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Get Messy is an online art journaling school that teaches you to cultivate your creativity. Without perfection.

We’d love for you to join us. 

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The best books for art journalers

The best books for art journalers

Books are awesome. I am a massive book nerd. My interior design style is “books and plants”. My love for books is part of the reason I love art journaling – I get to create my own library of art. I get to fill my bookshelves with the tangible containers of my own...

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20 of the best books on journaling

20 of the best books on journaling

I've been art journaling for eight years, but it was only two years ago that I've fallen for written journaling. And man, have I fallen hard. My journaling journey For a long time, art journaling helped me say everything that I couldn't say with words. As Georgia...

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How to embrace a new season in your art

How to embrace a new season in your art

Every month at Get Messy, we start a new season. Get Messy Seasons are a focused exploration of creating according to a theme. Filled with tutorials, prompts, and catalysts for you to learn and love. In the same way that we go through seasons of our life, we also go...

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52 Ideas for Starting a New Art Journal

52 Ideas for Starting a New Art Journal

The main thing that stopped me from keeping a journal in the past was fear of the blank page. Specifically, fear of the very first blank page. My initial way of dealing that fear was to simply keep the first page blank, turn the page, and make the art. It's not a bad...

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How to bind a three hole pamphlet stitch

How to bind a three hole pamphlet stitch

This is a lesson from Basic Bookbinding. Whatever your inner artist needs to create, build yourself the perfect handbound book with this course to capture all of your beautiful art and precious words. In Basic Bookbinding, you will learn how to bind four different...

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Abbey Sy expresses herself on paper

Abbey Sy expresses herself on paper

Artist SpotlightWhat is art journaling to you? Art journaling to me is all about expressing yourself on paper; regardless of what medium and purpose and style. Ultimately, these little decisions of materials being used, styles and layouts being...

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The mess makes for the BEST art

The mess makes for the BEST art

I'm currently reading two books - ​Pema Chödrön's Start Where You Are​: A Guide to Compassionate Living and ​Mind Management, Not Time Management: Productivity When Creativity Matters by David Kadavy​ These books are helping me journey through the theme we're...

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When you can’t create…

When you can’t create…

I’ve been sick for the past four months. Nothing serious, just a round of puking, a few colds, and like so many of us, I managed to catch corona. It’s been an extended period of lying on the couch doing nothing - sometimes cuddling a four-year-old, and sometimes...

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Shemi Dixon experiments without restraint

Shemi Dixon experiments without restraint

Artist SpotlightWhat is art journaling to you? It helps me to exercise my creative muscles and idea. Art journal for me is more process-driven. I love to create meaningful pages. Art journaling allows me to experiment with my creativity in a way that...

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The Art of Book Writing with Misty Granade

The Art of Book Writing with Misty Granade

When I started art journaling, I started because I wanted to be an artist. But, step one to being an artist is making art. It's the same for writing a book. Step one to writing a book is actually sitting down and writing. The absolute Queen of Process, The Queen of...

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Routine vs. Spontinaeity with Sarah Gardner

Routine vs. Spontinaeity with Sarah Gardner

Sarah and I chat about the way she sees creativity - a place that has space for both structure and chaos. We talk about the harmony of her left and right brain sides of her brain. Creativity is impossible unless you're willing to embrace uncertainty. You have to widen...

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Being an Artist vs. Just Making Art

Being an Artist vs. Just Making Art

I believe that anyone can make art but not everyone can be an artist. I know that the common narrative is that everyone can be an artist, however, I disagree with that. Well. Slightly. Let me explain... For some, capital A Artist is a stifling term. It renders them...

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Bookcast Series 2: It’s All About the Proposal

Bookcast Series 2: It’s All About the Proposal

The proposal was the first official task to writing my book. It's also what ended up being my compass and my rock. It was a mammoth task, but it was also easy? Why? Because I had already done the work... the year before in a very deep way and also every single year...

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Tools Over Rules with Laurel Greenfield

Tools Over Rules with Laurel Greenfield

I have a massive girlcrush on Laurel. If you've ever struggled to create art that looks like the art going on in your head, then you're going to discover your newest girlcrush too. If you're a food person, same thing. Hell, if you are a living, breathing, creative,...

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How to Fill a Travel Journal

How to Fill a Travel Journal

Whether you're exploring a new country or your own backyard, here are practical tips on how to travel like an artist rather than a tourist. Podcast Show Notes We discuss: how to fill up a travel journal - whether you're away from home or just around the neighbourhood...

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Bookcast Series #1: The Beginning – I Wrote a Book!

Bookcast Series #1: The Beginning – I Wrote a Book!

Life is experienced in moments. Some of these moments hold more weight. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I can feel the weight of some moments. There are certain moments in my life that I knew while they were happening that they would change everything. Bookcast...

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How to make art when you have no time

How to make art when you have no time

So much creative energy, so little time. Somehow, twenty-four hours in a day never seems like enough to do all of those things we have to do, let alone those things that we really want to do ... and “not having enough time” is without a doubt one of the top excuses...

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Seven art myths we can kick to the curb

Seven art myths we can kick to the curb

The world is full of myths about art. Some good, some bad. These myths float around, getting passed from person to person and perpetuating the way that art is perceived and talked about. Many of these ideas are not only inaccurate; they’re damaging to artists and the...

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How to create when you have zero ideas

How to create when you have zero ideas

Want to make art but have no clue how to get started? Perhaps you know these symptoms all too well: You have the aching feeling inside of you that comes from not making, but it’s accompanied that pesky voice that tells you that there’s no point. You have zero ideas...

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Stop trying to find your style

Stop trying to find your style

As artists and creatives, we can become obsessed by the notion of style. Style defines our work and gives us a way of describing our art to others. We are told invariably that style is everything: that having a recognisable style will help us to sell more work and gain more followers on Instagram. Despite the tempting potential upshots of having a neatly definable style, however, I want to propose that style is not the be all and end all. Here’s why you should stop trying to find your style…or at least flip the idea on its head a little bit.

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It’s time for us to go back to our roots.

It’s time for us to go back to our roots.

My dear beautiful, beautiful Messy Artist It’s time for us to go back to our roots.  Get Messy has always been a place that evolves and adapts and fits around your life rather than the other way around. It’s never been a place where you have to change to be a part of...

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Artist Dates: Everything you need to know

Artist Dates: Everything you need to know

Floating around in the art world, you may have heard of the term Artist Date. Maybe more than once. Maybe only about one-hundred-and-thirty-seven times. Stemming from Julia Cameron's seminal book, The Artist’s Way, artist dates are a tried and tested way of connecting...

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6 Lessons from ‘Do the Work’ by Steven Pressfield – and how to apply them to your art making

6 Lessons from ‘Do the Work’ by Steven Pressfield – and how to apply them to your art making

If you’re part of the Get Messy community, you have almost definitely heard of Steven Pressfield. His book, Do the Work, lays out the nuts and bolts of getting creative work done. I was recently lent the book by a friend and rocketed through it in about two hours…. Yes, it’s only a short book, but yes, it’s also that good. And yes, I would highly recommend that you read it. But in order to pass on some of its wisdom before it’s in your hot little hands, here are 6 important lessons that I learned from Do the Work – and how to apply them to your art-making.

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A Spa for Your Creative Soul with Shay Kent

A Spa for Your Creative Soul with Shay Kent

Shay is so full of wisdom and kindness, and she encourages that you create the same within yourself too. After hearing a testimonial about her class, that it was “like a spa for your creative soul”, I knew I had to pick her brain. Grab your supplies and listen while...

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How to Create a Scraps Diary

How to Create a Scraps Diary

In this video, Autumn Moon shares what exactly a Scraps Diary is about. She pages through her Diary and shares the spirit behind it, the guidelines, the essence, and what it means to her. Video Transcript Please note that this transcript has been automagically...

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Follow Your Curiosity with Pete DeMarco

Follow Your Curiosity with Pete DeMarco

I had never thought of photography as art. I had always thought it was just for logical people following a very precise way of doing things. It felt like the opposite of creativity to me. Enter Pete. Pete sees creativity in a way not unlike my own - as a looping...

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The Joy of Ripping Paper

The Joy of Ripping Paper

Type “ripped paper” into Google and you’ll be delivered almost 65 million results, with the first few pages pretty much solely taken up by Pinterest pics and downloadable ripped paper PNGs. Ok, we got it, the world is pretty into it. And so am I: ever since I can...

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Dance Naked in Perfection’s Face with T Grey

Dance Naked in Perfection’s Face with T Grey

Every guest I have on the podcast is my favourite, but this is my favourite favourite and most exciting. It's someone who excites me every day. My husband, T Grey. We're talking about what it's like being on the other side of someone who lives life creatively. We get...

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In a creative rut? Why more art supplies are not the answer

In a creative rut? Why more art supplies are not the answer

When stuck in a creative rut, buying new art supplies can seem like a reasonable way to go about getting out of it. After all, we all know that art stores (and to a lesser extent, their online equivalent) are magical places; not only full of…uhh, art supplies, but allure and promise and potential. I’m here to tell you to hold your horses. Back up a little. Here’s why stocking up on more art supplies is not the answer.

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How to Collaborate with Other Artists

How to Collaborate with Other Artists

The Get Messy Season of Collaboration was in January. But community continues to be a Big Deal to us Messy Artists.

If you’ve ever experienced a creative drought, you’ll know the impact that your creative family can have on helping you through it, giving tips on finding the other side, and making you feel less alone in your struggle.
If you’ve ever experienced a creative high, you’ll know how much higher it feels when you share your wins and celebrate your creative flow with others.

In this episode of the Get Messy podcast, I’m calling on the combined knowledge of a small group of Messians. Traci and Meghan, Jenna and Dawn, and Sarah and Melenia share what they learned and what they gained from their creative connection during Get Messy’s Season of Collaboration.

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7 ways to feel less alone as a creative

7 ways to feel less alone as a creative

The life of a creative can be lonely. And let’s face it: whether we identify as creatives or not, we all know what this pretty rubbish state of being feels like. As humans, we’re hard-wired for connection: we long to be understood by others, we long for relationships with people with whom we can go through our struggles and celebrate life’s wins. This blog post presents 7 ways towards feeling less alone as a creative. And the best part is – perhaps counter-intuitively – many of these can be done without interacting with a single other human in real time.

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Collaboration for Art and Heart with Char + Claudette

Collaboration for Art and Heart with Char + Claudette

For the month of January, we focused on creative collaboration at Get Messy. Claudette Hasenjager and Char DeRouin led the way to nurture a safe space for artists to find their creative soul mate. For just the month, or for beyond. This excitement about creative...

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Art as a Must Do Rather than a Nice to Do with Gilly Welch

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.

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Creating After a Drought, Art Meditation, and other Questions

Creating After a Drought, Art Meditation, and other Questions

This is an AMA (Ask Me Anything) episode, where you’re the one who asks me anything and I’m the one who answers. We cover a host of topics, mostly about supplies and where I’m at in my creative practice.

I share my favourite tools, classes, and resources for making art.

I discuss themes I’m processing through art (now and always), coming back to art after a creative drought, and a new way I’m merging meditation with creation.

A host of miscellaneous questions and answers.

And an in depth look at my love for white hair and #ff66cc.

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A Girl and her Studio: A Love Story

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… 

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Take Time to Make with Anna Baer

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… 

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Using Art to Narrate Your Journey with Vanessa Oliver-Lloyd

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.

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70 Ways to produce more than you consume

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.

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Connecting with Yourself with Elaine Kiziah

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...

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Why Art Journaling? with Wendy Solganik

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.

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Connection, Structure and Silliness with Sandra Busby and Tara Roskell

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.

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