Tiny Book, Borrowed Words.

This Tiny Book is part of the #TinyBookCollective from Hope Fitzgerald over on Instagram. Check out her posts to see more itsy weeny books like this, and find out how to take part.

Colors & doodles from me, words from Marianne Williamson:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves,
who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

Actually,
who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There’s nothing enlightened
about shrinking so that other people
won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us;
it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.”

This Tiny Book is part of the #TinyBookCollective from Hope Fitzgerald over on Instagram. Check out her posts to see more itsy weeny books like this, and find out how to take part.

If you’d like to be first to see the latest projects I’m working on & exclusive insights into the thoughts behind the splashy doodles, hop onto my email list for monthly-ish updates direct to your inbox:

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awol, presumed doodling.

I’ve been off line for a while, playing in the analogue world of paints and glue and little bits of torn up paper. Recharging & recombobulating. Playing with things like this.

I’ve been off line for a while, playing in the analogue world of paint and scribbles and little bits of torn up paper. Recharging & recombobulating. Playing with things like this.

This book lived on my desk through the first half of this year. Over the weeks and months it grew fat and messy with ‘while I’m waiting’ doodles, with mopped up paint spills, scraps of stuff, with the words and ideas that were orbiting my mind.

When it was all done, I made this quick flip thro vid:

And when I say quick, I know it’s super quick. So here’s a more leisurely stroll through some of the pages, and some of the ideas that keep rolling back into my art.

Stories unfold from the words I’m listening to in audio books and podcasts, and the characters evolve from magazine pages, advertisements and found paper.

Lines of text set against rows or polkadots, knitted together with scribbly handwriting. Faces in the spaces.

Backgrounds from maps: borrow the contour lines, take them off wandering into new places.

Cut out shapes from scrap paper.

Add eyes and whiskers: see them come to life.

Writing down the words I heard and want to remember later.
I leave notes and messages for me-in-the-future scattered through my art.

“There’s a reason why we get the ideas we get.”
(so it’s important to put them someplace safe until they’re ready to use)

Then there’s the found poetry from song lyrics, Inertia blue zero freeze.
(idk)

Dotted lines around the edges make me happy: as any small child will tell you, they’re really fun to do. Especially in time to music.

Texture in sticky thick paint, like tree branches or arteries, reminds me art is alive and part of nature. And vice versa.

Messing about with perspective with angles and lines. Inventing new people.
Anything’s possible in a book.

These words were pinned to my wall of ideas, making space for new things, now they’re rehomed in the book. Keep things you love in sight, always.

Negative space: white paint dampens the cacophony of color.

Opportunity is everywhere. It really is.

Case in point, I collect cards at art fairs, copying shapes, giving this gal a sister.

Copying faces, shapes and tricky things like hands.

Dropped in here and there amid all the noise and color takes the pressure off.

How they look isn’t important when they merge in with all this stuff.

Keep playing, keep making it up as you go along. That’s really all there is.

My next project is a weeny little sketchbook for the Tiny Book Collaboration.

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To Brooklyn and beyond!

Since last summer when it arrived, I was chasing my tail with ideas for this project. Four days before the deadline I declared it finished and posted it off to its new home in Brooklyn Art Library.

Since last summer when it arrived, I was chasing my tail with ideas for this project. Three days before the deadline I declared it finished and posted it off to its new home in Brooklyn Art Library.

You might remember my first ‘best laid’ plans disintegrated along with the pages of this book on contact with watercolor.

this paper soaks up watercolor like a sponge.

Soaked right through to the other side 😦

Look at that paper curl! I appear to have angered the book now.

Having decided to rebind the book in delicious watercolor paper I went off track from my plan and ended up making a bunch of pretty doodles in watercolor, that were fun to make but missed the point of what I wanted to make, and the rebound book sat on my desk for a while in a state of finished-but-no-finished.

Something didn’t feel right.

I couldn’t get myself to film a flip through until when I finally did the edit went all catawompus. I was standing in my own way to package it up to post, to take those last steps.

It felt too mimsy and not very Mixy.

I kept coming back to the thought that if this is going into a collection that can be seen by anyone and possibly by no-one. In a library of + 36,000 books it should, nonetheless, be representative of what I am.

It should be more me.

A little over a week before the deadline to post it off I was awoken by vivid dreams telling me to begin again: Go back to my first idea. Do it now.

I got up that morning and tore out the fancy watercolor paper pages.

For reasons unknown to me up until then I’d kept those first pages. The original paper with holes where the paint seeped through, with scratchy ballpoint lines and un-erasable pencil lines underneath.

The "Wandering Doodle" — The “Wandering Doodle” as I called it, best seen like this, photoshopped together, it carries a line of wiggles and squiggles throughout the book.

The voice in my dream was saying IT’S A SKETCHBOOK. It’s meant to be sketchy. It’s meant to be about ideas, not nice paintings.

I needed to work around the worn through holes, paint over and collage around the layers of ideas. I needed to fill the book with the thoughts and words and shapes that were torrenting around in my head. That’s the point of a sketchbook. That’s what sketching is.

I spent that weekend sat on the floor of my studio, surrounded with collage cuttings and clippings, paints, pens and inks.

I doodled my little heart out.

I sewed in sequins and crocheted page edges.

I rebound the old pages along with drawings I made decades ago. I poured in words that floated through from podcasts and song lyrics as I went.

If you’d like to see a full flip through of these pages, hop onto my email list here for an exclusive preview next week.

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Time Shrinkage

Today we reached the quarter way mark, day 25 of the #100dayproject.

To celebrate I’ve joined up the videos of the first layers of the first canvas I began working on. It’s still a work in progress, but already it’s been through so many evolutions.

The 100 Day Project 2018

I like an outrageously crazy challenge as much as the next person.

I’ve been known to dive into some over ambitious projects without thinking it all the way through (for risk of talking myself all the way out in the process).

But even I know while I’m not in my studio every day, finding time for painting every day for 100 days isn’t realistic. I listened to my inner adult, and together we came up with a plan:

My 100 day project is to paint as often as I can, and post an update every day for 100 days.

To make that possible and prepare I let these paintings take over a long weekend at the start of the month in order to get ahead.

(Best. Weekend. Ever!)

If you haven’t seen the posts, I’ve been time-lapsing the process to share on Instagram.

This filming shrinks down the rate of progress to just 10%, making a half hour of painting flash by in 30 seconds! It’s fascinating to watch it back, to literally watch over my own shoulder as I paint. I follow my instincts and don’t plan what I’ll paint, so the images evolve out of nowhere, and then recede back under the newer layers.

Today we reached the quarter way mark, day 25.

To celebrate I’ve joined up the videos of the first layers of the first canvas I began working on. It’s still a work in progress, but already it’s been through so many evolutions.

I’ll be making little videos like these for all 5 paintings as I go along.

If you’d like an exclusive preview of these, and other things I’m making, join up for my email newsletters. At the time of typing, they go out just once or twice a month, so I won’t be flooding our inbox!

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100 Layers & a Manifesto

I wrote a manifesto!

For reals!

100 layers by mixy manifesto — #100layersbymixy Manifesto

I was telling you yesterpost how I came to pick my project, how I’m exploring beyond my usual painting boundaries.

How I’ll manifest this challenge:

For the 100 days from 3rd April to 15 July, I’m going to share my creative process.
Some will be on Instagram (follow along on #100layersbymixy )
Some over here on this blog
Some will be just in my newsletters (scroll on down to the end of this post to sign up if wanna get all the deliciousness of my project!)

I’m going to make a series of multi-layered paintings and time lapse the process, so there will be videos and photos to share.

Plus all the other layers: the ones that aren’t the actual paint and paper:

The layers of unfolding ideas,
The inspiration from what I listen to while I create,
The ideas & thoughts that lie underneath the images that appear on the canvas.

It’s going to be epic, folks!

Don’t miss a thing by getting my newsletter:

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SaveSave

The in-between

The edge of the fold.
The home of contention and conjecture,
Not either or but both and.
It’s just where the horizon touches.

The in-between is the place I love most.

The transient, the liminal,

The dusk and the dawn.

The turning of one into the next,

The edge of the fold.

The place of contention, conjecture,

Not either. Both.

The place where the horizon touches.

The moment in between.

The pause.

Fuelling the feud against the resolute absolute, the tightly defined.

Why are we still doing that anyway?

When instead we could butterfly between the two,

Share the energy,

Dance in the gap in between.

The illustrations in this post come from my 2018 Sketchbook Project book which is so nearly done! I’ll show you the finished book very soon!

If you’d like to be first to know what I’m working on, plus get exclusive offers on the things I make, clickety-hop aboard my email list right here.

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Your email is utterly safe to me. I will send it words and pictures a couple of times each month unless you ask me to stop. That’s all.

Soul Food for you

“Soul Food” Book Launch Blog Tour & Giveaway. A few years ago I took a year long online course called IGNITE… This is where I first met artist and writer Carol Lowell. I was entranced as I watched Carol’s idea for a book ‘Soul Food’ blossom and take shape.

“Soul Food” Book Launch Blog Tour & Giveaway

A few years ago I took a year long online course called IGNITE run by the lovely Connie Solera of Dirty Footprint Studio, the following year I was invited to return as a peer mentor to the new students through their year of learning and discovery.

In these two years I met some wonderful, inspiring, creative women from around the world, who have become great friends.

This is where I first met artist and writer Carol Lowell. I was entranced as I watched Carol’s idea for a book ‘Soul Food’ blossom and take shape. So I’m super excited to announce her book’s publication, and to have her as my guest to tell you more about it.

Dear friends, please meet Carol Lowell of Kindred Spirit Studio

Thanks for hosting me, Mixy! I’m excited to share with you and your audience my new book “Soul Food”, the contest and Free Book Offer that goes along with my upcoming book launch March 26, 27, 28 on amazon.ca, amazon.com and, for International orders, on my website!

Colour!!!

It is a passion of mine, and most of the artists I know. We all have our favourite colours that we are drawn to time and again, yet every colour tells and inspires a story all its own.

Rainbows

When I was a kid, settling on a favourite colour was way too limiting. So I chose rainbows! And the collection of rainbow items began … pillows and bedding, mugs and stationery … even a pair of denim overalls (does this date me?). The magic in nature where light refracted through raindrops, or crystals, creating this wonder of colour made my heart swell. It still does!

Our natural world brings so many treasures and delights … feasts for our eyes! But we need to create time and stillness to be aware of all the magic that not only surrounds us, but is within us.

A Journey of Self Discovery – Using Colour

In my book, “Soul Food” I wanted to support people, whether they are artists or not, to create a daily practice that allows them to know themselves better and to get in touch with their hearts. Having fun playing with colour is a key to following your heart.

Choosing Full Colour

When I created my book, Soul Food, I knew from the start that I wanted it to be in full colour … to welcome the participants. It is just too yummy in full colour!!

As a self-published author/artist, the cost of 312 pages of full colour was pretty massive. But I would not compromise, and so I followed my heart and did what I knew in my heart mattered. The pages of Soul Food, that welcome and encourage the mark-making of the book’s owner, bringing their own sense of colour, is just what this book is for. The journey of discovery is as unique as each one of us. And each Soul Food book, will uniquely reflect its owner.

Mixy loves colour too!

Her year-long online course, Twelvty, confirms her dedication and understanding of colour. She encourages and inspires her own version of self discovery through the deep-dive into colour. And Mixy’s various feasts for the eyes are so yummy too! I am grateful to be participating on this journey with her and other creative souls.

May bringing colour into your daily life inspire you, bring pleasures and even, perhaps, make your heart swell. This is just some of the magic available to us when we pay attention!

With love and best wishes,

About “Soul Food”

Soul Food is a 90 Day Journey of Self Discovery While Building Nourishing Habits

Soul Food is an interactive “play book” to help establish heart-centred habits in a gentle and positive way.

The first 30 days focuses attention on gratitudes, doing something you love, your Top 3 Priorities for the day, as well as some mandala colouring to help relax and rejuvenate you.

The next 30 days expands the practice by adding body and health focus, as well as a beginning meditation practice.

From there, the final 30 days builds another layer of your foundational practice by adding daily journaling prompts to take you even further inward for some soul reflection. Towards the final days, you have the opportunity to create your own mandala designs.

Each month, as you gradually and progressively build on the previous month’s groundwork, you can easily deepen your communication within. You will discover your soul voice that is as unique as you are.

After 90 days, you will have created a daily practice that suits you, your interests, and your schedule. Each book will become as unique as the person working through it and making their marks. Most important of all is who you will become while on this journey!!

Please visit me on my website www.kindredspiritstudio.com, email me at carol@kindredspiritstudio.com, or follow me at the following links:

FaceBook Goodreads Instagram Twitter Pinterest

For more giveaways, visit me on my website here

About the Author

I am a mixed-media artist, author, life coach, quilter, photographer, book maker, wife, mom and explorer who lives in North Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Through the regular practice of creative endeavours and connecting to our spirit, I know that we can embrace and live our best life… through the expression of our unique gifts… our soul voice. It is my desire to help others find that voice and to give it strength, courage and love.

As someone who loves to gather and to share, I live by the mottos “The More, The Merrier” and “The More We Give, The More We Receive”.

My greatest passions are my family, the discovery of new things, and living with an adventurous spirit. I love to encourage others to find what makes their heart sing and to live from that soul-centred place… a place I try to always reside.

Win a copy of “Soul Food”

I’ve set up a bunch of ways for you to enter my contest inside Rafflecopter.

The more times you enter, the better chance you have of winning 1 of the 3 free copies of “Soul Food”. When you purchase a copy of “Soul Food” during the book launch dates of March 26, 27, 28, you will be sent a copy of my eBook “Meditative Mandala Making”! This is a companion book to “Soul Food” and walks you through the process of making your own mandalas.

Rafflecopter giveaway

Soul-Food-by-carol-lowell-1000X1000-Clear-BG (1)

Meditative-Mandala-Making-by-carol-lowell-1000X1000-Clear-BG

Soul Food is available at Amazon.ca / Amazon.com & kindredspiritstudio.com

The stories inside pictures

Stories that emerge from pictures are in my mind today. Not the literal ones, but the ones that appear without words.

The stories that emerge from pictures are what’s forefront in my mind today. Not the illustrations of literal stories, I’m thinking about the ones that appear without words.

Untold, but there to be found. Waiting to be noticed, to be overheard.

Idling in my sketchbooks.

I keep seeing the same metaphors in what I draw and what I photograph: it’s all about perspective, the angle, the view.

Softened edges, a change of light.

Stop for a minute and just watch…

Where do you most notice the unspoken stories in the world around you?

If you’d like to be first to know what I’m working on, plus get exclusive offers on the things I make, clickety-hop aboard my email list right here.

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(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)

Your email is utterly safe to me. It will be wrapped up snug and nestled with a hot water bottle & a kitten until the spring arrives.

Paper Obstacles

I had a really clear idea what I wanted to do with this book from (almost) the outset last year – a rambling whirl of doodles, a stream of consciousness running through the pages.

The Sketchbook Project

It’s been a while since I checked in with you guys on this project, I’ve had to overcome a few obstacles along the way.

I had a really clear idea what I wanted to do with this book from (almost) the outset last year – a rambling whirl of doodles, a stream of consciousness running through the pages. Then I got ill, and the heavy duty pain medication I had in hospital inspired me with a really clear visual I wanted to recreate. As best I could, two-dimensionally on paper.

I began the line work back during Inktober, and looking back I remember at the time being aware of just how thin and flimsy the paper is in the book. I mean, super thin. It would hold up well to gentle care but I’m heavy handed and (because it’s all I had to hand and impatience is my biggest motivator in all I do) I used ballpoint pen. So my pages were already crinkling from the indentation of the lines.

That’s cool – it adds character – it’s my ‘style’ – go with it, I thought.

Sure.

I delayed the coloring stage until I finally got my new watercolors I’d been so eager to use.

Then the holidays, then life, then I finally began.

MixySketchbookProject2018-02 — this paper soaks up watercolor like a sponge.

Oh. My. Days!

You do NOT wanna use watercolors on this paper. Of course if I hadn’t been so hung up on the combination of:

This Sketchbook Project + These Colors + These Paints = Exactly What I Want To Do

then perhaps I wouldn’t have been temporarily blind the reality of:

This Medium + This Paper = A Certain Soggy Mess.

MixySketchbookProject2018-03 — Soaked right through to the other side 😦

Damnit!

Ok, I’m an adaptable kinda person, I pride myself on being able to change direction, to adjust and adapt.

Acrylics, I thought. Acrylics are the answer. They will sit on top of the paper and give it a bit more substance as well.

MixySketchbookProject2018-01 — Look at that paper curl! It seems I have angered the book now.

Nope. Not only is it a streaky mess, but the pages are actually curling up in disgust.

What do they want from me? light, delicate pencil? Do they know me AT ALL??

I heard a distant memory jangling about in the back of my mind – are there rules on what media we’re to use? – checking the website: sure, acrylics & gesso are discouraged because the pages get sticky and … yes, yes, I know all this…

So, my first plan of watercolor was back on the table – because, when I read on – we are allowed to rebind the book. I can use actual watercolor paper!

Now that time was getting squeezed, that forever-away-distant deadline was getting closer… I decided that keeping it simple was the best way forward. The elaborate plans I had to begin are on hold for a separate project later in the year, meanwhile I’m back with what I know best for the pages of this book: the idea that is fuelling my creativity and has done for a long while now: an adventure in 12 colors!

After all, it’s my thing, right?

My pages are complete and ready for binding, I’ll show the finished book as soon as I get some good light for photos – then it’ll be winging it’s way off to Brooklyn Art Library

If you want to be first to see what I’m making, and get exclusive discounts on these things, clickety-hop aboard my email list right here.

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(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)

Your email is utterly safe to me. It will be wrapped up snug and nestled with a hot water bottle & a kitten until the spring arrives.