Using Amy Tangerine's Creative handbook -Blackout poetry x

So we are now on the home leg of this look at Amy Tangerine's Creative Handbook and I have had so much fun and creative joy from completing this project. I never thought that something so simple could really help engage my creativity again.

So Project 4 in the handbook is to create your own Blackout poem. I have seen this idea used before on the Internet, obviously, and primarily by this man, Austin Kleon. He has produced a book full of poems he created by choosing words within newspaper columns and then blacking out the remaining text to make a poem like this.........

Photo Austin Kleon

If you want to hear more about this method of creating poetry, this video is excellent in explaining how many other writers like Austin have used similar ways to create their own art.



For my project, I chose 2 pages of prose from a women's magazine and basically chose words or phrases that jumped out at me. I didn't want to make it complicated so I simply played around with words I really loved or which pulled me in and then blacked out all the surrounding text. This is what one of my final pieces looked like once I'd blacked it out.......

I was quite amazed when I wrote out the poem at how lovely it was and i really seemed to convey some of how I feel about creating things. So here is my poem............

Began with intrigue

once past loved the smell of paint

I loved how it made me feel

Something fresh and brave

Embrace new things

Enthusiasms - the moment, excited

Once big world learning

Indulgent, announced photography

Pictures?

Just go -working, hooked, illustration

Reminded me, unexpected benefits,

Recipe - friends, ballet dancers favourite warm-up

Listen to the silence - creativity and emotions

Transformed into joys

Do the unexpected thing

Surprise yourself

Curious woman

Amazing

So what do you think?

Amy Tangerine's Creative handbook - post 2 x

Today I would love to share with you some more details from Amy and Jamie's creative handbook. The first post can be found here.

The next few pages in the creative handbook are focused on on finding inspiration for creativity and actually doing something with the things which inspire us. For me that may be a picture I take, words I hear or see as in a quote or music lyrics, a class I do or finding inspiring creative people across the web.

The first page, practice 3, I am sharing is all about getting those little bits of creativity off Pinterest boards and into the world. I am one of those people, I bet some of you are the same, who find amazing things to pin on those boards but never actually do something with them. Go on hands up who's done that?

SO this first page focuses you onto putting some of those ideas into actionable ideas. Here is an image of the whole page completed.

So the top section of the page is an area for putting down those inspiring images you've found and pinned or you may have cut them from magazines. I chose a few images from my boards which would focus my planning. The first image on the top left is a scrapbook page by Rukristin. She blogged about this layout here and I absolutely loved her idea of stamping speech bubbles as a background feature and then stamping further coloured bubbles with journalling inside. I really Kristin's scrapbooking style and follow her work avidly. The next few pictures are of patchwork quilts, or segments of them. I am so, so wanting to try my hand but I get put off by the mammoth cutting and stitching sections  and just wish I could go straight to the finished quilt. I truly want to give it a go so I thought it would be a great start to have these images there in front of me. Next I found a minibook image to keep me inspired on the one I am making at the moment about my trip to Lacock. I love making minibooks so I wanted to maintain my focus there too.

The lower section is all about quotes. I have pinboards full of them and I do actually use them alot in my personal journal. I chose just a few I really, really love. I get so much inspiration from painting and art and the quote from Henry Matisse is simple but effective.......

Creativity takes courage

Yes sometimes it does and I wanted to make a point of letting it out there.

The larger poem by Emily Dickinson is one not so much about creativity but about being an individual who feels and can be buffeted by life but has the hope and strength to keep going no matter what. I often think that creativity comes in waves and for me that is ok. I can't be creative 100% of the time, however I can still be a creative soul. The small quote at the bottom is a reference back to my OLW 2015 Light and keeps me thinking about that as I move through each day.

The next page in the handbook is quite an emotional one....................

This page explores all the negative things we all think about ourselves as creative people but also the positive and empowering ideas of creativity. For this page, Amy and Jamie encourage you to write down or doodle all those issues which may impede our creativity and all the things which encourage it.
I wrote down on the negative side ideas like:

• I have no originality
• I'm not good enough
• lack of time
• not having talent

Then the very therapeutic part is you cross all those ideas out, in my case in big red paint. I also found a lovely quote which said:

No matter what they tell you, you don't have to 

stay within the lines

I thought this was a perfect thing to cover up all that negativity, don't you?

Now for the positive side. Here is your chance to really sell yourself as a creative person. I wrote out lots of inspiring words like amazing, incredible, inspiration just to lay on that positivity thick and fast.

I also found a wonderful definition for a word called Meraki meaning to do something with soul, creativity and love; to put something of yourself into your work.

Isn't that beautiful? I genuinely do put alot of myself into the scrapbooking layouts I make, not just the thought, time, taking pictures, choosing the items but the journalling which is often so personal and intimate.

I really went to town on the positivity using alot of bright colours, some lovely quotes and images and I genuinely think this page is going to maintain me through alot of life, not just my creativity.

I wonder if any of you were inspired by my first post to get Amy and Jamie's handbook and have a go? What do you think of these pages and what negative and positive ideas do you have about your creativity?

Amy Tangerine's Creative handbook - post 1 x

image owned by Amy Tangerine

If you love blogging, and I do, then you possibly have this lovely lady's blog either in your Bloglovin or blogging feed. This is Amy Tangerine and she is an incredibly talented and inspiring creative lady.
A couple of months back, she and her friend Jamie Waters posted a YouTube video which introduced the new Creative Handbook you can see in the picture above with Amy. In order to get this freebie all you had to do was fill out your name and email here. So I did and hey presto it was printed out. Now I have had a bit of a creativity hiatus and only got it out again last week. But it has been a really great push to reignite my creativity.

So this post, and subsequent posts, will demonstrate my personal journey with this handbook, and I will show you what I have created within it.

Within the handbook, are 5 practices which Amy uses herself to inspire her creativity. These are discussed in detail inside and there are pages laid out for you to vent your creative juices. The first practice is all about looking at the handbook as a side project to all those big projects we all have, and to dip into it regularly and create something fresh.

The first page to play with is this one...........................

In the video to accompany this page, Amy and Jamie use watercolour paints to add decoration, so I treated myself to some for £1.99 at my local outlet. This first page, I first decorated with a simple border and some stamping. I added washi tape to the mid-section. The writing above the top box is a basic statement you are asked to make.....................

"I plan to create more, live more, have fun, spend time in the sunshine, love, live and enjoy"

I thought this would be a simple but to the point mantra for where I wanted to be over the next few weeks, and to write it down felt like I was making an actual admission of intention.

The box below is an ideas box where I basically brainstormed ideas and doodled. In this area I have written about friendship, blogging, journaling, writing, memory keeping, photography and all manner of things I am doing or planning to do this year. 

In the bottom two boxes, I simply added in my reading goal for 2015 and some words and images for my One Little word - Light. I love how this page came together and it is so bright and cheerful, everytime I look at it, it makes me smile and remember my goals.

 .

The second practice in the handbook, is about journalling your intentions. Amy explains how she journals and doodles in a notebook before she gets up each morning.

This page was completed one evening, in fact, and I wrote my three prompts :

• make sure I spend time creating
• be open to new inspiration
• find fun in friendships

I find inspiration in so many places, from walking around my garden, reading, listening to music, watching the sky and dreaming so I felt these simple statements gave a flavour of that. Friendships are important to me, both on the Internet and in the real world, so I wanted to make a statement about that too. I find a great deal of inspiration from my friendships and felt this was important to remember.

This page is mainly writing, some washi tape and doodling. The writing is fairly personal and is a free writing exercise Amy suggested to get the imagination going. I found it really helpful in focusing me onto this handbook and what I aimed to achieve.

If you would like to watch the videos which accompany these pages by Amy and Jamie, they are below...........







Is anyone else working through this handbook? How are you finding it helps you?