Trying out My Artist’s Way Toolkit

14 Jun 2012 6 Comments

by mashadutoit in Myself, Opinions & reviews Tags: , ,

For the past few weeks I’ve been participating in My Artist Way’s Toolkit. This is an online companion to Julia Cameron’s book The Artists Way.  It contains many of the tools from the book, ways to help you get around (or under, or through) obstacles to creativity.  It’s presented as a sort of online notebook.  You can click to view inspirational quotes, suggested activities and exercises:

Well, as you can see I signed the contract – here is a closer view:

I’m sorry to say I’ve not been very good about honouring the terms of this contract so far.  In particular, I’ve not been as good as I should be about writing the “Morning Pages” – you are supposed to do three pages of longhand freestyle writing every morning.  But reading all the “why I’m not doing the morning pages” comments on the blogher discussion about the Morning Pages  – has perversely enough made me once again feel motivated to try to stick to the routine!

So far the best thing I’ve gained from this process is to become more aware of what Julia Cameron calls the “internal censor”,  that little internal voice that is constantly belittling everything you do, telling you not to take risks, making you doubt your abilities. I’ll be writing soon again about this process of using the My Artist Way Toolkit – so watch this space…

Disclaimer: I was compensated for this BlogHer Book Club review but all opinions expressed are my own.

How the tale grew in the telling: The unexpected sprouting of The Lord of the Rings

01 Jul 2008 4 Comments

by mashadutoit in books, Illustration Tags: , , , , , ,

Where do stories come from?  The process of story creation is fascinating.  I’ve been reading a lot about JRR Tolkien, and how he came to write The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.  Most of the following information was found in Humphrey Carpenter’s biography or Tolkien. You can also read about them here at Tolkien online.com and here at warofthering.net

Tolkien was someone who immersed himself in stories.  He had been creating the language and history of Middle Earth for many years, and his stories seem to emerge out of this preoccupation.  Tolkien, as quoted in Carpenter’s book: More

What My Art Teacher Taught Me: Don’t be scared

13 May 2008 2 Comments

by mashadutoit in Art Tags: , , , , , ,

I have learnt so much from so many art teachers. Some ideas that have become part of my personal “positioning system” as an artist. I will share these thoughts in this series of posts. This is my way of re-paying that debt in a small way.

What my art teacher taught me: Dont Be Scared

Whether you are painting, drawing, embroidering – whatever the medium – dont tiptoe around your own creation in fear of “messing it up”. You may feel the parts that work happened by accident, and that you cannot repeat them.

Fact: If you did it once, you can do it again. After all it was you who made it happen in the first place. Forget words such as “overworked”, “busy”, “labored”. You will learn more by pushing through than by hanging back. A space created by erasing what was there is richer than one which was never filled. With this comes the responsibility to be honest. Does it really work? If I re-do it, will it be better?

My art teacher taught me: Dont Be Scared.

P.S.  I have since found this post at Laini Taylor’s blog.  She writes about her creative process and ends off with:

— BE OPEN. Cast your imagination wide. Don’t be afraid to think of new things and go in whole new directions.
— BE BRAVE. New ideas may come to you now that will require a ton of new work. This can be overwhelming, but this is your chance to make the book the best it can be. Do whatever you need to do.
— BE EXCITED. Anything can still happen. This is marvelous. You can still dazzle yourself.
— BE DETERMINED. You can do it, and you will do it.