Creating Meaning with Lisa Engelbrecht & Quinn McDonald

It's the first week of the year and I can already feel it whizzing by. Can you?

I've been gathering sticks, my writing instruments, and inks as I prepare myself to learn from two great teachers this month: Lisa Engelbrecht and Quinn McDonald.

As much as I love to lead and facilitate and teach, I also love to learn. Maybe I love it more. To soak in methods, wisdom, and perspectives from teachers who have so much to offer.

If you are in the southern California area, I hope you'll consider joining me as we learn from these two amazing teachers who will get us to creatively and artistically make marks, and make meaning.

• To learn more about Lisa's Intention Plaques & Sticks class, click here.

• To learn more about Quinn's One-Sentence Journaling class, click here.

See you in the studio. :)

Studio CRESCENDOh :: NEW! Paint & Doodle School with Jennifer Mercede

Yes, it's true. Painter and doodler extraordinaire Jennifer Mercede will be debuting her first intensive 2-day workshop in Studio CRESCENDOh in 2012.

Jennifer is a Portland-based artist who has been creating for many years, and growing a steady and enthusiastic following in the process. During the two-day class, she will teach her methods of using acrylic paints, colored pencils, markers, ball point pen and scraping tools as she inspires us to create from the "on the phone zone" as we loosen up, draw fast, paint fast, and have a whole lot of fun.

The workshop will take place March 3-4, 2012 in Studio CRESCENDOh. All details can be found here.

Are you ready to paint and doodle in 2012? Hope you'll join me and Jennifer for what will be an unforgetable experience.

See you in Studio CRESCENDOh.

Oh Soooooo FUN!

Today was our Oh So Cozy class. And Oh ... it was Soooo FUN! Here's Tracy teaching everyone how to make an embroidered cup cozy ...

 Here's Cynthia teaching everyone how to make neck cozies ...

And here are the apples that we used as I taught everyone how to make crocheted apple cozies.

It was a wonderful day as we laughed, created, made new friends ...

including the cutest little friend of all: this beautiful baby who was such a good girl, allowing her mom to get her craft on.

We will be offering more classes in the Oh So series in the coming weeks so I hope you'll check back and visit our studio calendar offerings here.

Happy creating. :)

NEW Online Class :: The Keys to Publishing & Building Creative Momentum

I'm excited to announce my NEW online class for 2012. It's regarding the topic that I get approached to talk about more than any other topic. The topic of how to get published ... in books, magazines, and online. Every time I delve into these conversations with creative people, there are two truths that I come away with:

• The nuts and bolts of how to get published ... how to develop a proposal, how to make a pitch, and how to follow up with the details to make it happen ... these nuts and bolts are the easy part.
• Being clear about the heart of what you want to publish, knowing your intent for wanting to be published, and having the discipline to work on that heart and intent in a committed and consistent basis is the hard part.

In this course, we will examine both the heart of what you want to share with the creative world in terms of what you create, and demystify the process of sharing your work through publications. We will also discuss how to leverage other "spokes of the creative wheel" in terms of teaching, selling, and relationship building to develop and strengthen your overall creative momentum.

We will also learn a dramatic lesson about the process of letting go and coping with worst case scenarios. We'll dig deep, think critically and prepare our strategies in three highly focused weeks of curriculum that will remain available for you to review again and again throughout the entire 2012 in The Creative Lab.

Classes begin January 23rd. Cost is $48. Enrollment is open now right here.

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Jenny is author and packager of numerous art and crafting books. Discover her books to date here.

Jenny is founder and publisher of www.crescendoh.com, and former Editor-in-Chief of Somerset Studio and its many sister magazines. For her leadership in publishing, Jenny was recognized by Folio magazine as one of the top 40 leaders within the publishing industry.  

You're Invited :: Creative Pilgrimage Launch Party on January 7th!

Creative Pilgrimage is here!

And it's gorgeous. It is a book filled with methods taught by incredible artists including Alisa ...

and Flora ...

and Maya ...

and Stephanie ...

as well as Sarah, Mary Beth, Lisa, Carla, Mati Rose, Julie, Tracie Lyn, Alma, Roxanne, and Heather.

And sneak peeks into some of the most inspiring art gatherings across the nation including Squam Art Workshops, The Makerie, Artfest, An Artful Journey, Artistic Bliss, Valley Ridge, Art & Soul, and Silver Bella

This book will be on bookshelves January 1, 2012.

To celebrate, Studio CRESCENDOh will be hosting a launch party for Creative Pilgrimage on Saturday, January 7th, from 7-9PM. This is the first Saturday of the month where the entire artist village will come alive with lots of art studios, galleries, and restaurants open and ready for you. Special guests at the launch party will be:

• ALISA BURKE ... who will be demonstrating her mixed media and sewing techniques ... and having a limited number of copies of her beautiful SEW WILD book on hand for sale.

• STEPHANIE JONES RUBIANO ... who will be demonstrating her mixed media techniuqes ... and having a limited number of her one-of-a-kind creations for sale.

And of course Alisa, Stephanie, and yours truly will be on hand with a limited number of copies of Creative Pilgrimage to sign.

This is a FREE event. Please RSVP to studio@crescendoh.com and view our studio calendar and policies here.

It's time to party. See you in the studio! :)

EDIT: This just in ... lovely and talented Kim Allistair Caldwell, founder of the incredible Artistic Bliss events (featured in Creative Pilgrimage) will be a special guest at our launch party ... available to sign copies of CP along with Alisa and Stephanie. Kim will also offer a fun Make & Take and provide information on her upcoming event: Affaire at Tiffany's. Thanks, Kim!

NEW Class :: Oh So Cozy :: Make 3+ Unique Holiday Gifts

I was recently talking with my friends Cynthia and Tracy about how fun it would be to gather with a creative group and learn how to make super cute projects, just in time for the holidays.

This idea is what inspired us to come up with our brand new class titled Oh So Cozy ... a class where you'll learn how to make three different types of cozies: one for an apple, another for the neck, and a third one for the cup.

The apple cozy will be crocheted with hemp yarn. All you need to bring is a crochet hook. Everything else will be provided. Trust me, once you get the hang of it, you'll want to crochet an apple cozy to stuff into every family member's stocking. This is the cozy that I will teach.

The neck cozy will be made by cutting up old t-shirts (either from your closet or larger ones that you pick up from the thrift store). Cynthia will be teaching how to make this cozy and she will actually provide instructions on how to make two versions. The one shown above is a completely no-sew version and the one shown below is the very popular mobius version, also known as the Infinity Scarf. You may even have enough time to make both! Cynthia will also teach how to make the rolled roses attachment that can be worn with either cozy.

The cup cozy will be made by taking fabric scraps from our stash and doing some creative embroidery work on them. Tracy will be teaching how to make this cozy and demonstrating how to combine rubber stamping and embroidery for the cozy shown below, and additional embroidery methods for the cozy shown above. She will also show you super fun ways of presenting the cup cozy for gift-giving.

So there you have it. Three totally unique cozies just in time for the holidays. Need more details? They are all right here. Hope to see you soon as we spend the day together relaxing, making new friends, and creating very unique gifts for the holidays.

Enrollment for the Oh So Cozy workshop is open here.

NEW! Ruin & Rescue Art Journaling Class with Julie Balzer

Through many of my Studio Explorations posts, you may have noticed that I've caught a bug. The art journaling bug, that is. For the longest time, I really had a tough time understanding what it was all about. But I finally get it. And I can't seem to get enough of it.

I've been working with the incredible Julie Fei-Fan Balzer on a very cool project where we have delved into the wonders of art journaling. Through this work, I learned that the way Julie describes her process as Ruin and Rescue. It was a major AHA moment for me. Her approach is that once you ruin a page and do all sorts of unspeakable things to it, you can then let go of all the stress of "ruining" it on accident because you've ruined it on purpose. And from that point, it's the fun of rescuing and reinventing that page using assorted methods and techniques. 
This process of Ruin and Rescue is exactly what Julie will be teaching in Studio CRESCENDOh on February 4th ... an all-day art journaling class where we gather to ruin our journals together, and then learn the very cool methods that she will teach as we rescue them back.

I hope you'll join me and Julie. It'll be messy. It'll be fun. It'll be a full day of art journaling and friend-making. :)

Enrollment is now open here.

Lisa Engelbrecht in Studio CRESCENDOh! New Class in January

It is my pleasure to announce that in January, Lisa Engelbrecht will teach a very special class in Studio CRESCENDOh titled Intention Plaques.

I've had the honor of being hosting Lisa's class last year in my home. She is a gifted teacher with a special ability to make every student feel included and encouraged as they find a way to express their unique voice through the skills that she teaches.
In between the morning and afternoon sessions, you will be able to enjoy the wonderful eateries and creative vibe within the Artist Village courtyard that is adjacent to Studio CRESCENDOh.

I look forward to exploring my words of intention for the coming year and learning how to letter them onto plaques and twigs with the guidance of Lisa Engelbrecht. Hope you'll join me, Lisa, and the other students who I know will quickly become a new community of friends.

Enrollment is now open. You can click here to enroll.

Bloom True Intuitive Painting with Flora Bowley :: Part 1

By the time you are reading this post, students from yesterday's intuitive painting class with artist Flora Bowley will have re-entered this room. But yesterday, after our first day was over, everyone left their work in this room to retire for the evening and to soak everything in.

Perhaps to reflect on how we used our hands to make marks on the canvas ...

And how we worked in unique ways to get colors onto canvas ...

And also how we checked in with each other during the process to count blessings, to make drawings, and to live up to the promise to stay awake to the process and work not with what we want or think we want, but rather, what is ...
And how we observed, listened, and learned from Flora's incredible demos, prompts, and just her overall process ...
One thing's for sure. We used a whole lot of paint. And water. And brushes. And rags ...

And just when we thought "I'm not sure I can do this ..." things started to happen.

And just when we got comfortable and attached, we had to learn how to truly let go, detatch, and enter discomfort ... and to be there until we could emerge again ... not to what we wanted or thought would be ours, but what was.

By the time you're reading this, we will be starting up in this room, with our paintings, as we allow the canvases to evolve still ...

Art ... beautiful, inclusive, forgiving art.

All Set for Flora Bowley and Students

Well, the studio is all set. I'm SO excited. This time tomorrow, artist Flora Bowley and all the students will be in this very special space as we explore the wonders of paint.

Speaking of paint ... many thanks to our sponsor, Golden paints for supplying our class with your beautiful colors.

And many thanks to Quarry Books for also sponsoring this class.

Hope you tune in tomorrow as I'll be blogging about how the first of the two days unfolds ... and updating you with more info about this incredible space.

To art.
To life.