Awakening Mythic Legend

 This spring I was delighted to be asked to be the Art Doctor for their workshop by two of my Red Thread SiStars! Olivia Oso and Uma Joy are offering the first Legend class to be taught by Guild Members, and I thoroughly enjoy being part of the pilot run! 

Uma and Olivia have taught many classes together, and I appreciate theit gentle flow of instruction, journaling and painting in our virtual classroom. 

Awakening Mythic

We received symbols in several meditations, and I discovered several commonalities - a headband with the blue jewel activating her pineal gland / bui hui, stars from a beaded pouch on her headband and medicine bag, circle of ancestors ... 

I enjoy Listening for my Legendary Lady's voice and wishes, sitting back, and letting her take the lead! This is my 5th Legend,

 .... I never completed the 2nd - so part way through this journey, she began hollering for attention! 

Okay, okay!! 

Red Hat Legend - 2018

While I loved her symbols and elemental dragons the crown of her hat has felt too high for too long! My granddaughter Alyssa's dad gave her this lovely Red Hat when she was about 5, which I wore to many a tea as a Red Hat Lady! !! 

Red Hat SiStars

I began sketching the alternate shape usingNeocolor 2, and then used yellow and transparent yellow oxide over the Red ... Ahh! I love how forgiving acrylics are! 

Olivia suggested using hoops as templates for orbs and circles - and I'd just unearthed a basket of embroidery hoops! So the dragons are now in orbs (even the one by the medicine bowl) which will be highlighted with interference paint soon.

I've been modifying her expression as well, and will do more reverse stencil above the hat brim on our right - 

Bodacious Bessie

 What's on your easel this week? 

Happy Paint Party Friday! 

 

  

Dancing Entrepreneurs

One of the things I love about our art community is the invitation for us each to claim our own "piece of Red Thread." In circles and trainings, each SiStar is encouraged to discover and claim her gifts, and empowered to share them with others. During this time of social distancing - ehm - Artist In Residence - many are offering prompts and mini classes.

This week, my IC SiStar Ally Markotich invited us to paint a series of Prayer Squares "A Three step spiritual practice to engage your innate creativity as your prayer."  Ally posts prompts Monday, Wednesday and Friday Details are available on her site. Materials are simple, paper and colored pencils, markers, watercolor, etc. 

Earth Day Medicine Basket

This weekend, students in Color of Woman teacher training and Intentional Creativity® Guild members met online to paint Vision Plan Book for these changing times. Shiloh writes that she does one of these graphic plans as preparation for each of her offerings. These folded booklets are done on watercolor paper, and are one of the Red Thread projects during the CoW Teacher Training. 

Vision Plan Book

In this month's Mothercolour Guild Call, we painted simple color wheels...I'm always intrigued that some of my favorite colors are easy to mix. It's fun to do a wheel using different colors for the primary positions, and the Mothercolour can be mixed combining all three basic colours used.

Hansa yellow, Quinacridone Magenta, Curelean Blue

Shimmer watercolor

This month's Red Tread women's circle will a Zoom call - on Resilience - check it out here!
What's on your creative agenda this weekend? 
Happy Paint Party Friday ❤ 

Colour Play - Mothercolour

How do you use and play with colour in your art? 

This year the Intentional Creativity Guild and CoW students are delving into color theory to bring more coherence to our work and teachings. After Shiloh began her art career, she started as an Art School drop out - frustrated with the rigid Rules and emphasis on creativity stifling critique - can you relate? 

I loved my HS art class, and was one of this kids who drew in the margins of her notes, sketched the neighbors' horses, and played with geometric patterns. I'd get a paint by number set, then use any left over paint on a canvas from the Dime Store. A couple of college art classes were followed by occasional occasional Community College or Art Guild classes, with color theory part of the mix.

The Color of Woman method has relied on a more intuitive use of colour, with the intermittent use of glazing for unification. This year, Guild members from several traditions are bringing in color theory and teachings on using Mothercolour in our paintings. Our first Mothercolour lesson came from Australian artist Jassy Watson

Mothercolour swatch

A Mothercolour is created by mixing several colours together (often 3), and then experimenting with adding different amounts to each of the pure colours. Thou see this in some of the paintings of the old masters. 
The glazing process we use, covering the canvas with a thin coat of a transparent color at least once, has a similar unifying effect. The recommendation to have several colours on our palette, and dip the brush into ones we wish to use together, rather than thoroughly mixing them before painting, also contributes. A tip from Shiloh's teacher Sue Hoya Sellers was to add a new colour in at least three spots around the canvas.

Mothercolour swatch #2

I was reminded of a quilt show in the 80s - one group chose a fabric for each woman to use in her square, and set the squares with strips that harmonized. The colors were more cohesive and pleasing than the random sampler block quilts from other groups.

Jassy studied color with the Australian Flying Artist, Merv Moriarty, who learned to fly so he could take art classes to romote areas around AU! Now in his 80s, Moriarty is still passionate about color, art and education! Both Watson and Moriarty are influenced by the Australian landscape.

Among the Tree Sprites 10-19

In the online Treesister class last fall, Jassy encouraged us to look to our surroundings for shapes and our colour palette, and limit the colours we used. In the first class I took from Jassy, painting Gaia in 2014, she also invited looking to our environment for inspiration. The leaves were from the Rowan yes in my yard, and the amethyst colors from a crystal in my collection.

Mama Gaia - 2014

This video from local artist Flora Bowley offers another way to explore colour and contrast with the paints in your collection. This is a good time to pull out some of those rarely used, and experiment! 

What are some of your favorite exercises for exploring colours? Do you have ways you bring unity throughout the piece or a series?
Share in the comments below - and HåPpÝ Paint Party Friday!

Guild Gathering

In 2018, our teacher Shiloh Sophia revived the medieval practice of gathering those who have developed proficiency in an art or trade into a Guild of Journeywomen. Our preparation includes the year long Color of Woman teacher training and competing our Thesis - an Initiate Book summarizing the assignments and offerings we've given. There are now over 250 graduate Guild Members worldwide. Check our directory for someone near you! 

Sepha, Nadya and Shiloh, 2016

Nearly 20 Guild Gals currently live in Oregon and Southern Washington, and several of us met for the first time in classes, at graduation, during travels, or an in-person gathering. It had been several years since we had a local gathering, so in November I invited the local gals to a Gathering at the studio in MECA gallery. We set it for the afternoon, and Jan from Southern Washington, 3 hours away, choose to stay overnight! 

Sharing Purple thread with Sepha and Janet

While we do Red Thread circles when gathering with students and beloveds in our broader community, when meeting with other Guild members, we use a Purple Thread of Leadership. I've shared purple thread with several SiStars as they traveled through Oregon, weaning strands of connection. It's always a delight when we gather, and this was no exception! 

Olivia, Sepha, Uma, Nadya, Jan  - Nov 19

We shared chocolate and tea, warmth and SiStarhood. Our Muses must have consulted - our colors were delightfully coordinated! We passed the thread, and shared highlights from our year, and dreams for the future. 
We planned to share a Metacognative drawing practice (Uma is taking the Motherboard training), but after our check-in round we just kept talking!  And talking - laughing, commiserating, and finally said our fond goodbyes, with a stronger connection and sisterhood.

We've made plans to meet again quarterly, likely in Portland or Olympia. Each time we're together, in person or virtually, the connections strengthen - we're just a thread away ...

Purple Thread cuff

I used the purple yarn from this and other circles with my Guild SiStars to crochet this little cuff bracelet. It's both decorative and a wonderful reminder I can just give a tug, and the support and love from my sisters is on the other end! 

RT Circle Guide

Since she was a teen growing up in California's Bay Area, Artist Shiloh Sophia has been calling circles, gathering people, often "misfits and outcasts," inviting them to belong. In her art galleries, she often set up a station to create, and invited guests to do a project in art and inquiry. 

After a brief sojourn in art school, and resulting frustration with the focus on realistic painting, and scathing "critiques," she returned to her roots and independent study with her mentor, Master Painter Sue Hoya Sellers. (1936-2014) Sue invited everyone she knew to, "commit art," and Shiloh Sophia has taken that invitation literally.

After almost a decade of offering the Color of Woman Intentional Creativity program, which Hoya Sellers helped establish, Shiloh Sophia launched Red Thread Circle Guide training.  Around 50 women from around the world who are healed enough, and ready to call Red Thread Circles in their own communities are enrolled in the training. I am excited for these SiStars, and the beloveds who will be served. 

A Chinese Legend tells us a Red Thread connects us from before birth with those we're destined to meet. The thread may twist and tangle, but it won't break, and gradually draws us closer. We each have our own piece of the thread, what is ours to cause and create. RT circles help us identify our own piece, and to connect with others in our tribe. 

I have offered RT circles for the past three years, since my enrollment in the IC Color of Woman training, and am honored to be one of those offering support to this first RT Circle Guide training. 
Last night our monthly circle included 7 sisters and two Guides, including my 13 year old granddaughter. KK was my "guinea pig" for my first Red Thread Circle in 2015, helping me practice my first offering, a Cosmic Smashbook cover. 
Our inquiry art circle was what Renewal we are seeking this Imbolc season, what are we Devoted to? What title would we put on our "book?"

We created a small book, using 1/4 sheet of 90# watercolor paper, folded the long way and torn into two strips for a 6 page, single signature booklet. We used watercolors markers, and colored or Inktense pencils to create our covers, and red thread to tie the signatures. 

Inquiries:

•  Cover - what am I devoted to? What's my new Myth? What is my book Title?
• 1/2 - What is the challenge/ old story?
• 3/4 Middle - symbol / words of transformation 
• 5/6 - Renewal, devotion, resolution

 A Nation of Women With Wings 

These little booklets are easy to create, and could hold more signatures - here's a post on making a simple single signature booklet, and one for two or more signatures. This is a great project for any age and topic! Have you made booklets?  Post a link in the comments! 

My IC Guild cohort Sepha used three strips of folded paper for her booklet (for 10 inside pages), and painted a symbol that commonly appears in her art on each page. I love that idea, and am beginning one to contain the symbols I use. Do you have symbols, shapes orcolors you use frequently?

Though Shiloh didn't originally plan to include doing a painting in the Red Thread Circle Guide program, that's so integral to her work, we are working on a canvas "after all!" Here's the beginning of mine, the circle, with symbols for myself in the center.  ... 

HåPpÝ Paint Party Friday

Vesta and Crown

Embrace

December is here, with rain and grey skies in the Pacific Northwest. 

I'm again blessed with Tending Hearth for Maestra Shiloh Sophia's Power Creatives TV series, EMBRACE. Today's guest is Any Ahlers, of Mama Truth Circle.
In Shiloh's words, "power Creatives are edge dancers. Pattern makers and breakers. Mystics and Musés. Poets and Entrepreneurs. .... Gathering of great minds and hearts can shape the future." 

Support station

Each session begins with an hour "morning café," tea and contemplation, at no charge. The optional afternoon session is paid programming (scholarships available) with a project, and support in our online classroom. 
That online support is where I come in, checking in frequently, fielding questions, and stopping by the Red Thread Classroom over the next several days for continued encouragement. 

December also marks the official beginning of the Intentional Creativity Guild. I am delighted to be a Guild Member, and look forward to this new phase of our community. I dance with Color of Woman teachers around the world as journeywomen, sharing life enhancing creativity with those ready to Embrace transformation!

Happy PPF!