In this Artist Date with Cindy, we will glue and paint and then gesso and then glue and then paint some more. And then maybe some more.
Art Journal Catalysts
3. Cultivate
Part 4 – Claiming the Female
Women’s lives and stories have been interpreted through the masculine lens for a long time. The idea of the witch came out of men being afraid of the knowledge that certain women had. They wanted to control women and so invented this idea of witchcraft as something to be afraid of and repress. And I would like this lesson to be about not being embarrassed to tap into that shared knowledge and history. To acknowledge that we are women and that we participate in society and matter just as much as anyone else. I want women to be proud of this and to be intentional in our art and lives.
Lesson 6 – Peace
Tthoughts about the idea of inner peace and how we seek it.
031 Habit
This season, a host of incredible artists take you on a creative journey focused on what Get Messy believes is the most important part of being an artist: habit. These artists show you how they fit an art habit into their full, rich lives. Learn creative warm-up exercises to get you started, how to build a 20 minute art break into your schedule, how to keep a digital art idea notebook, and how to utilize the Get Messy hangouts and community towards your art habit. This season shows you exactly how, in very actionable steps, to make a creative habit as second nature as brushing your teeth.
5 elements to meaningful journal pages
This workshop gives you a run down of 5 simple things to strive to include in your journal pages to ensure you are filling them with meaning, purpose, story telling and emotion. How to successfully encapsulate the significance of a moment no matter how small it may be.
Using Commonplace Books as a Weapon Against Perfectionism
Failure The last time I counted back to see how long I’ve been keeping commonplace books, I thought it’d been about twelves years or so, but since then I’ve found...
Lesson 4 – Anger and Rage
Allowing yourself the space to feel anger, and finding a vent for it in your art journal.
Reflections + Intentions 2019/2020
This annual Get Messy tradition has two exciting guests join in…
Bonus – The Witch’s Garden
Welcome to the bonus lesson where we will stretch and blend and reimagine the symbols and techniques we have created so far. The idea for this bonus spread is to use all of the elements of the first four lessons to create an all-encompassing art journal spread. This is how I usually work: my art process is all about seeing and showing connections. The theme for these pages is the witch’s garden where all sorts of amazing things flourish. What would you like to have in your garden? What will you feed and nourish and what weeds will you take out? This is your chance to work intuitively and tie together all the totems that you have identified throughout this class.
A look at Johanna’s pages – identifying the 5 elements
A look into some of my personal journal pages. We identify the elements I use together and look into the individual roles of each, what they bring to the page, how they bring it to the page and where they stem from.
Quieten the Itty-Bitty-Shitty Committee
Holly guides you through mindful art practice to go from unkind self words to positive affirmations.
Reuse the “meh”: Giving art a second life
Habit Art as a habit is great! But creating lots of art also means you'll create some you're not happy with. With these ideas, transform old art into something new & beautiful!...
The Voice of this Moment: Using Journaling to Find Meaning and Hope
Connect with your deepest self in your journal, and discover a vantage point on the current crisis that offers meaning and hope.
027 Failure
If perfectionism is what’s stopping you from making art that you love, then join the Season of Failure. Hosted by Get Messy Fairy Artmother, Caylee Grey takes you through a 5 step process to “eff comparison,” dance naked in perfection’s face, and make sweet, sweet (imperfect) art in your art journal. Learn to embrace failure with a failure tracker and even a failure bingo. Transform imposter syndrome into a trickster goddess with Emily Mulrony, and don’t miss Brandi Kincaid’s tutorial on using commonplace books as weapons against perfectionism.
Non creative books that help your art
We all love to read about creativity, fill our homes with beautiful giant books with art photos, patterns, and photography in them. These books are as beautiful as they are educational. But living a creative life as an artist begs for more depth and inner exploration,...
Part 2 – Archetypes
Totems > Part 2 From Vocabulary.com: “In the psychology of Carl Jung, an archetype is an inherited pattern of thought derived from the past experience of the whole race...
Lesson 5 – Wonder and Surprise
Wonder isn’t something that necessarily springs to mind when we’re thinking about all the different emotions we experience, but it’s a unique one, and really worth spending some time with.
Find Your Style
We have a hack for finding your style and it doesn’t involve selling a kidney, so that’s a bonus.
Mindful Art with Amy
Amy from Mindful Art Studio demonstrates using art for mindfulness in order to find beauty and relaxation.
Tell Your Story with Amy
Amy talks creativity through bullet journaling, documenting, and telling your story in your journal.
Failure and imperfection
A pep talk by Tiffany on rejection, failure, and fighting imperfection.
Healing Heart: Using painted paper and collage to encourage self love
Kindness Hi, Sarah here! I'm so excited to share this tutorial with you all! I love that we're starting a new year of Get Messy with the Season of Kindness. What a great way to...
The Life-Altering Wizardry That is Morning Work
Hey Get Messians, it’s Cait! This is my last inspiration post! I am going to miss doing these posts BUT I am beyond excited to read everything the new Creative Team comes up with! So, I...
Connection, Structure and Silliness with Sandra Busby and Tara Roskell
You are going to love this episode. I’m chatting with Tara and Sandra from Kick in the Creatives. And if you don’t know them yet, by the end of this episode, you’re going to fall just as in love with them as I have. And good news for you because they’ve got their own podcast and you can binge listen to them and just take in everything that they have.
Don’t Compromise with Barbara J Graham
Today I chatted with the incredible Barbara J Graham. She is the guest artist for Get Messy’s Season of Less. We spoke a lot about how she creates, how she puts her emotions into her paintings, and how she is able to express the intangible in something tangible. Barbara has a beautiful story about how she came to art and how art was there all along. How art kept knocking at the door no matter how many times she tried to ignore it.
I think that you’ll find that the summary is this episode’s title: don’t compromise. Don’t compromise on your art. Tell the stories of your soul, tell your life, tell your life through moments and moments with art and just show up to the page. Even if you think that it’s not your time, I mean, Barbara was 37 when she went to art school, and that is incredible. That’s an incredible story of resilience and strength and courage. Her art is beautiful and expressive and if Barbara can can do it, you can too. I hope that’s what you take from this episode.
Expressive Arts: Get Uncomfortable
Get uncomfortable, nudge your creative process, think and feel about your art making…
Expressive Arts: Bust Our of Your Process
Bust out of your creative personal process. Yikes!
Art for Excitement and Yumminess with Connie Solera
Today’s episode is a good one. You’re gonna love it. I know you’re gonna love it because it has Connie Solera in it. And Connie has a heart of gold. She’s a great teacher. She’s an incredible artist and I feel like she was put on this earth just to make everyone else better artists – she’s wonderful. Connie is also the guest artist for the season at Get Messy. And if you’re a Messian, and you’ve watched her workshop, you’ll know what I’m talking about. She’s amazing. She’ll make you amazing. Just listen to this chat that I have with her and I dare you to not run to your art journal.
How to Find Your Style with Meg Journals
Today I am chatting with the beautiful, the kind, the lovely Megan McCaskill. She has a beautiful accent, a beautiful heart and beautiful journals to match. It was a completely spontaneous interview chat thing just as I was heading off to the train station for my mom but I hope that you create as we chat. I love Meg, I know that you are going to love her.
Expressive Arts: Explore Your Process
A workshop by Michele to explore your personal creative process and what you are holding in.
Real life is what makes art with Johanna Clough
You’re putting your life into it so that’s what makes it something special. That’s what makes you appreciate it and other people as well. It really doesn’t matter what you use and it’s funny to say that because I make journals and I’m very passionate about it because...
Your Truth is Enough with Mou Saha
Mou is the guest artist for Get Messy’s Season of Belonging and she is an absolute zen queen. We talk about her journey, how she created belonging within her art, how she tells her truth, and her journey to realising that she is enough.
Be Intentional About your Artist Journey with Cindy Jay and Debbie Bamberger
Every year, Get Messy hosts a workshop on reflecting back on the year, and creating intentions for the year ahead. This year we have two very special guests. Print out the workbook, grab a pen and watch the video below where Debbie, Cindy, and Caylee walk you through reflecting on 2019 and planning for 2020.
Cindy Jay and Debbie Bamberger are prolific artists with big hearts. I sat down with them to reflect on our 2019 years in art, and to create intentions for 2020. This is an informal episode where friends chat and laugh, but one with so many takeaways from these wise women.
Join us to reflect on your year and plan for (another) creatively fueled year.
How to Art with Intention with Amy Maricle
In this podcast, I chat to Amy Maricle about art with intention. Amy shares some of her most profound views on how to become more aware and intentional in your art practice. We discuss:
what it means to be mindful,
how mindfulness changes your art,
being zen about thinking big and letting go,
the inner critic,
Amy’s weaknesses,
and how to be an artist
As always, Amy is just bursting with insane wisdom.
121 Hours: How to build an art habit
Habit 20 minutes a day will build an art habit. Start today!Supplies paper paint glue magazines gelli plate scissors tape sewing supplies friends to cheer you on and for whom you...
How to maintain a creative habit with Anika Lacerte
In this podcast, I chat to Anika Lacerte about creative habit. As someone who is currently on her 9th 100 day project, Anika is kind of an expert at it. She shares her top 16 ways for fitting art into your life every single freaking day. Scroll down to download the PDF and keep it with you to refer back to.
How I went from lazy and passive to deliberate and goal driven
Let’s officially kick off the podcast with my story and the reason I’m here.
The Get Messy Podcast
Making art should be easy. Turn up the music, select your arty weapons of choice, crack your knuckles and then, well, make art. But let’s be honest: Art is messy. (Heck, life is messy!) So even though it’s so important to you to be an artist and create art regularly …...
Part 3 – Elemental Magic
Humans are in and of this world, we interact with it; there is an exchange of energy. This is one of the first principles we learn in Anthropology and we sometimes forget this. We are the product of our environment, we are linked to it. Elemental magic encompasses those symbols, seen and unseen, that surround us.
Part 1 – Spirit Animals
Why do you need a Spirit Animal? What is the point? Why can’t a quiz on Buzzfeed tell you the answer? A Spirit Animal embodies a trait or a quality that you have in your personality or that you would like to invite into your art journal. Take the time to meditate on this, try to focus on a part of you that you like – or something that you lack – and that you would want to symbolise through an animal. You give the meaning to that animal because it is your Spirit Animal.
New Dynamics: Creating Diptychs to Explore Relationships
Ubuntu Hi everyone, it’s Sarah! Today were going to be exploring diptychs and how they are used to bring the connections between two seemingly unrelated subjects. Since the word...
Commonplace Books with Brandi
Solid ideas for Brandi’s favourite way to create – with commonplace books.
Make Art Everyday with Sketchbook Skool
Sketchbook Skool chats with us about making art part of your life, and shows pages from their sketchbooks.
Reflections + Intentions 2018/2019
We’re talking creative reflection and intentions. Looking back at what you’ve made, and how to make great art goals.
Travel Journaling
Lauren and Vanessa are together in 3D in Korea and chat about their travel journal kits and what supplies they travel with.
Finding Inspiration in the Process
Colour The best part of personal artistic pursuits is fully enjoying the process. When I work in my journal, I’m not only enjoying the artwork, but the feeling in my workspace,...
A Collection of Art Journals
Art 101 Hello fellow Get Messians! As one who loves loves loves art journaling, I wanted to share a little more about my art journaling practice. I’ve been art journaling pretty...
Artspiration
One of the most amazing places for inspiration is an Art Gallery. I had grand ideas of turning inspiration into pages, but then I kind of realized inspiration doesn’t always work like...
Finding Joy and Flow in Your Creativity with Hannah Fitzgibbon
Oh, Messy artist, I have a treat for you this week on the podcast. Today I spoke with Hannah Fitzgibbon, and let me tell you… I feel like my whole world has changed. My creativity has been rocked, everything… You are going to love Hannah as much as I love her because she is amazing, articulate, and wise. The stuff that we spoke about today has revolutionised everything I know about creativity. All I’ve been doing for the past 6 years is creating, listening to people talk about creating, listening to people’s views on creating, helping others create, helping myself create more. And this is the first time that I’ve heard someone speak about creativity in this way.
In our episode, we talk about joy and flow in our creativity. There’s just so much more to it, and so much more depth to this conversation. We speak about a lot, we cover a lot, and a lot of new ideas or different ways of thinking, but I hope you spend time meditating on each point.
Play us, listen to us while you’re creating, but also write down Hannah’s words and spend some time reflecting on the way she sees things and the way she can help you things. I don’t know exactly what kind of creating you do but I know that Hannah is going to be great for it.
If you’re feeling frozen and overwhelmed
I recently received an email from Kate, who had a problem. I could relate and wanted to help. Maybe you need to hear this too.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed with how many options you have, if you’re feeling stuck creatively, or if you’re a perfectionist and you’re super hard on yourself…. this episode is my letter to you. Here’s what to do.
And of course it’s actionable.
Journaling Exercise: What do you need more of?
More#gmseasonofmoreWe're going to take our art to the next, deeper, level today. Grab a journal and pen and spend some time answering these four questions: What was the process of...
The life changing magic of morning pages
Morning pages are going to change your life. Morning pages are going to give you better art, better relationships, better mental health and a clear head. In this episode, I’m going to chat about how I make them work for me and give you an exact to do list on how you can make them work for you, how you can rock them, how you can make your life rock… all due to morning pages.
The Magic of a Sketchbook with Karen Abend
Once again I am freaking excited about this week’s guest on the podcast. This week it’s the beautiful Karen Abend. She has a heart of gold and I’m really excited about our chat today.
In this episode we discuss the absolute magic of sketchbooks. We discuss how sketchbooks are the root of everything creative, no matter what you call them – sketchbook, art journal, notebook, junk journal… all of those good things.
I hope you play this while you are creating in your sketchbook, your art journal, whatever you call it. Let’s all create together.
Real life is what makes the art what it is
You’re putting your life into it so that’s what makes it something special.
Walking the 5 Paths of Journaling with Rebecca Kochenderfer
In this episode, I chat to Rebecca Kochenderfer, the founder of Journaling.com and a lifetime journaler. Rebecca shares her experiences, approach, and tips surrounding the practise for both business and personal life. She walks us through the five paths of journaling, effects on our well-being and methods of journaling.
Inspiration is not real
Inspiration does not exist. It’s a lie. Inspiration is not real. True inspiration is the kind that leads to immediate action. Inspiration that leads to nothing tangible is… nothing.
There’s something tangible standing between an idea and something being realised.
That something is YOU.
Creating Art Beyond Yourself with Morgan Harper Nichols
In this episode of the podcast, I was awed by Morgan Harper Nichols. Yup, that’s right. *The* Morgan Harper Nichols. MHN and I talk about how selflessness is important to her artistic process. How she finds purpose in her art by creating beyond herself. As someone who created an entire life and business around creative community, this chat rocked my world.
2.3 Self Care
So we’ve looked at who you were and who you’re becoming, and now it’s time to think about practical ways of taking care of you moving forward. Now that your life is busier and fuller than ever, it’s important that you’re cared for and supported as much as humanly...
1.1 Life Before
It might be hard to remember right now, but before you were a mother, you were you. There’s nothing like having a baby to completely turn your world upside down, and make you feel like your identity got shattered in the turning. All of a sudden you’re a shuffling,...
2.1 Who Am I?
So far, we’ve talked a lot about the process of becoming a mother, and what that was like for you. But that’s actually the shortest part of the story. What comes next, is the rest of your life. No matter what happens to you from now on, you are a mother. It's...
Closing Thoughts
Here's a look at our completed journals...
1.2 Suddenly Real
While the sperm-meets-egg biology of conception is universal, the process of creating our babies is different for everyone. Some of us fall pregnant easily, and some of us struggle. Some of us are biologically linked to our kids, while others adopt, or are the other...
2.2 Loving Mama
We’ve talked about how motherhood can change the parts of you that existed before, and how you can reconnect with those in your current life. Now it’s time to identify the things that were born in you when your child became yours. The new, awesome, scary, surprising...
Class Kit + Workbook
Workbook + Digital KitDownload these files and save them to your computer. Print them out and use them in your journal for this class or for other projects. Copyright © Caylee Greyvenstein and Esther Smith. All files are for personal use only. You may not distribute...
1.3 And Then There Was You
Arrival Few of us have days in our lives that are more memorable than when our babies came into our worlds. For the majority of us it’s a story that involves giving birth, though for adoptive and non-birth parents it’s still an unforgettable, life-altering event.Write...
Lesson 3 – Sadness and Grief
Our art journals can be the perfect places to “art it out” when we’re feeling sad. Sadness can be a scary emotion, and one we shy away from, but if we can allow ourselves to sit with sadness from time to time, it can be good for us.
Lesson 2 – Joy and Happiness
This lesson is about connecting with happiness in our art journals. In the video I’ll introduce you to this idea, and to an artist whose work inspires me to create bright, joyful pieces of my own.
Inspiration for Conquering The Blank Page
Kindness Hello Get Messy Family! If you are anything like me, sometimes you just can’t think of what to do in your art journal. It’s one of the reasons I created my Mixed Media...
044 Finishing
Get Messy begins and ends with you. It’s the community of people with a common goal of expressing themselves through art journaling that makes Get Messy unique. For the Season of Finishing, guest artist, Lynissa Hayes show you how to bind an easy envelope pocket journal that adapts to your workflow and is never unfinished. You’ll learn how to finish art journal spreads with the unfinished, and how to collate these unfinished bits and search for inspiration and edging closer to the end results. And then! Oh beautiful Messy Artist, it’s time to include yourself in your journal. Your beautiful, unfinished self. Because in the end, all our journals are is: who we are.
043 Focus
Get Messy encourages you to take your artistic spark and focus it into a regular practice that expresses who you are. For the Season of Focus, guest artist Maria Zaida shows you how she overcame her art journaling intimidation through an intuitive approach to building a layered spread from start to finish in a handmade journal. Learn how to incorporate your favourite elements in an art journal spread as Maria takes you through a step by step process for creating a spread that merges together her love of florals and black and white designs.
042 Spark
Part of Get Messy’s job is to help cultivate the magic in you. For the Season of Spark, we’re going to harness your magic, turn it into a little spark, and allow it to burst into flames. Guest artist Katrina (or Mercurial Milk as she is known on Instagram) shows you how to create a ‘scene’ or a full painting spanning two pages or a spread in your art journal. She then shares her magic with you so that you can spark your own art journaling magic.
041 Steven
Join the kookiest Get Messy season yet – the Season of Steven where guest artist and Get Messy founder Caylee shows you how to transform inspiration into action. Using the words of writer Steven Pressfield, Caylee shows you how to fill an entire art journal. Follow along by choosing your own “Steven,” then selecting, prepping, and processing an altered book. Fill it up with inspiring quotes and words with Caylee’s lettering tips and tricks, including “imperfect brush lettering,” stencils and script, typewriter fonts, stamping, alpha stickers (even when you run out of those important vowels), and more.
039 X
Get Messy is made up of YOU. You are what makes Get Messy, and this season is all about your personal art journey. What is X? It’s the independent variable, the Great Unknown, the thing that you need to find. The Season of X invites you to find your very own X. We reverse engineered the seasons, threw structure out of the window, and leaned on each other to build a season that reflected our imperfect, messy community. Download and follow along with the Sidekick and follow along to find your X.
038 Less
A natural partner to the Season of More is the Season of Less. There is space for both of these seasons in our lives, whether we are art minimalists or art maximalists. Guest artist, Barbara J. Graham, is a full time abstract expressionist painter who draws inspiration from the joy of the present moment. With Graham as your guide, you will learn how to use colour and mark making to convey emotion and create massive impact with minimal resources. Explore the full possible range of a limited colour palette and experiment with mark making. Then learn how to pull it all together in your art journal.
037 More
Lauren Hooper returns for the Season of More. With Lauren as your guide, you will identify what you need more of in your life and create artful reminders that encourage you to keep seeking what you need more of. Lauren also shows you how to create depth in your art journal pages with layered watercolours. Whether you want to explore art maximalism or more in your life in a broader sense, the Season of More gives you the space to do so.
036 Affirmation
Season guest artist Connie Solera embraces showing up to your art journal with honesty, vulnerability, and fearlessness in the Season of Affirmation. Through intuitive painting, Connie helps you embrace every mark you make as a part of a conversation and to follow the first ideas, gut reactions, and little whispers that won’t leave you alone. Hold your art journals close to your heart as a safe sanctuary to affirm all the feels you are feeling, all the fears you are experiencing, and all the hope you can muster for a brighter future ahead.
035 Truth
Part of belonging to this incredible community is that we are seen. Not just the bits of ourselves that we curate for social media, but our true authentic selves. There is a shared vulnerability that is respected among Messians, which is why for the Season of Truth, we encourage you to explore your truth, speak your truth, and be vulnerable in your journal. Guest artist Johanna Clough walks you through five simple things to strive to include in your journal pages to ensure you are filling them with meaning, purpose, storytelling, and emotion.
Inspir-action from Mou
Belonging#gmseasonofbelongingPage through Mou's journals and fill your inspiration well. Transcript (this transcript is automatically generated and is sure to contain errors....
034 Belonging
Get Messy has art, tutorials, and a crazy amount of inspiration all wrapped in love and community. At each part of Get Messy is the opportunity to make a friend, to be a friend, to be kind, and to receive kindness. In the Season of Belonging, Mou Saha explores the internal need for true belonging. Along with a host of creative prompts and catalysts to kickstart your creating, you can join Mou’s workshops on monoprinting and lettering. Mou guides you through her process for creating a monoprinted page. Then, you’ll turn your monoprinted pages into lettering with Mou’s signature messy technique.
033 Home
The Season of Home features guest artist Char Derouin who will help you explore your feelings of belonging, heritage, and home through junk journaling. Char walks you through her process for making junk journals, including how she gathers and prepares supplies for creating. She also shows you how to make staggered junk journals and paper bag junk journals. So settle in and get comfortable and explore what home means to you.
032 Reflection
For the Season of Reflection, we reflect on our magnificent art journey and celebrate our growth. Caylee walks you through making life mind maps to create tangible action plans for all your glorious ideas. Learn how to create a Japanese Ledger art journal and a shadow box that will fold down neatly into your journal. Follow along the five journaling paths leading toward improved: emotional well-being, creativity, productivity, physical health, and mindfulness. Then learn how to combine written journaling and art to create meaningful and cohesive pages.
030 Documenting
The Season of Documentation is about showing exactly who you are via art journaling. In this season, you will use an old book and six artists will show you how to document yourself in your art journal. Challenge yourself to include self-portraits and images in your art journal with numerous prompts and tutorials. Learn how to document the colours of your life and the wide range of feelings you experience. See how to collect inspiration from a daily journaling practice and introduce yourself to junk journaling.
029 Starting
For the Season of Starting, we have 3.5 incredible artists who share their unique experiences of starting art at four very different points. Includes four weeks of tutorials, prompts, and actionable inspiration that will be the catalysts on your art journey. Learn how to bind a vintage book into a handbound journal, as well as several other bookbinding methods for truly unique handbound journals. Explore intuitive painting, ideas and lessons from other artists for creating your own style, practical ways for getting back into journaling after a break, and how to face your fear and take the leap.
028 Inspiration
For the Season of Inspiration, host Lauren Hooper helps you determine who or what your muse is and how to use your muse in your artwork and push yourself further. Additionally, four other artists share their muses with you, how they found them, why they can’t stop creating with them, and how they have evolved them over time. If you are ready to take your art to the next level, infuse it with meaning, have your name be synonymous with your muse, and find a love that will last your art a lifetime – this season is perfect for you.
026 Creativity
For the Season of Creativity, we show you how to translate the things you love into beautiful and unique art journal pages. Learn how to find, translate and create art from inspiration in the world around you. Then create an entire art journal using something you already love that is deeply personal and fun: media. Your favorite book, TV show or movie will be your jumping off point for creating artwork based off of your life and your interests. Hosted by Lauren Hooper, this season is here to help you see yourself as an artist, living a creative life.
Creator Incubator – Classes
30 days to creating your first online art class
025 Celebration
The Season of Celebration celebrates the Get Messy community of artists who guide you through this season. They share tips for how to “sneak around” the fear of imperfection and make yourself accountable to a daily art practice, as well as using the Get Messy seasons to explore a particular theme and develop your own style. Tutorials include transforming your mood with art journaling, creating a “use it up” journal for leftover paints and paper bits, exploring shape and form to represent different emotions, releasing your inner child through fingerpainting, using found materials, and documenting your day.
Welcome
Totems is the course that will walk you through finding your personal symbols and translating them into your art journal pages.
024 Freedom
The Season of Freedom is for uninhibited creating, journaling without restraint, embracing the mess in art and life, venturing into the unknown, expressing yourself, letting go of fear and doubt, and release. Prompts, tutorials, interviews, and challenges await you as you tackle the idea of what freedom means to you in your life and in your art. Go bold with hand lettering, try out collography, paint ethereal watercolour butterflies, use acrylic mediums to build layers, practice painting fast and slow, and more. Guest Artist, Ali Brown, shows you how to liberate yourself with abstract painting and joy notes. Let your art reflect your truest self and desires.
023 Ubuntu
At Get Messy, you are not a number, but a vital part of our community. A South African word, Ubuntu means: I am because we are. This season delves deep into the humanity in all of us and how to illuminate and connect with it. Through tutorials about charcoal and gesso, alcohol ink, and brush lettering with watercolour and ink, you will explore social justice causes in your home and world and find ways that your art can elevate the good in all of humanity. Guest artist Kellee Wynne from Colour Crush Creative shows you how to create a mixed media concertina art journal and introduces you to colour theory.
022 Seasons
The Season of Seasons explores the passing of time and how we change and grow with the seasons. Prompts help you express your evolution through your life’s seasons, and tutorials show you how to map your relationship to the earth’s seasons. Learn how to document your emotions with a lunar calendar and create a spinner to move through the seasons of life. Create seasonal mood boards, collages for each of the seasons, and leaf and flower gelli prints for all seasons. Guest artist Julia Marriott shows you acrylic painting and colour techniques to make your art bloom.
021 Story
For the Season of Story, you will create art that represents your life, your family, your history, your dreams, your goals, and your past, present, and future. Learn unconventional ways to tell your story through abstract art, photographic abstraction, and comic book panels. Use vintage photos and found words to tell a familiar or fictional story about yourself and the hero’s journey as a template for your life journey. Guest Artist Amy Tan of Amy Tangerine shows you how to tell your story by combining memory keeping and art journaling. Come tell your story with us.
020 Play
For the Season of Play, leave behind self doubt and judgement and dive headfirst into creative play. Make your own rotating stamps and use junk drawer items to make marks in your art journal. Revisit your childhood by creating paper dolls with movable parts and turning scribbles into bright, fun art journal pages. Play the roll the art dice game and go on a scavenger hunt in your neighborhood for art journal inspiration. Transform yourself into a superhero in your own comic. This season features a collaboration with Sketchbook Skool, Danny Gregory and Koosje Koene, who show you a zillion ways to fill a sketchbook.
019 Kindness
Kindness defines the Get Messy Community. This season focuses on self love and love for others. Practice self-love by painting paper and collage, creating collaged hands of forgiveness, and writing an origami love letter to yourself. Incorporate yarn for pattern and texture and interactive flaps to reveal inspiration for ordinary kindness. Learn easy tricks for illustrating people and making your own mandalas and spread kindness in your communities in the form of tiny pieces of art. Guest artist Kiala Givehand shares a wealth of ideas for conquering the blank page and playful printmaking. Spread kindness in your communities in the form of tiny pieces of art.
018 Nature
The Season of Nature celebrates the wild and natural world. Connect with nature in your art journaling by making plant-based inks, creating a DIY flower press, using the language of flowers, including leaves, and block printing nature motifs. Learn artistic techniques from cave painting, how to create a journal representing the tides, and how to begin doodling. Guest Artist Lina shows you three techniques for creating watercolour backgrounds and how to translate music to paper.
017 Connections
The Season of Connections explores your connection to your art, your people, and your world. Make connections in your art journal by using thread and vintage elements to connect to your past, using continuous line drawing, finding hidden imagery in paint splatters, and gathering ephemera for meaningful collage. Other tutorials include creating a mixed media self-portrait, techniques for using ink in your art journal, and creating rituals and building habits for art journaling. Guest artist Brandi Kincaid shows you how to make a folded accordion book for everyday details.
016 Fairy Tales
The Season of Fairy Tales asks you to spread the magic of your art throughout the world. Begin by creating an accordion folded journal and a pop-up art journal to hold your art magic. Explore including interactive elements in your art journal and layering vellum and transparencies to produce soft layers. Challenge yourself by foraging for art journal supplies in unexpected places and making paint brushes from found objects. Learn techniques for creating woodland backgrounds, fantastic creatures, and your own printables. Guest artist Olivia shows you some brush letter inspiration and how to include it in your art journal.
015 Colour
The Season of Colour holds nothing back when it comes to colour, light, and brightness. You will learn what colour means to you, to your culture, what you can express with it, and how to use colour with more confidence. Challenge yourself by mixing your own colours, experimenting with unfamiliar colours, and journaling in monochrome. Create your own colour catalogue, paint with “bleeding” tissue paper, and create marbled paper with ink. Guest artist, Katie Licht, shows you how to find inspiration and unexpected colour palettes in the process of creating.
014 Contrast
The Season of Contrast experiments with differences with guest artist, Amy Maricle. Through prompts and tutorials, we challenge you to think about what could be and to mix and match mediums, ideas, and techniques. Learn to create contrast by working with negative space, using scale, masking and resisting, combining contrasting media, combining warm and cool colours, and juxtaposing moods. Other lessons include painting faces, painting intuitively, repurposing pieces of old artwork, obscuring journaling with mixed media layers, using gelli plates to create faces, and weaving with paper.