The Sketchbook Project 2015!

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  31,

The Sketchbook Project is a digital library of sketchbooks and a travelling show which anybody can participate in. Everyone gets the same sketchbook and fills it in the way they please. This is the second year I am participating and they extended the deadline to March 31, so I just sent mine in today.

Last year my sketchbook was about collage and mosaics and dedicated to someone special whom I lost; there was a long process of reworking and altering that sketchbook. It got so worked on that it came apart and I had to put it back together and cover each page of tiny paper and tape pieces with clear packing tape so the pieces wouldn’t fall off This year I had a similar process in that I kept altering sing and layering. I painted over the initial drawings, which had shapes squares rev tackled circles from stencils. I scribbled on the pages and used colored glue gun to make scribbles. Then I tore off the glue gun parts and started cutting pieces from my journal from my series with words in the middle of lines. At one point I lost the sketchbook for over a week and had no idea where it was! By then I had gotten sick of it and must have needed a break. I finally found it and worked more in it. Most recently I added more color with yarn and more materials. As I did last year I had to trim the pages, which were sticking out of the book. And eventually the cover came off and I had to stick it back on mainly with dick tape. The process was almost as torturous as last year but not as emotional. Here are photos I took today before sending it in. What a relief to be done with it! Next year I want to be very minimal and mostly use pencil and drawing and try altering it very minimally, maybe eve. Keeping the original pages intact. Of course once I have it I may give in to my tendency to layer and cover and alter..
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It’s World Bipolar Awareness Day!

Yes, it’s very necessary. Bipolar Disorder is deadly and there is still stigma that needs to be eradicated.

From Huffington Post:

But a bipolar day? Are there that many people with it to support having its own day?

There are 450 million people worldwide with mental illness. Of those it is estimated that the global prevalence of bipolar disorder is between 1 and 2 percent and has been said to be as high as 5 percent, which is three times all the diabetes and 10 times all the cancers combined.

See article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/muffy-walker/why-a-world-bipolar-day_b_6878976.html?

Collaborative journal entries from sketchbook project

These are beautiful. What a wonderful idea to collaborate like that! I will post my sketchbook for 2014 soon!

The Drawing Page

A while back I posted some mixed media work from the sketchbook project journal I worked on in 2010-2011. The theme I chose was dirigibles and submersibles. This week I am posting some collaborative sketchbook entries I did with my son Nicolas (then seven). Working collaboratively can enhance creativity. In this case the sketches were very meaningful for me, because I was collaborating with my own son. These include collage and drawing as well experimentations with overlays. This brief post leads into an upcoming post about children and drawing. Look out for it soon!

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International Summit for artists with learning disabilities

Just found this. Although it’s not current, the images are great!

Art from the margins

Art work by Kim Hung Ho of the Nina Haggerty Center, Canada

Last week I attended the first ever International Summit for Artists with Learning Disabilities at Project Ability In Glasgow. I have written on the Outside In blog about my trip and wanted to share it with you here … Enjoy reading!

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Friday is Creative Deed Day!

                           

I slowed down this week as I was very busy as a therapist, but I continue to work on little art cards and give them away. This week I gave one to my student dentist who is graduating soon! 

20 Creative Quotes on New Beginnings & Growth

These are great. I will soon pick some to add to my quotations page!

creativity in motion

Springtime can be a great time for exciting growth & new beginnings!  This week I went on a creative quote scavenger hunt to find inspiring words that connect to this spirit of the season….  Enjoy:

• True creativity often starts where language ends. ~ Arthur Koestler

• Every artist was first an amateur. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Beginning with audacity is a very great part of the art of painting. ~Winston Churchill

• The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.  ~Ezra Pound

• After you’ve painted a couple of thousand paintings, then you can begin. ~Carl Rungius

• I don’t go into the studio with the idea of ‘saying’ something. What I do is face the blank canvas and put a few arbitrary marks on it that start me on some sort of dialogue.  ~Richard Diebenkorn

• Carry the beginning to the…

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Coming Soon: Post about Misconceptions about Art Therapy

I am working on a longish post about common misconceptions about art therapy, how art therapists deal with it, and also how art therapists need to participate actively in promoting art therapy to gain more respect for art therapy in mainstream society.

Friday is Creative Deed Day!

This week I posted on Creative Deed the two photos of a bunch of art cards in process, some almost done and some barely started. I also discovered the fun of cutting out word blurbs from comic books to use as the “words” element I use on every card. I also had fun in a play group with a little boy who wanted to make his own cards! He and his parents each chose one. I left another one for my waiter at Bubby’s last weekend…

  

  

  

  

  

                     

New Affirmations Page on This Blog!

Blogs can have pages. The “About Me” at the top is often a page. I have three pages now including the latest one I just posted, called Affirmations. The benefit of a page is that it stays on your blog as a link at the top and can be easily located. Also, pages are usually for reference about some topic to do with the blog that is useful at any time, such as affirmations.

Next page coming soon will be: art therapy directives and projects for different populations…

Let’s Travel, and Castle on a Cloud



I am working on a large coloring mural, which is marvelous and full of wonders, a world map with an elephant, a whale, a unicorn, and also at the top on one of the clouds, a little castle on a cloud…

I recently heard this song, “Castle on a Cloud”, for the first time performed by children at a show; then I watched the movie version of “Les Miserables” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1707386/), made in 2012, mostly because I wanted to see and hear the song in the movie! As I expected,, much of the movie was miserable, however, the moment when the child playing Cosette sings the song, Castle on a Cloud, was so beautiful, an enchanted gem in a muddy too long movie. The lyrics are also beautiful and they capture what children (and deep down, probably adults too), want most of all: love, affection, a home, nothing sad to cry about, no yelling, gentleness. Here are the lyrics and an image of Rebecca Rebouche’s coloring mural. Her very large mural is entitled “Let’s Travel”; I was given one and went to the store and bought three more as it is so enchanting and perfect for art therapy. I highly recommend it for all ages, individual and group, and even family art therapy:

Here is the link to the image on Anthropologie’s website:
http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/product/shopgifts-under-fifty/33736455.jsp#/

Here are the lyrics to the song:

“Castle On A Cloud”
(performed by Isabelle Allen)

There is a castle on a cloud,
I like to go there in my sleep,
Aren’t any floors for me to sweep,
Not in my castle on a cloud.

There is a room that’s full of toys.
There are a hundred boys and girls.
Nobody shouts or talks too loud,
Not in my castle on a cloud.

There is a lady all in white,
Holds me and sings a lullaby,
She’s nice to see and she’s soft to touch,
She says, “Cosette, I love you very much.”

I know a place where no one’s lost,
I know a place where no one cries,
Crying at all is not allowed,
Not in my castle on a cloud.