Do you wish you had more money or time?
Is it possible to make creative choices and begin to shape your days into the life you wish you could have? Yes! Your life is a series of choices you get to make.

If you look at the heart of what you want and what it would mean to you, you might find there are more ways to get the essence of what you desire.

What does it mean to you?
Maybe you feel like if you had more money or time your life would be complete. You could take a closer look to define what having more money means to you. Would it mean freedom? Freedom to work at a different career, freedom to travel or peace of mind? Would it give you a sense of value or self esteem? Would it give you more time with your kids, spouse, or friends?

How could you start to get the benefits now?
If you want to spend more time with your family, you might declare Friday nights as family night where you take turns choosing the activity or make it movie night, complete with popcorn. Or could you give up TV for an evening and just talk, play games, or work on a project together?

If you want more time for a creative pursuit, you might take a half hour before everyone gets up or a half hour before dinner each night to work a little at a time on it.

Maybe you’d just like more time. I needed help with lots of the little details of my business and personal life that seemed to be piling up. I wanted to make sure I still have time to relax and that I’m not always having to do something. So I recently placed an ad in Craig’s list and hired an awesome personal assistant. She is able to help me a few hours a week and it’s wonderful.

Do you want to travel more but can’t afford it? What could you give up that doesn’t give you as much satisfaction? Or better yet, brainstorm some ways you could be paid to travel.

What is the essence of your desires?
If you begin to look at why you want something, you may discover that you can make creative and positive choices that will give you the essence of what you want. What else could you do to create those outcomes and enjoy the benefits now?

Reflect on your choices
The end of the year is always a great time to reflect on the choices you made this year. What were some of the best moments? What do you wish you had more time for? What creative choices can you make for next year?

Sally Evans is a Creativity Coach and Jewlery Artist who shares insights and resources in living a creative and inspired life. Sign up for weekly inspiration at Embracing Creativity Free Ezine.

Benjamin Hummel, James Gurney & Cherish Flieder (Me)

We met James Gurney at the Denver Botanic Gardens for a lecture on his creative process as it relates to the world of Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara.

As you probably know, I teach adjunct illustration classes at the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design. I don’t know how many people were there to get their book signed, I just know I was at the end of the line. I had the honor to have my copy not only signed, but also sketched upon. I asked James if he would consider coming back to Colorado to present to the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design as well as the local chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators. I feel very blessed that everything was able to work out for Mr. Gurney to fit these lectures into his visit this September 17-20, 2009. We look forward to seeing him again!

For more information on the upcoming visits to Colorado click to:

• Rocky Mountain Chapter – Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (Fall Conference)
  
• Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design (Visiting Artists)
  
  

To learn more about Dinotopia and James Gurney,
visit his site at Dinotopia.com.

Cherish Flieder (Me), Mark Bowers, Jane Yamada, Ritchie Patterson & Sarah Tommer

As a designer, you know that there are probably millions of  ways to arrange color palettes. Our environment is continually informing us of colors that best represent a slice of our humanity at any particular time. Technology, current events and philosophical beliefs are just some things that move and shape our color trends.

Since following color trends is an ever changing, organic and creative process, there will never be one definitive resource on the matter. However, designers and manufacturers must stay on top of these patterns, to incorporate them, to respond to them or at least, just to be aware of them.

In my efforts to stay on top of this ever changing and inspiring world of color, I have created a handy color trends toolbar to include quick and easy links to some of my favorite sites on COLOR.

(click to zoom)

As a special gift, I would love to share this very helpful color trend toolbar – “Cherish COLOR”.

• Designed for anyone who researches color and trends along with those who just love color and art
• Especially helpful for manufacturers, licensees and artists
• No risk, completely anonymous, no strings attached
• It works on Windows, Mac and Linux and on all the major browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, and finally Safari.

This easy to install tool bar has links to the most popular and useful sites in the areas of:

• Color Trends + Palettes (Sites, Blogs, Google Search, Books)
• Color Mixing (Color Tools, Color Management and Color Software)
• Color Me Fun (+ Games)
• Built in Google search engine
• Internet Radio (Add your favorite stations)
• Note Pad
• Weather
• E-mail Notifier
• Plus customize it by adding many “gadgets” of your choice

Please feel free to contact me with any feedback. You are also free to share this free tool with any design professionals you know would benefit. Enjoy!

You may download the browser toolbar here!

Find out:

• what made us start doing this in the first place
• how we work as a team to create illustrations for children’s books
• how we split up the work
• how we stay inspired
• and get a preview of our latest children’s book, Prayer Posies!

You can read the entire interview here.