Getting back into drawing

So, Thursday night I tried to do some drawing. I used to know how to draw faces and I've even painted several (but used much different techniques than what Kat teaches - Kat's techniques look waaaayyyy better! :) ). Anyway, I couldn't get into the rhythm of it and felt like I lost all of my ability to draw so I felt very discouraged.

While watching Kat's live demo yesterday, I drew right along with her and it felt sooooo good to draw again! I'm not totally thrilled with how the face I drew came out, but I'm going to be kind to myself and remember that it was the first 3/4 face view I ever drew and later today (it's 2 in the morning here now!), I'm going to be brave and post the drawing I did (even though I don't love it) and I'm going to list three things I do like about it. 

See you all later today. Hope you all have a wonderful night's rest and that you'll get to draw and paint to your heart's content this weekend. :)

Back procedure today

I'm going for an out-patient back procedure this morning. I'm hoping it goes exceedingly well, and all this pain will go away! And I'm hoping I feel well enough this afternoon to do some drawings. This art class with Kat McBride is awesome! I am so impressed with the drawings that my classmates are doing. :)

Wish me luck! Oh, and all prayers and good thoughts are appreciated. :)

~ Kim xoxo

Starting an awesome art class today

I am so excited!!! Today I am starting Kat McBride's year-long class - Let's Draw and Paint! Gorgeous Girls. 

One of the things that has been holding me back from consistently painting is my frustration with not having the "technical skill" to paint what I see in my head. Kat is a classically trained painter and has simplified what she learned in art school to teach us how to paint like the masters with step-by-step tutorials and videos. 

I woke up at 2:30 this morning with a migraine and checked my email to see if I had gotten access to the private classroom or the Facebook group. I was so happy and excited to see that I had been approved for the Facebook group and got my class supply list and detailed description of what this first 5-week session is going to cover that I couldn't go back to sleep. 

I can't wait to go to Michaels this morning to get my art supplies and get started! I will be sharing all my class work here on my blog. So stay tuned for lots and lots of art to be posted. :)

It's 5:00 a.m. now and I'm finally feeling a bit sleepy. Off to try to get a couple more hours sleep so I'll have plenty of energy to draw and paint to my heart's content. 

Say goodnight, Gracie.

Good night, Gracie.

Kim ~ xoxo

Soul Searching . . . Yay, I'm back! :)

I've been doing a LOT of soul searching for the past couple of months. I've decided to keep this blog rather than the Creating Bliss Studios blog. Yes, my goal is to create a blissful life, but, for me, my bliss is very much tied into expressing my creativity. So, after much thought, I've decided the proper title for my blog is Creative Bliss Studios. :)

I am really excited about some of the creative ideas I have been thinking about since I last wrote! I'll tell you more about them soon. 

Make Art that Sells!

The amazing Lilla Rogers has created a course called Make Art that Sells. Lilla Rogers is one of the worlds top illustration agents and she has culminated three decade's worth of knowledge and experience in this field to create  this course.

Money is tight, tight, tight right now, so I am hoping, wishing, and praying to win the free spot in her course. Please check it out here:

#makeartthatsells with @lillarogers http://ow.ly/hNVbb . 

So much can happen in a month . . .

My goodness, so much can happen in just a month. For the shortest month of the year it has felt like an eternity. 

I chose "Happiness" as my word of the year. There have been a whole bunch of really difficult and horrible things that have happened since the beginning of the year. 

Memories resurfaced of events that have made a hugely negative impact on my life. It is painful to say the least and also devastating. But I will not let it rule my life. 

I am looking at this as this is something I needed to remember in order to put  certain pieces of the puzzle of my depression together in order to finally get through to the other side of it where happiness resides.

So, all in all, this is a good thing. I asked for happiness in 2013 and I am getting happiness by getting through to the core of my depression. 

Very tough work.

On top of that I have had a series of unfortunate events that have just compounded everything. I went to visit my daughter in New Jersey last week and the morning I was leaving to come home, I got in a car accident. My right ankle and leg were sprained and, of course, got the usual muscle strains and pain that a car accident typically causes. 

I borrowed my daughter's car to get home so I can go to a meeting that I cannot miss. My car is being appraised today and I'm nervously waiting to hear the news. The damage to the front is pretty bad and there very well could be damage to the frame. There is a good possibility that they may decide to total it, which really sucks because I just bought the thing a few months ago and still owe quite a bit of money on it and I don't have gap insurance, which I never even heard about until my daughter asked me if I had it. I'm kind of pissed at my insurance agent who never told me about it as I would certainly have gotten it.

So, I'm heading back to NJ on Thursday to return my daughter's car and if my car is totaled, Gayle and I will rent a car to get back home. If it isn't totaled, I'm going to have to drive my daughter's car back to NJ myself and hang around there which could be for at least a week (possibly more) while my car is being fixed. 

I just want this whole thing to be over with. I want to get back home and get into a good routine.

To be honest, I didn't just go to New Jersey to visit my daughter. I needed to get away to clear my head about several issues. I'm happy to say that I received clarity in something that has torn and ripped my heart to shreds for the past almost four years. Major breakthrough there. 

I also realized where I truly belong. I belong with my love, Gayle, in our cozy apartment in Massachusetts. My kids are grown and on their own now. Going to New Jersey allowed me to see my daughter in her home element. She is doing wonderful. She is happy and responsible and productive and is an amazing soon-to-be step-mom to my soon-to-be first grandson. 

Seeing Katrina with her beautiful little family made me so proud and gave me the peace in my heart that I needed so I can truly know in my heart that my baby girl is okay. In fact, she is so much better than okay. She has such a wonderful and happy life and I'm just bursting with love and happiness for that.

Even though I absolutely hate that my kids live so far from me in different states, I have realized that they are okay without me (even though they both would love me to live in their states), and it is okay for me to move on with my life. 

They are both so very happy in their lives and it is time for me to be happy in my life.

Gayle and I have built a life for ourselves here in Massachusetts where we were both born and raised. My roots are in MA. It is home. I love it here. And I love Gayle and I intend to live the rest of my life with her. 

So, lots of realizations and revelations and acceptance and letting things go, which is a very good thing! 

Now, to deal with the car issue . . . 


*** UPDATE ***

My car was totalled. : ( The good thing is that my car insurance ended up paying most of my car loan off - I only owe less than $68. Thank goodness!!!

So excited!!!

I am so excited!!! First thing tomorrow morning I am going to sign up for the writing course with the Institute of Children's Literature! I have attempted to take this course twice before many years ago, but with homeschooling my kids and running a household I just didn't have the time and energy to give it all I had. Now that I am unemployed, I have the time to do so!

I am going to take this time and put it to good use and Go For It and make one of my dreams come true! I can't wait for it to be tomorrow morning when they are open so I can sign up! I'll tell you more about this decision tomorrow and what led me to it (lots of signs!!!).

Hope you have a good night!

Kim

Letter to the New Year, 2013

Hello, 2013!

I am so excited to start a new life with you! Things may be looking down for me right now considering I lost my job mid-December and I have less than $50 to my name and no income coming in for myself.

However, I am determined to create a brand new life for myself and make my Mondo Beyondo dreams come true. My word for 2013 is Happiness! That is my focus. I will fight my depression, not through focusing on healing my depression, but, instead, on focusing on being Happy and doing things that make me Happy.

Creating a vibrantly successful art business and online fun-filled Creative Studio offering inspiring and motivating challenges, contests, e-courses, and e-books is my Ultimate Dream for my creative and career life. THAT will make me SO happy!!!

And that will enable me to live the life of my dreams – working from home, doing work that I love, having a flexible schedule and the financial means to visit my kids whenever I want. These are the most important things to me.

So, 2013, I embrace you and give you a huge hug and kiss and welcome you into my life, for I know deep in my soul, that this is the year that my dreams will come true in ways that are far better and more exciting and more abundantly than I ever could imagine.

With so much love and excited anticipation,

Kim

xoxo

Confessions . . .

This post is very difficult for me. You see, I want to "appear" to be a happy-go-lucky girl who loves life and has creativity flowing from her finger tips. I want my blog to be an inspiring place for other women to spend a little time. But, to be honest, I suffer from major depressive disorder. I struggle with depression every single day. I have tried medication after medication for nearly 20 years, but my body violently rejects it. So I am left to deal with my depression without the aid of medication and most of the time I just feel down-right defeated.

There. I said it. I don't want my blog to be depressing and whiny and negative. But I also want to be me. Sometimes I feel that I am my depression. That depression is all that I am. But I'm not! I'm so much more than my depression.

I'm a girl that is full of creativity and so many wonderful, fun, and inspiring ideas! I'm a girl that loves her children more than life itself. I'm a girl who loves nature and animals and hot cups of tea and candlelight and funny movies and TV shows. I'm a girl who has a passion for reading and writing and learning about the creative process and getting a peek into the lives and processes of other creative women.

I'm a girl who longs to be a writer and an artist and have a thriving online business that enables me to work from home and make an abundant living to provide my family with a beautiful home and to be able to pay my bills on time without a worry and to sometimes take vacations and do fun things without worrying about the cost and without having to always put it on the dream list, but just being able to do it.

I'm a girl who longs to be happy; to experience happiness as an everyday part of my life.

I look at other people who are so happy and content and to me it is a mystery as to how they are so happy. How do they do it? How are they able to be happy? Why can't I be happy like that?

Yes, I have had my fair share of trauma in my life. But so have other women. And so many other women have overcome those traumas and have really made something of themselves and their lives and have somehow learned to be happy in spite of everything they have gone through.

I feel stuck. I feel trapped like a caged lion, pacing back and forth, trying to figure out how the hell to get out from behind the iron bars that keeps her held captive.

But I won't give up. I have been trying for years to "fight depression." My previous therapist told me I need to get mad at my depression and do the exact opposite of what it is telling me. If it tells me to go lie down under the covers and sleep, I need to get out of bed. If it tells me that I suck as an artist and why should I even bother, I need to get out that canvas and paint.

I've been told and have tried many things, yet they just don't do the trick. In my reading on building an online business, I have read time and again that if something doesn't work try another way.

I've thought a lot lately about happiness. I know this may seem obvious, but yesterday I was thinking about happiness again and the mystery that it is to me and I realized that happiness is the opposite of depression. I have also been thinking about contentment and realized that happiness brings contentment.

I have focused so much on depression and have read about it and written in my private journal about it, but now I see that maybe the way out of depression for me is to focus on happiness instead of depression. I think I ought to take the word 'depression' out of my vocabulary.

I am no longer seeking to overcome my depression. From now on I am seeking happiness.

Ta ta for now,

Kim

Mondo Beyondo Wish

Yesterday was Wishcasting Wednesday over at Jamie Ridler Studios. I'm a day late, but that's okay. This is my first time participating. Jamie asked us to share what our Winter wishes are. So . . . My winter wish is of the "Mondo Beyondo" variety since I just lost my job.

My Mondo Beyondo winter wish is:

To create a vibrantly successful business that will enable me to support my family and not have to get a job outside the home, which will help me and my partner tremendously because my partner is disabled and I have fibromyalgia and a herniated disc in my lower back and sitting at a desk for 8 to 10 hours a day causes so much more pain for me. And the Mondo Beyondo part is that we have only $300 to last us until I can make some money, so this wish needs to come true within the next couple of weeks!

But miracles happen and Mondo Beyondo dreams come true and I am going to believe and have faith!

Fired and Fired Up!

I lost my job yesterday. I went in and wasn't even there an hour when my boss called me into the office and told me. No notice or anything.

I went home and went to bed and cried off and on all day and have shed tears this morning. I'm scared. I'm freaking out. Yet, there is also a part of me that is relieved. I hated my job. I hate working in a corporate environment. I hate working in an administrative capacity, doing payroll and billing and all that.

I'm thankful that I have the skills for those kinds of jobs. It has enabled me to make a living and sustain a beautiful home and get my Jeep a few months ago.

I feel very positive that the door closed on that job so that I can finally get serious about creating my own business, which is my ultimate dream. No more playing around for me. No more just dreaming about all the e-books, e-courses, and art I want to make and offer. Now it's time to hustle.

Perhaps, I just wasn't quite ready to dive in before, but now I have dusted off Leonie's Business Goddess e-course and printed off her awesome 2013 Create Your Incredible Year Calendar & Workbook (and now she has a Business version too!) and am in the midst of creating and planning for 2013 to be the most amazing and successful year ever for me!

Thank goodness I joined Leonie's Goddess Circle last year. The Circle gives me access to all of Leonie's goodies, and they are AMAZING, let me tell ya! Her Business e-course is one of THE BEST online creative business courses I have ever taken, and I have taken a lot!

Leonie is the person to help me to get my business started and growing and earning radiant abundance in a very quick matter of time. Her story really and truly inspires me like no other. She went from making less than $3,000 a year to making almost $100,000 in a little over a year and now she has a half a million dollar a year business. She is living the life of her dreams and only works a few hours a day, yet each year she doubles her income. Oh my goodness, to have the success she has had would be beyond anything I could ever imagine!

So, I am going to look at this as my opportunity to put myself and my offerings out there and that it is my time to shine!

Christmas Reindeer Painting

I painted yesterday!!! I am LOVING Christy Tomlinson's Winter Whimsy Workshop! I can't wait to make the next project - a Reindeer Owl! So, here is my adorable Reindeer:

 

 

I didn't have all the stamps and rub-ons that Christy has so I just used what I had. I also forgot to give my reindeer a neck, but I absolutely love how she turned out. I think she is so cute! I also gave her eyelashes and a smile. So I did a few different things to make her my own.

I am getting so many ideas for paintings. I love that Christy shows her creative process. She shows how and where she gets her ideas and how she translates them into her own style. That is what I've been looking for! I love to see other people's creative process. And now I have ideas on how and where to look for inspiration and how to translate that into my own style, which I'm still working on, but now I have a much better idea of how to get there. Very exciting! :)

New Blog!

Hello blogworld! I'm really excited to be starting my new blog. I've had blogs in the past, but haven't blogged in a while and wanted to start something brand spanking new to share my new journey to Creative Bliss!

Tomorrow (hopefully!), I start Christy Tomlinson's online course, "A Whimsical Winter Workshop." I am SO excited! I LOVE Christy's artistic style and I am looking forward to learning her awesome background techniques. :)

Stay tuned, as I will be sharing my assignments from Christy's course. Oh, and tomorrow, I will post some photos of my new art studio (I took over the whole dining room!).

Big hugs!

Kim