by Shelly Stokes, Founder and Creative Mentor As I started today’s post, I realized that I have been working with Paintstiks for nearly 15 years. Holy buckets, Batman! Where have the years gone? In that time, I confess that I have made every mistake in the books – and then some. Worse yet, I made […]
Paintstik Rubbings 5: Soft and Subtle
by Shelly Stokes, Founder and Creative Mentor It has been a few weeks since we last checked in on Paintstik Rubbings. Today I want to continue our series with a look at a couple of ways to make softer images. If you have just joined us or want to review, here are the links to […]
Paintstik Rubbings 4: Detailed Rubbings From Stamps
by Shelly Stokes, Founder and Creative Mentor In the Part 1 of this series on making Paintstik Rubbings, we discussed how using the side of a paintstik can make a cleaner rubbing. Today, I want to talk about one case where this is definitely not the case. First, let me give you the links to […]
Paintstik Rubbings 3: Joyfully Messy Rubbings
by Shelly Stokes, Founder and Creative Mentor Today I want to take a HUGE step away from everything I have ever said about making Paintstik rubbings. Today, we’re going to talk about making “messy” rubbings. And not just a little bit messy — we are going straight for the joyfully messy version! (By the way, […]
Paintstik Rubbings 2: Sticky Stuff Alternatives
by Shelly Stokes, Founder and Creative Mentor Last week, we talked about my favorite method for creating clean, clear paintstik rubbings. To do this, I shared my fondness for sticky mats and sticky spray. Well, that’s all and good if you happen to have these items on hand. But what if you don’t? I am […]
Paintstik Rubbings 1: Clean, Crisp Images
by Shelly Stokes, Founder and Creative Mentor One of the comments I hear most frequently from readers, students and shop owners is “wow, my paintstik rubbings don’t look anything like that!” Rather than telling you what I think is the right way to make rubbings, I thought it might be a lot more fun to […]
Finding Inspiration 5: Allow Yourself to FEEL
by Shelly Stokes, Founder and Creative Mentor As I look back, the two most overused phrases in my 25-year marriage to Jack have been “what would you like for dinner?” and “I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it.” And with that, the inevitable little standoff when neither one of us takes a moment to […]
Finding Inspiration 4: Learn Your Craft
by Shelly Stokes, Creative Mentor, Cedar Canyon Textiles It has been a few weeks since we last talked about finding inspiration or “wooing our muse.” Today, I want to continue this series with some thoughts on one really important strategy that is easy to skip past when we want to jump into a new project. […]
Finding Inspiration 3: Connect With Others
A few weeks ago, I posted several articles on finding inspiration, or “wooing our muse.” You can read the earlier posts here: Finding Inspiration 1: Examine the Best Examples Finding Inspiration 2: Explore Other Techniques As you know, ideas come at the craziest times (like the middle of the night) and often seem to disappear […]
Finding Inspiration 2: Explore Other Techniques
In last week’s post, we talked about finding creative inspiration – or “wooing our muse” – with our EYES by looking at the best examples we can find. This week, I want to talk about finding inspiration with our HANDS. In a recent blog post, poet Kelly Belmonte at All Nine Muses encouraged writers to read […]
Finding Inspiration 1: Examine The Best Examples
Last week, I posted a video about honoring your creative nature. If you missed it, you can see it here. In the video, I made the case that each and every one of us is a creative being, and that we need to make time and space to play, to create, and to feed this […]
Honor Your Creative Space
As you know, I’ve been taking a lot of time off this summer to spend on family and personal matters. I was incredibly earlier in the year and I simply needed to make time for myself. I have spent a lot of time with my family, picked out furnishings for my living room, gone to […]
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