caricature girl

"There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it! It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open..."

~Martha Graham

Tonight was the start of my creative journaling class at the Paint Spot. I am basing the first part of the class on a lot of the techniques found in Corey Moortgat's FABULOUS book "The Art of Personal Imagery" (definitely one of my faves).

I used Martha Graham's wonderful quote as the theme for the page tonight because I especially love "It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open..."

THAT is exactly what creative journaling has done for me. By painting, writing and drawing in my journals for the past 27 years, I have developed a level of trust and a way of keeping "that channel" open. There are always mental hurdles to jump (and always will be), especially when approaching anything new in art; new mediums, new styles or new techniques. Having somewhere to go where I feel the freedom to do, write, paint or draw anything and not worry about the end result is one of the best tools in my life.

Everyone in the class did a wonderful page...totally different from each other, yet using the same elements. (I will hopefully show some of them here eventually). Just like the demo that I did during the class was completely different from my pre-class sample . The best part of the night was saying "seeing you next week!". Most of the time I do one day or shorter workshops but this is a six week class and I can't wait to see the development of individual styles through the weeks.

I love to have music in my classes and this was who we listened to while we painted tonight...