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 The past couple of weeks, I've been incredibly inspired as I've been working with people in Creative Cartography Coaching. One topic that has come up frequently is that many people are feeling held back by what they perceive as their weaknesses. And yet it's been so clear that these so-called "weaknesses" are just other names for Artist Tools that we all have in our satchel. For example, I recently had a session with someone who says she can't get her creative business off the ground because she is "super-scattered". That may sound like a weakness, but in fact, its flipside strengths are the imagination and creativity that allow her to see inspiration and joy everywhere, in places where the average person's non-scattering eye doesn't dare to look.
Because of this kind of strength, it is the artists and creators in the world who are able to work with so little to create so much in art, beauty, inspiring, and even sweeping social change.
My new Artella teleclass series, The Complete Idealist’s Blissness Action Camp, is all about learning how to use your creative strengths and transform your so-called weaknesses, to uncover the “blissness” in every aspect of your business! By embracing the flipside of your "weaknesses", you can see how uniquely geared you are to tackle your practical goals. Because creative people are experts at transforming the conventional, they have extraordinary power to make this kind of transformation. This very ability, in fact, is just one reason that creative people are ideal in business – even in – and, in fact, especially in, this economy.
If you have a creative business brewing, you can read about the Pilot Group for Artella’s Complete Idealist Blissness Action Camp, below.
For those short on time, to simplify this week's Artellagram, here are some "quick links" to the highlights in this edition. You can simply follow the links that you're interested in and go directly to that section.
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1. NEW The Complete Idealist's Blissness Action Camp! The Pilot Group for our newest e-course, The Complete Idealist's Blissness Action Camp, pairs five ultra-powerful live teleclasses with an unprecedented super-packed list of "Blissness FreeBees"…designed to help you and your blossoming business get Queen Bee-sized amounts of the "buzz" that has become vitally essential in today’s marketplace. Artella’s Complete Idealist Blissness Action Camp is the only one in America that actually helps MAKE your goals a reality by giving you tools, services, and opportunities that would normally cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. From now through March 31, you can enroll in The Complete Idealist's Blissness Action Camp Pilot Program and save over 1/2 off the regular price of the course, in exchange for your feedback. You can get all the information about the Pilot Group, here!
 2. Complete Idealist Super-Bundle Packs -- We've placed our most popular creative business programs and put them into the most deeply discounted value packages we've ever had, specifically geared for creative souls ready to follow their dreams of making a living creatively! The Complete Idealist Super-Bundle Packs include ALL of Artella's best resources for creative entrepreneurs, as well as the introduction of my new Creative Cartography Coaching service.
We've never offered these heavily discounted packages in our 7 years online, and hope in times like this, now is the time they would be of most help. If you'd like some help figuring out which Package is best for you, or if you have any questions about any of Artella’s resources, please feel free to write me directly. I'd welcome hearing from you!
 3. Muse Cruise "Sail" ends April 1! Our Grand Opening Muse Cruise "Sail", will end on April 1, 2009. So there is still a bit of time to hop on board, and when you sign up for more than one Luxury Cabin, each new Membership is permanently locked in at just $5.00!
Here are some of the comments that we've recently gotten about the Luxury Memberships:
Kate shared her thoughts about the Luxury Art Journaling Cabin: "I love: THE WHOLE THING. It is juicy, fresh, and exciting to get these treats in my box every week. I really like the combination of words and images in the picture prompts. I can't emphasize enough how impressed I've been with the way the questions "read" and probe the pictures. I look forward to the audio every week and save time to enjoy your words and inspiration. And I'm thrilled by The Art Journal Journey which provides a dose of pure visual pleasure. Love the quotes, the section header pages (the design of which I study with appreciation), and the mix of articles. I read the whole thing, cover to cover. More than once!"
Austen wrote us about the Luxury Art Studio Cabin: "The Studio Kits are ingenius! WOW! Where else on earth but Artella could we find hours, days, and weeks of inspiration, and what feels like a lottery's worth of art supplies for such a low price? You've taken care of all my image and paper-hunting so now I can just focus on MAKING art. As always, Artella serves artists in the coolest ways."
About the Blissness Cabin for creative entrepreneurs, Isabella said "I LOVE this membership! I look forward to the audios each week. They are such a treat!! And I have been poring over each issue of the Business Splash and all of the Blissness Plan Art Journal Worksheets. You do such a great job on all of the goodies! Thanks so much! Everything you have included so far has been a great resource. Please keep them all!"
Dawn is a fan of the Luxury Digital Art Cabin: "The tutorials and pixel packets are awesome! I think the digital art membership is a great way to learn more about creating digital art for those of us who are pressed for time, and don't have the time (or patience!) to play around with Photoshop and learn it on our own. Plus you get tutorials that are specifically geared for artists. Thanks for everything!"
And Pam wrote us about the Artella Land Complete Access Pass:
"I am LOVING my COMPLETE PASS to all of the Member cabins! Yay!!! The Artella Land Complete Pass is awesome! I love the weekly recordings from Marney (what an inspiration)! I look forward to hearing her messages every week. I love the Zines in each cabin...I don't know where to start! The Blissness Cabin has me very excited for all I'm learning there...the Art Journaling Cabin and its goodies, along with the Digital Art Cabin... I could spend all day here!! Thanks so much, Marney, for these wonderful new additions!"
The "Sail" for all of the above Luxury Cabins ends April 1, so if you want to grab one than one Luxury Cabin at the permanent locked-in price of $5, sign up before then. There is never any obligation, and your big pack of free goodies and coupons is always yours to keep, no matter what.
 4. Creative Cartography Coaching in full swing! After taking some time off from individual consulting to be with my baby son, I'm once again offering consulting for individual project development, only now enhanced for 2009 with a valuable creative twist! Have you ever just wished someone could hand you a literal map...with all the steps and paths mapped out to get directly to your creative dream? That's what we do in Creative Cartography! After hearing from you about your dreams and goals, I work with you to create a map for how to get from here to there...while remaining really inspired and creatively passionate as you do it. Since creative folks are generally very visually oriented, I also follow up your session by designing just for you a Customized Creative Cartography ActionMap, based on your own journey, and completely customized for your goals. This is fun and artsy on the outside, but ultimately a very valuable and resourceful visual map that you can print out to guide you on your journey and keep you inspired along the way! If you take a look at the links above and feel that Creative Cartography Coaching is something that would help you, I'd love to work with you! :-)
 5. Are you an Affiliate, yet? Have you been wanting to bring in some additional income? If so, you'll be very happy to know that Artella's New Affiliate Program is finally here! After many of your requests and over a year in the making, Artella's Affiliate Program is ready to help you start earning income, just by spreading the word about Artella. The Artella Affiliate Program is free, and within a few minutes, you can be ready to actually start earning real income, receiving 25% commissions, one of the highest commissions available online. Get all the details about Artella's exciting Affiliate Program, here!
 6. Daily Muse Renovations Still Underway! Thanks to all who have written to ask about The Artella Daily Muse! We're still working on some very exciting renovations, including implementing many of new requests from our loyal Daily Muse readers! If you would like to receive an email message when the all-new Artella Daily Muse is ready, sign up for our free Daily Muse Teaser!
 7. Interested in Becoming Part of Artella's Team? If you're interested in becoming part of the amazing Artella Team, check out this post in the Artella Cafe for details. We're rolling out some exciting new features in the coming months and would love to bring a few more wonderful, creative souls on board!
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 Since the theme of this Artellagram is about taking that leap to dream that delicious dream :-) …I thought the ideal artist to feature would be Cecilia Swatton. Her beautiful art is full of uplifting messages for the soul, and her answers to these interview questions are equally inspiring. I hope you will enjoy this interview with Cecilia!
I hope you enjoy this interview with Cecila!
Artella: The possibilities to "create art" when you're a novice seem endless -- where's a good starting place?
Cecila: I would suggest a novice walk through an art supply store – the larger and better-stocked store, the better – paying close attention to whatever media or supplies “speak” to him/her, and then follow his/her heart in experimentation. Experimentation never really ends, which is one of the exciting things about art. I thrive on the never-ending challenges presented to me in artmaking.
What do I mean by media or other supplies “speaking” to an artist? To give a personal example, I can’t keep my hands or eyes off handmade papers; I can spot these specialty papers from a mile away, and they pull at me like magnets.
You can read the rest of Cecila's interview, here
See Cecila's products in The Shoppes of Artella, here.
 If you want more artist interviews from Artella, take a look at our eBooks Artist Profiles Assembled and Artist Profiles Assembled, Vol 2.
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  ART TIP OF THE WEEK:Just as we can take our weaknesses and turn them into strengths, we can also take artwork that we're not particularly fond of and convert it into a favorite masterpiece! A prime example is this piece, which I created for one of the lessons in Artella's AlphaBetter Muse Workshop. This piece – the "March to Your Own Beat Muse" -- in a perfect example of a "hybrid" piece of art that combines both traditional and digital art techniques.
The background for this piece is a scan of a beeswax collage I made. I actually wasn't crazy about the actual collage itself, but the texture scanned beautifully and it makes a really neat digital background. That's a great way to transform a piece of art you don't like – scan it and use the parts that you DO like in a different piece.
See more instructions for this project, here!
WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK: We all have written things that we don't like, but that doesn't mean it needs to be destined for the trash can. Any piece of writing is a castle made of words. Instead of tearing down the castle, just renovate! Perhaps – to borrow from one of my favorite quotes of all time, the Thoreau quote in the QuotzCrystal below, your written "castle" just needs a new foundation under it.
So Find a piece of your writing that you're not crazy about and grab a highlighter and highlight some things in the piece that you like: a sentence here, a plotline there….a character description here, a metaphor there. Then take those elements and create an entirely new piece of writing.
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Marney