Catalyst Fourteen

Catalyst Fourteen

June 15, 2008, 9:03 am
Filed under: catalyst

 

As always, thank you to all of our visitors and all the encouraging comments you left for us. For those of you who did, thank you for playing along with us. We will do a drawing for the RAK and announce the name mid-week. And if you didn’t join us before, we hope you do this time.

 

Ok! Here’s catalyst number fourteen:

 

What’s the one lesson you’d want to teach your children? (If you don’t have them, what would you want to teach them if you had them?)

 

We’re very excited to have Paulette Insall as this week’s Guest Artist.

 

While I don’t remember how I found Paulette, I still remember the first time I stumbled upon her site. Her art is so amazing, awe-inspiring and beautiful that I spent hours looking through it. When she announced she was going to offer classes, I was one of the first to sign up. I took her Organic Dimension class and loved every moment of it. In the next few weeks I will be taking her All About Faces class. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

 

She sent me a little bio that I wanted to share with you:

 

Like many other artists, Paulette has been creative from a very young age. For many years she dreamed of painting, but could never bring herself to pick up a paint brush until October of 2006. That’s when her love of creating stories with paint and paper began. Her mixed media paintings are visual stories with many, many layers…not only literally, but figuratively as well. Inspired by her faith, music, nature, and life, her work mainly focuses around spiritual themes meant to uplift and inspire the viewer.

 

With her background in technical writing and instruction, it was only natural that Paulette would eventually teach painting classes. She now offers online mixed media painting classes via her blog. Wanting to encourage others to face their fears and do the thing that they’ve always wanted to, her classes are structured to encourage students to explore and trust their creative voices and listen to their intuition.

 

Originally from Alabama, Paulette now lives just outside of Portland, Oregon with her husband and their very busy four year old son Aiden. When she’s not busy chasing around her little boy, she loves to paint, take pictures, read anything to do with art and/or design, and make videos about her art.

 

If you haven’t been there before, I would highly encourage you to visit Paulette’s blog or website. She makes these amazing videos that show her painting the beautiful canvases that you can buy at her etsy shop. I would also highly encourage you to sign up for her newsletter, if for no other reason than to find out when she’s offering mixed media classes again. She also gives away paintings every now and then and you definitely don’t want to miss that.

 

I will leave you with a few words from Paulette: “My art is about the search for connection…to self, to like minded spirits, to family, and to God. The reason that most of my work depicts a sole woman is because these are the stories of my own personal search and the emotions they invoke within my soul. My hope is that the visual stories I create with my art, touch people from all walks of life and let them know that they are not alone…and find comfort in that knowing.”

 

 

Paulette’s art with this catalyst is below and you can click it to see the larger version.

 

 

Paulette Says:

Title of painting: “Lift Up Your Eyes”

 

This painting was inspired by the follow scripture:

I lift up my eyes to the hills – Where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. ~ Psalm 121:1-2

 

There are so many times that if I hadn’t had God in my life, I don’t know how I would have made it through. He is my strength…my comfort. I know He’s always there to help me…in good times and in bad…and I will never be alone. Even though I was raised Christian, this is something that took me until recently to truly understand. This lesson is one I am trying to teach my son…that we are never alone because God is always there with us and we need to rely on Him to help us in all things, both big and small. For through Him, all things are possible.

 

Technique highlight:

I love to use watercolor crayons to do shading. My favorite brand is Caran d’Ache Neocolor II. I just dampen the crayon with water or my paintbrush and paint them on just like I would my acrylic paints. And the best part about them….if I don’t like it, I can just wipe it off and start over! A wonderful thing for a detail oriented perfectionist like me. 😉

 

Thank you so much Paulette; we’re truly honored.

 

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Here are some interpretations of the catalyst from members of our team. Click on the photos to see the bigger versions.

Kris:

Kris Says:

There are so many lessons to teach my girls; God is your rock and your answer, Make sure others treat you well, Money isn’t everything, Don’t talk to strangers. Yet I think the one I talk about the most with them is: Be Happy where you are. Here. There. Wherever you are, whatever job your in, situation, life, church, etc… be happy. Be happy with what you have. Now I know I’m not the best example of this, I have times that I’m just not happy. But I think if you’re always waiting for what is around the corner, the next job, next pay raise, the next sale of your art, the next time you lose weight, the next boyfriend, the next thing you can buy, the next place you’ll live – to be happy, you’re never gonna even come close to being happy. All I can do is teach them this, and pray for them every day.

 

Technique highlight:

Canvas was painted with fluid acrylics. When I was working on my ‘Thank Someone’ piece for Creative Therapy I used this small canvas to wipe off my excess Golden fluid acrylics. That gave me a lovely background which I could use. I added stamped dots, Rubons & stickers, scrap papers & white gel pen.

 

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Karen:

Journaling Reads:

Little boy, there are so many lessons I wish I could teach you. I wish I could teach you to enjoy each and every moment of life. I wish I could teach you to treat everyone with love and respect. I wish I could teach you to always be curious. To laugh often. To have a lot of courage. To give and ask for help.

 

The list goes on and on.

 

But if I get to pick one single lesson to share with you, it will be to always have integrity. Always do what you say you will. When you say you will. Keep your word. If you respect yourself and others, people will respect you and trust you on your word. That’s the most valuable thing you have in the world, David. Your word.

 

There are times in your life you feel like cutting corners or doing things you might not later be proud of and I urge you to take the extra few seconds to think things through, my son. Be honest. Many things can be mended but a loss of respect is incredibly hard to recover. Your word is how others see you.

 

Your word is who you are. Live your life with integrity and character, my son. It is the very best advice I can ever give you.

 

Technique highlight:

Once I put down the ribbons, I sprayed the paper and the chipboard letters with Glimmer Mist to give the shimmering effect.

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Fran:

 

Fran Says:

I have no children, but this was not difficult for me. I thought about the one lesson I’d want to teach anyone – adult or child, as if it were my “big lesson learned”. And, well, it’s “Believe in Yourself”.

 

Journaling Reads:

“If there was just one life lesson I’d like to teach any child or adult, it is to believe in yourself. Only then can you find your inner strength, trust your intuition, and know your heart. Everything else will fall into place once you believe in yourself. Self-belief and self-love are the keys to making it all possible. Believe in Yourself!”

 

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Amélie:

Amelie Says:

I wish to encourage children to dream as long as possible. The escape, imagination and creativity, hope are closely related to dreams.

 

In French:

Pour ce sujet je souhaite encourager les enfants à rêver le plus longtemps possible. L’évasion, l’imaginaire et la créativité, l’espoir sont étroitement liés aux rêves.

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Brenda:

 

Brenda Says:

“Follow your heart!” That is my message. To be free enough to just go….do…….live and enjoy life….I am a worry wart ……..so anytime that I really want to follow my heart it is clouded by “what ifs” I have tried to instill this in my daughter-but she has inherited the “worry” gene from me. But I keep forging ahead-reminding her that we
only walk this path once and we must live life to it’s fullest….following your heart and filling it up!

 

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Lori:

 

Lori Says:

It’s so hard to raise children. You want the very best for them. If I could leave them with one very important lesson it would be to value themselves. Life is so full of “pretty and things”. I’d like them to know that happiness isn’t about “pretty and things”. It’s about being true to oneself and valuing and appreciated all the little things day by day.

 

Journaling Reads:

The one lesson I wish to teach, is to teach you to value. Value yourselves, value others, value life and all it’s simple pleasures, value love in all it’s forms. Value. Life isn’t about owning things and pleasing others. Life is about appreciating and valuing those things that cannot be bought.

 

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Karan:

 

Karan Says:

I think if I had to pick, I would choose one that actually has two parts, because I feel they are equally important. The first one is to never give up on your dreams. To always forge ahead, no matter how many people tell you your dream is impossible. No matter how many times you might doubt yourself… The ability to pick myself up and brush off the dusty remains of my failures, has given me the courage and perseverance to try things over and over again, in spite of the losses. I look at failure as another step closer to a great success!

 

The second thing would be to look for the gifts in all situations. I have learned through very painful experiences, that there are gifts in everything. By looking for the gifts in my painful divorces, I was able to learn the art of negotiation and neutrality, so I could get to a place of peace and understanding with my ex’s. Using these gifts, we are able to co-parent our children together in separate houses. Our children feel loved and honored and respected, and we all get along. We are still a family, we just live in two different homes.

 

From dating the wrong men, I learned the gift of discernment and healthy boundaries. Each man taught me lessons in what I did and didn’t want in a relationship, and prepared me emotionally for the arrival of my soul mate. I never would have recognized the beauty in him, if I hadn’t had the pain of those relationships first.

 

The pain of childbirth, was a preparation for motherhood. The past 20 years have been filled with the joys and heartbreaks of parenting. In the painful and sad moments, there is so much pain, you think you won’t survive it. You wonder how one person can cause you so much angst and sorrow, and yet bring you so much joy at the same time. It is the paradox of parenting. Like childbirth, the painful and scary moments pass, and after they are over, all you remember is the love you feel for this person, and the memories of the pain just become memories.

 

Sometimes I wish I could stop time, and freeze my family at the stages they are in now. But then I think of how they will never experience all the wonderful things that time brings. So I freeze frame this moment for myself, these feelings in me at this time. They are my gift. The experience of parenthood, with all it’s crazy emotions has transformed me and made me a better person. I hope to teach my kids how to find the gifts through their struggles and failures as they navigate their lives. To feel joyously triumphant, in spite of the pain, is the greatest lesson I can teach my kids.

 

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Leena:

 

Leena Says:

Being brought up in an Asian family especially Chinese, we have a very conservative upbringing despite living in a modern society. There are many values that we are being taught, but one of the most important values and lessons being taught as a child myself, is “Respect”. As a child, I was advised and told repeatedly not to be disrespectful to our elders or we will branded as a ‘bad’ child, in terms of our character. When parents are complimented for their child’s behaviour and how respectful they are, it reflects on the parents’ good teaching. So, here I am now being a mother to a 4 year old child, I would like to impart to my son what I have learnt from my parents and “Respect” is still the most important lesson in our lives. I want him to know that respecting his family is something very important for they are the ones who will always be there for him and who will always love him for who he is. Friends, who always stood by you through good and bad times deserve an equal amount of respect from us. I would also teach him to respect all other living things such as animals and non-living things. And most importantly, he will have to learn to love and respect himself. If he don’t respect himself, he would not learn to respect others.

 

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Now it’s your turn: show us your therapeutic art around “What’s the one lesson you would want to teach your children?” I urge you to give it a try. Embrace the healing power of art. It can be any form of art as long as it speaks to you. Leave us comments with your work and we will send a RAK to a random participant. You’ll have to link your work by Sunday night, June 22nd, midnight PST to qualify for the RAK.

For our RAK for catalyst #14, we are thrilled to be giving away a Spring Survival Sampler with a bonus KI Heartfelt Album from our sponsor: Homegrown Scrapbooks. Here’s a sneak peek of some of the items in the kit:

 

 

 

Remember, this is not a competition. If your art makes you feel even a bit better at the end, you’ve won.

 

Until next week, enjoy each and every moment.

 

 

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