First Artist Way Workshop June 8th, 2023

Our first creative workshop went well, and everyone left feeling refreshed and hopeful in the process of exploring our creativity together. Our meeting was recorded and will be posted on https://www.miflorecitateresawartshop.com website in the next few days. This is supposed to help encourage everyone to check out our format, refer back, and be able to keep up with our group when you are unable to join us on any given week. We do hope you will be able to join us in person, but we understand that this time of year is not always easy to attend a weekly meeting. We do ask that you post your creations on social media with the hashtags #miflorecitaartshop, #miflorecitatheartistswayworkshop, and on our member pages on the website. Thank you.

What we covered:

We discussed an introduction to the basic tools, key concepts, and Ch. One in The Artist’s Way A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. The basic tools are the morning pages, artist dates, affirmations, sensory walks, the enemy within, and establishing the sense of safety to explore our creativity together. Establishing a daily morning routine of writing three pages of free flow stream of consciousness not meant to be read by anyone including yourself but filed away. This seemingly pointless process is a very effective tool to find our creativity and our censor, aka parasite or the enemy within that negative voice that is often disguised as the truth but prevents us from using our creativity in our lives. You can write questions, affirmations, goals, grocery lists, etc. there are no rules in using the morning pages except to use them daily while we meet and work together to connect with our creativity. You may notice that our censor will reveal itself in our writings in blurts and negative streams, paying attention to these will help us to identify our negatively held beliefs. As we proceed, we will work on remembering that these are beliefs NOT facts or truths, and combat them by finishing our daily pages by rewriting these negative beliefs into a positive alternative: use these affirmations as our ally within.

We will call our workshop meetings our artist dates, but you are encouraged to use the tool of an artist date once a week on your own. This is scheduled time by yourself to have fun, do something that brings you joy, or challenge you to try something new that you have been curious to do. Each week there are also tasks to explore more ways to tap into your creativity from the book, but we will be working together on creative activities that support these key concepts when we meet and are encouraged to work on through the week on your own.

The next tool is going on a weekly 20 min sensory walk. Take the time to notice the world around you and slow down. Listen for the sounds of your neighborhood, children laughing, birds singing, and dogs barking. Notice landscaping that you find attractive, colors, flowers, smells, and trinkets found along your path, pick some up for a future project. Write in your art journal what feelings this sensory walk brought up in you, ideas to work on, and how you feel about the path you walked on. Switch it up every week to see what you can find along the way.

We begin our activity tonight by working on creating the covers of our art journals that we will work on throughout our time together. In recovering the sense of safety, we needed to remind ourselves to let go of any judgments on others and ourselves. An Art Journal has no rules, just an opportunity to color outside the lines and have some fun.

Art Journal Cover Project -

1st Step – Create a background –

Painted, Gesso, Fabric, and Paper including old book pages, music sheets,

newspapers, and torn paper collage

2nd Step – Create 1st layer over background –

Multiple elements of your background could be anything you find interesting

including, vintage wallpaper, newspaper, poetry, old postcard, and keepsakes

from travels, etc.

3rd Step – Create 2nd layer over layer one –

Paint, Pen, or Marker to add dimension, texture, text, pictures, etc.

4th Step – Create your finishing touches –

Doodles, Paint splatter, Stamping, do whatever feels right to you, and remember

there are no rules. or no judgments here, just have fun expressing yourself.

Next week we will be discussing Ch. Two Recovering a Sense of Identity and doing collage portraits. I originally was going to have our work on masks but realized that getting appropriate supplies for everyone may be more complicated

than necessary.

Portrait Collages Project:

We will use our Art Journals to complete the following:

- Collage Self Portrait - How we see ourselves, who we really are

- Collage Portrait – How others see us, expect from us, require of us

- Collage Portrait – Of your inner child artist, what it looks like, what it is all about,

how it feels, what makes it happy, etc.

- Collage Portrait – Of your Censor/Parasite/Enemy Within, what it looks like, what it

says to you, how it tries to control you and prevent you from expressing your

creativity.

Assignment:

I ask that you work on preparing the background for five pages in your Art Journal this week before we meet, including collecting items for your collages that fit the above prompts. I also ask that you either draw a self-portrait front view and a profile view or print a picture of yourself with both a front and profile view. Make copies or use tracing paper.

Recommended Supplies List:

Paints Newspapers Images Tissue Paper

Misc. Scrap Paper Brushes Collected Elements Mirror

Tracing Paper Decoupage Magazines Drawing Pencils

Pens Colored Pencils Markers