Goddesses! Are there those of you who want to develop an artistic skill? Or are you someone who is a creative thinker, or who has an ambitious, entrepreneurial mindset? Perhaps you are a creative goddess-in-the-making?
Do you believe that creativity is the spice of life?’
Obsessed with colours and design? Do pastel colours, remind you of gelato ice cream, candy floss, and sugary sour candies? Does your heart go a-flutter by the sweet hues of macaroons? Is your favourite hue, Mint?
Do colours take you back to the 80’s, when the Care Bears were on tv, as well as My Little Pony? Pastels also remind me of the sweet smelling Little Twin stars, My Melody, and Hello Kitty erasers, so I get it! Perhaps you are an artist or designer in the making!
But what do we need to grow our artistic skills? To dive straight into our creative juices? What are the secrets to those goddesses who are creatively-minded?
Who own their … inner creative magic
I want to start by telling you a little story about myself.
When I was 10 years old, I discovered magic inside of me. It wasn’t the magic of a genie in a bottle, or the magical spells of a witch, but it was some other kind of magic that was already inside of me, because out of nowhere, I realised I could illustrate characters.
They would magically appear inside my head, the creativity would go down to a pen in my hand, then I would draw some kind of character that would be… like magic! Some kind of character would appear on the page! It was someone I had made up. And … the only explanation I have for being able to put it on a page?
Is that I was fearless. I just had a crack at it.
As adults, we forget that we still have magic inside of us, to unleash out into the world. Its there, just waiting for us to reclaim it.
I believe each and every one of us on this planet has some untapped talent, that they either haven’t had the courage to, bring out, or that they’ve been too scared to. In lockdown, we had a lot of time to reflect, and start to harness our own kind of magic. It takes effort. It takes courage and it takes WORK on your part to get out of your own way, release your magic, bring it to fruition, and perhaps find your life purpose!
Like a female huntress, I want you to excavate it. Like a mermaid, I want you to keep on swimming towards it, and like a warrior goddess, let’s exercise it. Whatever age you are. Whatever it is … isn’t it time to free your inner magic
Let me ask you this
Did life in quarantina making you go a little koo-koo? Were you like me, sitting in isolation, itching and scratching for life to go back to a new normal?
If so, perhaps you needed to get your creative juices flowing!
To master more creativity in your life, it helps to start getting inspired by things around you. Like a pretty bird, your dog doing a funny trick, or your sister wearing some sparkly earrings.
In this chapter, I want to share how I developed my own style of creativity, to motivate YOU to finding your own artistic path
How I found my creativity
My journey to illustration was an unconventional one. It didn’t start in art class, and I didn’t do any fancy art course either. My illustrative journey came completely by accident, which involved many factors!
My life began as a kind of adventure. Born in Singapore to Australian parents, I had quite an exciting nomadic childhood as a Hotel Manager’s daughter. My earliest memory was of living in a hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In the remote tropics. Where, I:
A) Swam like a Mermaid
B) Ran after crabs and cockroaches and …
C) Collected mysterious sounding shells at the beach
True story! And so…
The first illustrated book I was given as a gift, via a colleague of my father’s – was ‘Eloise’, by Kay Thompson. Where suddenly… I had a new friend! Each night I delighted in sitting with my mother, while we read Eloise’s naughty hotel adventures! Whilst she lived in New York, I lived in the tropics of a remote island. While she got lost in an elevator…I got lost for three hours enthralled by the oceans waves! Whilst I was shy, and Eloise wasn’t, there was still one thing that held us both together… the magic of escapism that delighted us both! So I adopted her sense of curiosity and adventure! And… have never stopped since!
By the time time I was 6, and moved to the Winter Wonderland of Montreal, Canada… my imagination went into overdrive! Obsessed by the tiniest of snowflakes and the icicles lingering by my windowsill, I dreamt of wintery princesses and what lay beyond the pine trees of my home. As I watched the four seasons change around me, I was enthralled by the magic and colour, of I Dream of Jeannie. Of Bewitched. Of … GREASE and the Pink Ladies!
So, one day after school, I observed my mother talking on the telephone….and doodling flowers.
That’s right. Doodling. So, I thought I would try it too
Suddenly, I started drawing. And my obsession with characters … with Witches, Genies and schoolyard ‘cool’ girls, got more and more interesting …
So … I started with a face, then placement of the eyes, a turned up nose, and pretty lips, ears, and then hairstyles! Ohhh, how I loved drawing hairstyles, with bows and clips! And I would draw, sitting in front of I Dream Of Jeannie. I would read Archies comic books, drawing Bettys and Veronicas. Until I got confident enough, to create my own characters!
So, observing your world around you. Watch Nickelodeon, Disney films, Manga, and create your Avatars, because you never know what skill you might have! It might just appear one day … as your own inner magic
Why inspiration is so important
To propel our creative spark into a abundant cup of joy and imagination, it helps to go for a walk and be present with the things around you.
When I draw my characters, I constantly get asked where I get my imagination from. And truthfully, I get it from colour and the things I see around me. It could be something as simple as an ombré leaf, a dress design, or a pretty palm tree
What I mean by this is, that art comes from the beauty of your surroundings, and how it revealed itself to you. How blue is the ocean you see? The golden sand of the beach? The greenest palm trees blowing in the wind?
Seeing life in detail can boost your imagination. And if you look really closely at the colour and spark around you, it has the potential to communicate its own kind of wonder and shine back to you, that you can be inspired by.
And the good news is … once you grow your imagination, it will always be there for you! It will forever be your creative companion
Start with your childhood memorie
My journey to illustration was an unconventional one. It didn’t start in art class, and I didn’t do any fancy art course either. My illustrative journey came completely by accident, which involved many factors.
In particular: my early nomadic life on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, in the remote tropics.
Where, I:
A) swam like a mermaid.
B) ran after crabs and cockroaches and,
C) collected mysterious sounding shells at the beach.
Do you remember your childhood senses, and what magical things you noticed as a child when you were small?
Did you inspect snowflakes really closely? Did you ever try to find fairies in the back garden? Or if you could find tiny bugs in the houseplants at home? Did you believe in genies or witches?
If you did, this was your imagination calling, which is the essence of growing your artistic eye, and the good news is, you can get it back even now as an adult
Start putting your creative ideas on paper
So put it to paper, or on a canvas if you dare. Start with a face, then placement of the eyes, a turned up nose, and pretty lips, ears, and then, hairstyles, bows and clips! Read your favourite childhood books. Then get inspired enough to create your own characters!
So, observing your world around you. Watch Nickelodeon, Disney films, Manga, and create your Avatars, because you never know what skill you might have! It might just appear one day as your own kind of inner creative magic!
And lastly, while we are on the topic of building your creative goddess mind … …
Remember this timely advice
Why its good to unplug from social media
Are you starting to daydream about what your life should look like? And what I mean by that is … is your self esteem starting to take a slow, corrosive beating every time you open up Facebook or Instagram, and see glamorous selfies of your friends, because you have the perception that their lives are more exciting and picture perfect than yours?
If you are feeling this way, then perhaps this is one of the signs that you need to unplug every now and then to gain some clarity, tap into reality, and have gratitude.
Keen to take a break from CyberLand? Here’s my top 3 tips for you to feel refreshed, rebooted, and revived in your creative goddess flow
Sign #1: On Social Media, you unknowingly compare your life to someone else’
It’s true that Facebook can make us feel special and can rescue us from the monotonous moments of our lives. But the picture perfect images of your friends post are merely periodic highlighted photos in an entire lifetime of their story. In reality, we deal with myriads of emotions in our lives that have the potential to accrue more meaning than Facebook could ever show, know about or even understand!
Sign #2: On Social Media, you start to question your achievements
What if we chose not to compare our lives with the seemingly perfect one of our facebook friends? Why not go off Social Media for one month, and instead chose to carefully craft craft yourself from the inside out, instead of the outside in? That means going on a journey deep inside yourself to find out what activities make you happy, and then manifesting it around yourself. Why not invest your free time on rebooting yourself and your needs, or the needs of others around you
Sign #3: On Social Media, you need to post photos every single day, to feel special
It is so natural for us to want approval and attention in our lives from others. We are conditioned to be this way since birth. So, what if all we needed to do was be our own emotional sounding board? If you are feeling stuck, why don’t you delve into your curiosity and achieve some untapped goals that make you feel so good inside, that generate such a high level of self confidence within you, that you will no longer even care about posting pictures of every single moment in your online life! Your need for approval and attention would completely dissapear, as you would be focused on your real needs. Isn’t it time to stop caring about what others think of you.. or how they perceive you?
To boost our creativity, we need to give our brains a rest. To relax, unwind, and recharge. We are doing ourselves more harm than good by taking ourselves out of reality. This is why we must take action and unplug to reboot our minds, and fill it with creativity instead. Live your life as your personal best. Live your life with true connections, as you were meant to live – in complete peace and harmony within yourself
Reflect and Redefine Who You Are
Sit in a quiet space. Then get your pen and paper out … and start taking some notes. Decide how to transform into the person you really want to be, honestly and with humble integrity. Motivate yourself. Get mentally fit. Test your curiosity, your passions and reigniting the fire within your belly, to make a difference in not only your life, but in someone else’s too. Bring yourself back to the beautiful, purposeful human being that you are, with a full and glorious life of cinematic beauty just waiting for you … in real time.
