Real Magic

This is not a loblolly pine cone. 

I'm giving an interactive lecture at a local venue on Saturday called "Real Magic." It's (mostly) about drawing because drawing is always about making something appear out of thin air. As if that weren't transformational enough, the whole point of my teaching about drawing, is to help you transform your consciousness.

For this post, I'll let writer and magician, Alan Moore have the floor because he says what I think so succinctly here:

"Magic, in its earliest form, is often referred to as "The Art." I believe that this is completely literal. I believe that magic is art and art, whether that be writing, music, sculpture, or any other form, is literally magic.

"Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words, or images to achieve changes in consciousness. The very language of magic seems to be talking as much about writing or art as it is about supernatural events. A Grymoire for example, a book of spells, is just a fancy way of saying grammar. Indeed, to cast a spell is simply to spell, to manipulate words, to change peoples consciousness, and I believe this is why an artist or writer is the closest thing in the contemporary world that you are likely to see to a shaman.

"I believe that all culture must have arisen from cults. Originally, all the facets of our culture, whether they be in the arts or sciences were the province of the shaman. The fact that, in present times, this magical power has degenerated to the level of cheap entertainment and manipulation is, I think, a tragedy.

"At the moment, the people who are using shamanism and magic to shape our culture are advertisers. Rather than trying to wake people up, their shamanism is used as an opiate to tranquilize people, to make people more manipulable. Through their magic box of television, and by their magic words, their jingles can cause everybody in the country to be thinking the same words and have the same banal thoughts, all at exactly the same moment."  ― Alan Moore

Let's make magic together.

To learn more about and enroll in this transformational course with me as your private drawing and watercolor coach Click on links below!

2014 Online Drawing + Watercolor Course
starts next Thursday, April 24

CLICK HERE to read all about it—SEE HERE NOW 2014.

As always, if you have questions, just get in touch!

This is the only time I'm offering the full course this year and I'm only enrolling now for part 1—Open Up.

I am very happy with our new membership site! I'm shepherding this year's group through the entire course at close hand to make sure that every last detail is working. It's the last time to work with my direct one-on-one coaching as part of the context of this course (as these small groups allow.)

Now's the time to sign up if you've been thinking of it. I'd love to work with you!

Click here to join us!

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See Here Now

at NOFO

I just installed a show at NOFO, a fabulous gift store and café at Five Points in Raleigh.

While documenting the show, I thought.... Hmmmm....something's missing. I need some human interest. Young Liam agreed to a photo shoot. (Below is one of the few photos without his fingers in his mouth trying to make weird faces.)

“The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back.”
― Ram Dass

See Here Now

Last week I wrote about my dramatic fall, and about how swimming helped my early healing process.

Another thing that helped me heal was throwing myself into teaching (while rather ungracefully gimping around the studio),

By late spring (I fell the day before Super Bowl Sunday), I began creating my online drawing and watercolor course. I knew what I was doing but I didn't know where it would lead. I did not know all the wonderful people I've had the honor and delight of guiding through the course and the little miracles that would unfold.

Aside from developing technical coordination and prowess, the greatest challenge students face in the course is their thinking.

When we think too much (and that goes for me, too), we interfere with the magical creative flow. We interrupt the force.

Drawing is all about seeing and watercolor is all about relationship. Through step by step exercises and practice, practice, practice, we learn to bypass our busy minds and allow ourselves to be here now. When we get into the flow, we experience true meditation in action. That's why See Here Now is a course in personal transformation. The experience of the drawing and watercolor lessons naturally seeps into our experience and behavior in every day living.

"I was sitting in front of my mother one night at the age of 17 or 18, and I looked at her and thought, “I’d like to do her portrait.” I’d never done her portrait before. And you know what happens when your mind shifts into drawing mode—you suddenly see something for the first time. And I realized as I decided to draw that I had absolutely no idea what she looked like. The image of her appearance had impressed itself on my mind probably when I was 3 years old, and it hadn’t changed very much. I was able to see her only because I made the decision to draw her."
― Milton Glaser

See the world for the first time

Join us for my 2014 Online Drawing + Watercolor Course.

CLICK HERE to read all about it—SEE HERE NOW 2014.

As always, if you have questions, just get in touch!

This is the only time I'm offering the full course this year. We have a new membership site!. I'm shepherding this year's group through the entire course at close hand to make sure that every last detail is working. It's the last time to work with my direct one-on-one coaching as part of the context of this course (as these small groups allow.) Now's the time to sign up if you've been thinking of it. I'd love to work with you!

"I am a great advocate of drawing, not in order to become an illustrator, but because I believe drawing changes the brain... Drawing also makes you attentive. It makes you pay attention to what you are looking at which is not easy."
― Milton Glaser

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Join my Tribe and receive ongoing inspiration

• Creative Wake Up eBook
• with bonus song download
• and my Weekly eZine Stroke and Flow

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Stroke and Flow

PURE POTENTIAL

Back when I first started my eZine, Stroke and Flow, in early 2011, I was recovering from a 12' fall that could easily have left me dead or paralyzed. It was nothing short of a miracle that I picked myself up off the floor with only a severe sprain and several fractures to my left foot and ankle.

One thing that helped with my early healing was daily laps in the neighborhood pool. Swimming is really my "sport", so the daily swims were as much a pleasure as they were a therapy.

One day, as I was swimming, I thought about how much the action of swimming is like drawing, watercolor and, in general, the creative process.

Stroke

• Taking intentional action. Initiating momentum.
• In swimming, You move your arms and/or legs. Initiate momentum. 
• In drawing and watercolor. You make a mark. Initiate momentum.

Flow

• Allowing energetic movement without interference. 
• In swimming, you allow the water, activated by your stroke, to move you forward. 
• In drawing and especially in watercolor, you allow the momentum of your initial mark, and the interaction of the water, pigment and paper to generate an image.

There are many, many analogies, and ways to expand upon the concept, but that's it in a nutshell.

Somewhere in the stroke and flow of laps one day, I was inspired with the title for this eZine.  Sign up for your very own membership in the sidebar.

Hesitation

It's daunting as all get out to start a new endeavor, to face a blank page, not feel at all confident about your abilities.

You can think about what you want to do, you can talk about what you want to do, you can worry about what other people will think about what you want to do, or you can do it.

Some of my students come to me with a list of questions before committing to my online courses. There's a lot of hesitation, resistance.

Everyone is unsure when they first come into the course. What will other people think? I'm not good enough. I need to know exactly how this works and exactly how it's all going to turn out.

The value of this course is best expressed by the (fabulous, generous, committed) students who have worked with me. Click here to read their testimonials.

You can read the FAQ by clicking here.

If you still have doubts and reservations but feel drawn to this course, you're welcome to email me with specific questions.

"The elders say we must let go of the shore, and push off and into the river, keep our eyes open, and our head above the water."
—Hopi Nation, Oraibi, Arizona

Take the Plunge

Join us for my 2014 Online Drawing + Watercolor Course.

CLICK HERE to read all about it—SEE HERE NOW 2014.

As always, if you have questions, just get in touch!

This is the only time I'm offering the full course this year.  We have a new membership site! I'm shepherding this year's group through the entire course at close hand to make sure that every last detail is working. It's the last time to work with my direct one-on-one coaching as part of the context of this course (as these small groups allow.) Now's the time to sign up if you've been thinking of it. I'd love to work with you!

"It is always the start that requires the greatest effort."
― James Cash Penney

____________________________________________

Join my Tribe and receive ongoing inspiration

• Creative Wake Up eBook
• with bonus song download
• and my Weekly eZine Stroke and Flow

Name  Email