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Monday February 20, 2012  Do I really have to tell you to go out and play? It boggles my mind. Play is so crucial to creativity and generating new ideas, and yet so many creative professionals don’t give themselves any time for play. I hope you’re not one of them. Please don’t be one of them. But if you are, there’s always time to change. All you need to do is to take a time out, and go PLAY. Take a pen, and write it into your calendar. Right now. Yup, right now. I’ll wait… Done? Have a self play-date on your calendar? You better! So now you might be asking, “Play what? What am I scheduling here?”. Anything really. You can go out and play basketball for all I care. Just go out and be a kid again. Free yourself and your mind from all of the constraints you have put yourself into. Do something without rules, or worries. How about some finger painting? If you’re a painter, and you allow yourself to just play with your paint once in a while instead of worrying if your peers will like it or if your customers will want to buy it, it will set you free. It will explode your mind with inspiration. If you’re always focused on what your customers want from you, then you are stifling yourself to come up with original ideas. And that hurts business, doesn’t it? If you want to be the one always surprising your clients with amazing products or services, you need to keep that creativity flowing. The number one thing on my list to do that? Yup, you guessed it. PLAY! After you make a date with yourself on the calendar, click that comment button below and tell us, what do you plan to do on your play date?
Monday February 13, 2012 Love is in the air! I hope you have a great Valentine’s Day tomorrow. Here are some interesting and fun hearts I found on flickr today. I hope they spark some inspiration for you this week!
 1. Light Painted Hearts, 2. Hard Heart, 3. trashy heart…, 4. heart on music, 5. Painted hearts, 6. Traded ATC- My heart belongs to you, 7. Heart Artwork, 8. Light Painting Heart, 9. heart rainbow
Monday February 06, 2012  Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder and CEO, once described creativity as “just connecting things”. Speaking of how creatives came up with an idea, he said “…they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”
So, if this is true, if creativity is all about making connections in your brain to come up with new ideas, then how do you expect to be creative when you’re always watching tv, or browsing the internet, or playing on your smartphone? All of these new technologies are distracting us from what is right in front of us… they’re distracting us from being present in our lives, “recording” new experiences, and connecting those dots.
You need to give yourself time to allow your mind to let things sink in, to fill in the gaps, and to connect your thoughts + experiences. So your creative exercise this week is to turn off all of your electronics for one full day. It will be hard, but you can do it! Take in everything around you, “stop and smell the roses”, pay attention and be present. Let your mind wander and connect those dots. At the end of the day you will feel refreshed, alive, and may even have a few new ideas jotted down in your journal!
I dare you to actually DO this exercise! And when you do, please come back to share your experience by leaving a comment below. :)
Monday January 30, 2012 My husband and I recently took the plunge and bought a house closer to the ocean. Our search went on for months, and by the time we found a home and moved in, winter was settling in. So, I’ve been dreaming of sticking my toes in the sand ever since. Here is a collection of my favorite beach images from flickr. I hope they spark some inspiration for you this week!
 1. Ocean, 2. Purple Jellyfish 2, 3. Seaglass finds, 4. Starfish, Red Sea, Hurghada (Egypt), 5. Ocean Bouquet, 6. Ocean Abstraction, 7. crab, 8. Shells #18, 9. Seaweed – Alderney
Monday January 23, 2012 To me, there is nothing more inspiring than picking up a new tool or medium and getting to just experiment and play with it. But, with the holidays just passing and the snow coming down, you may be like me snuggling up on the couch not wanting to go anywhere, and perhaps a bit hard up for cash to be going out shopping for new art supplies. So… time to go on a hunt!
Take a walk through your home, and with a fresh eye on things, take a look around you for some tools or random things you could use in your art journal or to use along with your favorite medium. The junk drawer always proves to be a treasure chest for imaginative ideas! If you’re a quilter, try sewing on some washers or bolts to create a design. If you’re a potter, try finding things in your home with interesting textures that you can press into the clay. If you want to experiment in your art journal, look for things like q-tips, old gift cards, toothpicks, or just about anything that inspires you to push around the paint or stamp with. 
Collect at least five things from your home, and bring them back to your “studio” (whether it be an actual studio or your kitchen table!) and get to work – I mean PLAY! It’s amazing the amount of inspiration you can get from a few simple household items. Give it a try!
I hope you enjoy this creative exercise. Give it a try, and let me know how it goes! What things did you find in your home? How did you use it in your art? Leave a comment below!
Monday January 16, 2012  We all get stuck doing the same routines day after day. And in doing so, our minds are running more and more on auto pilot. Consciously turn it off for today. Turn off your auto pilot and pay attention to what your doing. Shake things up a bit. If you find yourself in a routine activity, change course. Try something new. Take a new route to work, try something new for breakfast, if you usually read fiction books try reading a biography, or perhaps try a new recreation. Studies show that changes in our habitual behavior have profound effects on our brains. By stopping just one routine behavior and doing it in a different way, your brain is being forced to form new neurological pathways. What that means is your brain starts to make new connections; and with new connections, often comes sparks of creativity! So, for this week, try doing at least one routine differently each day. Pay attention, and perhaps you will be flooded with inspiration! And don’t forget to come back and comment with how it went! :)
Monday January 09, 2012 Every Monday I hope to share with you some thoughts, images, or exercises from Monday’s Muse that might spark some inspiration for you to start the week off. I love the messiness of art sometimes, so I’ve collected some images with that idea in mind. Let yourself go, let yourself play with your art, and you will truly feel free!
1. Blues – An abstract painting, 2. Art is my comfort (art journal), 3. Art, 4. SPEAK LOUDLY art journal page, 5. Color Pencils, 6. Art Journal January 2009, 7. Paint Brushes, 8. Blues skies coming down – FO, 9. Blick Art supplies
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