Year of the Spark! June 4, 2015 Lesson 11 with Carla (Part 1) Thoughts Are Things A Writing Assignment
Hi! Lesson 11 is going to be delivered in two parts the first video with the warm up lesson is available today, and the second main lesson will go live one week from today. The reason I m splitting them up like this this time is I don t want what you are doing during the first part of the lesson to be influenced by what you will be doing in the second part of the lesson. (Sometimes knowing the whole story doesn t make for the purest experience. sometimes it s good to be a little bit in the dark!) It s like knowing the ending of a movie before you start you will experience the movie differently if you already know the story it s not always a bad thing you can still enjoy a movie that you ve seen befored but it s definitely a different experience. Let s get started with Part 1!
A Writing Assignment As creative people, I think what we are always trying to do is get to the source of who we are as individuals, trying to find out what we want to say and how best to say it. We express our creativity through drawing, painting, collage, movement, music, cooking, writing... in all these things we are just trying to tell our unique story as human beings. This lesson we are going to concentrate on writing! Called Thoughts are Things, we are going to make a series of folded books that we will write in during the course of the next week.
We will write in the automatic style writing advocated by authors Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg. Julia Cameron wrote The Artist s Way in 1992 and I read it shortly thereafter. Reading this book changed me! Ms. Cameron has you write three pages of morning pages each day. I have done this off and on to varying degrees of success over the years, but the main thing we will borrow from this book today is the idea that when we write, we write quickly and without editing or judgment. Natalie Goldberg is a writer and painter and also advoctes automatic writing. She has filled hundreds of inexpensive, spiral bound notebooks over the years! We will incorporate these ideas into our little series of books, only in our case you will have one topic or thought per book. I love these little books because they are cute and colorful and fun to write in whatever it takes to get me writing is a good thing! There will be one thought per book, so that in the end your thoughts end up as these things.
How to Make Mini Folded 8-Page Books Supplies Needed At least 12 sheets of letter-sized printing paper (can be thin) A selection of markers, crayons, colored pencils or other writing utensils. Watercolors and brush Step 1: Start doodling, mark-making and painting on the middle portion (see below) of the paper with a combination of markers, pens and watercolors. This is a good time to use the color palettes you came up with in Lynn s last lesson. Make patterns, designs, or just doodle or scribble! Let dry. Middle Strip Portion of Paper -------->
Step 2: Fold the books. a. Fold the paper in half length-wise. b. Next, fold in half like this. c. Open flat. d. Then, fold the two sides in to the fold.
e. Open the flaps and cut off the top f. Pull open cut area to form a diamond. fold of the middle two pages. g. Flatten on the table like this.
h. Fold cover panel over to create a book. i. You will need to make another crease along the outer edge. j. And you re done!
Step 3: Write! During this process of making your books, you might have already thought of something to write about. If so, go ahead and write it down on the cover of a book. Then, write! Just write and write until you have filled the booklet. This is automatic writing and there is no editing at this point just write your thoughts on the subject and move on to the next book. Now your thoughts have become a thing. If you re not sure where to start, you can go back to some recent journal pages and perhaps an idea will pop up. During this next week make at least 12 of these (though please make more if you are inspired!). You really want a collection of these! Have fun, don t judge your writing (just do it!), and we ll revisit them in the video next week. Carla 2015 Year of the Spark!