I Did It! My Very First E-Course!

Journals from my Daily Journal Page Challenge (2009-20012)

This was a BIG step in my creative journey: I finally completed planning, developing, launching, and teaching my very first online art course: "Your Daily Creative Practice: 30 Days of Pocket-Sized Journal Collages to Grow Your Creativity".

I'm kind of in shock now that it is all over! It took such a Herculean effort to get this thing out of my imagination and into reality. It's almost unreal how it all came together. I started thinking about it a year ago in one of the Right Brain Business Plan groups (and I probably set it as a goal even further back than that). I was actually planning on releasing my Intro to Altered Books first when I took the marvelous Kiala Givehand's Design, Develop, Deliver e-course in October and got a bit more fleshed out around that. I learned so much about e-course structure, development and technology in this course.

Then a few more months went by and in the Fall I took one of Jennifer Lee's Product Development Playground e-course and switched my gears to really developing and pulling together an e-course of my 3.5 year Daily Journal Page Challenge (how I really started to really develop my creative eye and sense of myself as an artist). I named my instructional e-course Your Daily Creative Practice.

Happy Ending: 37 people signed up for Your Daily Creative Practice, and over 25 of them participated in the secret Facebook group that I set up so people could share their journal collages and get inspiration from each other. I learned so much and had a terrific time creating this course and it was an amazing gift to teach and interact with so many gifted people!
 

The Blank Canvas Blog Hop!

Are you familiar with that feeling one gets as you're facing a task and you just don't know where to begin? Well artists aren't any different from any other person who hasn't a clue of where start a new project!

It's often a scary place -- especially when that blank canvas, book, piece of paper, quilt, chunk of marble is just sitting there! For an artist this can be a terrifying place to be. Doubts loom and often a litany of self-criticism rises to the forefront. The Muses have left the house. What if they don't come back? 

Luckily after many years of dealing with the Blank Canvas -- or in my case the "Blank Book Page Spread" (since I primarily alter books) -- I've learned a few tricks on how to get the creative juices flowing. And so have 16 artists in the Blank Canvas Blog Hop. Each of these artists share experiences on how they jump start their creativity PLUS each is having a drawing for a giveaway. So hop on over to the first artist, Karen Friedland on Monday, September 8th. 

And return to my blog on September 15th to see what I do to get myself moving in the flow -- and to enter for a chance to win one of my Wild Spirit Animal pendant necklaces!

BLOG HOP ROSTER for ARTISTS -- Follow the links to each day's artist to get tips on addressing the Blank Canvas and how to participate in their drawing for a free gift! And if you come in late to this Blog Hop you can go to any of the earlier artists' pages to see their tips and enter their giveaway contest (Sept 8-22).

Earlier Participants!
1. Sept 8   Karen Friedland 
2. Tuesday Sept 9   Lezette Markham
3. Wednesday Sept 10 Cynthia Patton
4. Thursday Sept 11 Jennyann Carthern
5. Friday "Frenzy" Sept 12  Kiala Givehand
6. Saturday Sept 13 Jan Blount
7. Sunday Sept 14 Effy Wild
8. Monday Sept 15 Virginia Simpson-Magruder
9. Tuesday Sept 16 Dariana Cruz


TODAY'S BLANK CANVAS ARTIST!  
10. Wednesday Sept 17 Susan Miller go here

Next in Line!
11. Thursday Sept 18 Grace howes 
12. Friday Sept 19 Tori Deaux 
13. Saturday Sept 20 Kiala Givehand
14. Sunday Sept 21 Martin Arkenstone 
15. Monday Sept 22 Nicole Piar

When you return on Sept 15 to here my tips on dealing with Blank Canvas Paralysis, you'll also have the opportunity to participate in my Wild Spirit Pendant Giveaway. First Like my Wild Spirit Animals Facebook Fan Page, and then Sign up for my monthly newsletter by clicking on the blue button in the column to the right of this post.

Wild Spirit Animal Pendant

In My Art Studio: Monday, March 13th, 2011

Art Travelin"...

YOWSER!!! As typical, my workable area is shrinking down to a postage stamp. That vintage Samsonite is one of two filled with images for me to pull from. But...I seem to be bouncing in and out of the studio today. Can't seem to stay in one place too long! Maybe I'm just a night owl creator...I do seem to get warmed up by 4 in the afternoon, then cruise through until my husband gets home, we have dinner and most often I'm back in the studio or on the computer until 11pm. Want to make time for working in on my Right Brain Business Plan, email off a workshop proposal, and send in an art street fair application!