THE LEAP

It is mid July and the second week of the school holidays. As an art and EAL teacher for 30 years I am now spending the next 7 months exploring what it looks and feels like to be an artist full time. It is a leap and a huge learning curve as I navigate how to interact with so many people in different settings. I have always painted and exhibited as it is what brings joy and balance into my life but now I’m taking the leap into a different space where art is at the centre as I share this joy filled process through my art work and workshops.

BLOGGING

I love writing posts but it is about being consistent and finding the spaces to write. Ive become inconsistent in posting on my website as I’ve juggled Instagram and my Facebook artist’s page and my Wild Soul Creativity Circle Facebook group. I know that my blog is important for myself and my business so I am making a commitment to blog at least once a week on where this adventure is leading me. This is shaping into a story of my growing understanding on art and business. I have a lot to learn but I hope some of the things I share about this journey I’m on will ignite your own passions. Wether you are exploring your art world as a personal journey or as something you plan to send out into the world…the biggest thing I have learnt is the importance of choosing to make space in your life for that thing that feeds your soul…

WHY

My ‘WHY’ is to inspire people to connect with their inner artist or what I refer to as ‘Wild Soul Creativity. Wether this be through buying an art work that lights you up or learning ways to connect to your own Wild Soul Creativity depends on what you need to nourish your own soul spaces. I want to share the joy of this spiritual intuitive art process and inspire you to step into those playful spaces where you can experience your own adventure.

JOY

I want more joyful spaces in my life so I am making choices to connect more fully with what gives me joy. Life at its best, is about connecting to those joyful spaces and being aware of the moment. Combining art and teaching  fills my cup in both my inner and outer worlds. I need both to be truly happy as the idea of an artist hermit doesn’t sit comfortably.

This is about finding room to breathe and explore beyond the edges as you stretch past what you know now and discover new spaces where art and play can become part of your everyday. I know that painting in my studio is one of the things that gives me joy and the other is sharing what I know.

WHAT NEXT?

The plan is to continue to develop my unique style focusing on owls for now. I love all things feminine so painting women, guides and angels is also central to my imagery.

I have had the opportunity to develop a couple of free demonstrations hosted at the Artshed Moorabbin which has been a lovely opportunity and a great kick start for focusing my attention and direction. My aim is to encourage people to attend my Whimsical Owl workshops which will also be held at the Artshed on July 29th and August 5th 2017.

I am learning so much as I organise my free demonstrations at the Artshed in Moorabbin. These workshops are starting points for my online workshops as I develop and categorise all the different areas that are central to my art. I want to wow people with the amount I share so they are inspired to go home and try it for themselves. All the techniques I teach are mixed media intuitive art processes.

INTUITIVE ART

I am a spiritual intuitive artist which means that I see art as a connected spiritual practice that is guided and based on connecting to your inner wise self and learning to trust yourself  as you explore through these intuitive mixed media processes.

Wild Soul Creativity

I realised that I needed to create an easy structure to help people understand the spiritual intuitive art process that I teach. I developed and founded Wild Soul Creativity to step out the process. The heart is always at the centre of the intuitive art process as art is about feeling. I developed the Wild Soul Creativity Circle Facebook group as a space to share inspiration and ideas and encourage group members to share their own work.

I do need to revisit the design as the 5 stages are not easy enough to read. The stages are connect, layer, play, dreaming and celebrate. Once you have learnt the process you can jump into whatever stage of the process feels right to you.

This is one step at a time as I am doing my own graphics. The painting below was my original format for Wild Soul Creativity. I am still playing with wether to revise it to Wild Soul Creativity Circle. My main audience is women and I love the idea of sharing within a women’s circle which is what this means to me. The painting below is the original image I created as I was developing the Wild Soul Creativity process

-Connect

– Layer

– Play

– Dreaming

– Celebration

NEXT STEPS

I will continue to play with all my regular social media on Facebook and Instagram but I believe I need to use Pinterest as well as it seems to be important for my audience. Such a huge learning curve. I am finalising my free demonstration for tomorrow at the Artshed and getting my head around my day plan. That simply means that I am looking at what an art work day actually looks like. I won’t have bells to tell me what to do so I need to create a fluid structure. My rough plan is to get up at 7 and do my morning bits and posting, go for a walk, studio, lunch, studio. This needs a lot more clarification as I need to plan out strategies for moving forward. If you have artist day plan ideas, I would love you to share them. This is a steal. learning curve but I’m taking the adventure one step at a time.

WOW

Next step is my Whimsical Owl Workshop (WOW for short) that is ready to go and I am so looking forward to teaching and sharing my ideas. As it is the first version of this course, I have done an introductory price of $185 for the 2 days so if your interested, I would love to meet you and share this soulful process.

RAW SHOWCASE

On August 24th I am part of the Melbournet RAW NEXT showcase. This is such an exciting opportunity and I have so much to organise. I love these opportunities and it was so nice to be invited to be part of this. The main thing is that I need to sell 20 tickets at $20 each for this one night spectacular of visual art, dance, music, fashion and more. If you are a local in Melbourne p, I would love your support so if you can attend or sponsor me, that would be wonderful. I’m sure the night will be impressive and am looking forward to it.

CHALLENGES

I will need to start advertising this more consistently…marketing is the word I should be using…I know. I am finding that there are so many things on my to do list that structuring a clear day plan is what I need to do next…after the demo. The challenge really is finding the balance. After teaching in a secondary school for so long, I have learnt to juggle a lot of things so this is about reframing and revisionist as I continue to look for new opportunities.

My plan is to share all the bits I learn along the way….as I find the form my artist is shaping into.

Cheryle