Showing Up#gmseasonofshowingupThis season's artwork is created by Messian of the Year 2020, @stumblingoverchaos Dear Messy Artist Step one to being an artist is showing up....
Art Journal Catalysts
3. Cultivate
Self Love through Collage
Worthiness#gmseasonofworthiness This lesson was originally released in the Season of Kindness. It holds so much value for the Season of Worthiness that - for the first time...
Remember Who You Are in a World that Expects Perfection
Worthiness#gmseasonofworthinessShay is so full of wisdom and kindness, and she encourages that you create the same within yourself too. After hearing a testimonial about her...
Dear Self: A Framework for Worthiness
Worthiness#gmseasonofworthinessThis season's artwork is created by @valloves2create Dear Messy Artist You are worthy. Not because you have done anything, but simply because...
Self-Compassion, Self-Love, and Self-Worthiness
Worthiness#gmseasonofworthinessTo prepare your heart for the new Get Messy class called Unfold - The Art of Meditative Journaling, I interviewed (my) life coach, Kelli...
Your Story is Worthy
Your Story is Worthy of Being ToldHello dear heroines, I feel so lucky to be back with you for a little bonus lesson. When Caylee mentioned that the next Season was that of Worthiness, it sparked some ideas when it comes to this class. The Inner Heroine is quite a...
Your Story is Worthy of Being Told
Sometimes, things get in the way of our art making – whether it’s time, emotions or life in general! But I want to impress upon you that you are worthy of taking this time for you, that your story – your journey – is worthy of being told as well.
Harnessing GM to Make Art
Get Messy is the catalyst but ultimately it’s up to you to take that and turn it into art. I wish we could move your hand around the page to get you making, but that’ll miss out on all the fun you’ll experience.
We’ve collated some of the best bits about being a Messian into 21 micro challenges.
All of Self
Self#gmseasonofselfWe as human beings are complex. By focusing on the details of ourselves, we are able to fully appreciate and celebrate them. Process Step One: Digitise your...
SOUL
Self#gmseasonofselfDownload the Season of Self: Soul Sidekick Save this file to your computer, print it out, and keep it inside your journal to spark journal ideas.For each lesson...
BODY
Self#gmseasonofselfDownload the Season of Self: Body Sidekick Save this file to your computer, print it out, and keep it inside your journal to spark journal ideas.For each lesson...
MIND
Self #gmseasonofself Download the Season of Self: Mind Sidekick Save this file to your computer, print it out, and keep it inside your journal to spark journal ideas. For each...
Reflecting on Collaboration
Collaboration#gmseasonofcollaborationFor the Collaboration Wrap Up, Char and Claudette invited a few Messians to share their experience this season, what projects they...
Art as a Must Do Rather than a Nice to Do with Gilly Welch
In this Messy Conversations episode, Jenna chats with Gilly about her creative process and thinking around art journaling. They discuss how art journaling encormpasses everything and how you make it what you want it to be.
Gilly shares how she’s able to be creative every single day due to the freedom given – no boundaries, and no rules. We are all busy but when we put small bits together with pockets of time, it starts to make a huge difference.
Q+A and Ideas for Collaboration
Collaboration#gmseasonofcollaborationThis is a replay of the Collaboration Kick Off Hangout. C +C answered questions about their collaborations and experiences, and a bunch...
No Rules. No Perfection. Just Expression with Karen Price
Nope, Caylee didn't become an American for the new year. That smooth, calming radio voice you're listening to is Get Messy Guardian's @ginnistonik. She's interviewing the marvellous Guardians of the Community to bring even more inspir-action and encouragement to your...
Insight into a successful collaboration
Collaboration#gmseasonofcollaborationBefore you get started, here's some inspir-action from the Color Concepts Collaboration by Char and Claudette.Action StepsBe inspired...
A Girl and her Studio: A Love Story
The best thing to come out of 2020 for me has been my studio. It’s my one true love (sorry T). It’s an old shipping container in an old slaughterhouse. It’s gritty, and raw, it’s hipster as hell, and its mine.
This studio has enabled me to do that weird thing people talk about called “work-life-balance” and for that, I am truly grateful.
I wanted to dedicate an episode of the podcast to it. It has a story. It’s a love story. And to make it worth your while, I’m sharing what a studio space of your own might do for you…
Take Time to Make with Anna Baer
Why is it so difficult to just. make. art? We know how much we love it and how it feeds our soul. We know it makes us better in a multitude of ways, but sometimes even the thing we love the most can feel like a massive effort.
I talk to Anna Baer, aka Olive Green Anna, about this. We talk about her mad skills – in creating art, in getting others to make art, and in pep talking directly to the heart.
I wanted to get together to talk about her latest offering, the Take Time to Make at-home artist residency, mainly because I’m taking part in it. I also sneakily wanted to learn more about her as a human since she lives so close to me.
Our conversation lit me on fire. I loved hearing about how her process and seeing art as wildness in control; a way to see what comes out of her. We speak about destroying your own art in order to make space, removing the preciousness of supplies, making shit art, and where we put our worth as artists.
Grab your supplies and let us keep you company while you create…
Using Art to Narrate Your Journey with Vanessa Oliver-Lloyd
The podcast is back! And we’re jumping right into the deep end. We’re not talking about surface level art here, no no, you can’t really do that with my guest. Vanessa Oliver-Lloyd and I are talking about a way to get around how damn hard it is to put your inner heart into your art. Not just putting your likes and dislikes onto the page, not just your paper ephemera, and not just what you did that day (although all of those are great). We’re discussing V’s favourite technique for telling your story without it being draining.
Cause we all have issues. We all have a story that has led us to the point we’re at. We’re all still on a journey. It may be beautiful, it may be painful, it probably is raw. Art is very good at helping unload that weight. But it’s not necessarily easy to do.
We wanted to talk about the creative process of making an online class, but in true Vanessa fashion, we ended up talking about so much more than that.
I’m glad you could join us.
Finishing with the Unfinished
Finishing#gmseasonoffinishing[wpseo_breadcrumb]Let's finish our journal spreads with unfinished things. I know I have a lot of sketchbooks and journals of pages I didn't finish, forgot about, or...
The Inner Heroine
Move past your inner critic and embark on a journey exploring your Inner Hero(ine) through art. In the Inner Heroine, Vanessa Oliver-Llyod will lead you through using the storytelling trope, the Inner Hero(ine), to tell your complicated, messy, true story. With this trope, you can go beyond your inner critic to express yourself uncensored in your art. The class includes 42 lessons with 50 videos. With techniques based in collage, you can complete an entire altered book with this class and return to these techniques again and again when you need them. Come back to yourself, look within yourself, dig deep into your creativity, and reveal your inner hero/ine because your story is worth telling.
70 Ways to produce more than you consume
The focus of my life currently is this:
PRODUCE MORE. CONSUME LESS.
It’s a bold statement. With so much great stuff on the internet, and with it being so easy to be sucked into Pinterest, Instagram, blogs, and galleries, I’m needing to step back all the more. We consume so many things every day that actively trying to produce more than that is a big feat. There are two ways of doing it: either producing more than a hundred things per day, or drastically reducing how much you consume and making more than that number. I don’t want what I make to be influenced by someone else’s. I don’t want to be comparing how much I make. I don’t want to be making less because I’m too busy staring in awe at someone else’s stuff. I want my Ideas book to be a to do list and I want to get. shit. done.
There are a million reasons why I want to consume less and the number one reason is to produce more. I want to make a lot of stuff. I want to make up for lost time. I want to record all my memories before I lose them. I want to make a whole bunch of rubbish stuff so that I can get to making the good stuff.
And so I made an action plan. Here are the ways that I’m shifting my default to producing instead of consuming.
Connecting with Yourself with Elaine Kiziah
One of the biggest things that art journalers struggle with in their creative practice is the journaling part of art journaling. It’s weird. I know. A while back, I invited a journaling expert to help the Get Messy community with how to find the words. Elaine Kiziah...
Why Art Journaling? with Wendy Solganik
What is it about art journaling that makes it actual magic? Out of all the different ways to be creative, why do we choose art journaling? Why is this the one thing we have stuck with over time, and the one thing that we are constantly falling in love with? In order to answer this question with Wendy Solganik, we need to dissect her entire creative story.
Connecting with Yourself with Elaine Kiziah
Soulful approaches to creating a beautiful life through journaling with Elaine Kiziah.
Connection, Structure and Silliness with Sandra Busby and Tara Roskell
You are going to love this episode. I’m chatting with Tara and Sandra from Kick in the Creatives. And if you don’t know them yet, by the end of this episode, you’re going to fall just as in love with them as I have. And good news for you because they’ve got their own podcast and you can binge listen to them and just take in everything that they have.
Don’t Compromise with Barbara J Graham
Today I chatted with the incredible Barbara J Graham. She is the guest artist for Get Messy’s Season of Less. We spoke a lot about how she creates, how she puts her emotions into her paintings, and how she is able to express the intangible in something tangible. Barbara has a beautiful story about how she came to art and how art was there all along. How art kept knocking at the door no matter how many times she tried to ignore it.
I think that you’ll find that the summary is this episode’s title: don’t compromise. Don’t compromise on your art. Tell the stories of your soul, tell your life, tell your life through moments and moments with art and just show up to the page. Even if you think that it’s not your time, I mean, Barbara was 37 when she went to art school, and that is incredible. That’s an incredible story of resilience and strength and courage. Her art is beautiful and expressive and if Barbara can can do it, you can too. I hope that’s what you take from this episode.
Finding Joy and Flow in Your Creativity with Hannah Fitzgibbon
Oh, Messy artist, I have a treat for you this week on the podcast. Today I spoke with Hannah Fitzgibbon, and let me tell you… I feel like my whole world has changed. My creativity has been rocked, everything… You are going to love Hannah as much as I love her because she is amazing, articulate, and wise. The stuff that we spoke about today has revolutionised everything I know about creativity. All I’ve been doing for the past 6 years is creating, listening to people talk about creating, listening to people’s views on creating, helping others create, helping myself create more. And this is the first time that I’ve heard someone speak about creativity in this way.
In our episode, we talk about joy and flow in our creativity. There’s just so much more to it, and so much more depth to this conversation. We speak about a lot, we cover a lot, and a lot of new ideas or different ways of thinking, but I hope you spend time meditating on each point.
Play us, listen to us while you’re creating, but also write down Hannah’s words and spend some time reflecting on the way she sees things and the way she can help you things. I don’t know exactly what kind of creating you do but I know that Hannah is going to be great for it.
Expressive Arts Quest
An adventurous 6 week journey focused on art journaling your personal creativity, expressive arts style.
If you’re feeling frozen and overwhelmed
I recently received an email from Kate, who had a problem. I could relate and wanted to help. Maybe you need to hear this too.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed with how many options you have, if you’re feeling stuck creatively, or if you’re a perfectionist and you’re super hard on yourself…. this episode is my letter to you. Here’s what to do.
And of course it’s actionable.
Expressive Arts: Get Uncomfortable
Get uncomfortable, nudge your creative process, think and feel about your art making…
Expressive Arts: Bust Our of Your Process
Bust out of your creative personal process. Yikes!
Journaling Exercise: What do you need more of?
More#gmseasonofmoreWe're going to take our art to the next, deeper, level today. Grab a journal and pen and spend some time answering these four questions: What was the process of...
Art for Excitement and Yumminess with Connie Solera
Today’s episode is a good one. You’re gonna love it. I know you’re gonna love it because it has Connie Solera in it. And Connie has a heart of gold. She’s a great teacher. She’s an incredible artist and I feel like she was put on this earth just to make everyone else better artists – she’s wonderful. Connie is also the guest artist for the season at Get Messy. And if you’re a Messian, and you’ve watched her workshop, you’ll know what I’m talking about. She’s amazing. She’ll make you amazing. Just listen to this chat that I have with her and I dare you to not run to your art journal.
How to Find Your Style with Meg McCaskill
Today I am chatting with the beautiful, the kind, the lovely Megan McCaskill. She has a beautiful accent, a beautiful heart and beautiful journals to match. It was a completely spontaneous interview chat thing just as I was heading off to the train station for my mom but I hope that you create as we chat. I love Meg, I know that you are going to love her.
Expressive Arts: Explore Your Process
A workshop by Michele to explore your personal creative process and what you are holding in.
Bonus – The Witch’s Garden
Welcome to the bonus lesson where we will stretch and blend and reimagine the symbols and techniques we have created so far. The idea for this bonus spread is to use all of the elements of the first four lessons to create an all-encompassing art journal spread. This is how I usually work: my art process is all about seeing and showing connections. The theme for these pages is the witch’s garden where all sorts of amazing things flourish. What would you like to have in your garden? What will you feed and nourish and what weeds will you take out? This is your chance to work intuitively and tie together all the totems that you have identified throughout this class.
The life changing magic of morning pages
Morning pages are going to change your life. Morning pages are going to give you better art, better relationships, better mental health and a clear head. In this episode, I’m going to chat about how I make them work for me and give you an exact to do list on how you can make them work for you, how you can rock them, how you can make your life rock… all due to morning pages.
The Magic of a Sketchbook with Karen Abend
Once again I am freaking excited about this week’s guest on the podcast. This week it’s the beautiful Karen Abend. She has a heart of gold and I’m really excited about our chat today.
In this episode we discuss the absolute magic of sketchbooks. We discuss how sketchbooks are the root of everything creative, no matter what you call them – sketchbook, art journal, notebook, junk journal… all of those good things.
I hope you play this while you are creating in your sketchbook, your art journal, whatever you call it. Let’s all create together.
Real life is what makes art with Johanna Clough
You’re putting your life into it so that’s what makes it something special. That’s what makes you appreciate it and other people as well. It really doesn’t matter what you use and it’s funny to say that because I make journals and I’m very passionate about it because...
Real life is what makes the art what it is
You’re putting your life into it so that’s what makes it something special.
A look at Johanna’s pages – identifying the 5 elements
A look into some of my personal journal pages. We identify the elements I use together and look into the individual roles of each, what they bring to the page, how they bring it to the page and where they stem from.
5 elements to meaningful journal pages
This workshop gives you a run down of 5 simple things to strive to include in your journal pages to ensure you are filling them with meaning, purpose, story telling and emotion. How to successfully encapsulate the significance of a moment no matter how small it may be.
Your Truth is Enough with Mou Saha
Mou is the guest artist for Get Messy’s Season of Belonging and she is an absolute zen queen. We talk about her journey, how she created belonging within her art, how she tells her truth, and her journey to realising that she is enough.
Inspir-action from Mou
Belonging#gmseasonofbelongingPage through Mou's journals and fill your inspiration well. Transcript (this transcript is automatically generated and is sure to contain errors....
036 Affirmation
Season guest artist Connie Solera embraces showing up to your art journal with honesty, vulnerability, and fearlessness in the Season of Affirmation. Through intuitive painting, Connie helps you embrace every mark you make as a part of a conversation and to follow the first ideas, gut reactions, and little whispers that won’t leave you alone. Hold your art journals close to your heart as a safe sanctuary to affirm all the feels you are feeling, all the fears you are experiencing, and all the hope you can muster for a brighter future ahead.
037 More
Lauren Hooper returns for the Season of More. With Lauren as your guide, you will identify what you need more of in your life and create artful reminders that encourage you to keep seeking what you need more of. Lauren also shows you how to create depth in your art journal pages with layered watercolours. Whether you want to explore art maximalism or more in your life in a broader sense, the Season of More gives you the space to do so.
038 Less
A natural partner to the Season of More is the Season of Less. There is space for both of these seasons in our lives, whether we are art minimalists or art maximalists. Guest artist, Barbara J. Graham, is a full time abstract expressionist painter who draws inspiration from the joy of the present moment. With Graham as your guide, you will learn how to use colour and mark making to convey emotion and create massive impact with minimal resources. Explore the full possible range of a limited colour palette and experiment with mark making. Then learn how to pull it all together in your art journal.
039 X
Get Messy is made up of YOU. You are what makes Get Messy, and this season is all about your personal art journey. What is X? It’s the independent variable, the Great Unknown, the thing that you need to find. The Season of X invites you to find your very own X. We reverse engineered the seasons, threw structure out of the window, and leaned on each other to build a season that reflected our imperfect, messy community. Download and follow along with the Sidekick and follow along to find your X.
040 Bloom
The Season of Bloom invites you to let go of ideas of perfection and deconstruct conceptions of beauty. Our wonderful guest for the season is Francisca Nunes of heArt makes who combines colour and nature to explore intuitive expression. For this season, you will create a Bloom Book that is testimony to the passage of time. Learn how to boil paper to create texture and play with colours, shades, and lines to create paper that you will use as collage elements inside your Bloom Book.
041 Steven
Join the kookiest Get Messy season yet – the Season of Steven where guest artist and Get Messy founder Caylee shows you how to transform inspiration into action. Using the words of writer Steven Pressfield, Caylee shows you how to fill an entire art journal. Follow along by choosing your own “Steven,” then selecting, prepping, and processing an altered book. Fill it up with inspiring quotes and words with Caylee’s lettering tips and tricks, including “imperfect brush lettering,” stencils and script, typewriter fonts, stamping, alpha stickers (even when you run out of those important vowels), and more.
042 Spark
Part of Get Messy’s job is to help cultivate the magic in you. For the Season of Spark, we’re going to harness your magic, turn it into a little spark, and allow it to burst into flames. Guest artist Katrina (or Mercurial Milk as she is known on Instagram) shows you how to create a ‘scene’ or a full painting spanning two pages or a spread in your art journal. She then shares her magic with you so that you can spark your own art journaling magic.
043 Focus
Get Messy encourages you to take your artistic spark and focus it into a regular practice that expresses who you are. For the Season of Focus, guest artist Maria Zaida shows you how she overcame her art journaling intimidation through an intuitive approach to building a layered spread from start to finish in a handmade journal. Learn how to incorporate your favourite elements in an art journal spread as Maria takes you through a step by step process for creating a spread that merges together her love of florals and black and white designs.
044 Finishing
Get Messy begins and ends with you. It’s the community of people with a common goal of expressing themselves through art journaling that makes Get Messy unique. For the Season of Finishing, guest artist, Lynissa Hayes show you how to bind an easy envelope pocket journal that adapts to your workflow and is never unfinished. You’ll learn how to finish art journal spreads with the unfinished, and how to collate these unfinished bits and search for inspiration and edging closer to the end results. And then! Oh beautiful Messy Artist, it’s time to include yourself in your journal. Your beautiful, unfinished self. Because in the end, all our journals are is: who we are.
034 Belonging
Get Messy has art, tutorials, and a crazy amount of inspiration all wrapped in love and community. At each part of Get Messy is the opportunity to make a friend, to be a friend, to be kind, and to receive kindness. In the Season of Belonging, Mou Saha explores the internal need for true belonging. Along with a host of creative prompts and catalysts to kickstart your creating, you can join Mou’s workshops on monoprinting and lettering. Mou guides you through her process for creating a monoprinted page. Then, you’ll turn your monoprinted pages into lettering with Mou’s signature messy technique.
035 Truth
Part of belonging to this incredible community is that we are seen. Not just the bits of ourselves that we curate for social media, but our true authentic selves. There is a shared vulnerability that is respected among Messians, which is why for the Season of Truth, we encourage you to explore your truth, speak your truth, and be vulnerable in your journal. Guest artist Johanna Clough walks you through five simple things to strive to include in your journal pages to ensure you are filling them with meaning, purpose, storytelling, and emotion.
Quieten the Itty-Bitty-Shitty Committee
Holly guides you through mindful art practice to go from unkind self words to positive affirmations.
Be Intentional About your Artist Journey with Cindy Jay and Debbie Bamberger
Every year, Get Messy hosts a workshop on reflecting back on the year, and creating intentions for the year ahead. This year we have two very special guests. Print out the workbook, grab a pen and watch the video below where Debbie, Cindy, and Caylee walk you through reflecting on 2019 and planning for 2020.
Cindy Jay and Debbie Bamberger are prolific artists with big hearts. I sat down with them to reflect on our 2019 years in art, and to create intentions for 2020. This is an informal episode where friends chat and laugh, but one with so many takeaways from these wise women.
Join us to reflect on your year and plan for (another) creatively fueled year.
Walking the 5 Paths of Journaling with Rebecca Kochenderfer
In this episode, I chat to Rebecca Kochenderfer, the founder of Journaling.com and a lifetime journaler. Rebecca shares her experiences, approach, and tips surrounding the practise for both business and personal life. She walks us through the five paths of journaling, effects on our well-being and methods of journaling.
How to Art with Intention with Amy Maricle
In this podcast, I chat to Amy Maricle about art with intention. Amy shares some of her most profound views on how to become more aware and intentional in your art practice. We discuss:
what it means to be mindful,
how mindfulness changes your art,
being zen about thinking big and letting go,
the inner critic,
Amy’s weaknesses,
and how to be an artist
As always, Amy is just bursting with insane wisdom.
121 Hours: How to build an art habit
Habit 20 minutes a day will build an art habit. Start today!Supplies paper paint glue magazines gelli plate scissors tape sewing supplies friends to cheer you on and for whom you...
How to maintain a creative habit with Anika Lacerte
In this podcast, I chat to Anika Lacerte about creative habit. As someone who is currently on her 9th 100 day project, Anika is kind of an expert at it. She shares her top 16 ways for fitting art into your life every single freaking day. Scroll down to download the PDF and keep it with you to refer back to.
Reuse the “meh”: Giving art a second life
Habit Art as a habit is great! But creating lots of art also means you'll create some you're not happy with. With these ideas, transform old art into something new & beautiful!...
Inspiration is not real
Inspiration does not exist. It’s a lie. Inspiration is not real. True inspiration is the kind that leads to immediate action. Inspiration that leads to nothing tangible is… nothing.
There’s something tangible standing between an idea and something being realised.
That something is YOU.
Creating Art Beyond Yourself with Morgan Harper Nichols
In this episode of the podcast, I was awed by Morgan Harper Nichols. Yup, that’s right. *The* Morgan Harper Nichols. MHN and I talk about how selflessness is important to her artistic process. How she finds purpose in her art by creating beyond herself. As someone who created an entire life and business around creative community, this chat rocked my world.
How I went from lazy and passive to deliberate and goal driven
Let’s officially kick off the podcast with my story and the reason I’m here.
The Get Messy Podcast
Making art should be easy. Turn up the music, select your arty weapons of choice, crack your knuckles and then, well, make art. But let’s be honest: Art is messy. (Heck, life is messy!) So even though it’s so important to you to be an artist and create art regularly...
The Voice of this Moment: Using Journaling to Find Meaning and Hope
Connect with your deepest self in your journal, and discover a vantage point on the current crisis that offers meaning and hope.
033 Home
The Season of Home features guest artist Char Derouin who will help you explore your feelings of belonging, heritage, and home through junk journaling. Char walks you through her process for making junk journals, including how she gathers and prepares supplies for creating. She also shows you how to make staggered junk journals and paper bag junk journals. So settle in and get comfortable and explore what home means to you.
Using Commonplace Books as a Weapon Against Perfectionism
Failure The last time I counted back to see how long I’ve been keeping commonplace books, I thought it’d been about twelves years or so, but since then I’ve found...
Non creative books that help your art
We all love to read about creativity, fill our homes with beautiful giant books with art photos, patterns, and photography in them. These books are as beautiful as they are educational. But living a creative life as an artist begs for more depth and inner exploration,...
2.1 Who Am I?
So far, we’ve talked a lot about the process of becoming a mother, and what that was like for you. But that’s actually the shortest part of the story. What comes next, is the rest of your life. No matter what happens to you from now on, you are a mother. It's...
1.3 And Then There Was You
Arrival Few of us have days in our lives that are more memorable than when our babies came into our worlds. For the majority of us it’s a story that involves giving birth, though for adoptive and non-birth parents it’s still an unforgettable, life-altering event.Write...
Class Kit + Workbook
Workbook + Digital KitDownload these files and save them to your computer. Print them out and use them in your journal for this class or for other projects. Copyright © Caylee Greyvenstein and Esther Smith. All files are for personal use only. You may not distribute...
1.2 Suddenly Real
While the sperm-meets-egg biology of conception is universal, the process of creating our babies is different for everyone. Some of us fall pregnant easily, and some of us struggle. Some of us are biologically linked to our kids, while others adopt, or are the other...
Closing Thoughts
Here's a look at our completed journals...
1.1 Life Before
It might be hard to remember right now, but before you were a mother, you were you. There’s nothing like having a baby to completely turn your world upside down, and make you feel like your identity got shattered in the turning. All of a sudden you’re a shuffling,...
2.3 Self Care
So we’ve looked at who you were and who you’re becoming, and now it’s time to think about practical ways of taking care of you moving forward. Now that your life is busier and fuller than ever, it’s important that you’re cared for and supported as much as humanly...
2.2 Loving Mama
We’ve talked about how motherhood can change the parts of you that existed before, and how you can reconnect with those in your current life. Now it’s time to identify the things that were born in you when your child became yours. The new, awesome, scary, surprising...
Level Up
What if you were the type of person to get things done? Like big, life-changing things? Level Up is the toolkit you need to start getting your creative work done. Packed with 20 lessons presented in a variety of ways to suit your needs, Level Up provides action steps to get you doing, templates and printables to guide you, and a private community to hold you accountable. Learn to fight comparisonitis (comparing your work to others’ and feeling like it doesn’t measure up) and perfectionism, to work through resistance and distractions, and to get doing and keep doing. Level Up is for the person living a creative life – artists, dabblers, crafters, Etsy shop owners, bloggers, creative entrepreneurs, and those who value creativity in whatever form it manifests.
Creator Incubator – Classes
30 days to creating your first online art class
Part 3 – Elemental Magic
Humans are in and of this world, we interact with it; there is an exchange of energy. This is one of the first principles we learn in Anthropology and we sometimes forget this. We are the product of our environment, we are linked to it. Elemental magic encompasses those symbols, seen and unseen, that surround us.
Part 2 – Archetypes
Totems > Part 2 From Vocabulary.com: “In the psychology of Carl Jung, an archetype is an inherited pattern of thought derived from the past experience of the whole race...
Part 1 – Spirit Animals
Why do you need a Spirit Animal? What is the point? Why can’t a quiz on Buzzfeed tell you the answer? A Spirit Animal embodies a trait or a quality that you have in your personality or that you would like to invite into your art journal. Take the time to meditate on this, try to focus on a part of you that you like – or something that you lack – and that you would want to symbolise through an animal. You give the meaning to that animal because it is your Spirit Animal.
Closing Thoughts
Thank you for allowing me to show you a little bit of my world and my artistic landscape. It has been a privilege for me to do so. I hope that you feel inspired to search for your personal symbols and to invite them into your heart and your art. I would love to see your pages, please post them in the forums and anywhere else on social media where you lurk.
Welcome
Totems is the course that will walk you through finding your personal symbols and translating them into your art journal pages.
Part 4 – Claiming the Female
Women’s lives and stories have been interpreted through the masculine lens for a long time. The idea of the witch came out of men being afraid of the knowledge that certain women had. They wanted to control women and so invented this idea of witchcraft as something to be afraid of and repress. And I would like this lesson to be about not being embarrassed to tap into that shared knowledge and history. To acknowledge that we are women and that we participate in society and matter just as much as anyone else. I want women to be proud of this and to be intentional in our art and lives.
Lesson 6 – Peace
Tthoughts about the idea of inner peace and how we seek it.
Lesson 5 – Wonder and Surprise
Wonder isn’t something that necessarily springs to mind when we’re thinking about all the different emotions we experience, but it’s a unique one, and really worth spending some time with.
Lesson 4 – Anger and Rage
Allowing yourself the space to feel anger, and finding a vent for it in your art journal.
Lesson 3 – Sadness and Grief
Our art journals can be the perfect places to “art it out” when we’re feeling sad. Sadness can be a scary emotion, and one we shy away from, but if we can allow ourselves to sit with sadness from time to time, it can be good for us.
Lesson 2 – Joy and Happiness
This lesson is about connecting with happiness in our art journals. In the video I’ll introduce you to this idea, and to an artist whose work inspires me to create bright, joyful pieces of my own.
025 Celebration
The Season of Celebration celebrates the Get Messy community of artists who guide you through this season. They share tips for how to “sneak around” the fear of imperfection and make yourself accountable to a daily art practice, as well as using the Get Messy seasons to explore a particular theme and develop your own style. Tutorials include transforming your mood with art journaling, creating a “use it up” journal for leftover paints and paper bits, exploring shape and form to represent different emotions, releasing your inner child through fingerpainting, using found materials, and documenting your day.
027 Failure
If perfectionism is what’s stopping you from making art that you love, then join the Season of Failure. Hosted by Get Messy Fairy Artmother, Caylee Grey takes you through a 5 step process to “eff comparison,” dance naked in perfection’s face, and make sweet, sweet (imperfect) art in your art journal. Learn to embrace failure with a failure tracker and even a failure bingo. Transform imposter syndrome into a trickster goddess with Emily Mulrony, and don’t miss Brandi Kincaid’s tutorial on using commonplace books as weapons against perfectionism.
005 Words
The “journaling” part of art journaling is all about words, which is why in this season, we explore the power of words. We begin with showing you how to choose and prepare an altered book for art journaling. Then explore unique ways you can play with altered books using “peek through” pages, creating dynamic collages, and embracing your own handwriting via handlettered phrases and quotes. For this season, prioritize creating and put some words, any words onto a page.
001 Love
The first official season of Get Messy, the Season of Love celebrates love in all its forms. Featuring a variety of artists and their unique perspectives, the Season of Love includes tutorials for playing with washi tape, incorporating everyday items like paper towels, creating your own embellishments, and using ephemera in your art journaling. You don’t want to miss the tutorial on how to get started creating with Get Messy prompts.
007 Happy
We all need a little more happy in our lives. Packed full of tutorials and ideas for happiness, the Season of Happy explores the emotions of colour with colour psychology and colour-based art pages. See how to make your art journal pages truly unique by creating your own stencils and making your own backgrounds with gelli plates. Learn how to incorporate photos in your art journal for unexpected results and vintage botanicals to create floral collages. Wrap up your art journal happiness with a tutorial on how to create an accordion journal.
020 Play
For the Season of Play, leave behind self doubt and judgement and dive headfirst into creative play. Make your own rotating stamps and use junk drawer items to make marks in your art journal. Revisit your childhood by creating paper dolls with movable parts and turning scribbles into bright, fun art journal pages. Play the roll the art dice game and go on a scavenger hunt in your neighborhood for art journal inspiration. Transform yourself into a superhero in your own comic. This season features a collaboration with Sketchbook Skool, Danny Gregory and Koosje Koene, who show you a zillion ways to fill a sketchbook.