Express Yourself Workshop!: Upcoming Dates & "Don't Think!"

 The next two Express Yourself! workshops will be held Saturday, January 7th (at Kentucky Girl Designs' studio in Novato), and a special one to be held Saturday January 28th (at Book Passage in Corte Madera -- go here to register).

Altering books is a great way to step over your preconceived ideas of what creativity is or what it looks like -- just grab a used book, some scissors, glue, photos or magazine images, pens and coloring tools and jump into a whole new way of expressing yourself! Using a few simple techniques you will produce an art object that uniquely reflects bits and pieces of who you are.

But the main ingredient is that you are willing to let go of any rules about what being artistic or creative means. Pushing past that thinking, analyzing, censoring, judging brain is an essential step in the creative process. This is a very difficult task for most adults, whereas children seem to have a blessed ability to jump in, imagine, fantasize, play, create from a very unstructured and happy place. It was a joy for me to have living examples of this in my December workshop. Maddy and Maya were twelve-year-olds and best friends who wanted to learn more about altering books. They jumped into my exercises with little hesitancy, quite a bit of joy, and their resulting pages were enjoyed by all, but especially by themselves. They created naturally, utilizing the "Don't Think!" principle. And everyone else in the workshop seemed to come to their own creative no-thinking place -- and it was reflected in their altered book pages. To see more of their work go here.