CREATIVITY + INNOVATION Page 48 of 50

Do What You Love interview – Suzanne Woolcott of Gorjuss™

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This week I am delighted to share a conversation with Suzanne Woolcott, the inspiring creative brains behind the Gorjuss™ empire. Some of her fans are so crazy about her work, they have had her designs tattooed on their bodies! Suzanne’s Gorjuss™ Girls are licensed by Santoro, a brand creator, design and publishing company with distribution in over 50 countries around the world.

Suzanne runs her company with her husband Grant, from their studio in Glasgow, Scotland, where they live with their three children. Her work has been exhibited in galleries across the globe, but most regularly in Hollywood, LA , New York, NY, and Hong Kong (how cool is that?!)

Do What You Love interview - Suzanne Woolcott of Gorjuss™ blacksky
All images used with kind permission of Suzanne Woolcott

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The power of photography

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“When we look with our eyes, from our hearts, through the lens, it’s a completely different photo and something really powerful can happen” Jen Lemen

Check out this awesome video of Jen’s story on her journey from happy snapper to $50,000 world photography prize winner…

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And if you are in the mood for wishing, please help me make a dream come true here!

Back to basics

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Imagine the scene. Ten people sketching furiously to a strict time limit of ten seconds, one life model pose after another, papers flying everywhere, tossed to the floor on each ring of the bell for a new pose, new piece of paper, new sketch. A veritable storm of drawing paper and charcoal dust…

Sketch10 second sketch (10 seconds is seriously quick! I’m not sure I even looked at the paper in that time!)

I spent most of Saturday at the Northern Film School taking a fascinating workshop on Drawing Figures for Animation.  Five solid hours of live drawing, with the longest sitting at 20 minutes – exhausting but exhilarating. And seriously good practice.  We did a mixture of contour drawings, gesture drawings and charicatures with charcoal, pencil and marker pens.  I came away with about eighty sketches, and a whole lot more confidence in figure drawing. 

Sketch 130 second sketch

Sometimes it is worth putting a time limit on your work to focus your attention and really make you look.  Then it’s up to you whether you stick to the rules, break the rules or abandon the rules altogether!

Sketch 22-minute sketch

When was the last time you played around in your sketchbook?

Do What You Love interview – Dimitri Kolioussis

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Today’s Do What You Love interview isn’t really an interview. It is more of a conversation, with one of the last real professional Icon Painters in Greece. I dropped in to visit Dimitri Kolioussis in his studio on the beautiful island of Santorini when I was there on holiday recently. Dimitri learnt all the important things he knows about painting from the elders in his village. 

His work is so revered that he has been commissioned to paint 14 icons for the legendary Panagia Episkopi Church on Santorini, a church which has existed on the island for over 1,000 years.

He is the first artist I have ever met who expects his work to last ‘for hundreds of years’. That in itself is a lesson to us all to have confidence in the longevity of what we produce (and use archival quality materials!)

greecelab
Dimitri’s cave studio

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Do What You Love interview – Kathy Heslop (Part 2)

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This is the second part of the Do What You Love interview with Kathy Heslop (see here for part 1). Kathy is an incredible woman who has lived many lives already, as professional musician, nautical globetrotter and serial entrepreneur who has seen multi-million dollar success for her creative businesses. We share a love of good wine, good food and good chat. She also happens to be one of the funniest women I know. ~ Beth

KathyHeslopKathy: image via Twitter 

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Do What You Love interview – Kathy Heslop (Part 1)

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Today’s Do What You Love interview is with Kathy Heslop, an incredible woman who has lived many lives already, as professional musician, nautical globetrotter and serial entrepreneur who has seen multi-million dollar success for her creative businesses. She also happens to be one of the funniest women I know.

Kathy H

British by passport, half Scandinavian and a NYC/London girl by heart, Kathy was once a professional violinist, working with UK orchestras, theatre and opera companies. She was the first female electric violinist to perform at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club and co-wrote the trailer music for the movie Notting Hill. In 1998 Kathy co founded the digital recording studio Serious in London with her polymathic husband David. Within a year it had morphed into a digital publishing company and by the summer of 2000 they had moved to New York City to open a sister office.

Serious went on to win multiple awards and employ over seventy staff with three offices worldwide, (London, NYC & Singapore). In late 2007, Kathy and her husband sold their stake in the company and moved back to the UK. They have since founded a boutique management consultancy in London and also operate a software development company. They consult to clients across the entertainment, sports, technology, food and beverage, celebrity and lifestyle sectors, and Kathy specialises in helping companies establish brand identity and market position.

Here Kathy shares some very valuable insight and practical commercial advice for those of you trying to start or grow your creative business … (more…)

I did it!!!

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You guys rock!!  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Seriously, I cannot believe how generously you shared your advice to help me get over my first-machine-use-phobia.  And I think you cured me!!  I started off with baby steps as advised by the lovely Anne at Craft Gossip Sewing, and then I realised how much fun it was, and just started whizzing along! 

Look what I made, thanks to you (and I surprised myself that I actually don’t care they are all wonky)…

Stitched postcards…

Stitched postcard BK

I did it!!! postcard+scan2+crop

A four-weeks-at-a-glance wall planner with interchangeable pockets (red thread inspired by Rebecca Sower – thanks for the intro Stella)…

I did it!!! sew blog wall
I did it!!! tags

A journal (thanks Lorrie – remember the little heart?)…

I did it!!! inspiration+journal

And some other bits and pieces too.  I am now officially in love with my sewing machine.

And I love all the blog and website links you shared.  So inspiring and lots still to check out. 

Did I say thank you SO much!

Sew girl, sew!

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Is it just me or she beautiful, this shiny new birthday present of mine?

In fact, she is so beautiful, I am too scared to plug her in.

I so want to make gorgeous things.

But I haven’t the first clue how to use her.

I have a pile of fabric. And ribbon. And some buttons.

But I might break my beautiful machine when I try to stitch them all together.

So I bought a book, like I always do when I’m stuck.

And another, like I always do when I’m still stuck.

I now have eleven books on sewing.

But I still don’t know where to start. 

It’s like I need to know everything before I can make anything.

I don’t know how much is enough.

Please help me!

Any inspiring sewing blogs, project ideas, mixed media artists using stitch, you name it, I want to know about it. Do you have a story about how you learnt to sew?  I want to hear about it!

Just a little bit more knowledge. And then I promise to plug her in.

Do What You Love interview – Danielle LaPorte

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If you want to put a rocket under your ideas and ambition, start or grow your own business or revolutionise your current business, and make your own choices and your own money, then you need to meet Danielle LaPorte. She is one white hot woman. She made me think differently about aspects of my own business, and I wanted to share some of her magic with you.

Danielle La Porte

Danielle is the creator of www.daniellelaporte.com, and has brought out a new book, THE FIRE STARTER SESSIONS, which helps entrepreneurs rock their career with integrity, audacity and their truest strengths. Danielle is a former news show commentator, and director of a Washington-DC think tank, where she managed a team of analysts studying global trends for the likes of the Pentagon and the World Bank. She is the lead author of the Amazon bestseller, Style Statement: Live By Your Own Design, and has been featured in Elle, Vogue Australia, Body + Soul, The National Post, Entertainment Tonight, and The Huffington Post.

Here she gives us insight and some awesome advice…

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Do What You Love interview: Chrstina Sbarro (creator of ‘A Field Guide to Now’)

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In the first of a new series of Do What You Love interviews, I’d like to extend a warm welcome to Christina Sbarro, a woman who is on a mission to truly do what she loves. Christina is all wrapped up in the creation of ‘A Field Guide to Now’, a book which combines her beautiful writing, storytelling and mixed media art, and which is stitched together with the love of a community of supporters. 

Watch this gorgeous intro to her story here:


Here’s what she has to say to you all…

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