!

Just today I was listening to a CD in my car and decided to turn it off because I had lost interest in the melody.  When the radio came on, the same song was playing in practically the same spot!  You bet I paid attention to the lyrics after that and found that those words were just what I needed right then.

Some people call this coincidence, synchronicity or the universe lining up to give us what we need.  I believe it is God reminding us that He created the universe and that He is also still creating us!  He shapes our life experiences through little messages and miracles all the time; we just don’t always see them.

Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, says that we don’t fear there isn’t a God.  We actually fear that there is, because then we would have to acknowledge that life is more than just random acts and sheer coincidences.  “If there is a responsive creative force that does hear us and act on our behalf, then we may really be able to do some things.  The jig, in short, is up: God knows that the sky’s the limit.”[31]

To believe that God is moving things into place to prepare us to take action puts a lot of pressure on us to take that action! Sometimes we are much more comfortable with the word “coincidence.”

Perhaps some people are more comfortable with the idea of an “aligned universe” because it seems easier to believe that than believing that God is personally counting on us.  It may even seem unfathomable that the God Who created the universe is singling us out to shower His love and attention on.  Perhaps we aren’t ready to return it.  I know that many times it is just too much for me to wrap my mind around.

Through the Mindset of Listening, you will begin to notice things you may not have noticed before.  Most importantly, by paying attention, you are telling God that your heart is open and ready for your next step.

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“Coincidences are God’s way of getting our attention.”

-- Frederick Buechner, American writer and theologian

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Waiting for Signs

God’s messages are important to us because, whether we realize it or not, we are all hungry for communication from our Creator.  We yearn to believe that life has meaning. We want to see signs, and we want to know what they mean. We want to know we are on the right path. A phone call at just the right time might mean that we are supposed to say yes to that opportunity. A closed door might mean we should stop pursuing that project. No signs at all might mean we do nothing. Maybe. Maybe not.  The trouble begins when we stop listening to God and listen only to the signs.

Because what if the signs aren’t there for us to pay attention to them, but to pay attention to Him?

Next time you experience what seems like synchronicity, instead of immediately running off to follow the sign, imagine it is God nudging you with a reminder to be with Him.  Listen for His guidance and courage to help you with your next step.  Then take what He tells you seriously. When God moves heaven and earth to get your attention, it’s probably time to pay attention!

The great news is that you don’t need to wait for signs in order to be with Him.   Our very life is a sign from God that He wants to be with us.

Being with God

When I was young I used to think that being with God meant learning about Him.  As I grew, I expanded my definition to mean spending time with Him.  I discovered the hard way that listening to God is so much more, and it usually happened when I stopped talking or, especially, when I stopped trying too hard to hear something (usually something in particular that I wanted to hear).

Over the past 30 years I have kept detailed journals where I spent time with God (or rather more like ranted, raved and basically spilled my guts raw).  Despite this, I remember vivid time periods where I let myself drift away from Him.  I questioned the journaling process and whether it brought me closer to God at all.  I even questioned God.  It seemed to me that after all that time together that we would have had a much deeper relationship.  Isn’t that how real relationships work?

Relationship, hmmm . . . . . Then it hit me that if this were an earthly relationship, I would have lost my friend a long time ago!  My rambling, non-stop, stream-of-consciousness journal writing only allowed for one-way communication.  If God did have a response, it was apparent that I wasn’t listening. I was way too busy “praying” (that is, telling Him what I wanted or needed or hoped would go away) or I had left Him midway through His first sentence and run off.

In our relationships, truly listening to someone means quieting our minds and giving them our full attention, instead of thinking of the next thing we are going to say. While we wait to hear, we might simply sit with them, lovingly gaze at them, appreciate them, reflect deeply on what they last said.  I wasn’t doing any of those things.

Quieting my mind does not come easily (surprise!).  Over time I have found that much of my art-making was able to slow me down and give my hands something to do so that my mind could be still and listen.

Driving home from my studio after writing this chapter, I was filled with a bit of anxiety about trying to explain how God talks to me.  As I was mulling over possible words, I noticed the sky to the west.  I had never seen anything like it.  The clouds, instead of white, were silver with a glowing light behind them, almost like a pink flame.  What surprised me even more than the color was their motion, not moving across the sky like most clouds I’ve seen but arranged in a wildly dramatic swirl as if they were being stirred. I couldn’t help but think that this was God’s way of getting my attention.  And then I burst out laughing!  Could God have drawn a scribble drawing right in the sky . . . using the clouds?

Seeing the clouds helped me to stop and take notice.

I sat later and drew the clouds I remembered.  I sat in the quietness and listened to God.  Although those clouds were there for every other driver going by, the message I received was very personal.  “I am drawing a message for you in the clouds: Stop and be with Me.”

Relying on synchronicity, praying and a belief that God will do it all for us, are a lot easier than the alternative -- real relationship building.  We can spend our time rushing from sign to sign waiting for God to deliver, guessing at their meaning, maybe even driving around aimlessly while we wait for the next one, or we can simply stop and ask God for directions.

Although we may have been taught by parents, teachers and a magnitude of personal development books on how to act with God and how to learn about Him, we are rarely taught how to personally listen to Him.

Each of us might have our own different way of quieting our mind to hear Him. Perhaps it’s because God talks with us as uniquely as He made us, speaking to us in a way that only we can understand.

No matter how you believe God speaks to you, He will usually do it through your heart.  It may be a right-brain, emotional and creative experience rather than a logical one. Either way, listening means acknowledging that God wants to co-create the artwork of our lives with us . . . if only we will consult with Him. So quiet your busy mind and listen up . . . God is waiting to inspire you!   Can you hear Him? Art-making can help.

Creativity @ pLaY: Visual Prayer

Supplies:

- Your journal or any blank paper

- Any colorful writing and drawing tools (gel pens, markers, colored pencils)

- A timer

You don’t need to wait for a sign to do this.  You can be with God anytime you want.  He will never feel bothered by you.

1. Find a quiet place where you can be alone or at least free from distractions.  Set a timer for an amount of time that you are willing to give to God – and then don’t look at the clock.

2. Think of something or someone that you want to talk to God about, maybe a person, a project or even a verse from Grandma’s old Bible that she underlined.

3. Write the person’s name or the key words of your thoughts.

4. Use colored pens or markers to doodle around the words or add details to the letters.  Continue adding color and designs until the timer beeps.

5. As you color and draw, imagine that God is sitting there in silence with you and that He understands without needing any words.  Simply be with Him and listen.

There is no right or wrong way for this project to look when finished.  View examples at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/Gallery

Reflection: Visual Prayer

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. What do you hear God saying to you?  Maybe it’s the next small step He wants you to take.  Maybe it’s a feeling instead.  Describe what you hear.

2. How do you hear Him saying it?  Is it a tender, reassuring voice wrapping its arms around you or perhaps an excited voice urging you to immediate action or even a strong voice speaking courage and life into you?

3. When you hear or feel a message from God in your heart, it should never go against what you know to be true about Him.  If you are unsure, consult with a trusted spiritual friend, mentor or advisor.

4. Discover your own ways to listen to God.  What are some things you can do to help your busy mind be still so you can be with Him?

5. God is a God who listens and who yearns to be listened to.  How can you continue to allow God to reveal Himself to you?

Journal Prompts for Creating a Mindset of Listening:

(Download a monthly calendar version to keep in your journal:

www.ARTstartersBook.com/Listening)

- Write a poem to God expressing gratitude for His Mindset of Listening (see Section III: Faith Musings, Lyrics and Scripture).

- Write a poem to God expressing gratitude for your Mindset of Listening.

- Dance or drum a prayer.  What would you say to God if you had no words?  What would He say back?

- Draw the clouds.  What do you hear them say?

- Lie down on a blanket on the ground and draw the blades of grass.  What do you hear them say?

- Listen to a song that speaks to you.  Write down the words and listen to it as a poem.  What do you hear?  Use color and images to illustrate the way the song makes you feel.

- Take a walk and listen to your footsteps.

- Illustrate a poem, verse or song that speaks to you.

- Cover a page with a color that matches your mood.  Listen to what it is telling you.

- Set a timer and DOODLE for five minutes.  Write about how you feel before and after.

- Experiment with shapes and doodles to create your own personal symbol.

- Write a biography about your inner artist.

- Illustrate the story of your inner artist.

- Create an advisory group for your life and gather people together often for brainstorming.  Maybe even host a soiree!

- Have imaginary conversations in your journal with people you admire and trust.

- Draw someone you love, like in the movie Titanic when Jack draws Rose.  No, they do not need to be naked.

- Visit or hang out in an artist colony or district.  Talk with the artists there about art.  If in Santa Ana, California, visit The Artists Village:  http://www.SantaAnaArtwalk.com.

Summary Questions: The Mindset of Listening

After working with the concepts in this chapter, use your journal to capture your insights:

1. What can the Mindset of Listening do for me in my life?  What is it doing already?

2. What new things in my life have I heard just during this chapter?

3. God is a God who listens and who yearns to be listened to.  How does God show me that He is the Creator of listening?

4. How can I continue to partner with the Master Artist to listen to Him in my life?

5. My biggest insights from this chapter:

Summary Log:

# of Creative Rituals:  __________

# of Creativity @ pLaY: __________

# of Journal Prompts: __________

Celebrate your success with this chapter!

For more resources on the Mindset of Listening, visit

www.ARTstartersBook.com/Listening

In Summary

The more you quiet yourself to listen to the world around you and inside you, the more you’ll start to see the world in a different, more intimate way.  The old fence in the back yard that you so carefully sketched begins to look a lot more meaningful, even wiser.  You’ll notice how the chipped paint adds interesting patterns, and the way one post leans to the right gives it a casual demeanor, and actually reminds you of a funny memory.

Through drawing, praying and paying close attention, by listening like an artist, you’re already starting to see like an artist.  You’re ready now for the next mindset, the Mindset of Beauty.

“Today I see beauty everywhere I go, in every face I see, in every single soul.”

-- Kevyn Aucoin (1962 – 2002), legendary make-up artist

Creative Mindset 3:

Beauty

Seeing the Extraordinary

in What Others See as Ordinary

A Prayer for Beauty:

Dear God,

You are a God who not only creates beauty, but sees beauty.  You see me as a rare, precious jewel, even when I feel far from beautiful and even when things in my life seem downright ugly.  You take what’s ordinary, and You re-sculpt it into something extraordinary with a vision much larger than I can see.

Thank you for seeing me as the person You created me to be and for using my life to inspire me to grow toward that vision.  Help me to see the world and others around me as the art that they are.

Amen.

The prayer above is an example of how you might connect with God.  Create your own prayer before you begin this chapter.

Remember, your prayer can be anything you want to share with your Great Creator, the Master Artist.  Draw it, dance it around the yard, sing it out loud, write it or speak the words into the air.

Write the words of your prayer, describe it, or draw something to remind yourself of what your prayer sounds like, looks like or feels like.  Use your journal or the space on the next page.  Make copies of your prayer and keep it where you can see it often!

For more prayers and spiritual resources, see Section III:

Faith Musings, Lyrics & Scriptures

Create your own Prayer for Beauty here or in your journal:

Creative Mindset 3: Beauty

Seeing the Extraordinary in What Others See as Ordinary

An artist can see beauty in almost anything because they look beyond the obvious, seeing visual poetry all around them.  Even a garden full of weeds is full of curves and twists that catch the sun.  A smear of lipstick on a sparkling crystal glass can create a new shade of red or inspire a photo blog or even suggest a new twist to a plot.

On the other hand, in a fast-paced world where we are constantly bombarded by media messages, it can be easy to lose our own sense of what is beautiful. Television and magazine ads show us what beauty is supposed to look like, from clothing, to hair to lipstick, even the contours of the cars we drive. Our sense of beauty can become lost in what the world suggests we should consider beautiful. And far too often, we agree. We decide that something must be beautiful because everyone else seems to think it is. The more we do this, the more we lose touch with our own sense of beauty and how we experience beauty in the world around us. A Slow-Motion Day can help us see with fresh eyes throughout our day and awaken our Mindset of Beauty.

The Creative Ritual for Beauty:  A Slow-Motion Day

We’ve often heard the phrase “stop and smell the roses.”  It’s a reminder to slow down and notice things we might not otherwise see (or smell!).

To nurture the Mindset of Beauty, create a habit of slowing down.  Schedule a Slow-Motion Day to help you focus on your quality of life instead of the quantity of things you get done. You may find this easier by limiting the amount of information you take in so that you can be more present to what is already around you.

Before you start your Creative Ritual, commit to a particular day and then show you take the commitment seriously by signing the contract on the next page.  Rewriting and decorating this contract in your journal will make the commitment even more solid.

To make the process even more fun, ask others to join you and be part of our Facebook page for encouragement:  www.Facebook.com/ARTstarters.

To fully experience your SLOW MOTION DAY, try these:

- Do one thing at a time instead of multi-tasking.

- Focus on each moment that you are in, moment to moment.

- Move at a fraction of the pace you usually do.

- Implement a Media Prohibition:  Ban yourself from all forms of media and technology -- no email, no TV, no books, no radio, no newspapers.

- Image God walking alongside you during your day.

To remind yourself to slow down, try posting reminders where you will see them or setting a random phone alarm throughout your day. When you notice the reminder, if the situation allows, you may also want to:

- Make a note of what you are doing, thinking or feeling.

- Sketch what you are looking at.

- Do a Scribble Drawing (see previous section).

- Take a picture of what you are looking at.

- Note the color combinations around you.

- Estimate and draw your speed as if you were an odometer.

- Take a deep breath and count slowly to five.

Keep your journal with you or use any handy piece of paper and add it into your journal later. Even when you can’t stop to write or draw, just stopping to notice how fast you are moving will allow you to take a deep breath and pay more attention to what is around you.

Creative Ritual Contract:  Schedule a Slow-Motion Day

To nurture the BEAUTY mindset that artists have, I will commit to:

Going through ONE FULL DAY in SLOW MOTION through the following actions:

Date:

To remind myself to slow down, I will:

(Ideas: set a random alarm, tie a string around my finger, carry my journal, etc.)

Signature:

Time estimate:  24-hour period

Repeat as needed. Schedule more Slow-Motion Days, or even just moments, as you go through this chapter.

Decorate and post this commitment where you can see it!

“Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.” – Ferris Bueller, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Seeing Beauty in What We Have

In our journey to spark inspiration, seeing beauty in what we already have can be a great place to start.

When we feel something is missing in our life, our first reaction is to fill the void.  I see this in blocked artists all the time.  When they get stumped with their art, they run off to take a new workshop, buy a new supply or even switch hobbies all together.  It seems like all of these would be great ways to get inspired – and they usually are!  The problem is when the artists doesn’t bring the ideas back to play with them or use them in their own original projects.  Instead of finding inspiration, they keep chasing the next new thing, filling the void with more unfinished projects, yet feeling more blocked than ever.

Not surprisingly, this happens in life too.  We often buy what the world tells us we are missing rather than appreciating what we have.  The easier it is to keep finding something new, the easier it becomes to ignore what we already have.   This leads to a “trade-in” mentality that is filling our landfills, increasing credit card debt, separating families, and negatively impacting other aspects of society as well.

Watching my neighbor artists in the galleries around me makes me realize how little they need to stay inspired with their art.  (Usually just a good bottle of wine, some brushes and a walk around the building does it).

When I owned an art supply shop, I would demo new products for them to get their professional reactions.  Instead of being eager to buy, most of them would try to get the same effects with products they already had.   Many times their experimenting would end up creating whole new effects! They didn’t need something new in order to try something new or create something new.

When the artists at the local youth center ran out of canvases, they started tearing up panels from cardboard boxes that were destined for the trash.  They created some of the most awesome graffiti art I’ve ever seen!

You may be surprised what we can find when you look at what is already around you with fresh, artistic eyes.  By challenging yourself to notice and appreciate what you have, you may discover inspiration was surrounding you all along.

Going Beyond Grateful

When we stop to truly appreciate something in our life, our feelings go beyond just being grateful for it.  We begin to see it as a thing of beauty in our life, not something that can be easily traded.

In 2005 Dr. Mitchel Adler, along with Dr. Nancy Fagley of Rutgers University, conducted a study with 250 students to define appreciation beyond its simple definition of “gratitude.”  They identified eight components that together make up feelings of appreciation: 1) “have” focus (versus “have not”), 2) awe, 3) ritual, 4) present moment, 5) self and social comparison, 6) gratitude, 7) loss and adversity, and 8) interpersonal appreciation.[32]

The next exercise will explore each of these facets of appreciation in more detail.  If you are not going to do the Creativity @ pLaY: Diamond in the Rough exercise that follows, stop here and reflect on how each of these components from Dr. Adler’s research relates to something or someone that you appreciate:

‘Have’ focus: keeping our attention on what we have instead of what we are missing.

Awe: a “deep emotional, spiritual or transcendental connection” to something outside of oneself.

Ritual: a habit or personal action that helps us remember to appreciate something.

Present moment: to be able to fully reflect on the current moment, as in “mindfulness.”

Self and social comparison: seeing one’s life in relation to other less fortunate lives, as well as any of our own past difficulties.

Gratitude: thankfulness for the benefits that other people provide us.

Loss and adversity: how current difficulties help us appreciate what we once had.

Interpersonal appreciation: feeling grateful for a person’s existence, regardless of the benefits they bring you (as in gratitude above).

Creativity @ pLaY: Diamond in the Rough

Time estimate:  30 minutes – 1 hour

Supplies:

- Journal

- Watercolor paints, pencils or markers

- Writing or drawing pens

- Optional:  template of the diamond (see Section III: Templates in back of book)

1. Think of something that is important to you that would like to view with more appreciation.  This could be a situation or even a person in your life.

2. Use the Diamond template as a guideline to draw in your journal, or trace or photocopy the template itself.

3. Answer each of these questions, one at a time, inside each of the facets of the diamond.  Color the facet while reflecting on each answer before moving on to the next question:

1. What positive qualities does the situation/person have?

2. How does this situation/person show that God is working in your life?

3. What ritual or habit can you create to remind yourself regularly to appreciate the situation/person?

4. Choose a time to be fully present with the situation/person and afterward come back to this section with something great that you noticed.

5. How is this situation/person so much greater than other (more unfortunate) situations/people?  How is this situation/person so much greater than situations/people in your past?

6. What benefits does this situation/person bring to your life?

7. How are the current difficulties of the situation/person helping you appreciate something you once had that you would like to get back?

8. How does this situation/person’s existence add to the world?  How do you think God sees them/it?

Creative variation:  For a shorter version of this exercise, ponder your answers instead of writing them down as you color in each facet.

There is no right or wrong way for this project to look when finished.  View examples at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/gallery

Reflection: Diamond in the Rough

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. Which question had the biggest impact on your appreciation for the situation/person?  Why?

2. Were you reminded of anything new about the situation/person?

3. What insights stand out for you from this process?

Seeing Beauty in the Ordinary

Having awe for something is a great way to describe what seeing beauty is all about.    We catch our breath.  We stop in our tracks and take notice.

Beauty does more than cause artists to stop and notice: it fills them with wonder so that they are inspired to capture that beauty in paint, pencil, clay or film.

We too can have this mindset in our lives, simply by slowing down to appreciate what we until now have rarely stopped to even notice.  We’ll appreciate its beauty even more when we take the time to capture in our journal what we love about it.

Mark Hirsch is a photojournalist who notices the extraordinary in the ordinary.  For more than 25 years he took photos for a living. One day he realized that he had stopped taking photos just for himself or his own pleasure, so he decided to stop and take a picture of a tree that he had been driving past for almost two decades.  That one photo turned into a year of photos, as he returned again and again, capturing the same tree in different moments.

Hirsch describes his interaction with the tree as a deepening relationship: “The longer I spent down there, the greater my appreciation for what a unique force it was and what an impact it had on the quality of life around it.  In the realm, in that microcosm of the world, it really is a tree of life.”[33]

In America, Thanksgiving Day is a holiday that helps us stop and take notice of things we often take for granted.  Many families have a tradition of going around the table at a big feast and each sharing something for which we are thankful:  family, food, health, friends, shelter. . . .

Of course, it’s easy to be thankful for the good things, a little harder to find the beauty in the everyday.  We rush through life, eager for the next new thing that will give us that cozy feeling we want.  The irony is that when we look back on all our life moments together, we often see how both the blessings and the struggles worked together to lead us in new directions.  What if we could look at our own life through the eyes of an artist while we are going through it, right in each ordinary moment?

The other day, my friend was on her way to pick up a new couch and had taken her nephew along for muscle support.  Before they reached the furniture store, her car broke down on the freeway. She had to call a tow truck to rescue them. Four hours later she returned home, $200 poorer and without her new couch, but she did feel a lot closer to her nephew after the time they had spent together.  Knowing my friend, my guess is that this will be a story they will laugh about and remember fondly for many years.  Instead of despairing, she chose to see something beautiful in that moment and happily traded a couch right then for something more long-term, a deeper relationship with her nephew.  And it’s true that I have never heard anyone on Thanksgiving say they were most thankful for their furniture!

It made me think about how many times I choose to sacrifice the beauty of a moment in exchange for something else that catches my attention superficially.  Right in the midst of the ordinary struggle of life, tucked in there somewhere, is a reminder to stop and notice what is really important…and to be in awe of its beauty.

Creativity @ pLaY: Growing Gratitude

Time estimate: 1 -2 hours initially and then just a few minutes daily after that

Supplies:

- Tree branches (from nature or purchased)

- Any container, pot or vase for your tree branches

- Rocks, gravel or sand to hold your branches upright in the container

- Paper for leaves (or hanging tags from office supply store)

- Hole punch

- String or ribbon

- Basket

- Fine-tip writing markers

- Optional:  additional décor items, such as berries, fabric, ribbon

1. Cut out leaf shapes that are large enough to write on; make a variety of shapes.  You can also use paper circles or tags from an office supply store.

2. Write something you are thankful for on each paper leaf, punch a hole in it, and tie it to a branch with string or ribbon.  Repeat until you have thought of all the obvious things you are grateful for.

3. Keep extra leaves in a basket near the tree with pens and ribbons.

4. At the end of each day, write on a leaf something beautiful and unexpected you noticed in your day, no matter how small or usual.  Appreciate it for the role it played in your day.  Look beyond the list of blessings that you’ve already written down.

5. Optional: Add pictures of the people you are grateful for, either hanging them from ribbons like the leaves or gluing a photo on the other side of a leaf that bears the person’s name and something special that you value about him.

6. Optional:  Add additional décor to your tree, such as berries or leaves cut from burlap or fabric.

Creative variations:

- Do this as a family activity and invite visiting guests to do the same.

- Place your tree in the lobby of your organization or church.

- Hang your written blessings on a garland or even a real tree.

- Besides leaves, blessings can also be written on tags or ribbons, or on papers tucked into pinecones or small empty bottles.  Think of different ways to display these objects other than hanging them from a tree.

- Change the exercise for other seasons.  For Easter, as an example, you could place notes about things for which you are grateful in plastic eggs, and on Valentine’s Day you can write them on hearts.

There is no right or wrong way for this project to look when finished.  View examples at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/Gallery

Reflection: Growing Gratitude

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. Think of the most ordinary or toughest parts of your day.  Can you find something extraordinary in them?

2. What thoughts do you have as you look at your tree?

3. What insights stand out for you from this process?

Seeing Beauty in Imperfection

Wabi-sabi is a phrase that refers to the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection. It’s an eye for the simple yet poetic things in life, almost a philosophy of being.[34] What the rest of the world might see as less than perfect can be fascinating and beautiful: the deeply etched laugh lines on a grandmother’s face as she coos at a baby, the chip on the bottom of a favorite teapot revealing the clay underneath, or the design that the condensation makes as it drips off a window.  Instead of screaming, “Here I am.  Look at me!” these humble, yet beautiful objects sit quietly in their surroundings.  They are being what they are meant to be, no more, no less.

The Santora Arts Building in Santa Ana, California, is a great example of wabi-sabi to me.  When it was built in 1929, it was a shining architectural gem with its elaborate cast concrete décor.  Movie stars like Lucille Ball, Milton Berle and Jack Benny flocked from Los Angeles to sip at Daniger’s Tea Room, once located in the upper corner of the building.  Now as you walk the stairways, you see faded trim and chipped paint on the scrolls reminding you of another era.  Even the hallways are wabi-sabi, filled with interesting characters and eclectic art you would never see in the posh galleries of Laguna Beach.  For many years the Santora has been a place for free spirits and artistic expression.  Anyone wishing to whitewash the space would miss the whole point of its essence:  A building with all that history doesn’t need to be “fixed-up” with buckets of white paint and modern flooring.[35]

As you walk around your own life, where do you try to fix what isn’t broken?  What objects around you now are wearing their beautiful, imperfect stories?  Perhaps a messy stack of bills reveals a life filled with adventure and joy, each statement representing something that brought pleasure into someone’s life.  The pile of used tissues surrounding my sick editor may speak to her of a safe cocoon away from her busy kids where she can find rest and healing while reading an awesome book (mine!).

Wabi-sabi involves more than just looking slowly at life; it requires looking deeper.  Take the time to snap photos of things around you that are imperfect.  You may be surprised at what you discover about them when looking through artist eyes!

Vincent Laforet, Pulitzer-prize winning photographer and author of the book Visual Stories shares these tips: “You can photograph anything in a million different ways, but what I always try to remember is to photograph something as if I’ve discovered it for the first time. And if I have photographed it before, I find a way to see it as I’ve never seen it before.”[36]

Creativity @ pLaY: Wabi-Sabi Walk

Supplies:

- Five (5) pieces of heavy paper or cardstock (8.5”x11”) - or cut pieces from cereal boxes

- Two (2) pieces of heavy cardboard (4.25”x5.5) – or cut pieces from a cardboard box

- Glue or glue stick

- Camera or camera phone

- Computer/printer or photo processing center for printing out your pictures

- Optional:  photo corners

1. Walk your usual path around your house, neighborhood, or even your life for the day.  Notice anything extraordinary in what would usually seem far from perfect.

2. Take pictures.

Accordion Photo Album:

3. Fold each of the five pieces of cardstock in half to create a crease down the middle of the width.

4. Alternate each cardstock, gluing them together to form valleys and mountains, like an accordion.

5. Glue a cardboard cover to the front and back to form a book.

6. Print your pictures and glue them in the book.

7. Optional: Tie it with an old ribbon, rubber band or other simple closure.

8. Optional: Add any additional artistic touches that you would like.

Creative variations:

- Take candid pictures of someone you love and catch them in wabi-sabi moments over a span of time.  Create captions to share what you observed with them.

- Instead of pictures, take video snippets to create a small film that you edit together.

- Ask someone to capture candid pictures of you in wabi-sabi moments over time and then share what they saw in you.

There is no right or wrong way for this project to look when finished.  View examples at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/Gallery

Reflection: Wabi-Sabi Walk

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. Write a caption for each photo that describes its Wabi-Sabi.

2. Write in your journal about the deeper story behind each picture.  What is beautiful about the imperfections?

3. What imperfections are you willing to love in others around you?  What deeper story do those imperfections have?  Be specific for each person in your life.

4. What imperfections are you willing to love in yourself?  What do you know about your story?

Trash Into Treasure

You probably wouldn’t think of a junk pile as being beautiful.  Dutch artist Diet Wiegman creates sculptures made of trash for his unique, award-winning shadow art. What initially looks like a heap of junk transforms into a poetic shape when the light hits it just right. When asked about his work in the 1970s, Wiegman simply said: “I did not invent the phenomenon of shadow; I just make holes in the light”.[37]

As an art form, Junk Art entered the scene in the 1950s with the work of Robert Rauschenberg, who used the term “combines” to describe the result of adding a collage of various items into his paintings.  He would be seen walking the streets of New York picking up pieces of junk and other unused items to use in his artwork.[38]  During World War I, artists used discarded and untraditional items to create shocking messages to protest the war and society.  This became known as the Dada period and the work heavily influenced future art forms; in fact, it’s still doing so today.

--------------------------------------------

"There is no poor subject. A pair of socks is no less suitable to make a painting than wood, nails, turpentine, oil and fabric." - Robert Rauschenberg

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This work reminds me of when I first met artist and illustrator Janice Lowry.  After talking over coffee, we took a two-block walk from my studio to hers, up the shaky back stairs by the trash dumpster in the alley to her magical world behind the old stained glass window above the bank.  I felt like I had fallen down the rabbit hole even though I was climbing up.  Her studio was filled with the most interesting objects, things others might have overlooked or discarded.  Similar to the work of early artists of the Dada and Junk Art periods, much of Janice’s art combined objects in ways that would surprise the viewer into understanding a deeper message.

In her sculptures, Janice used carefully selected antique papers, doll parts and other interesting objects within her own custom box frames made of broken wood pieces.  Her art was very personal, frequently including handwritten messages drawn from her own memories, which she had kept track of in journals since she was 11.[39]  Janice passed away in 2009, but I am sure she envisioned how the history of many future generations would intersect with hers as they came across her artwork and journals, of which 126 are now housed in the Smithsonian Archives in Washington, D.C.[40]

Janice Lowry had a special way of transforming trash into treasure: to let old objects with secret memories find her and to then weave them into a new story.  Now it’s your turn to give old objects new life.

Creativity @ pLaY: Scavenger Sculpture

Time estimate: 1 – 5 hours

Supplies:

- Various found objects

- Glue, wire or other adhesive

- Your journal or paper/pen

- Optional:  Wood pieces for shadow box for a frame

Re-make ordinary, discarded objects into a dimensional art collage or sculpture, often called an assemblage.

1. Go on a scavenger hunt through your junk drawers, garage, trash bins and cupboards to find interesting and unneeded objects.  If time allows, you may want to expand your search to neighborhoods, nature trails, garage sales, swap meets, thrift stores or even garbage dumps.

2. Assemble the items together into a sculpture that tells a beautiful story.  Use wire, adhesive, box frames or other methods of attaching or displaying the objects together.

3. Add a handwritten journal entry into the sculpture if you wish.

4. Name your sculpture.

5. Display it.

Creative variation:

- Team Effort:  Do this exercise with a work group or family, forming small teams and assigning company departments or neighborhoods.  Allow teams to gather objects they find while walking around or by asking people they meet.  At the end of the session, host an art gallery and reception to view the team sculptures.

There is no right or wrong way for this project to look when finished.  View examples at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/Gallery

Reflection:  Scavenger Sculpture

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. What situation in your past started as messy but turned into something beautiful?

2. Out of all the objects you gathered, what was your:

Favorite object  and why?

Most valuable object?

Most unusual object?

Most essential object?

3. Out of all of your life moments so far, what has been your:

Favorite moment and why?

Most accomplished moment?

Most unusual or painful moment?

Most essential moment?

4. Journal about the “glue” or “wire” that holds together the moments of your life.

Journal Prompts for Creating a Mindset of Beauty:

(Download a monthly calendar version to keep in your journal:

www.ARTstartersBook.com/Beauty)

- Write a poem to God expressing gratitude for His Mindset of Beauty. Listening (see Section III: Faith Musings, Lyrics and Scripture).

- Write a poem to God expressing gratitude for your Mindset of Beauty!

- Create a cross or altar from used or broken items that speak to you.

- Find something used and broken in your life and give it a little fixing up.

- Take your inner artist on a date to an antique or thrift store.  Take pictures of items that inspire you.

- Find a piece of “junk” and make up its “story.”  Write about it in your journal or use it in a piece of artwork.

- Write or draw memories of items that mean a lot to you in your life:  the blanket your grandmother knit, the old necklace passed down, the antique cabinet the traveled across the seas.

- At the end of the day journal about a struggle and find the beauty in the moment.

- Look back over your life and draw a timeline of peaks and valleys to represent the highs and lows of your life.  Add pictures and notes to your timeline.

- Write out the word beauty and think of items that start with each letter that are beautiful to you.  Repeat with other words such as gorgeous, bliss or fabulous!

- Find a favorite picture of yourself and write about what you love about yourself.

- Do something you know you need to do but have been dreading.  Try to make it fun.

- Spend $5 on your inner artist to create a special memory.

- Look around you and draw just the colors you see.

- Go to an art gallery and find something you like in every piece of artwork you view.

- Find something you like about every person you spend time with today.  You might even tell them about it.

Summary Questions: The Mindset of Beauty

After working with the concepts in this chapter, use your journal to capture your insights:

1. What can the Mindset of Seeing Beauty do for me in my life?  What is it doing already?

2. What things in my life have I seen through fresh eyes while working on this chapter?  Where do I see beauty that I had not noticed was there all along?

3. God is a God who created beauty and sees beauty in us.  How does God show me that He thinks I am beautiful?

4. How can I continue to partner with the Master Artist to see His acts of beauty in my life?

5. My biggest insights from this chapter:

Summary Log:

# of Creative Rituals:   __________

# of Creativity @ pLaY:  __________

# of Journal Prompts:   __________

Celebrate your success with this chapter!

For more resources on the Mindset of Beauty, visit

www.ARTstartersBook.com/Beauty

In Summary

Instead of finding beauty or striving for it in the obvious, artists open their eyes and see it in the most unlikely places.

We too can nurture the Mindset of Beauty in our own lives.  By slowing down and looking at things with fresh eyes and appreciation, you have begun to notice the inspiration that has been around you all along.  Now you are ready to take some bold new steps to embrace it!

“You can pour your soul out singing a song you believe in that tomorrow they’ll forget you ever sang.  Sing it anyway.”

--- Martina McBride, recording artist

Creative Mindset 4:

Vulnerability

Embracing Imperfection

To Be Who You Really Are

A Prayer for Vulnerability:

Dear God,

You are a God who both embodies and embraces Vulnerability.  You reach out to me even when I don’t reach back.  And you never give up on me.  Help me to not give up on me either.  Help me to embrace both my successes and my failures in my desire to be who You created me to be.

Thank you for giving me the courage to live the beautiful, creative life that you imagined me to have!

Amen.

The prayer above is an example of how you might connect with God.  Create your own prayer before you begin this chapter.

Remember, your prayer can be anything you want to share with your Great Creator, the Master Artist.  Draw it, dance it around the yard, sing it out loud, write it or speak the words into the air.

Write the words of your prayer, describe it, or draw something to remind yourself of what your prayer sounds like, looks like or feels like.  Use your journal or the space on the next page.  Make copies of your prayer and keep it where you can see it often!

For more prayers and spiritual resources, see Section III:

Faith Musings, Lyrics & Scriptures

Create your own Prayer for Vulnerability

here or in your journal:

Creative Mindset 4: Vulnerability

Embracing Imperfection to Be Who We Really Are

Making art can make us feel vulnerable.

Artists do more than share their talent.  They share their imagination and their vision, sometimes even a glimpse into their very soul.  Unlike imagination, once art is created it has a physical presence that can’t be ignored.  The artist is then faced with the question, “Now what do I do with it?”

Marketing guru and author Seth Godin explains vulnerability as “life outside the comfort zone.”  He believes it is the duty of each of us to be artists and to get out there in the world and create our “art,” which he defines as the thing that we are each meant to do.[41]  In his courageous and colorful book V is for Vulnerable, he states, “It is the result of an internal battle royal, one between the quest for safety and the desire to matter.”[42]

Sharing art is not the easy way out as a career nor as a form of connecting with others.  There will always be those who don’t like or agree with the art we create. Art may not be perfect and it’s certainly not always popular. This can make us feel vulnerable. But if we are living true to ourselves, we continue to create anyway.

We can learn from the artist’s Mindset of Vulnerability to embrace both success and failure, and to leave the quest for perfection and popularity behind.  Just like art, life is meant to be lived out loud.

If we stay small and safe, we have a better chance of blending in, but only when we take risks do we allow ourselves to learn and grow.  This chapter is all about getting out of our safety zone and becoming who we are really created to be.  Evolving may seem overwhelming at times, and even risky, but when we faithfully take the next step, inspiration will reveal the next step after that.  Otherwise, we’ll remain stuck right where we are.

The Creative Ritual for Vulnerability: the Spill ‘N’ Fill

Journaling is a safe place to nurture the Mindset of Vulnerability.  By letting out our feelings and thoughts, we can become inspired by them.  From there, they can lead us to new ideas, new actions and sometimes even new feelings that we decide we would rather have instead.

When I first started leading creativity groups, we did a stream-of-conscious writing exercise every day called Morning Pages, created by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way.[43] The brilliance of writing these pages was that it required us to unbury and identify thoughts we might not have ever seen.  Situations, thoughts and feelings can look so different when you actually put them into words.  I got some of my best ideas writing these pages!  For me, they were a way to clear out the old cobwebs and start each day fresh.

Along the way, I noticed there were people in each group who said the pages made them feel “ugly” and caused them to start their day in a bad mood.  After hearing this enough times, I realized that I was doing something different with my pages. The crucial part of stream-of-conscious writing is to not end on the “ugly.”  I feel best when spilling my mind’s “junk” and then filling that “space” with positive thoughts and intentions that I choose for myself.  Adding this transition to the end of my journaling makes all the difference for me.

Make it a habit to spill into your journal, spill all you want, and then intentionally choose your focus for the day. By journaling DAILY in this manner, you will nurture the Mindset of Vulnerability.

I call this the Morning Spill ’N’ Fill:

- Write whatever comes to mind for at least three full pages without stopping, editing or judging.  If you don’t know what to write, just keep writing anything until you do:

“I don’t know what to write, this is dumb, I don’t know why I committed to doing this . . . “

- If your journal doesn’t have lines, start at any side of the page and write pages as if it does.  If you absolutely need lines, glue lined pages into your journal or buy an inexpensive composition notebook just for this purpose.

- You may want to write your Spill ’N’ Fill directly to God if you feel comfortable letting it all out with Him.  Don’t worry, He can handle it -- He knows it all anyway!

- After you SPILL your feelings and thoughts onto three pages, write one full page of what you choose to FILL yourself with in place of what you are leaving behind.  Decide what you want to claim.  What would you like to co-create with God today?  If it’s a mantra, phrase or verse, rewrite it over and over until you feel it is part of you:

“Today I will stay positive.  I won’t let my boss affect my attitude.  I am here to do an amazing job, and I know I am great at it!  This is the day that the Lord has made.  I will rejoice and be glad in it.  I will rejoice!  I will rejoice!  I will rejoice!  Here I am rejoicing now . . . It’s going to be a great day!”

- Experiment with writing your pages at night or in the morning.  Do whichever one works for you, but always re-read your Fill before you start your day.

- Realize that whatever you spill is not a statement about who you are, just a private peek into how you are feeling at that exact moment.  If you like, you may tear it up afterward, burn it, or even cover it with paint or crayon.

Choose the start and end dates you want to commit to for this new ritual.  Show you take the commitment seriously by signing the contract on the next page. Rewriting and decorating this contract in your journal will make the commitment even more solid.

To make the process even more fun, ask others to join you and be part of our Facebook page for encouragement:  www.Facebook.com/ARTstarters.

Creative Ritual Contract: Spill ‘N’ Fill

To nurture the Vulnerability Mindset, I will:

Write three non-stop pages every morning in my journal and then a full page of what I would like to intentionally fill my day and mind with.

Start date:

End date:

Signature:

Times estimate:  20 – 40 minutes daily

Decorate and post this commitment where you can see it!

The Raw Risky Art of Getting Started

Our feelings carry subconscious thoughts we may not even know are there.  If you are doing the Spill ‘N’ Fill pages every morning, you have probably noticed some surprising things tumbling out onto the pages:  a new idea, a crazy thought, a sense of something deeper, a new direction to take your life, even some dark and dreary fears.

Inspiration is starting to flow!

You may be feeling lighter, more energized, and creative, like a load has been lifted off your heart.  It can also be somewhat scary to figure out what to do with this inspiration once you glimpse it.  It often feels risky to admit these unburied ideas and feelings in our own journals; imagine the risk of sharing them out in the real world.

On the one hand it’s fun to sketch out a new business idea on paper – yet a little harder to reach out to someone for advice.  It’s easier to throw a tantrum on paper about the volunteer project that is eating up your life – yet much scarier to make a phone call to politely resign from the committee. We start to believe that even our best ideas are much safer hidden away.

When I started writing this book, I thought it would be fairly simple and straightforward to talk about the process that has helped me and others in so many ways.  My Spill ‘N’ Fill pages, however, revealed to me fears about the book I didn’t know I had: What if it’s misunderstood?  What if I re-read it tomorrow and it sounds horrible?  What if it’s not for everyone?

Courage answers back:  “Of course it’s not for everyone – it’s for someone.” It’s possible that what we feel most authentic about may very well rub the world in the wrong way.  Are we willing to embrace vulnerability and do it anyway?

We often think artists have a complete vision and proceed to paint it right onto a blank white canvas.  In reality, their first step is usually a wash of color to get right of the white.  Once they get started, it’s much easier to keep going.

We too, like artists, can embrace our vulnerability by taking any small step forward in life just to get started.

Waiting for Approval

Sharing our real selves with others can be scary.  Out in the world we are exposed to feedback all around us:  Facebook dislikes, editor corrections, client expectations, and Amazon comments, along with all the opinions of our friends.  We share a thought, send out a newsletter, post a blog, and all of a sudden we have two “followers” drop us.  We are devastated, and we let it stop us in our tracks.

Even the most beloved artists did not have it easy when sharing their art with the world. Handel’s Messiah is the most frequently performed choral piece in the world, yet his hometown rejected it, along with many of his other compositions.  Instead of waiting for approval, Handel sat down to compose his best work while facing critical reviews, bankruptcy and the threat of debtors’ prison. Imagine Handel thinking, “I’m just not so sure everyone will like this.  I better wait until I’m ready.”[44]

Other famous artists that were not well received include Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet, and Cezanne, just to name a few.  Even Charles Schulz, creator of the well-loved Peanuts comic strip was turned down by his own high school yearbook every time he submitted a cartoon.[45]

If the whole world doesn’t love Picasso, and not every music lover is moved to tears by Handel’s Messiah, surely I can let go of total world acceptance!  Truthfully, my arms and heart aren’t big enough to hold the entire world anyway.

Why do we believe that our life must be loved by everyone in order to live it?  I can’t name one specific thing, one website, one book, one song, one product in the world that is loved by everyone.  Yet many times we let a yearning for approval hold us back from even getting started.  Instead of trying, we pour our energy into creating an illusion of perfection while continuing to tell ourselves that we aren’t yet ready.

It actually takes much more energy to be someone else than it does to become the best you that you can be. Trying to be perfect can become a life’s quest that will never lead to fulfillment here on Earth.  We were not meant to fit in, play it safe or go through life pretending.  Don’t wait for the world to give you a thumbs-up or ready sign for what you feel you are meant to do.

If artists waited for approval before creating, what art would we have?  We surely wouldn’t have Starry Night, Handel’s Messiah, Monet’s Water Lilies, or Charlie Brown Christmas.  They would leave a gaping hole in culture too hard to even imagine.

What gaping hole are you okay with leaving?  Your purpose is unique and if left unfilled will leave a very specific and unique gap in somebody’s history.  If that hasn’t sunk in yet, take a deep breath.  YOU being YOU is the best art you can make in this world.

Try shifting your gaze to the people who need what you have to offer instead of lamenting about the ones who don’t. When you think of it this way, there’s no better time to get started than now.

Raw art-making is more than a chance to create art; it’s a chance to be real with yourself and others. On the other hand, making art for approval is like putting a big bow on a blank canvas to match the wall.  Sharing your real self with the world, however risky, is the courageous goal of both making art and living life.  Anything else is simply decoration.

Creativity @ pLaY: Raw Art Graffiti

Time estimate: 30 minutes

Supplies:

- Corrugated cardboard torn off a box (about a 6” – 10” square or rectangle)

- Acrylic paint

- Old credit card, scraper or thin piece of cardboard

- Stencils of shapes, words, images

- Mark-making tools to use as stamps:  some examples are caps from water bottles, twigs, leaves or fingertips

- Paint markers

- Magazines

- Glue (any liquid glue that dries clear)

1. Play music that creates a quick and creative mood because you’re going to “work fast before the police come!”  In other words, don’t stop to censor or overthink what you are painting.

2. Choose a raw topic from your Spill ‘N’ Fill pages, something full of emotion.  Choose two to three colors that match your emotion, along with a contrasting color such as white or black.

3. Set your timer for 30 minutes:

4. Layer 1: With your non-dominant hand, dip your scraper in the paint and scrape it in a very thin layer on your cardboard canvas in different directions.  Wipe off any extra paint from your scraper and then repeat with other colors, overlapping them in various directions.

5. Layer 2: While your first layer dries, think of an image or flip through magazines to choose one that relates to the issue in your journal.  Paint it or glue your magazine image right onto your board.

6. Layer 3: Add bold shapes and colors that match your mood, using any mark-making tools.

7. Layer 4: Add lettering or words.  Cut them out of magazines, paint them on or write them with acrylic markers (once the paint is dry).  Choose a phrase that captures a theme about the situation.

There is no right or wrong way for this project to look when finished.  View examples at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/Gallery

Reflection: Raw Art Graffiti

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. How did it feel to paint in layers without knowing what the finished artwork would look like?  How does this relate to life?

2. How did the time pressure affect you?  How does this relate to life?

3. Think of something that is a risk, no matter how small, that you know has a potential to change your life for the better.

Some examples:

Join a special interest group

Start a special interest group

Volunteer to teach

Start a blog

Take a class

Enter a contest

Call an old friend or teacher

Go on a trip

Apply for a new job

Move

Start a new exercise

Meet a new neighbor

Make a friend

Other ideas:

4. What makes them risky?  So what if you did fail?  What are you really afraid of?

5. Pick one and do it!  Or pick one and start a small step right now that will lead you toward it.

The “Big Toe Out”

Artists seem almost driven to create based on the inspiration they receive, and then as a natural next step, just as driven to share it with others.  Something they feel so passionate about can rarely be contained.

Just like artists, we too feel the power of this inspiration: a new business idea, a career change, a book draft, or a charity project.  As we glimpse a bit of our purpose, our life’s art, it feels so right in our soul that we want to rush to share it with others!  Yet something happens between the initial bubbly excitement and the big launch into the world.  I call it the “Big Toe Out.”

We feel an eagerness to test the water, so we show a piece of our “art” (share an idea) to someone to see if it’s any good:  our best friend, our sister, our spouse, even the gal working at the nearest gallery (it happens to me all the time).  We open our hearts, seeking validation from someone outside ourselves.  Sticking our toe in the water helps us decide whether to slowly walk in or just go for it and dive in headfirst.

Of course, what can easily go wrong here is that instead of a warm reception, we put our Big Toe Out and all we feel is water so icy that we decide not to jump in at all, maybe not ever.

Instead of getting applauded for what it is so far, our newborn idea gets criticized for what it has not yet become.  It gets a logical response (“You missed a comma”) versus an emotional response (“I love your idea behind this!”).  It might get caught up in the flow of someone else’s ideas of what it could or should be.  It might even get compared, or re-assembled, or distorted, or misunderstood.

Most likely our friends and family are trying to help in the only way they know.  Feedback from those closest to us is sometimes their reaction to our vulnerability; they want to rush us through our creative process into the safety of perfection.

Yet somehow we are totally unprepared for this type of response and its effect on us.  Although we may have thought we were putting that toe in safe water, we quickly withdraw it, feeling safer with all 10 toes on the shore instead.  Our art/idea gets hidden away in its infancy stages before it has a chance of becoming something greater.

Letting Go of Perfection

We ask for feedback, and we get feedback.  So what’s the issue? We sometimes forget that the goal of creativity is not to avoid imperfection.  To get inspired sometimes we must fly right into the chaos of possibility.  Imperfection leads to new questions, new options, new ways to change for the next time.

Even if an artist could temporarily arrive at perfection, they would never be able to stay there long.  The sold out exhibit would eventually lead to a demand for more created paintings, and then what?  Does the artist then copy his own designs or try something new?  If the next exhibit doesn’t sell out, does that mean the artist has failed, that they are going backward?  Of course not, they are continuing to ask questions and to evolve their art.

You are also evolving, and the process may leave you feeling very vulnerable.  Unlike other commodities that are made and sold, your art is not a product being manufactured to specs.  Your art is a growing, organic desire that God has put in your heart to share with the world, although you may still be developing into that vision.  And more than any criticism, no matter how valuable that is in later stages, you are first hoping for a heart response that acknowledges and encourages who you are becoming.  Our friends do not always know how to do this.  Our critics don’t usually want to.

Remember that God will always give you a heart response.  He will always encourage you to be who you really are and to shine your light in the world.  Your best life is not only in God’s hand, it’s in His plan.  You can take your vulnerability to Him and He will know just what to do.  He will encourage you to find the truth.

Choosing Truth or Lies

No matter how many toes you put out in the water, and how many times you test it, sooner or later you’ll realize that the only way to move forward is to get in.  It’s common to be afraid while in the creative process.  Courage isn’t getting rid of fear; it’s moving forward even when you have it.  And the bigger the body of water, the colder it might feel at first!

Feedback and input from others can be a big source of inspiration. All feedback is a chance to choose:  Will this help my art become what it is meant to become?  If the answer is yes, then the feedback is a gift.  If the answer is no, it is still a gift because it allows us to make a bigger commitment to the art we are making, to stand behind it stronger.

It’s important to realize that feedback is not the biggest danger to our art.  Our “helpful” friend or meanest critic is not our enemy.  The real danger is the lie that makes us abandon our art.  The lie we choose to believe.

Lies come in many forms, whether a small questioning voice or a toxic poison explosion.  They love lurking behind our vulnerability, hoping they can convince us to go back to safety.  They can sneak into our head and feed off of any doubts we have about our art, about ourselves.  They keep growing slowly over time, taking root deep into our hearts.  Lies usually whisper, because if they yelled we would get instantly suspicious.  They take well-intentioned feedback and turn it instead into sneaky questions:

“Do you think you can really go back to school at your age?”

“Will you ever find what you are good at?”

“What makes you think you can be a leader?”

“Why aren’t you a better mom?”

An artist may have a choice of when to share their finished painting with the world.  In the art that is our life, however, we are living every day out loud, interacting with the world, at our best and at our worst.  If we believe the lies, we will end up putting our energy into our emotional reaction to them instead of into evolving.  The result is that our art in the world can become casualties.  If we start licking our wounds and stop creating, the world will miss out on what we are meant to do.

Instead replace the lies with the truths that God is speaking into your heart:

“I am older and wiser and have more to learn each year!”

“I am good at being God’s art.”

“I am willing to lead, and willing to listen, and that is a sign of a good leader.”

“Nobody’s better than me at loving my children.”

It’s important to stay true to who we know we are becoming, and not leave our work undone.   The real truth is that we are the only ones who can do it.

Creativity @ pLaY: Chalk Monsters & Balloon Beliefs

Time estimate: 1 hour

Supplies:

- Your journal or blank paper

- Writing pen

- Chalk pastels or sidewalk chalk

- Big pieces of paper or a big area of sidewalk

1. Think of an idea you have for your life that makes you excited and scared at the same time.  What fears do you have about doing it?  List them in your journal or on blank paper.  When you can’t think of any more fears, challenge yourself to think of two more – these are usually the big ones.

2. Beneath each fear you will find a lie lurking behind it.  Write out the lie(s) for each item on your list.  You may even see the same ones repeated for various fears on your list.

3. What lie are you choosing to believe the most?

4. On a large piece of paper or on the sidewalk, draw the lie as the monster it really is.  What would it look like?  What size does it reveal itself in your life?

5. See it for what it really is: a lie.  What is it saying to you?  Journal about it or add your words directly to the image.

6. Turn on the hose and wash it away, spritz it with water, smear it around or run it under a faucet.  That’s it – let it go!

7. Wash your hands clean.

8. Now draw balloons in your journal or on large paper.  Write on them the beliefs you choose to accept. You may even decide to write them on real balloons and let them float in your creative space.  If you do, make sure to take a picture of it to keep long after your balloon has gone flat

That is the difference between lies and truth.  The lies make us shrink in fear and the truth is like fresh air that lifts us up.

There is no right or wrong way for this project to look when finished.  View examples at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/Gallery

Reflection: Chalk Monsters & Balloon Beliefs

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. What is the real or imagined risk that you allowed to stop you from moving forward?  What is the lie hiding beneath it?

2. In what area of your life might you need to ask forgiveness or perhaps even forgive yourself?

3. Ask God for a new truth about your life.

4. How can you put a toe out in the world?  What action could you take to do that?    What action could you take if you were ready to just jump in?

5. What are you going to do about it?

The God Box

It’s not easy to keep taking the next step, in art or in life, without knowing exactly where it will lead and how everything will all come together.

We want to have answers; we want to find meaning; we want to be in control, and we want it to be safe.  So we may put God in a box of certainty, limiting who He is to our small understanding of Him.    Being okay with not having all the answers means we are willing to let God out of that box.  We are ready to believe that there are more possibilities for us than the ones we just see right now with our own eyes.  In this co-creating journey, we rarely see God’s entire vision.  Not now.  Maybe not until our life is over.  One day we will see a God’s-eye view that is sure to be awe-inspiring!

Like a beautiful tapestry, while we are busy weaving the colored strands, we may see a pattern or feel a glimpse of the project from God, but we may not see its full artistry until we stare at the finished masterpiece from the other side.

Vulnerability means you keep weaving the blue thread if that is where you feel God is leading you. What is your next tiny step?  Trust. Vulnerability gives us the opportunity to have faith.

Most children have this faith because they haven’t yet put God in a box.  Their world is full of possibilities and unexpected outcomes.  At the foundation of their vulnerability is a belief that it will all be okay.  When they start to feel unsafe, they go running back to Mommy or Daddy.   As we grow older, we feel we have fewer, if any, safe places to run to.  No wonder we stay with what is known.  But what if we can live life with a Mindset of Vulnerability, knowing that we always have a safe place in God’s hands?

If we really truly believe that God is in charge of it all, with a plan far beyond our limited understanding, how does that change how we go through life?

Instead of putting God in a box, let’s put our fears in a box.  And then leave them there.

Making a box where we can put the things we have no control over is a creative and physical way to turn things over to a power greater than us, especially when we are feeling vulnerable and afraid.

Creativity @ pLaY: The Give-It-to-God Box

Time estimate: 1 – 2 hours

Supplies:

- Cardboard box (re-use a tissue or cereal box or even a large plastic bottle)

- Collage images, photos, typed verses or words

- Glue

- Paint

1. Cut a slot at the top of your box.  Make sure the slot is large enough for a folded piece of paper to be pushed through but not large enough to get it back out.  If the box already has an opening at the top that is too large (such as a tissue box), glue to the top a piece of cardboard with a smaller slot.

2. If the box has a lid, glue it down.  There are no “take backs” with our worries!

3. Paint or collage your box with paint, paper, quotes, words, images, and charms that inspire you.

4. Write each prayer, dream, desire, wish, problem, worry, praise or unanswered question you have for God on a note and stick it in the box. Trust that you are placing them in His hands. Because the lid is glued down, there is no way to get your notes back, so it truly symbolizes “letting go and letting God.”  You may want to write these notes with your non-dominant hand to symbolize your childlike faith.

5. Keep your Give-it-to-God Box handy by your bed, along with paper and pen, for when you need it next. Use it often.

There is no right or wrong way for this project to look when finished.  View examples at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/Gallery

Reflection: The Give-it-to-God Box

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. What container did you choose as your box?  What significance does it have for you?

2. Thoughtfully and prayerfully consider an idea that you feel God might be leading you toward right now, even if you can’t imagine His whole plan.

3. Put what you can’t control in the Give-it-To-God Box.

4. What does it feel like physically when you totally let go of something you can’t control?  What physical prompt can you use to remind yourself that you put that care into your Give-it-to-God Box?  (Examples: take 5 deep breaths; do a little dance; skip for a few steps; smile at yourself in a mirror.)

5. What next step do you feel God speaking to your heart?  Go do it!

Journal Prompts for Creating a Mindset of Vulnerability:

(Download a monthly calendar version to keep in your journal:

www.ARTstartersBook.com/Vulnerability)

- Write a poem to God expressing gratitude for His Mindset of Vulnerability Listening (see Section III: Faith Musings, Lyrics and Scripture).

- Write a poem to God expressing gratitude for your Mindset of Vulnerability!

- Write a blog post about something you learned from your journal pages – for your own blog or for someone else’s.  Journal about how it felt to share.

- Find a picture of yourself when you were young and write about what you were doing and feeling.  Repeat with other pictures.

- Make a photo collage of important times in your life starting from when you were young.

- Meet a friend for coffee and share a new idea or something personal about yourself that could encourage them.  Or ask them to share and truly listen.  Journal about what happened.

- Think of 10 people who played an important role in your life.  Write a letter to one who you haven’t connected with in awhile, especially if there is unfinished emotion.  Write it even if you don’t ever intend to send it.

- Send an email or Facebook comment to someone you admire.

- Draw with a pen you don’t usually draw with.

- Draw with the hand you don’t usually draw with.

- Draw yourself with pastels or crayons in colors you don’t usually wear.

- Draw yourself naked and find five things you love about yourself.

- Do something you haven’t done in a long time:  jump rope, play an instrument, paint with watercolors, sing a song . . .

- Try something you have never done.

- Go somewhere you have never gone.

- Take a different route home.

- Drive somewhere without knowing where you will end up.

- Do something small to share yourself with the world.

- Do something big to share yourself with the world!

Summary Questions: The Mindset of Vulnerability

After working with the concepts in this chapter, use your journal to capture your insights:

1. What can embracing vulnerability do for me in my life?  What is it doing already?

2. What new things have I embraced in my life during this chapter?

3. God is a God who risks everything for us, even when we don’t acknowledge Him back.  How does God show me that He is the Creator of Vulnerability?

4. God will shoulder all the risk of the vision that He has planted in me.  How can I continue to partner with Him in my life?

5. My biggest insights from this chapter:

Summary Log:

# of Creative Rituals:   __________

# of Creativity @ pLaY:   __________

# of Journal Prompts:   __________

Celebrate your success with this chapter!

For more resources on the Mindset of Vulnerability, visit

www.ARTstartersBook.com/Vulnerability

In Summary:

Many times artists create one step at a time without knowing their full vision.  When they share their art, they don’t know who will like it.  They keep creating anyway.

We too can show courage by stepping out in faith, even when we don’t know exactly where it will lead us, leaving the safety of perfection behind.  The Mindset of Vulnerability means that we make a daring move to put our toe out in the world anyway because that is where our inspiration lies.  We can’t swim if we don’t get wet.  Ironically, the way to push through vulnerability is to keep on creating, getting better each time, getting more and more ideas.

At first it may feel like the riskiest thing we can do is to start. Many times, the riskiest thing we can do is to not quit.  The next mindset, the Mindset of Passion, is what will keep you going.  So don’t quit now – you’re doing great!

“The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation.”

-- Auguste Rodin (1840 – 1917), sculptor

Creative Mindset 5:

Passion

Pouring out devotion and desire

in pursuit of your art

A Prayer for Passion:

Dear God,

Thank You for creating and pursuing me with a passion that You have never stopped pouring out on me.  Help me to live my life with the heart of an artist – with devotion and desire for the purpose You have breathed inside of me.

Help me to be open to Your inspiration throughout this chapter as I take action on the Mindset of Passion and live my life out loud!

Amen.

The prayer above is an example of how you might connect with God.  Create your own personal prayer before you begin this chapter.

Remember, your prayer can be anything you want to share with your Great Creator, the Master Artist.  Draw it, dance it around the yard, sing it out loud, write it or speak the words into the air.

Write the words of your prayer, describe it, or draw something to remind yourself of what your prayer sounds like, looks like or feels like.  Use your journal or the space on the next page.  Make copies of your prayer and keep it where you can see it often!

For more prayers and spiritual resources, see Section III:

Faith Musings, Lyrics & Scriptures

Create your own Passion Prayer here or in your journal:

Creative Mindset 5: Passion

Pouring Out Devotion and Desire in Pursuit of Your Art

There is no denying an artist’s desire to keep creating no matter what, to devote themselves entirely to their art.  They pursue their art with a lover’s heart, whatever the cost, holding nothing back.  They pour out this passion on their art through both good reviews and bad, whether they meet with wild success or failed attempts, when money flows and when it doesn’t.  Their focus is always on their art and what they are creating through it.  We looked at how risky this can feel in the previous chapter about the Mindset of Vulnerability.

You may be thinking that courage and confidence are required to be a true artist.  You may even be wondering if you have what it takes.  The truth is that passion is the driving force that keeps artists creating.  And the more they create, the more courageous and confident they get.  This is true for you too.

You can use the Mindset of Passion in pursuing the art that is your life.

What is possible for you if you choose to pursue your life with a lover’s heart, living it with devotion and desire now, instead of waiting?  If you picked up this book wishing you could just find your passion and then do it, this chapter may be your biggest breakthrough.

Passion isn’t something you “find”—it’s something you pour out on your life and on those around you.  It’s waking up every day ready for possibilities, remaining open to listening, to seeking beauty and to embracing vulnerability.  We pour out our passion by creatively living our life out loud!

If you are still wondering “what am I going to be when I grow up,” start by proving your love for the things you most care about– be they people, values, beliefs or interests.  Live the Mindset of Passion by taking action, by showing up in your life, just as an artist shows up to paint whether or not he knows what he is about to create.

If you are really listening to your life, you will find the next tiny step to take.  Each action will lead you to greater inspiration in your life, one step to the next.   Although passion involves feelings, it’s the pouring out of action that puts it all in motion.

The Creative Ritual for Passion: ARTrageous Love

ARTtrageous love is love that might not make sense to the rest of the world.  It’s love that requires sacrifice.   It’s love that doesn’t ask for anything back.  It helps us identify what we care most about so that we can live our lives as art, knowing that we are committed to something that we can feel good about at the end of our life.

To nurture the Mindset of Passion, create a habit of intentionally showing love every day for something you care about in your life.  It can be a person, a belief, a priority, an interest, a role.  You may even choose something new to show your love for each day.

You can define “ARTrageous” however you like, as long as it stretches you a little each day.  It might mean setting aside your own plans to instead help someone with theirs, or it might mean staying on task when you feel like giving up.  Perhaps you perform an act of random kindness for someone—or for yourself.  Use your journal to write about or draw your experience each day.

As with the other Creative Rituals, use the contract on the opposite page:

- Choose how many days you want to commit to the ritual and then choose your start and end date.

- Show that you take the commitment seriously by signing the contract.

- Rewriting and decorating this contract in your journal will make your commitment even more solid.  Also post reminders for yourself where you will see them!

- You may want to encourage others to join you to make the process even more fun and to hold yourself accountable.   You can also join our Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/ARTstarters

- At the end of this commitment, you will be able to look back through your journal to see how you’ve shown love and what it helped you discover about the Mindset of Passion

Creative Ritual Contract: ARTrageous Love

To reconnect to the Mindset of Passion in my life, I will:

Show love every day in a new way and draw or write about it in my journal.

Start date:

End date:

Signature:

Time estimate:  15 minutes or multiple hours daily -- an artist would never count the time.

Decorate and post this commitment where you can see it!

Devotion: Love in Action

An artist’s devotion to their art, more so than their talent in creating it, is what usually makes people look at someone and say, “Yep, that is definitely an artist.”  Perhaps this passion, more than anything, is what separates “them” from “us.”

If you ever stopped believing that you’re an artist, you may even be able to pinpoint the moment it happened. Perhaps there was a time in your life when you created a piece of art, assessed that it was (or you were) no good and decided not to pursue it.  Or maybe a teacher or other influential adult told you that your art was bad.

This may come as a shock to you, but good artists create “bad” art too.  Good artists, however, true artists, keep creating anyway, even though at some point in their lives they might have made something awful.  Even the most famous artists did not create masterpieces on their first try or every time.  Shakespeare had to learn to read and write. Monet had to learn to blend colors. Beethoven hit his share of wrong notes when learning to play.  But their passion drove them to keep writing, keep painting, keep composing, not because they knew they would be famous but, mostly, because they didn’t want to live life without creating.  Eventually, each of those artists and thousands of others got really good at doing their thing.  Their passion came BEFORE, not AFTER, they mastered their art.

Artists first choose to pursue their art and then become excellent at it. Their devotion goes beyond a feeling of love: It’s love in action.  Artists will painstakingly add details and put in countless hours out of devotion to their art.  They don’t count the minutes any more than parents count the kisses.

This is not to say that we should all choose to draw and paint professionally just because we will all eventually get good at it.  Rather, it’s a reminder that the same passion that causes an artist to keep creating is the same passion that can keep us creating in our lives.  Like artists, we can pursue the things we value the most, the principles and qualities that we cannot truly live without.

It’s Passion more so than courage that will help you embrace your Vulnerability when you feel like giving up the most!  Pursuing your “art” simply means that you live your life as an expression of your most important beliefs because, to you, there is no other life worth living.

Passion vs. Production

If you ask an artist to reproduce one of their existing paintings to match your couch, you will see the difference between passion and production.  If you’re lucky enough that they don’t bite your head off and actually agree to do it, you will not likely see the same level of devotion to your project.  To them it may seem like manufacturing someone else’s vision . . . something to work on if they need the money bad enough.  The original painting that you loved so much but wanted to change was the art that made them jump out of bed to keep working.

Do you jump out of bed passionate to live life like an artist creating his masterpiece?  Or are you just moving through life in production mode with a vision for your life that doesn’t connect to your soul?

The values that you desire, when you devote yourself to them, will ultimately be the key to living an inspired life.  Imagine the world around you as your canvas.   If love is the paint and you are the brush, what do you want to create?

Creativity @ pLaY: Changing Heart

Time estimate: 1 -2 hours; 20 minutes ongoing

Supplies:

- Canvas  (can also use stiff cardboard or plywood)

- Acrylic Paint

- Optional:  anything else you want to add into your canvas, such as old papers or copies of photos

- A place you can keep your painting set up to quickly add to it a little everyday

1. Paint a thin layer of any background color all over your canvas – any color that makes your heart sing. Cover the canvas.

2. While the first layer dries, think about something you love about life.  What makes this whole life worth living for you?  Journal about it and how you show your passion for it.

3. Paint a heart in any color.  A simple shape will do, no fancy templates or measuring.  Use your brush and paint to refine the shape until you get it just how you want it.  Remember that the best hearts are often lopsided; no one loves perfectly.

4. Think of another thing you love about life.  Add some swipes of color, decorative details or another design to represent the passion you show.

5. Repeat with other things you love, continuing to add to your painting.

Ongoing Exercise:

6. Every day write in your journal about one NEW way you showed love in the world and then add more paint to your canvas. (See the Creative Ritual for this chapter, if you haven’t already.)

7. Use paint to continue adding to your heart painting or painting over something that was already there.  Feel free to change the color completely (blacken it for a grouchy day), the shape (bigger or smaller as you feel your love expand or shrink), and any other detail. You can even turn your canvas upside down and paint a new heart completely over it, especially if your act of love totally turned your life upside down!  Whatever you feel in your journal, pour it out into your heart painting.

8. Keep a camera nearby so you can take a picture of your painting each time it changes!

9. Compile your series of pictures showing how your “heart” has changed over time by gluing copies in your journal or using photo software to make a collage.

There is no right or wrong way for this project to look when finished.  View examples at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/Gallery

Reflection: Changing Heart

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. If you were looking at your heart painting for the first time, what would you notice about it?

2. How do the things you love point to your values in life?  List them here:

3. Which of your values, if any, are you not living out in your life?

If you did this exercise ongoing:

4. What acts of love had the most impact on you?

5. Looking at your compilation of heart photos, which changes stand out for you?

6. How do you want to continue to change going forward?

Jealousy

Along with feelings of love comes jealousy.  It’s a sign that someone else is pursuing something you care about very much.   When an artist has devoted their life to creating the very best art they can, they can’t help but notice when another is doing something similar. Artists don’t let jealousy stop them; in fact, many times they will copy a style they like until they make it their own.

If you wait until you get that one perfect and completely original idea, you might never get going. If you stop painting because your style seems too much like your instructor’s, you’ll never start to figure out your own style. If you stop writing that book because someone wrote one almost like it, you’ll never share that unique part of you in a way that only you can.  And if you wait until you can perfect it, someone might beat you to your own idea.

Jealously can seem like it comes from nowhere, like a sick swirl of emotions in your gut.  You suddenly sit up in alarm and notice what someone else is doing.  When you stop moving forward and start fuming, you definitely know a nerve has been struck.

Jealousy can be a cue that we are not living the most authentic version of ourselves.

Who out there is doing what you want to do? Follow your anger, track that jealousy, and take note of when you feel yourself being judgmental.  Where does it lead you?

Matisse and Picasso, completely opposite personalities, at first hated each other’s paintings, yet spent the latter part of their careers comparing their art and creating responses to each other’s art. There is little doubt that their rivalry affected the entire history of modern art and even eventually developed into a friendship.[46]

There is a passion in wanting what someone else has: a gap is opened between what we have and what we want.  These are feelings that we are taught at a very young age to avoid…to hide.  So instead of finding out what’s causing them, we stuff the gap with other things and ignore that it’s there.  Jealousy unexamined can fester, can cause unhealthy competitiveness, even mislead to a less desirable substitution.  We become so busy looking at what “they” are doing that we forget to ask ourselves how we might do it differently.

By looking at these feelings a little deeper, it might lead you to a better understanding of who you want to be.  And a more appreciative view of the role that other, talented people can play in your life.   Jealousy can be reshaped to build a bridge, not over the gap to where they are, but to your own path.

Reshaping, though, may require some healing that you didn’t know you needed.  For some of us it may feel like snapping back into shape, and for others it might be a painful filing away of callouses.  Remember that God wants to be part of this process.  He not only knows the shape of your heart, but He knows the shape that your life is growing into!  Re-shaping and restoring is His desire for us!  This is a great time to spend a moment with Him and revisit your prayer from the beginning of the chapter.

Emotions can be valuable clues to help you redirect the feelings of envy, judgment and desire into something that moves you in the right direction.  The puzzle is to search through the yucky feelings and see them for the clues that they are . . .

Creativity @ PLaY: The Jealousy Puzzle

Time estimate: 30 min – 1 hour

Supplies:

- Cardstock, 12x12 or larger

- Markers

- Scissors

- Optional:  magazine images

1. Write a list of anyone you feel jealous of.  Add to the list anyone in your life you have recently felt anger toward.  Now add to the list anyone that you have recently criticized about something or even “poked fun” at.   You guessed it:  These may all be indicators of a quality you value.

2. Cut up a piece of heavy paper or board into random shaped pieces, one for each person on your list.  Make each pieces unique so that it will be easier to fit the pieces back together later.

Do this for each piece:

3. On one side write the first initial of someone on your list, along with words that describe them, things they’ve done, characteristics tied to your jealous, angry or critical emotions.

4. When you look deeply at the people you are jealous of, you start to realize that no one really has a perfect life.  You don’t want to be them; you want to be YOU, perhaps with some of the qualities you admire in others

5. On the other side of the puzzle piece, write things about this person that you would like to bring into your own life.  Add an image if desired.

Example:

- On the back of puzzle piece:  “G - obsessive about health!  Makes others feel guilty about eating what they want. “

- On the front of puzzle piece:  “Healthy, energetic –not obsessive!”  Image:  a person exercising.

After you have filled out all of your pieces:

6. Assemble your entire puzzle and glue it into your journal with the initials-side facing down.  No one ever has to see them!

7. Add to the journal page any other qualities or action steps that can help you overcome your jealousy.  Take a picture of your completed puzzle and put it where it will remind you to take action.

There is no right or wrong way for this project to look when finished.  View examples at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/Gallery

Reflection: Jealousy Puzzle

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. Did you discover any hidden desires or values of who you want to be?

2. Who in your life can you most learn from?  How can you spend more time with them?

3. For each piece in the puzzle, think of a specific action step you can do now, in your own way.

4. How can you turn your jealousy over to God?

5. Where do you think God is leading you next?  Are you okay with letting His plan slowly unfold even if you don’t see His whole vision?

Recipe for Desire

Sometimes our desires and skills can get lost in our life, buried under “should do’s” and “should be’s.”  As we drift along through life, we tend to focus on what the world sees us as being good at, not necessarily what truly makes our heart sing.  When we stop noticing our desires, we may no longer see them for the possibilities that they are.

Your life will shift when you start to see everything that happens to you in a new way: as ingredients.  What if life is actually not happening to you, it’s happening for you, to make you who you are?

When God created You, He lovingly placed in you a set of unique desires that will lead you to Him and to your purpose here.  He also moves people into and out of your life along with experiences to help mix those skills and bring out their unique flavors.

Creativity @ PLaY: Recipe for Desire

Time estimate: 30 minutes – 1 hour

Supplies:

- Your journal

- Writing and drawing pens

1. In your journal, make a list of the following:

a)     Five people you have admired most throughout your life and why.

b)     Five people you have admired from afar and why.

c)      Five things you loved to do as a child and why.

d)      Five things you accomplished or were good at throughout your childhood, no matter how small they might seem now.

e)      Five things you accomplished or were good at throughout your older years, no matter how small they might seem now.

f)     Five things your closest friends and family say you are good at or adjectives they use to describe you (ask them).

2. Set a timer for a full two minutes.  Daydream about the day God created you.  Imagine Him placing in you a proprietary “desire blend,” a secret sauce, made just for you, consisting of the things you love to do and are great at.  A pinch of this, a pinch of that.

3. Set a timer for a full two minutes.  Daydream about the day God created you.  Imagine Him placing in you a proprietary “desire blend,” a secret sauce, made just for you, consisting of the things you love to do and are great at.  A pinch of this, a pinch of that.

4. Write yourself as a recipe, complete with measurements of your different ingredients.

5. Draw yourself as a food item, so that your recipe is illustrated.

There is no right or wrong way for this project to look when finished.  View examples at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/Gallery

Reflection: Recipe for Desire

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. As you look at your unique recipe, imagine yourself through God’s eyes.  Who did He create you to be?  Write about it in your journal as if God was writing a letter to you.  Start it with Dear _____, I created you on _________ (birthday) to _______

2. When was the last time you truly believed in yourself?  If it was long ago, what do you think caused you to stop?

3. If you truly believe that life is happening for you, instead of to you, what could change for you?

4. Thinking of your Recipe for Desire and your answer to the above questions, create some possible Purpose Statements for your life.  Try summarizing it all into a single statement that is easy to remember and also captures your heart.

My Purpose in Life is to:

5. No matter what you are doing now with your life, God never stops seeing you as the person He created you to be. He is a God of infinite love. What can you do right now to be who you really are?

Your Calling

Artists can no more stop creating than they can stop breathing.  Their art is an emotional outpouring of themselves.  I call it passion, because although the emotions vary—from love to anger to devotion to hate to joy—

they are all powerful and moving.  When an artist channels their very soul to create art, they cannot help but create change.  It is their calling.

And as long as you are still breathing, living your life as art is your calling.

Although you may not have chosen art as your career, creativity can help you fuel the passion for your life, for the purpose that was put inside of you.    It’s time to stop thinking of artists as “them” vs. “you.”  YOU ARE the artist of your own life!

Kids grow up; lovers may leave; friends may disappoint us, and employers may lay us off. One thing is constant and true. At some point, each of us asks, “Why am I here?”

Theologian and popular American writer Frederick Buechner wrote:  “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”[47] Another way to look at it is this: Passion is where your desire for life and your dedication to the world meet.

Buechner also wrote:

“If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors.  With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces.  Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.”

What do you love so much in life that you would be willing to dedicate your entire life to it?  Out of all the ways you poured out your love on things you care about in this chapter, which most touched your heart with desire? The answers might be clues.  Do any of these passions remind you of bigger needs in your life or in the world around you? What now might you want to pursue with passion?

Everywhere we look in the world we are reminded that the world is broken.  Yet it is also filled with so many beautiful things, along with many opportunities to share love and live our passion.  Our challenge now is to see that brokenness with the heart of an artist, and through the eyes of God, using the Mindsets we’ve explored throughout this book:  Possibility, Listening, Beauty, Vulnerability and Passion.

The bigger challenge is to ask, “Is there something stirring in my heart?” And then to do something about it.

Once you begin to take action, you will never be the same.

Creativity @ PLaY: Passion Poster

Time estimate: 1 hour or more

Supplies:

- Photos (ones you take or print from the internet, your own artwork, old magazines)

- Glue (any clear-drying glue for paper)

- Journal

- Poster board, cardboard or other large stiff surface at least 12”x12”

- Markers and/or paint

- Old maps or even a globe (keep an eye out at thrift stores or garage sales)

1. Journal about this question:  What do you love so much in life that you would dedicate your entire life to it? Reflect back through your journal about the things that touched your heart with desire the most?

2. Imagine you are given a huge amount of resources (for example, a large staff and $5 million) to use toward your Purpose Statement (from the previous exercise) or a cause in the world that touches your heart.   What would you use your resources for?

3. Find pictures that help you visualize your purpose or cause.  Use the Internet, magazines, even your own photographs, artwork and journal pages.  Pay special attention to anything you have learned about yourself through your ARTstarters process that might serve this need (also see previous Recipe for Desire exercise).

4. Cover the surface of your poster board with an old map (or use the surface of a globe, if available).  This will serve as a reminder of the bigger world around you.

5. Glue the pictures you have collected onto your map-covered surface.

6. Add any words that have special meaning to you.  Print them out, cut them out, or better yet, use your own handwriting.  Use paint or any other creative supplies that inspire you!

There is no right or wrong way for this project to look when finished.  View examples at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/Gallery

Reflection: Passion Poster

Bring your creativity to life by answering these questions in your journal after doing the previous exercise:

1. Journal about your Purpose Statement and Passion Poster, keeping in mind your new artist mindsets of Possibility, Listening, Beauty, Vulnerability and Passion.  You might even create a Curiosity Map about them (see the Curiosity Map exercise from the Mindset of Possibility Chapter).

2. Revise your Purpose Statement, if needed, so that it speaks to your heart and brings meaning to your life.

3. Think of an easy first step you can take toward living your Purpose right now in your life without a $5 million budget.

4. What other steps can you think of?

5. Place your Purpose Statement and Passion Poster where you can see them often!

Journal Prompts for Creating a Mindset of Passion about your life and things you love:

(Download a monthly calendar version to keep in your journal:

www.ARTstartersBook.com/Passion)

- Write and/or illustrate a poem to God expressing gratitude for His Mindset of Passion Listening (see Section III: Faith Musings, Lyrics and Scripture).

- Write and/or illustrate a poem to God expressing gratitude for your Mindset of Passion!

- Draw or paint a prayer.  What would you say to God if you had no words?

- Draw or paint an image from your Passion Poster or other Creativity @ PLaY exercise.

- Create a Personal Motto for your life’s passion, cause or purpose.

- Experiment with shapes and doodles to create your own personal symbol for your Personal Motto.

- Using the point of a ballpoint pen, carve your personal symbol into a foam sheet, meat tray or piece of rubber.  Swipe some acrylic paint on the design and stamp it all over your journal.  (Whatever you carved should show up as a white design within the painted color.)

- Draw or describe the five people you spend the most time with.

- Cover a page with color/drawings to represent the energy of someone on your list from above.

- Cover or color a page to represent the energy YOU give to someone on your list from above.

- What brings you energy?  Draw it, collage it, write about it – then do it!

- Write a letter of encouragement to an imaginary person whom you think your purpose would best serve or affect deeply.  Tell that person how you want to help.

- Find a song that fits your mission.  Play it while you doodle in your journal.

- Find a verse or poem about love.  Write out the words and then draw or collage a picture to go with it.

- Create a list in your journal of 100 things that bring you joy.  Decorate the list and consider turning it into a large art poster using a nearby print shop.

- Do something on your list of joy (item above) and then draw and write about it.  Repeat as often as possible!

- Spend the day with a child simply having fun.  Find out 100 things that they love to do.  Journal about your time together or draw something they love to help you remember it.

- Laugh every day and write about it.

- Fill a page in your journal with your favorite color.  Use the color all day as often as possible – wear it, write with it, eat it . . . .

- Do something to make someone else smile and write about it.

- Give your heart a face.  Illustrate your mood today with a heart character:  a silly heart, an angry heart, a sleepy heart, a crazy heart . . . .

- Create a handmade Valentine and give it to someone, even if it’s not February.

- Make a crown (out of paper or another material) and wear it!

- Make a crown for someone else to wear.  Who would you like to crown? Why? Write or journal about it.

- Daydream about doing something to make a difference in the world today.

- Do something to make a difference in the world today.

Summary Questions: The Mindset of Passion

After working with the concepts in this chapter, use your journal to capture your insights (or copy this page and glue it in):

1. What can the Mindset of Passion do for me in my life?  What is it doing already?

2. In what new ways will I pour out passion on my life?

3. How does God show me that He is the Creator of Passion?

4. How can I continue to partner with the Master Artist to live my life more passionately?

5. My biggest insights from this chapter:

Summary Log:

# of Creative Rituals:  __________

# of Creativity @ pLaY:  __________

# of Journal Prompts:   __________

Celebrate your success with this chapter!

For more resources on the Mindset of Passion, visit

www.ARTstartersBook.com/Passion

In Summary

Artists can no more stop creating than they can stop breathing.  As long as you are still breathing, living your life out loud through love is your calling.

Passion is what will keep you creating with a steadfast devotion to what is most important to you. When you pursue your purpose with a lover’s heart, without holding back, you will be blessed with continuous inspiration.

No matter what new situations each day brings you, you will always feel successful when you live the life that God has spoken into your heart.

You, being YOU, is the best art you can make in this world.

“I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,” said Alice a little timidly; “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”

― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

Celebrating Your Journey:

Reflecting on how inspiration

has ignited your life so far . . .

Celebrating Your Journey

Enjoying How Inspiration Has Ignited Your Life So Far . . .

Congratulations!  Although the ARTstarters book process is coming to an end, your journey is just beginning.  All of the Creative Mindsets are now awakened in you.

Through this process you have discovered so much about yourself.  You may even feel illuminated, on fire, lit from within!  The ultimate result is that you feel more inspired to shine your light in the world.  Surely the world needs it, and the people around you need YOU.

It’s the perfect time to look back briefly to see how far you’ve come.  Here’s a quick inventory to remember all of the amazing things you did through this journey.  If you did one of the items, check it off.  If you did it more than once, give yourself an extra check!

✪  The Creative Mindset of Possibility:

- I became energized by a daydream.

- I felt more curious than I have in a while.

- I questioned something I hadn’t before thought (or dared) to ask.

- I imagined a new possibility for my life.

- I allowed myself to be a beginner again and to learn something new.

- I brainstormed an idea and discovered at least one new option.

- I committed to a new course of action.

- I did something I thought wasn’t possible for me.

✪  The Creative Mindset of Listening:

- I noticed how drawing relates to my perception skills

- I received inspiration through drawing and art making.

- I began to appreciate and be inspired by others.

- I felt more inspiration from God.

- I felt more inspired by the world around me.

- I even inspired myself!

- I noticed God’s miracles through synchronicity.

- I took time to be with God and grew even closer to Him.

✪  The Creative Mindset of Beauty:

- I slowed down and saw the world in new ways.

- I focused my attention and saw people on a deeper level.

- I began to appreciate more the things that I already have.

- I found it easier to appreciate the struggle in each day.

- I felt inspired by imperfection in the world and in others.

- I felt inspired by imperfection in myself.

- I transformed things through art into something beautiful.

- I began to see myself through God’s eyes – and I remembered that I am beautiful.

✪  The Creative Mindset of Vulnerability:

- I acknowledged feelings that I once tried to hide.

- I took a small step without knowing God’s entire vision.

- I took a risky action even when I felt afraid.

- I asked for feedback and allowed myself to be imperfect.

- I identified lies that were holding me back.

- I created new truths that will move me forward.

- I handed over some fears and questions to God.

- I expanded my view of who God is and put my trust in His bigger plan.

✪  The Creative Mindset of Passion:

- I showed ARTrageous love for a belief or person I care about.

- I expanded my capacity to love.

- I identified a value or belief that is very important to me.

- I transformed jealousy into a clue to greater inspiration.

- I realized how unique and purposefully God made me.

- I started writing a Purpose Statement that feels good to my heart.

- I discovered new ideas for taking action toward my purpose and passion.

- I became inspired to live my life with passion!

Color the star for every Mindset that has checked items!

Reflection: My Letter to Me

Remember the exercise “My Letter to Me” that you did in Section I?  It’s time to find that letter in the early pages of your journal and read it to yourself.

Use these journal questions to reflect on the contents of your letter:

1. How did the ARTstarters process help you achieve some of the results you were hoping for?

2. How has your life changed in other ways that you did not anticipate?

3. Do you remember WHY this process was so important to you before you began it?  What is important to you NOW?

4. What will you do to celebrate your journey?

5. What are your next steps?

Share your journey on our Facebook Page so we can all celebrate together!

http://www.Facebook.com/ARTstarters

Now that you have played with the five Mindsets of Creativity, you have started to tap into what’s meaningful in your life.  Even if you’re not jumping out of bed every morning with new ideas, you may have more skip to your step and a wider smile. Most importantly, you are inspired to live your life as art.  Your passion has been ignited, so don’t let that flame burn out!

Let’s pull some of your most meaningful art-making and journal pages together into a lasting and meaning-full work of art that will remind you of your journey up until now -- and continuing into your future!

Creativity @ pLaY: Creativity Celebration Candle

Time estimate: 1 hour or more

Supplies:

- Your Mindset Prayers, most meaningful journal pages and Creativity @pLaY exercises

- Clear glass container (4” or higher), such as a candle holder or vase

- Any clear-drying glue (such as Mod Podge, Diamond Glaze or Acrylic Gloss Gel Medium from the acrylic-paints aisle of an art store)

- Foam brush

- Candle

- Optional:  Ribbon, gems and other embellishments

1. Print portions of your favorite mindset prayers, journal pages and artwork on a laser printer or take them to a local print shop.  Resize them so you can fit all your favorites on the surface of the glass container.  (Note:  The ink from inkjet printers will smear.)

2. Put a layer of glue on the surface of your candle holder.  You may also want to put glue on the back of your printed words and images, especially if they will be overlapping.  Create a collage on the glass by placing your images all over the glass.  Leave more space in between images if you wish to see more candlelight.

3. Brush a very thin layer of glue over the images when you are done.  Repeat if desired.

4. Optional:  Add a ribbon around it and any other embellishments such as jewels, printed words, painted designs, etc.

5. Light your candle and say a Celebration Prayer! Creativity Circles can host a candle-lighting ceremony during the final celebration meeting.

Creative variations:

- Use photo software to create your collage and print it out as one image that wraps around the glass.

- Copy your images onto clear transparencies instead of paper for more light to shine through.

- Incorporate your images into a mosaic, fabric or clay design around the candle holder.

- Save any unused images to glue onto future journal pages!

There is no right or wrong way for this project to look when finished.

View examples at: www.ARTstartersBook.com/Gallery

You are now ready to CREATE like an ARTIST with the Master Artist Himself:  to create the life God has given you the creativity to live.  There’s so much more fun to come!  Keep asking questions, listening to God and the world around you, seeing beauty, taking risks and pouring out your passion!

Most importantly, never stop taking the next step, no matter how small, when you feel God nudging your heart.  Ideas will just remain ideas until you put them into action.  As you take action on your dreams, inspiration will continue to flow in your life.

Congratulations on igniting your life!  And many blessings to you on all that is ahead for you . . . .

Blessings & Creative Wishes,

Nicole

Nicole@theARTbar.net

Section III:

Resources

Creativity Circles: The ARTstarters Group Process

After facilitating dozens of creativity groups, I can absolutely tell you what a blessing it is to bond with other souls.  Without the support of a formalized group, it can be challenging—even with friends—to regularly set aside the time to share ideas and encourage one another.  A supportive group also can provide the structure to help everyone get the most out of their time together. The truth is that dreams are more likely to become reality when you have someone holding them safely in their hands for you.

Going through ARTstarters as a Creativity Circle can bring so many benefits:

- Encouragement

- Accountability

- Structure

- Process

- Sharing

- Friendships

- Ideas

- Even more inspiration

- Fun!

A Creativity Circle might mean the difference between quitting and finishing.  Your Circle will hold the key to helping you get everything you want from this book, along with the desires you put into your Letter To Me (from Section I).

Who to Meet With

Even one other person can form your Circle!  Groups of five to eight people are ideal.  If you have more than eight, split into subgroups for the discussions;  you can still combine into one large group at the beginning and end of each gathering.

Your Circle Members can be friends, neighbors, people you meet at other clubs or even like-minded people you gather together through www.meetup.com.  Your invitation may come at the perfect time for someone who is ready to use creativity to spark inspiration!  The idea of doing art as a group is alluring and exciting to many people. Each of you, even those feeling completely open to the process, will be surprised at how much more you’ll discover as a group—even beyond art itself!

The structure of ARTstarters makes planning your gatherings simple.  If you have people in the Circle who have art experience or particular hobbies, they may want to bring their unique approach to one or more of the projects.  You might want to take turns hosting gatherings and bringing supplies, allowing members to share their unique talents (and stores of art supplies).  Remember not to complicate the exercises too much, though.  The simplicity of their design is what allows you to focus on the creative process rather than the techniques.

Keep in mind that most groups start off a little awkward as its members get to know one another.  Most likely you’ll bond quickly and remain friends long after the journey through the book has ended.  These special relationships are worth any risk you may feel in setting up a Creativity Circle and inviting people into it.  You will touch lives and change them forever because of your willingness to reach out!

Where to Meet

A great place for your Creativity Circle to meet is anywhere you feel comfortable creating and sharing together.  You may want to host gatherings in your home or let members take turns hosting.  Other great spots could be churches, school rooms, local arts-and-crafts stores, or wellness centers.   If you don’t have room to create together, you may choose to each do the exercises at home yet still get together to share insights and journal pages, even at a local coffee house or park.

When to Meet

When your Circle meets is totally up to you, depending on which implementation option you choose from “The Process” chapter.  The 5-Month Transformation Process allows your group to spend a full month on each Creative Mindset.  You can choose to meet every week or every other week to check in and create together.  You may instead decide to meet once a month and set aside a specific Creativity @ pLaY exercise for that day.

The 10-Week Plan is much more fast-paced, so meeting every week or every other week is recommended to help each other stay on track.

To give enough time for everyone to share, as well as to create something together, plan at least two hours for each gathering, even more time is great if everyone can commit to it!  You’ll find a sample agenda below for guidance.

How to Meet

You’ll find that “how” you meet is the most crucial part about setting up your Creativity Circle.  It will set the tone for your group.  Even the friendliest group needs to agree to ground rules and an agenda so everyone can soar safely within boundaries.

Basic Beliefs

ARTstarters is a spiritual process that places God at the center of our inspiration.  As a group you will want to decide how to best respect any different beliefs you might have.  Here are some of the Basic Beliefs from Section 1 for discussion agreement:

- God is the Great Creator, the Master Artist!

- God created us all to be creative.

- From our very creation, God imagined us creating together with Him.

- Creativity can be a tool for inspiring our life.

- Creativity can be a tool for opening our hearts and connecting to God.

- The greatest art-making starts with prayer.

Your group may discover additional beliefs that you want to add to your list and maybe even keep posted as reminders.  The following questions can be used for starting a discussion around beliefs.  They also can be found in the Reflection Questions from the Starting With a Prayer exercise (Section 1):

- What do you believe about creativity?

- Why is creativity so important to you?

- What do you believe about our God who gave us creativity?

- What role do you believe He wants to play in inspiring your life?

- What questions do you have for God?

You may want to also discuss the following:

- Are we a Christian Creativity Circle? (see Faith Musings in the next chapter)

- Do we all believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior?

- Do we encourage Scriptures from the Bible to be shared and celebrated?

- Do we want to pray to God/Jesus before and/or after each gathering?

- What, if any, differences in faiths or beliefs do we want to be aware of?

- On what can we agree to disagree?

Suggested Ground Rules

Ground Rules are important to make sure that everyone has the same understanding, commitment and comfort level around the Creativity Circle. It’s important that everyone agrees to them before moving forward.  Create these together at your first gathering.

Here are suggestions to discuss with your Circle:

- We praise God as our Master Artist, who gave us the gift of creativity.

- What we say within the Circle stays within the group.

- When a person is sharing, the rest of us will put our sole focus on listening to them.

- When a person shares insights or challenges, we will refrain from giving advice unless they specifically ask for it.  Asking questions is usually a better way to help them find answers that are true for them.

- We are here to encourage each other, not to pass judgment.

- We will make every effort to be on time and to contact our group leader or host if we cannot attend.

- We will hold each other accountable and do everything we can to encourage everyone to finish the journey – no quitters!

- We encourage participation but never demand it.  Only share what you feel comfortable sharing.

- When sharing artwork or journal pages, we will keep the focus on our insights from the process rather than on the art itself.

- We will use the exercises and questions in the book to guide the process, along with a format we all agree to.

- We will recognize our own emotional signs for hurting and needing professional support. We realize that although the process is healing and supportive, it is not designed to provide or replace professional healing or therapy.

- We will start and end our Circle gatherings with prayer.

- We will pray for each other between meetings.

- We will keep each other updated between meetings (consider a private social media site where sharing can occur ongoing if meetings are longer than one week apart)

- We will have fun!

Of course, you will want to customize these to be specific to your group.  You may also want to consider specific ground rules regarding meeting place rotation, food or beverage options and types of supplies to bring.

Creativity Circle Roles

A variety of roles are needed to help a group function well together.  Choose whether you want to sign up for consistent roles throughout the whole journey or rotate them.  One person may play more than one role, depending on how many people are in your Circle.

Here are some suggested roles for you to discuss:

Meeting Host:  Volunteers their home or arrives early to the site to set up and greet people; sets up supplies needed for the creative exercises.

Facilitator:  Moves the group through the agenda to keep the discussion going, while respecting everyone’s insights and time; sends out reminders about meetings and may also send out meeting notes afterward.

Prayer Leader:  Shares an Opening Prayer created from the chapter or asks for a volunteer; initiates a Closing Prayer specific to the needs and insights that came up during the meeting; encourages others to join in.

Time Keeper:  Uses a stop watch and gives a signal when it is ready to move to the next person or the next agenda item.

Refreshments:  Brings snacks or beverages to the meeting and arrives a few minutes early to set them up (or share this role among all group members).

Creative Supplies Provider:  Brings supplies to the meeting and arrives a few minutes early to set them up (if the Host is not providing them); collects materials afterward; may be charged with buying supplies for a specific project.

Creativity Coach:  Checks in with each member between sessions via phone, email or social media; makes sure everyone has the support they need and knows how important they are to the group.  This could also be a role that everyone plays for someone by choosing partners.

Creativity Circle Format

Plan your first session to be a welcoming Kick-off Session where you do the following:

- Introduce yourselves

- Discuss Basic Beliefs about Creativity and God (see section above)

- Create Ground Rules together (see section above)

- Plan the dates of your gatherings around any possible holidays or conflicts

- Assign roles for each session (see section above)

- Preview ARTstarters Section 1:  Basic Beliefs and Basic Tools

If you planned for everyone to read Section 1 before the meeting, you may also want to do the following:

- Discuss Section 1 insights

- Share the types of journals you’ve each chosen

- Share insights from the introductory Creativity @ pLaY exercises or maybe do one together

- Ask for volunteers to share a prayer

- Assign the first Creative Mindset for the next meeting (including the chapter reading, the Creative Ritual, the journaling prompts or ARTstarters Calendar, and any Creativity @ pLay exercises that will NOT be done together at the next meeting)

You may want to follow this suggested agenda for each meeting after the first:

15 minutes

Welcome and refreshments

30 minutes

Check in (2-3 minutes each for sharing, followed by 2-3 minutes for group encouragement of that person)

30 minute

General discussion on the topics in the current chapter.  (Christian Creativity Circles may want to also discuss questions in the Faith Musings, Lyrics and Scriptures chapter.)

50 minutes

Creativity @ pLaY exercise from the current chapter (specified at the previous gathering so no one does it twice)

10 minutes

Quiet time to answer Reflection Questions from the exercise

10 minutes

Share insights from the exercise

5 minutes

Reminders about the next gathering; choose the next Creativity @ pLay exercise to be done together

Thisformat is for a 2½-hour meeting, with five to eight Circle Members.  The check-in time is the most crucial, allowing each member uninterrupted time to share and hear their creative journey come to life.  The Creativity @ pLaY is the most time consuming and can be shortened or lengthened depending on the time you have.  You may want to revisit the flow of your agenda after a few meetings.

Other Facilitator Tips:

- Remind members of the Ground Rules as needed to keep the group running smoothly and to uphold the wishes of the group.

- Allow differences in beliefs and allow members to speak about what feels true for them, within the scope of the Ground Rules.

- Listen for signs of a group member who might need additional support outside the Circle and lovingly encourage them to seek it.

- Encourage your group to share on the public ARTstarters Facebook page (www.Facebook.com/ARTstarters) and also the semi-private ARTstarters site (www.ARTstartersBook.com)

- Sign up for additional ARTstarters Facilitator Resources at www.ARTstartersBook.com/Facilitators

Most of all, enjoy the process!  If everyone is not having fun or feeling comfortable, then revisit the Ground Rules and make sure “having fun” is on the list.

Faith Musings, Lyrics & Scriptures:

The Heart of the Master Artist

God is the Master Artist.  We have the Mindsets of Creativity because He created us to be like Him.  God Himself is the God of Possibility, Listening, Beauty, Vulnerability and Passion.  And He uses His creativity to speak to our hearts.

I have felt God speaking to my heart about the Creative Mindsets during the whole time I was writing this book. I share my musings (reflections and ponderings) with you in hopes that they may be great discussion starters for your Christian Creativity Circle or in your own prayers and journaling.

I.    God the Master Artist has a Mindset of Possibility

But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

-- Matthew 19:26, English Standard Version*

Musing . . .

God is the very definition of Possibility!  Perhaps that is one reason why the world has such a hard time understanding Him.  He himself created Possibility, and He is beyond any logic that we can comprehend.  Surely He created the very science that many say leaves Him out.  He made the world to spin on its axis and follow natural rhythms aligned with scientific theories.  None of these would be here without Him making it possible.

Scriptures . . .

AND He makes what we consider impossible -- POSSIBLE.  We see examples of God’s Mindset of Possibility throughout the Bible through His miracles:

- He created the Earth from the chaos of nothingness. (Genesis 1:1-2)

- God created us in His image. (Genesis 1:27)

- God parted the Red Sea to save the Israelites. (Exodus 14:21-22)

- He helped David to defeat Goliath (I Samuel 17:41-50)

Lyrics . . .

When I came across the video below, I was really touched by the lyrics and music sang by Bob Kauflin.  He creates songs, many times right on the spot, sharing them when he feels led to people who need them.

Spontaneous Song for Those Facing Hopeless Situations

by Bob Kauflin

I am the God of the unsearchable

You cannot know the mystery of my ways

But with perfect wisdom and perfect mercy

I work them out for your praise

I am the God of the impossible

And although you can’t see a way through

I’m using your circumstances

To do my work in you

For there is nothing

There is nothing

Too hard for me to do

‘Cause I’m working in you

And I will have my way

For the glory of my name

‘Cause there is nothing,

There is nothing that’s too hard for me to do.

Another Musing . . .

God created a plan to save a lost world filled with His loved ones.

Of all the situations in this world that need creative problem solving, none is bigger than the dilemma of our own eternal existence and fate.  Making a new world for us free from death and evil only brings a new dilemma: How could imperfect humans come into this new paradise without corrupting it?  How could we even interact with a perfect God?  How could the God of this universe even relate to us?  No problem is too impossible for God; He created a way to be with us forever by becoming human to redeem us  -- as Jesus Christ.

More Scriptures . . .

Jesus walked the Earth doing miracles to show without question that He is the God and that His mission is to win us back to Him:

- Fulfilled the prophesies of the Old Testament that a Savior would come (Isaiah 53:5-12)

- Turned water into wine (John 2:1-11)

- Walked on water (Matthew 14:22-33)

- Jesus feeds the 5000 (John 6:1-14)

- Raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:17–45)

- Raised Himself from the dead (Mark 16:1 -20)

In summary:  Nothing is beyond His possibility.  Not even me.  Not even you.

Additional Discussion Questions about Possibility for Christian Creativity Circles and Individual Journaling:

1. What other Bible passages, songs or poems speak to you about God’s Possibility?  Share your favorites or find some new ones.

2. God is a God of Possibility.  He makes all things happen, and He can make anything happen.   What impossible things has He done for you?  What impossible things would you like Him to do for you?

3. Although we have been given the gift of creativity, we exist ONLY in the world of God’s Possibility.  How does God’s Mindset of Possibility bring you inspiration in your life?

II.    God the Master Artist has a Mindset of Listening

I went to the Lord for help, and he listened.  He saved me from all that I fear.

-- Psalm 34:4, Easy-to-Read Version*

Musing . . .

Prayer can be any way that we want to communicate with God, through speaking, singing, painting, dancing . . . It can be a request, a praise, a confession, a cry for help.  Since God is far greater than humans, why would we think He only listens and speaks to us in mere words?  And why would we imagine Him with ears like ours straining to hear us all at once?  He listens with His whole Great Being.  His listening powers are beyond anything we can imagine!

Scriptures . . .

The Bible is filled with references to how God listens to us and hears us when we pray.:

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

– I John 5:14-15, English Standard Version*

The Lord’s Prayer

And when you pray,

do not heap up empty phrases

as the Gentiles do,

for they think that they will be heard

for their many words.

Do not be like them,

For your Father knows what you need

Before you ask Him.

Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven

Hallowed be your name

Your kingdom come

Your will be done,

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

And forgive us our debts,

As we also have forgiven our debtors

And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil.”

(Matthew 6:7–13, the words of Jesus, English Standard Version*)

Another Musing . . .

Prayer is our direct dial number to the One who created us, with no operators, answering machine or automated systems.  Does He listen – Yes!  Does He always give us what we ask for – well,  No.  So if God knows everything, and He knows what’s best for us – should we just pray for His will all the time?  If so, why even pray for anything at all?  I believe that prayer is more for us than it is for Him.  It’s an opportunity to come to God like a child comes to their Father, and pour our heart out and be heard.  Don’t we all need that, even if the answer is a loving “No, I have something much better planned for you”?  And perhaps, just like a Father, He really does want us to humbly ask for what we want – and just like a Father, I think He longs to comfort us and bring us joy!

In Summary:  Jesus shows us an example of how to pray to God -- showing Him respect, trusting His big vision, asking for what we need, asking forgiveness (and for the courage to forgive others) and showering Him with glory and praise.  He promises throughout the Bible that He is always with us.

Discussion Questions about Listening for Christian Creativity Circles and Individual Journaling:

1. What other Bible passages, songs or poems speak to you about how God Listens? Share your favorites or find some new ones.

2. God is a God who listens and longs to be listened to.  What do you long to hear Him say to you?  What do you believe He longs to hear you say to Him?

3. How does God’s Mindset of Listening bring you inspiration in your life?  How can you stay humbled enough to co-create your life with Him instead of doing it all on your own?

III.    God the Master Artist has a Mindset of Beauty

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

– Ecclesiastes 3:11, English Standard Version*

Musing . . .

I love to imagine God in a beret swinging his mighty paintbrush as He created the world.

We sometimes like to think artists are the cool, hip, renegade creators in this world.  The truth is, God is so cool that He created them, to be part of everything else in existence.  And as an Artist Himself, He must see so much beauty in watching artists create.  I think of God smiling down on Michelangelo while he was inspired to paint the Sistine Chapel.  And I imagine God as the proud Papa composing with Handel as he wrote the Messiah.  Handel later claimed, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God himself.”

I imagine Him humming to Bach, who claimed that he just plays notes while God makes the music, signing every piece with S.D.G. for “Soli Deo Gloria” (glory to God alone).  And brainstorming ideas with Pascal, the mathmetician, physicist and inventor (first calculating device, syringe, hydraulic lift, bus route and the Theory of Probability).  One day Pascal, a prolific writer, saw a glimpse of God that even he couldn’t quite put into words.  He kept a reminder of this vision in a hidden pocket of his clothing near his heart at all times:  “From about half-past ten in the evening until about half-past twelve … FIRE … God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, and not of the philosophers and savants. Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace."

God reveals Himself in beautiful ways – through personal visions, through miracles, and of course, through artwork from some of the greatest artists of all times.  It’s easy to see how He would see beauty in artists.  After all, they help Him create His visions here on earth.

The truth is that He sees beauty in us.  We too are artists of His vision, sharing love on Earth, however imperfect our attempts. He sees us not only as His greatest creation, but as cool, hip, renegade creators too.  Hmm . . . maybe He imagines me in a beret with a giant paintbrush too!

Most importantly, He loves us through our faults, even as they make His heart ache, because in the midst of our brokenness, God also sees our best part. He sees our hearts and how they are yearning for Him.  And our yearning hearts are what makes Him catch His breath.  He still sees us as beautiful as He created us to be.

Being that person He created us to be is a great way to love Him back.

Scriptures . . .

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

-- Peter 5:10, English Standard Version

God will make a new world for us:  Revelation 21:1-5

Video . . .

“We throw away broken things, but God don’t.  He uses broken things.”

David Ring, born dead for 18 minutes, interviewed by

I Am Second organization (www.IamSecond.org):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUEjnpeN-Is

(You may need some tissues for this!)

Another Musing . . .

Not only are there so many natural wonders in this world, there are so many everyday wonders too, each of them beautiful moments.   Sometimes when I am in the midst of one of those moments, I stop and think, “This, this, is what God wanted life to be like for us.”

Even in a broken world, God uses broken things.  Looking through His purpose and His eyes we get a glimpse of beauty we would not otherwise see.  The Japanese culture did not invent wabi-sabi.  God did.  We are God’s wabi-sabi.

We are His Scavenged Sculpture.

In Summary:  What the world would throw away – what He easily could and should throw away -- is instead what He chooses to re-create and make new everyday through His artful eye.

Discussion Questions about Beauty for Christian Creativity Circles and Individual Journaling:

1. What other Bible passages, songs or poems speak to you about how God love for Beauty? Share your favorites or find some new ones.

2. The very first humans, Adam and Eve, were created into a breathtakingly beautiful world.  Just imagine how beautiful we were created to look, inside and out!  Imagine how you will look when God has fully restored You as His original Masterpiece.  What do you think You will look like?  Feel like?  Think like?  Be like?

3. God is beautiful and sees us as beautiful too.  What do you think is the most beautiful thing He created?  What do you think He thinks is the most beautiful thing He created?

IV.    God the Master Artist has a Mindset of Vulnerability

“When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!  Having become human, he stayed human.  It was an incredibly humbling process.  He didn’t claim special privileges.  Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death – and the worse kind of death at that – a crucifixion.”

-- Philippians 2:7-8, The Message *

Musing . . .

Okay, now I’m getting on risky ground with my musings here.  We don’t usually think of the All Powerful God as being Vulnerable.  Vulnerability is for the weak, right?

Creating us was a big risk for God to take.  He formed us in His image and gave us the gift of choice, knowing that we would not always choose Him. Yet He always chooses us.  When paradise went wrong, He set about making it right -- but not without huge sacrifice.

Imagine a big comic book showdown occurring between God and His biggest enemy whose mission is to take over the world.  Let me set the scene:  Satan’s about to hit Him in his weak spot to try to win it all.  He’s gonna go for His true love – kidnap her and hold her for ransom to get to Him.  We are His true love.  We are God’s weak spot.  Maybe that’s why life feels like it’s smacking us around sometimes.  He rose from the dead after three days to unarm His mortal enemy, and still there’s more to come.  The last page of the story hasn’t yet been read but you can be sure that God’s vulnerability will end in ultimate triumph!  Triumph for Him, and for us too, when He rescues us all for eternity . . . if we want to be saved . . .

One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.  When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” –_ John 5:5-6, ESV *

Another Musing . . .

Why would Jesus ask such a question? His teachings throughout the New Testament recorded by His disciples were filled some of the most powerful questions in all of history (that’s a great topic to Google).  Doesn’t the answer to this one seem so obvious?  But Jesus knows that although everyone is hurting, not everyone wants to be healed.

Like artists, when God puts His art out into the world, it is not always received well.   His very son was rejected even though He came to the world to save us.

Yet while artists feel imperfect and unsure of what they are creating, however, God is always sure.  He’s vulnerable yet He’s perfect, that is just who He is.  And the vision He has for our “life as art” is so on target that we can be absolutely sure of it.  We embrace our vulnerability with God when we step out in faith without seeing His whole vision.

I sometimes think that He holds back the whole big picture of our life, not so we can prove our faith, but because He knows what we can handle.  We don’t have to know it all, we just have to keep our eyes on Him and take our next small step forward.  He knows just what we need to put our focus on in each moment.  In our vulnerability, He can guide us to create our best life.

Lyrics and Music . . .

Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)

Hillsong United Live in the Air1 Lounge

You call me out upon the waters

The great unknown where feet may fail

And there I find You in the mystery

In oceans deep

My faith will stand

And I will call upon Your name

And keep my eyes above the waves

When oceans rise

My soul will rest in Your embrace

For I am Yours and You are mine

Your grace abounds in deepest waters

Your sovereign hand

Will be my guide

Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me

You've never failed and You won't start now

So I will call upon Your name

And keep my eyes above the waves

When oceans rise

My soul will rest in Your embrace

For I am Yours and You are mine

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders

Let me walk upon the waters

Wherever You would call me

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander

And my faith will be made stronger

In the presence of my Savior

Discussion Questions about Vulnerability for Christian Creativity Circles and Individual Journaling:

1. What other Bible passages, songs or poems speak to you about God’s Vulnerability? Share your favorites or find some new ones.

2. How does God’s Vulnerability inspired you to also be vulnerable?

3. God will shoulder all the risk for the dream He has put inside you.  What next small step do you hear Him asking you to take?

In Summary:  He knows just what we need to put our focus on in each moment.  In our vulnerability, He can guide us to create our best life.

V.    God the Master Artist has a Mindset of Passion

Long ago the Lord said to Israel:
“I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love.
With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.

– Jeremiah 31:3, New Living Translation *

Lyrics and Music . . .

Oh How He Loves Us

By David Crowder Band

He is jealous for me,

Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,

Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.

When all of a sudden,

I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,

And I realize just how beautiful You are,

And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us, oh,

Oh, how He loves us,

How He loves us all

And we are His portion and He is our prize,

Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,

If his grace is an ocean, we're all sinking.

And Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss,

And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,

I don't have time to maintain these regrets,

When I think about the way...

He loves us,

Oh, how He loves us,

Oh, how He loves us,

Oh, how He loves.

Yeah, He loves us,

Oh, how He loves us,

Oh, how He loves us,

Musing . . .

God came to us in human form to show us just how deep His love is, and how it is at the very foundation of everything He has ever created.  His Love is the very core of His Creativity.

The Passion of Christ is often referred to as His act of dying on the cross.   But God’s love story encompasses so much more that leads up to that action, and so much more that comes after.  His message isn’t about death but about life.  It truly is the most artistic love story ever!

His passion is to win our hearts back to Him:

1-4 But now, God’s Message, the God who made you in the first place, Jacob, the One who got you started, Israel:
“Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you.  I’ve called your name. You’re mine.  When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you.  When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down.  When you’re between a rock and a hard place, it won’t be a dead end—
Because I am God, your personal God, The Holy of Israel, your Savior.
I paid a huge price for you:  all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in! That’s how much you mean to me!  That’s how much I love you!
I’d sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you.  5-7  “So don’t be afraid: I’m with you.  I’ll round up all your scattered children, pull them in from east and west.
I’ll send orders north and south:  ‘Send them back.
Return my sons from distant lands, my daughters from faraway places.
I want them back, every last one who bears my name, every man, woman, and child
Whom I created for my glory, yes, personally formed and made each one.’

-- Isaiah 43:1-7, The Message*

Discussion Questions about Passion for Christian Creativity Circles and Individual Journaling:

1. What other Bible passages, songs or poems speak to you about God’s Passion? Share your favorites or find some new ones.

2. How does God’s Passion inspire you to also be passionate about your life?  How does it inspire you to love others?

3. God loves you with a passion that we have no words for!  How does knowing that the God of this Universe loves you like THAT change how you go through life?  What ideas is His love igniting in you?

In Summary:  A relationship with Jesus, the Master Artist, our Savior, God in flesh, is truly the way to be ART and IGNITE your LIFE!

* For the verses listed here, I use various translations of scripture from the Holy Bible simply because some of the words touch my heart more like poetry.  Please use these as references to look up the version that you like and for studying on your own.  Bible Gateway is an excellent place to read and compare translations and even has a free app you can download for your phone: www.BibleGateway.com.

Templates

Visit our gallery page for printable templates of the pictures below:  www.ARTstartersBook.com/Templates

- Paper Doll Superhero

- Diamond in the Rough

Acknowledgements:

Big Huge Thank You’s

I just can’t thank the following people enough:

My business coach Barbara Wilber who was faithful to her purpose, as well as an amazing coach.  I’m not sure who else God would have sent into my life to help “unconfuse me,” or who else I would have listened to, but I’m very grateful it was you.

My ILCT instructor and book writing mentor, Coach Brian Williams, who encouraged me to write a book – in like three months.  I would have normally thought that was a crazy idea, (it actually still is), but you have a way of making everything sound so simple, just one step at a time; that’s what makes you a great coach!  Without your book writing workshop I would probably still be Mind Mapping this book – ha!

My Sis Jenna Ryan and BFF Barb Pope for being early readers of this book when it was just a stack of pieced together ideas.  You are courageous and full of love to have even approached such raw words.  Thanks to your gentle spirits, my ego is still intact!

Tami Call, my editor/strategist/consultant, for willingly taking on a project in the midst of your other deadlines.  You saw my vision for it from the start and believed me when I said you needed to be part of it -- thanks for helping me think big!  It is so great to have a kindred, creative spirit in my life.

Maria Laso, you are not only an editor extraordinaire, you are a Word Wizard and a Midnight Oil Burner.  Thank you for giving yourself to the project wholeheartedly to help me make all my last minute improvements.  I’m still in a daze thinking, “What would I have done without you?”

All the superb staff at Panera Bread, thank you for letting me lurk in your space.  So much of this book was written right in your far booth by the window - I hope you noticed that I always tried to leave at your peak times.  I owe you big time for electricity so I hope everyone does a mad dash for your awesome egg soufflés!

Air1 Radio (online and 92.7 in California) – you rock!  Thank you for all the Positive Hits you play, and for your DJ’s being true passionate artists, vulnerable and REAL.  Your music kept me going.

And ESPECIALLY my loving kids and husband: Mark, Josie and Jakobi.  You hold my dreams so close to your heart that you were willing to give me up for hours and days at a time. YOU are the most creative people I know because in addition to all your amazing dreams and accomplishments, you create memories and smiles and laughter.  And what could be more inspiring than that?

Above all, thank you, Lord Jesus, for bringing all these people and ideas into my life.  Your creativity has no borders. And neither does your love.  Thank you for your example of how to color outside the lines!

Without all of your feedback, ideas and collaboration in my life, this book would not have morphed into what it became.  Isn’t creativity so awesome?!

ENDnotes

I hope you enjoy reading some of these articles and books as much as I did!  I truly felt like I had fallen down the tunnel to Wonderland, as Alice did, as I discovered so many interesting stories and research studies.

Whenever possible, I tried to include an online source as well so that you can easily and quickly link directly to the articles.  As to be expected, over time some of these links may become broken or even taken down from their source.

---------------------------------------

I would also like to acknowledge the generosity of the following people who personally gave permission for quotes, sources and even artwork:

Dr. Mitchel Adler for his original research on the subject of appreciation

(www.MitchelAdler.com)

Judy Cross for family history on her grandmother Elizabeth “Grandma” Layton

(www.ElizabethLayton.com)

Don Lambert for his extensive quotes, as well as documentation and artwork by Elizabeth Layton

[1]

The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) 2007 Red List. http:/ww.factmonster.com/ipka/A0934288.html

[2]    Villard, Ray (Space Telescope Science Institute). "The Milky Way Contains at Least 100 Billion Planets According to Survey". January 11, 2012. HubbleSite.org

[3]    Santora Arts Building, 207 N. Broadway, Santa Ana, California, 92701

[4]    Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From. New York: Riverhead Books, Penguin Group, 2010.

[5]    Malchiodi, Cathy. The Art Therapy Sourcebook. New York:  McGraw-Hill), 2007.

[6]    Herrmann, Ned.  The Creative Brain. Lake Lure, North Carolina:  Ned Herrmann/Brain Books, 1990.

[7]    Ferre, Whitney. The Artist Within. Nashville: Trade Paper Press, 2008.

[8]    Pink. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. New York: Penguin Group, 2006, 3.

[9]    Klinger, Eric. Psychology Today, October 21, 1987 (original research article). Quote referenced in article:  http://www.psychologies.co.uk/self/what-your-daydreams-reveal-about-you.html

[10]   Fries, Amy. “The Power of Daydreaming: Wake Your Creative Abilities.” Psychology Today, January 19, 2010. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-daydreaming/201001/the-dynamic-duo-imagination-knowledge

[11]   Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. 1927. Reprint. Orlando: Harcourt, 1987

[12]   Gargiulo, Susanne.  “Daydream Believer: Is a Wandering Mind a Creative Mind?”  CNN. October 30, 2013. http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/30/business/daydream-believer-is-a-wandering/

[13]   Nilsson, Jeff. “Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge.” Saturday Evening Post. March 20, 2010. http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2010/03/20/archives/post-perspective/imagination-important-knowledge.html

[14]   Scientific American, “Delivered in a Daydream:  7 Great Achievements that Arose from a Wandering Mind.”  http://scientificamerican.com/slideshow.cfm?id=achievements-of-wandering-minds

[15]   Fries, Amy. “The Power of Daydreaming: Wake Your Creative Abilities.” Psychology Today, January 19, 2010. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-daydreaming/201001/the-dynamic-duo-imagination-knowledge

[16]   Masters, Ryan. “The Art of Remembering: Howard Ikemoto teaches artists how to be young again.” Monterey County Weekly: Local News, November 11, 2004.  http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/news/local_news/article_57e9b56c-40f5-5dae-ac19-706775492c6e.html

[17] Gee, Vic and Roy Grubb. “Roots of Visual Mapping.” Mind Mapping Blog. http://www.mind-mapping.org/blog/mapping-history/roots-of-visual-mapping/

[18]   Tony Buzan and Barry Buzan, The Mind Map Book:  How to Use Radiant Thinking to Maximize Your Brain’s Untapped Potential. New York: Penguin Books, 1993.

[19]   Call, Tami. www.TamiCall.com

[20]   Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: 4th edition. New York: Penguin Group, 2012, xiv.

[21]   Nicolaides, Kimon.  The Natural Way to Draw.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1941.

[22]   Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: 4th edition. New York: Penguin Group, 2012, 64.

[23]               Russell, Carla and Others. Signs Along the Way: A Biography/Memoir about Elizabeth “Grandma” Layton. Rantoul, Kansas: Globe Publishing, 2013.

[24]               Lambert, Don. The Life & Art of Elizabeth “Grandma” Layton. Waco: WRS Publishing, 1995.

[25]               Rebecca Martin, “Cool Things – Layton Drawing,” Kansapedia: Kansas Historial Society, March 2011, http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/cool-things-layton-drawing/16795

[26]               http://www.americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artist/?id=5862

[27]               Allen, Pat. Art Is a Way of Knowing. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1995, 55-63.

[28] Steven Johnson

[29] Steven Johnson

[30]               Mark Galli and Ted Olsen. 131 Christians Everyone Should Know. Nashville: Holman Reference, 2000.

[31]               Cameron, Julia.  The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1992.

[32]              Adler, Mitchel G. and N. S. Fagley.  “Appreciation: Individual Differences in Finding Value and Meaning as a Unique Predictor of Subjective Well-Being.” Journal of Personality. February 2005.

[33]               Hirsch, Mark. That Tree: An iPhone Photo Journal Documenting a Year in the Life of a Lonely Bur Oak. http://thattree.net

[34] Lawrence, Robyn Griggs. the wabi-sabi house: the Japanese art of imperfect beauty. New York:  Clarson Potter/Publishers, 2004.

[35] The Santora Arts Building, 207 N. Broadway, Santa Ana Artists Village, California, 92701.  Authors note:  as of this writing, the building is currently under new management and is in process of being renovated.

[36] Laforet, Vincent.  Visual Stories.

[37]               http://dietwiegman.tumblr.com

[38]               Elke Linda Buchholz, Gerhard Buhler, et al. ART:  A World History, 2007

[39] Ryden, Mark, Jon Gothold and Mike McGee.  The Curiosities of Janice Lowry. Santa Ana: Grand Central Press, 2011.

[40]  www.JaniceLowry.com

[41]               Godin, Seth. The Icarus Deception: how high will you fly? New York:  Penguin Group, 2012.

[42]               Godin, Seth.  V is for Vulnerable: Life Outside the Comfort Zone. New York:  Penguin Group, 2012

[43]               Cameron, Julia.  The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1992.

[44]               Mark Galli and Ted Olsen. 131 Christians Everyone Should Know. Nashville: Holman Reference, 2000.

[45]               Artists Rejected In Their Time, Huffington Post, 1-17-13:  http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/01/17/artists-rejected-in-their-time_n_2494036.html

[46]               Trachtman, Paul. “Matisse & Picasso.” Smithsonian magazine, February 2003, http://smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/matisse.html?c=y&story=fullstory

[47]               www.FrederickBuechner.com

Table of Contents

Copyright

Introduction

Section I: Getting Started

Section II: The Mindsets of Creativity

Section III: Resources

Templates

Acknowledgements: Big Huge Thank You’s

ENDnotes