Life Book 2018 blog hop giveaway

Dear artists!
I am going to be teaching again on Life Book 2018 next year! I love this one year long e-course because of the emphasis on healing through art.
Exciting news is that I can give away 1 space on this amazing year long art course! Keep reading to find out more about Life Book 2018 and to find out how you can win a spot! :)

First let me tell you a bit more about Life Book in case you haven't heard about it yet!
“Life Book, a celebration and honouring of YOU” is a year-long mixed media art class
organised by Tamara Laporte from Willowing Arts.
Tam is joined by 23 incredible art teachers who are all gearing up to share their mixed media techniques, tips and tricks with you. PLUS this year, Life Book is going to be bigger and better by including another 12 fantastic artists and wellness guides who will focus on additional personal development practices and other art modalities, like sculpting, photography & writing! Themed around self-development and healing, you’ll be creating several loose mixed media art journal pages per month which by the end of the year you will bind into a glorious journal (a Life Book)! You will have a wonderful keepsake that you can treasure for the rest of your life! You will also be introduced to yoga, aromatherapy, dance and angel energy and other wellness exercises to help support your personal development journey more holistically and imagine the fun we will have getting introduced to and acquainted with some of the other wonderful art forms out there!

You can find out a lot more about this wildly popular course (it has been joined by over 16500+ people in the past!) by clicking HERE.
 

I haven't fully developed my class idea yet, but I'm excited to be sharing my techniques and  style with you, much like you can see in this painting:

Torn. by Annie Hamman, 2017.

Registration opens on September 12th 2017 and the class begins on January 1st 2018.
So if you want to start the year with a fabulous creative BANG and spend 2018 with a wonderful creative community of like-minded souls, learning more about art and how to be kinder and more loving towards yourself, be sure to join once registration opens! :) Keep THIS PAGE bookmarked so that you can sign up the moment it goes on sale! :)

Now then, onto the give-away and blog hop! :) I can give away 1 space on Life Book 2018 to 1 lucky winner, yay! :) 

How to enter my give-away:
1. Go to my FB post about giveaway, live a comment there and share it.
2. Sign up to my newsletter (please don't forget to check your email and confirm your subscription, I will go to the subscribers list to pick a random winner!)

The winner will be announced in 1 week on Tuesay 12 September, I will announce it on my Facebook page.

Here is the list of the other amazing teachers who will be teaching on Life Book – they too will begiving away a spot on Life Book so go check them out and enter their give-aways! :)

Saturday 19th August 2017 Tamara Laporte https://www.willowing.org/blog/
Sunday 20th August 2017 Devorah Spilman http://www.devorahspilman.com/blog/
Sunday 20th August 2017 Juna Biagioni https://www.junabiagioni.com/blog/
Monday 21st August 2017 Christie Drahnak http://www.christiedrahnak.com/blog/
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 Gabrielle J-C http://www.gabriellejaviercerulli.com/blogupdates/
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 Laura Horn http://www.laurahornart.com/blog-1/
Wednesday 23rd August 2017 Mariëlle Stolp https://mariellestolp.wordpress.com/blog/
Wednesday 23rd August 2017 Danielle Mack http://www.apaintedpage.com/
Thursday 24th August 2017 Lucy Brydon https://lucybrydonart.wordpress.com/blog/
Friday 25th August 2017 Sarah Trumpp http://wonderstrumpet.com/
Friday 25th August 2017 Effy Wild http://effybird.com/
Saturday 26th August 2017 Mystele Kirkeeng http://www.mystele.com/blog
Sunday 27th August 2017 Deanna Jinjoe http://www.anewdayartstudio.com/blog/
Sunday 27th August 2017 Alena Hennessy https://www.alenahennessy.com/blog/
Monday 28th August 2017 Sharon Harkness-Dobler http://yellowrosedbs.blogspot.de/
Tuesday 29th August 2017 Sophie Adamou http://www.loveartandbeyond.com/
Tuesday 29th August 2017 Amanda Grace http://www.amandagraceart.com/writings/
Wednesday 30th August 2017 Jane Spakowsky http://www.jane-spakowsky.com/recent-work-currentevents
Thursday 31st August 2017 Nanda Boukes https://www.nandasartjourney.com/blog
Thursday 31st August 2017 Flora Bowley https://florabowley.com/blog/#featured
Friday 1st September 2017 Andrea Gomoll http://andrea-gomoll.de/blog/
Saturday 2nd September 2017 Jo Klima http://www.mapstoherself.com/
Sunday 3rd September 2017 S Rebecca Leigh  https://www.woundedwritersask.com/blog/
Sunday 3rd September 2017 Julie Gibbons http://www.juliegibbons.com/blog/
Monday 4th September 2017 Ivy Newport http://graceandivy.wordpress.com/
Tuesday 5th September 2017 Tara Marie Jack http://taramariejack.com/blog/
Tuesday 5th September 2017 Annie Hamman http://www.anniehamman.com/blog/
Wednesday 6th September 2017 Joy Ting Charde https://www.instagram.com/joycharde/
Thursday 7th September 2017 Tara Morris http://www.tspoonphotography.com/
Thursday 7th September 2017 Louise Gale http://louisegale.com/blog
Friday 8th September 2017 Wyanne https://www.facebook.com/WyanneArt
Saturday 9th September 2017 Katrina Koltes https://katrinakoltes.com/blog/
Sunday 10th September 2017 Kathy Glynn http://www.artsycanvasgirl.com/blog
Monday 11th September 2017 Jeanne Marie Webb http://www.jeannemarieart.com/inmystudio/ 

Have a great time following the blog hop! :)

---

Did you hear?

My online 4 week workshop on expressive faces is coming up on 25 September:

Close-Up Workshop

Resistance and desire to create

I have meant to write about this for quite some time, but life gets in a way, and what is more likely – there is a resistance to write about resistance to create. This is something most of us artists face on a daily basis: I am filled with creative ideas, they are bubbling, streaming in, long to be explored and put on paper and canvas. But then there is that thing. Procrastination. Fear. Unidentified resistance to go to my art desk and just start. I wait for something. What is it? Clear schedule, good weather, no family obligation, me time, weekend, holiday, feeling brave, inspiration, good health, tons of energy, lots of money to buy half an art shop. I wait for all of it to arrive, preferably everything together, oh well at least half of it, oh wait and don’t forget – perfect cheerful mood – it has to be there too. So I wait and I wait.

I remember I waited for years. I started waiting in my early twenties and waited until I was 35. I remember Tallulah was just born and then reality hit me: none of it is ever going to arrive, to create that special atmosphere for me to sit down and start painting. I will have to bypass or dismiss all of it as unrealistic or “waaaaay too long” to wait for requirements, for me to become a creative full time.

I started fitting my creative time in between other bits of life. Bad weather? – Where is my heater? No half a day or a day to allocate to art? – I will make art 1 hour and half an hour in between other things. Baby in a way? I will paint with her. Terrified to start painting? – What is there to loose, I’ll just play with art supplies anyway. No inspiration? – Let me just start painting, oh wait, half an hour into the process – and here it comes! Not enough money to buy half an art shop? – I’ll work with what I have, people make a living out of charcoal drawings!

The worst of all of cause to overcome, or lets just say – to ignore – were health issues. How do you create when you have a flu, when you are depressed, or when you are in pain? How do you create with fibromyalgia? I decided to paint anyway, and after a while unexplained and strange phenomenon set in: when I paint, I don’t feel pain. It’s either goes away, or most likely – is there, but I don’t notice it.

I don’t want to scare people, but I often admit that art is hard, for many of us. This is just the way it is, we have an option: either suffer waiting for art to happen, or push through discomfort and make art anyway. To me, the first type of suffering is unbearable. Making art also gets me out of depression, and for some bizarre reason, I create my best art when I have a flu.

It kind of gave me a proof that creation in its pure form, exists besides/ alongside/ and despite of eventualities of life. It’s just does. You just have to take it and use it and discover it for yourself. Don’t wait for tomorrow, life is very short, and tomorrow might never come. Don’t wait for anything. Don’t live in suffering, because you are not creating, drop that suffering, start creating now.

1 year long workshops - which one to choose?

There are few year long workshops that are running today, each one involving a collaboration of about 20 teachers. Which one to choose? I am involved in 3 this year and they are all starting in 1st of January: Life Book with Tamara Laporte, Let’s Face It with Kara Stratchan Bullock, and Paint Your Heart & Soul with Olga Furman.

Here is a list of comparison and differences between these 3 workshops, their strong points and how each one of them can be a great choice for beginner and intermediate artist.

First of all similarities between the 3:

They are all 1 year long, with lessons and inspirational material being delivered to you weekly for the whole year.

Prices are great considering huge amount of teachers and classes given during the course duration. There is no better value for money on any other short term workshops compared to these.

They are all designed for beginner and intermediate artists.

I am fortunate to connect well and know all 3 hosts of these workshops, and find them extremely supportive, sweet and gentle girls, always down to earth and accessible.

Now the differences are boiling down to the theme/focus of attention/style of the workshops:

Life Book:

will aim at healing journey through art, each month and week, having themes related to your inner wellbeing, transforming, unfolding and reconciling things within yourself, through art and with the help of art. My class there will be creating a soulful story art, using symbols of protection, care, shielding, preservation and safety. Tamara herself teaches illustrative type of art, with gorgeous and luminous big eyed girls, cutest animals ever, and soul touching healing messages on the artworks. Healing that this workshop will bring into your life has priceless value, truly.

Let’s Face It:

will aim at practicing painting faces, in huge variety of media, styles, approaches and angles. There are no limits to this fabulous theme in art, always intriguing, always evolving. I will be doing demo on darker skin tones this coming year and give comparison in color palette of painting light versus dark skin tones, as well as Caucasian versus African features. Kara’s style is between illustrative and painterly, with striking contrasts and a touch of quirky patterns. To me there can never be enough of painting faces, I simply adore them!

Paint Your Heart & Soul:

will aim at narrative in art, or story art as I like to call it. This class will have big emphasis on compositional elements, and array of symbols, backgrounds and story art elements to bring forth not just a well painted face, but also body, landscape, patterns, animals and anything else that your soul desires to tackle storytelling in art – my so loved subject. How I am linked to this workshop I cannot yet reveal, since I am not on a teachers list. I was not even technically invited – ha!, But… I crept in and parked myself in there, somewhere… in a middle of all this arty storytelling… You will see! Olga’s style of art is very similar to mine, it’s soulful, expressive and with deep meaning of life’s beauty and tragedy, survival and triumph.

I hope I had your question answered and make it easier for you to choose your favourite most needed workshop for the coming year. Neither of these 3 workshops contradict nor repeat each other, they are very very different! 

To read more about these workshops and sign up to 1 or 2 or all 3, please go through these links:

Life Book

Let's Face It

Paint Your Heart And Soul

Art collaboration with Jeanne-Marie Webb

Jeanne-Marie Webb visited me in Hermanus from Cape Town in May 2016 (about 2 hour drive by car), and we took 1.5 days to paint this artwork together. What started as "I am painting my own thing" kind of artwork, slowly organically merged into cohesive collaboration, united in style and color palette. I love Janne-Marie visits, as they always leave me hugely inspired. She has that calm determination about her, that she applies in her creativity and life, which makes her supportive and balanced friend, one you can rely on when you need help or opinion.

I hope you enjoy this free 20 min, fast forwarded and easy to watch:

I teach on Let's Face It 2017!

Dear friends!

I am so happy to announce that I am going to be a guest teacher in LET’S FACE IT 2017!  It is a year-long, online, art class created and hosted by Kara Bullock, devoted to creating portraits.  It is for any level: beginning, intermediate, and advanced. The 2017 Let’s Face It class has a brand new line up of amazing teachers, and 5 new areas of focus, with some other exciting extras, too!

Click here to find out more about LET’S FACE IT.

This year, Kara is joined by 19, AMAZING, guest teachers!  Together, we will be giving you 50 weeks of lessons that will continue to encourage and support you along your creative journey that you are on.

Since faces is my most favourite subject in art, I feel really blessed to be invited as one of the teachers. This year I will be teaching you how to mix palette for dark skin tones and paint a face, how to create expressive face in your art journal, and few more tips and tricks.

This course is not open for registration yet!  However, you can read more about it and bookmark this page so that on October 10th, you can come back and register. If you register by December 1st, you will get an early bird price. 

The cool part it I get to give away one free spot in this course to one of you!

To enter my give away please subscribe for my newsletter and share/comment on my Facebook post about this giveaway.

I will announce the winner on Friday, 16th September! :)

In the mean time, click here and book mark this page so that you can come back on October 10th and sign up! (I do get commission if you sign up through my link. Thank you! :)) 

I can’t wait to begin this journey with each of you!

Hugs,

Annie.