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Creative Casey's Blog

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

The Bubble 5k Race

The Bubble 5k race came to my city this past weekend.  I was set to run it alone and then 3days prior to the race on a whim I was visiting my sister and asked my 9 year old nephew if he would like to run this fun race with me.  I showed him the video and told him he would have to contribute half of the cost if he wanted to run ($10). He actually said yes he wanted to and so I signed him up.  He ended up spending the prior night to the race with me. 

I took him to the packet pick up so he could have that experience. Then we picked up some snacks, went swimming, had pizza for dinner and ice cream for dessert. Followed by some Atari competition and watching Ant Man.  The morning of the race I woke him up very early and we ate breakfast, got our gear on and then headed to the race.  My nephew shared that he was excited but a little nervous.  I had to keep reminding him that this was just for fun.  As soon as we ran through the bubbles at the start I think he let all of his anxiety of what to expect go and we both ended up having an awesome time and making great memories.  Let's just saw when his mom came to pick him up later he didn't want to leave and said he was having a fun time with his Aunt. :)










My first Make-inar

I was surfing the internet trying to find affordable art therapy CEU trainings. While not successful on that front I did come across this FREE Make-inar through Inner Canvas; http://www.innercanvas.com/ which is hosted by therapist Lisa Mitchell. Here is her blog; http://www.innercanvas.com/blog/.  The Make-inar she hosted last week was titled "What Matters in Psychotherapy".  I will admit that by 8pm when it started in my time zone I was exhausted and unsure if I wanted to participate.  It was recommended that you prepare your materials ahead of time (of which I did not do).  However at 7:47pm I decided that I would participate and raced around gathering and cutting the supplies (4 pieces of 8x8 watercolor paper, water, watercolors, paintbrushes, scissors and markers).


I will say that I'm glad I participated. It was a new concept to reach out with 100 therapist and artist from around the world and watch a live presentation that included all of us making art together. While creating we listened to Lisa talk about different aspects of being a therapist and helping us to recognize what we do for others.  We created a therapist guide as something tangible to remind us along the way when we are tired about why we are therapist.  We just created the basics and then posted them on her Inner Canvas Facebook page.  But these guidebooks are something that we can keep working on at any time.  I'd like to do some of her other online trainings/workshops but even with the discount code she offered to us that evening it was still to expensive to sign up for a class at this time.


Mixed Media The Journey of the Bike

I was commissioned by a friend in my book club to create a large piece of art to replace an outdated photo in one of her rooms.  I was inspired by an image she posted on Facebook of a new yellow bike she purchased.  When talking with her she shared that she wasn't sure about getting a banana colored bike at her age but she felt the yearning to as she had one when she was a little girl.


Using that yellow bike as inspiration and a favorite quote of hers I created the painting below.  It took about 4.5-5 hours to complete and I did it in pretty much one sitting.  Well, I can't say I sat as the canvas was so large I had to stand the entire time and move around the canvas when painting it.  I've been finding it thrilling to add texture to my pieces and so I used joint compound on the lower half of the painting and worked my way up to a smooth piece of canvas as the colors reached the top.  Other materials used were stencils and a black charcoal pencil beyond acrylic paints.  I was very pleased with the results and posted it on Facebook for feedback which ended up being very positive.  Most importantly my friend loved the piece!