Category: Inspiration

Linking to inspiration

As part of my AOK Writing project, I’m creating a slide-based tutorial on fashioning your own inspirational message for those needing a little support and, using bit.ly, including the shortened/memorable URL in any handwritten note. There’s also no reason you can’t create a short inspirational video instead of a static message. Hmmm…

[Note: my tutorial includes the step of publishing a Google Slide to the web; there’s no reason you couldn’t just post your message on your blog and ‘bit.ly-ize’ your post. I just chose the other route to make the link more exclusive.]

The steps:

  1. Create a PDF/PNG/JPEG poster of support or inspiration. I used Canva.
  2. Place it on a  blog page.
  3. Create a bit.ly link to it and include the link in your handwritten letter/note.

Here is a 90-second video showing my steps that included Canva, Google Slides [optional], and bit.ly.

Here is the link to the completed project. http://bit.ly/tryagain2

Keep trying new stuff!

Draw-Sketch-Doodle

happy scribbled

I’ve been a little lax in sending you resources and my study of Leonardo da Vinci [Yeah, as if he knows anything…] bore out how important sketching, scribbling, etc. was to his process. It was very much his way of thinking and learning. I’m guessing that somewhere in his thousands of notebook pages he also just plain loosened up with his quill pen on paper made from cloth pounded into a pulp.

sketching journaling

So, here are a few links to nudge you toward putting pen/pencil/charcoal/lipstick/crayon to paper…

By the way–this drawing/sketching/doodling thing? Make it just for you.

Check that annoying purveyor-of-resistance, audience-looking-over-your-shoulder master of self-doubt** at the door. And if all you do is a little doodling to loosen up for your next creative project, bravo!

Enjoy and remember, ‘try new’!

**Sunni Brown, author of The Doodle Revolution calls it ‘The Shadow’. Love that term.

 

 

 

 

Reason to Create #3

Creating art helps us deal with sadness

Creating art, especially projects unrelated to whatever is troubling you,
offers up the simple gift of distraction.

“For it isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

Reason to Create #2

creativity improves brain connections

This study tells us that making art delivers more brain-benefits than simply looking at it.

“For it isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

Reason to Create #1

Visit verywellmind.com for a short discussion, including these points:

  • It can take your mind off things. [Seems there might be a few ‘things’ on our minds lately…]
  • It can help you tap into a ‘state of flow’.
  • It can be a form of self-care.

And poof! We’re ‘older’…

worried male face

Has this question

ever popped into your mind?

Sometimes, it’s all I need to get moving on my creative projects.

What spurs you to action? Kicks you in the seat of the pants? Whacks you on the side of the head?

***

Book links are NOT affiliate links. They’re a couple of my favorites they’re worth looking at. [I’ve been linking to Goodreads to give a more detailed overview of a book.]

Have a good weekend, re-tryer-ees! Get stuff done!