Embrace the Process

"You are not a creativity machine. Remember that creativity is rhythmic." -Todd Henry

I don't sweat when I'm working. Well, unless I'm nervous. Yet design work is hard. 

When using your brain to crank out awesomeness you need a plan. My Professional Plan Maker is Todd Henry, the founder & CEO of Accidental Creative, a consultancy that helps creative professionals generate brilliant ideas. And he just published his first book - The Accidental Creative: How To Be Brilliant At a Moment’s Notice. I received my pre-ordered copy over the weekend. 

Unfortunately, I wasn't the first one to crack it open. Cadence was.

 

Because of creative habits Todd taught me; ie. unnecessary creating, strategic ideation, purposeful stimulus, daily recording, quarterly retreats and more; I have recently accomplished the following:

- Finished the children's book Adventures with Ranger Roy: Acadia National Park
- Started thinking about another book for the Adventures with Ranger Roy series
- Quit my corporate job & went 100% freelance
- Became a stay-at-home mom

You too can embrace the process of creativity & watch your distant dreams come into focus. 

Wanna know more?

Check out this video about the book:

The Accidental Creative: How To Be Brilliant at a Moment's Notice from Accidental Creative on Vimeo.

Or listen to this podcast.

And finally, just buy it. You won't be disappointed.

Purposeful Shifts

A post of the letter from the Jessie Marie Studio Spring 2011 Newsletter sent on June 7, 2011.

 “All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages”
 

- William Shakespeare

For the second time the Scheunemann family is making a Purposeful Shift in their life. Some of you may remember Purposeful Shift #1: Project 2007. We quit our perfectly good jobs in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and drove to Alaska & back. After a job search, we landed in Champaign, Illinois and I began my career as a graphic designer at Horizon Hobby.

Purposeful Shift #2: The Scheunemann Switch
Since the day after our daughter, Cadence, was born in January 2009, Jarrod has been working on his masters in Park & Recreation Management at the University of Illinois. His flexible schedule allowed him to be home with Cadence most of the week. However, as of June 1st Jarrod was hired on full-time as the Community Services & Education Coordinator for the Office of Recreation and Park Resources at the University of Illinois. And I have left Horizon Hobby to focus solely on Jessie Marie Studio & Cadence Rose. All three of us are excited for the upcoming transition.

These kinds of Purposeful Shifts don’t happen overnight. In both cases we had a vision that formed into a tactile plan that we reviewed often. Teamwork & daily sacrifice were needed to keep us moving toward the future goal. And let me tell you, when a Purposeful Shift occurs it tastes so sweet because of all the hard work that was put into it.

Do you have a Purposeful Shift you would like to make in your life? What small step could you take today to make it happen?

Here's to transition!
Jessie Marie 

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Finding Balance

A post of the letter from the Jessie Marie Studio Winter 2011 Newsletter sent on February 17, 2011.

“Life is like riding a bicycle to keep your balance you must keep moving.” -Albert Einstein

There are seasons of life where moving forward is the best course of action. A busy season at work, a new baby in the house or surviving a Midwestern winter. Jessie Marie Studio just exited its annual busy season.

For the past four years I've worked with the Denver Transportation Club to create a printed program, & other marketing collateral for their annual conference, Operation Stimulus. This project coincides with the holidays and Cadence’s birthday. Because of this timing, a magical balancing act has to take place. I don’t bathe in pixie dust nightly. Instead I made a plan, called on support & saw an end.

Make a Plan: Is there a relationship or project in need of your attention & energy? Recognizing where your focus needs to be makes it much easier to prioritize your time.

From previous years I knew the energy Operation Stimulus was going to take. I mentally prepared for the late nights, anticipated project challenges & stocked up on tea.

Call on Support: Do you know someone who will check up on you? Contact them. Tell them about that relationship or project. Talk to them weekly, better yet daily, to keep yourself accountable.

Jarrod is the reason projects like this one always end successfully. He didn’t only support me by checking in, he also did all the laundry, cooking AND dishes!

The End: Locate an end date when there will be time to celebrate. Or at least come up for air.

The end of my busy season is marked by Fat Camp. This year a girlfriend shared this great idea: Mini-celebrations. While working on her Spanish dissertation she feels the end will never come. To feel like she is finishing something she has a mini-celebration whenever she finishes food from her kitchen. A bag of chips emptied. Clapping & cheering! Last piece of spinach salad down the hatch. Hooting & hollering!

Balance is a tricky thing. Even with the best plan, the most dedicated supporters & the celebration of a lifetime planned, things can go array. You can try to take control of life by force. Or, may I suggest, take off the training wheels & enjoy the ride.

Here’s to finishing a mug of hot chocolate!
Jessie Marie 

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Restructuring Habits

A post of the letter from the Jessie Marie Studio Fall 2010 Newsletter sent on November 9, 2010

 

"Because how we spend our days is, of course,
how we spend our lives." -Annie Dillard

 

Pull out your checkbook. Take a look at the transactions from the last three months. Do you see well thought out purchases or unnecessary ones? Now, pull out your calendar. Look at how you have been spending your time. Have you been filling it with family & friends, working late or working out?

Your spending habits of money & time can either help or hinder you from achieving your dreams. Say you want to run a marathon. You can’t just show up on race day. You would die. Okay, not die, but those 26.2 miles would suck. You need to register for the event, buy a good pair of shoes & schedule time to train. In other words, you will need to restructure your current habits.

Reach. Reach. Kick. Kick. With the help of a floating device Cadence can swim. This feat was made possible by restructuring our family’s habits six months ago. We paid for the lessons, bought new swimsuits, and committed to heading to the swimming pool once or twice a week. Not only has Cadence gained beginning swimming skills, we have built relationships with other parents & their little swimmers. And now, Thursday night swimming lessons are a weekly habit.

I challenge you to restructure a habit or two over the next three months. You will probably not squeal with glee like Cadence does when she enters the pool when you first start. We adults are adverse to change & all. But, by the next time you hear from me that new habit will be a sign of you making your dreams come true.

Happy Dream Making!
Jessie Marie

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Start to Finish

People have asked us "How'd you do it?" when they hear about our the Ranger Roy book. To answer that question I've posted our timeline below.


2009 - Idea of creating the character Ranger Roy was born. We can't remember exactly when.

07.09 to 08.09 - Jarrod wrote the copy
 

09.09 to 03.11 - Jessie created illustrations
 

02.24.11 - confirmed venue for Boneyard Arts Festival, Follett's Bookstore. A book in a bookstore. Perfect!
 

03.05.11 - Illustrations finished
 

03.07.11 - Started setting up book in InDesign to www.lulu.com's standards. Bought ISBN number from www.myidentifiers.com ($125.00)
 

03.09.11 - Bought font, Sharktooth ($60.00)
 

03.10.11 - Took illustrations into the photo studio. Cara Vetter photographed them using awesome lighting techniques.
 

03.13.11 - Prepress work for www.lulu.com. Put illustration photos into InDesign. Started to typeset Jarrod's copy.
 

03.15.11 - PUBLISHED through www.lulu.com!! for the first of three times. I had many issues following lulu's instructions to get this far. Wanted to switch to blurb.com, however I made the illustrations the proportions of a book size on lulu & not on blurb, so I was stuck with lulu.
 

03.16.11 - Ordered first proof (apx $15.00 per proof).  

03.17.11 - Two people bought the book! This is the moment we realized we created something that other people really wanted to buy. Wow.
 

03.20.11 - Got first proof. It had been rained on while out on our front step. After opening it we found all of the pages off by one. I hadn't accounted for the back of the front cover to be blank. Color looked awful. Dark & dingy. Found out who had bought the two books. Warned them of problems. Figured out how to make book private on lulu.com so others couldn't buy it until the actual book release date (04.07.11).
 

03.21.11 - Made needed changes. Added front title page & made color corrections (magic photoshop curve #1). Bought second proof.
 

03.24.11 - Got second proof. Much better, but the perfectionist in me wanted to make one more color adjustment. Plus, Jarrod found some small copy changes he wanted to make. Even with these changes in mind we CELEBRATED!
 

03.29.11 - Made final changes (magic photoshop curve #2 did the trick! I really should sell this curve to lulu customer's to fix the yucky printing! Ordered 10 copies of the book for the upcoming show. Also ordered 4 photos from mpix.com of the illustrations we framed for the show.
 

04.02.11 - Got books & mpix photos. Created "live reading" video for facebook of "Ranger Roy" aka Jarrod's dad reading the book.  

04.03.11 - Set up marketing email in Dreamweaver
 

04.04.11 - Finished marketing email & uploaded it to campaignmonitor.com. Set send time as 04.05.11 at 6AM. Matted & framed illustrations. Final touches on lulu.com (created final preview image & made book public). Created "stuff" for the show. Enter to Win box, cards with tinyurl on them for people to order book online when I'm not at the show, etc.
 

04.05.11 - Set up the show at Follett's Bookstore!
 

04.07.11 - Jarrod & Cadence bought trail like refreshments for our guests. BOOK RELEASE CELEBRATION! 5PM-7PM

Challenger: Christine Bougie

Christine's new album, Aloha Supreme

Christine Bougie, a very talented full-time musician from Toronto, Ontario, & I share a love for bettering ourselves creatively. Christine took the Challenge from my last newsletter & answered the following questions back on February 17th about Restructuring Habits:

Did you restructure any habits over the last three months?
Tell us about your successes (or set backs).

About restructuring habits:
I've radically restructured my days since the beginning of the new year. Here's what I committed to:

• no internet before noon
• first thing of the day is guitar practice
• working in 45 minute intervals (with timer and with breaks). starting with practicing guitar, then composing, then either more practice (drums or lap steel) or prep for gigs.
• overall goal of finishing one new song a week over 12 weeks (I'm in the 4th week now)

It's been a great productive period for me over the past 7 weeks, and at the same time I've been very "in the moment."

Balance is something I've come to understand through creating structure.  I've found that when I start off my day with important but non-urgent things, the rest of the day feels
much more open. I end up feeling free to be spontaneous, which is a nice surprise. 

Thanks for sharing, Christine!

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Retreats at the Lake House

Make Art Retreat: November 13th - 15th

The Make Art Retreat brought Jessie Marie Studio's beliefs to life: creativity, harmony & relationships. Five women participated including myself. None of these women had met each other before, but all knew me. Therefore, most of them have heard about one another which helped in people bringing certain questions for certain people. ie. one women used to work at a camera shop so my other girlfriend brought her camera with questions since she is starting up a side business of taking wedding/family photos. All had projects that they were working on that they needed guidance, brainstorming &/or an outside view. We were able to talk art, make art & eat awesome vegetarian food during the weekend. We made these portabella muschroom sandwiches on focaccia bread that were AMAZING! 

I personally worked on my Acadia Children's book & was able to get another illustration done over the two days. I think it is the best one to date. Each women critiqued what I had already completed as well - which was nice. We kept the following loose schedule:

Loose Schedule of Make Art Retreat

Saturday, November 13th - weather forecast: RAIN/44º high

Jessie & Leslie arrive mid-afternoon

Unpack. Set up studios if need be.

Between 6PM & 8PM Dinner

Chit Chat. Make Art.

Sunday, November 14th - weather forecast: PARTLY SUNNY/42º

Early Morning - (if awake) Leisurely Breakfast

Morning - Take in Art. Chit Chat.

11AMish Pack Lunches & head over to Calumet County Park for a hike/nature photo shoot (weather permitting)

Afternoon - Make Art. Chit Chat.

Between 6PM & 8PM Dinner

Chit Chat. Relax.

Monday, November 15th

Clean up. Gather our Art.

Return Home.

The hike got axed since it was sleeting all day Sunday. All in all I really hope to make this a yearly or bi-yearly event. It was refreshing in a geeky art kind of way :)

Fat Camp 2011: January 28th - 30th

The Four Blonde Crew enjoying their fond due.

A group of four of us from high school get together annually at what we fondly call Fat Camp. It is a time of eating good food, catching up & maybe even going for a winter hike or doing an exercise dvd inside. We met much farther south this year at my parent's cabin on Lake Winneabago rather than in Upper Michigan. There was a comment that it wasn't remote enough since we had internet & cell phone reception. The best take away from the weekend: when grumpy put on some high heels & make up. You are sure to feel better.

And for you foodies out there a review of the menu.

MENU
Friday Night
A pot of Italian vegetable soup will be on the stove for you to enjoy when you arrive. Along with a side salad & bread. Matched with a Merlot.

Saturday Breakfast
A light breakfast of fruit, chocolate chip bagels, tea & juice

Saturday Lunch
Leftovers from Friday night.

Saturday Dinner
Grilled Mozzarella Sandwiches with Tomato & Basil Tortellini Soup. (Check out Whole Food Recipe App for this one!)

Sunday Breakfast
Brunch style. Omlets, toast, sausage & fruit.

Snack Ideas
Snickers Bar Fondue with wine as afternoon or late night snack. Matched with a Muscat (white dessert wine).

baked chips and / or whole grain goldfish
cheese & sausage tray with a local brew.

ACTIVITIES
Bring winter gear if we want to go out. Bring workout gear if we want to stay in. Bring only pajamas if you just want to sit on the couch all weekend!

Motivational Artwork

The annual spring art shows, Boneyard & Artists Against AIDS, came & went during April here in Champaign. I didn't enter any pieces this year; however, I attended both events. Oh, how good art is for the soul.

On the evening of Friday, April 16th the Scheunemanns headed out to see a friend's work at BeeMi Gallery. Then, we went over to the Krannert Center to listen to some music from around the world. Cadence enjoyed dancing in the spacious lobby.

On the morning of April 17th Cadence & I went to see another friend's paintings in Urbana. I was surprised by the large amount of work in & around Lincoln Square Mall. Plus, there was a kid's event going on. Perfect for Miss Cadence.

On Friday, April 23rd the Scheunemanns went to the opening for Artists Against AIDS. Cadence had her first chocolate covered strawberry from the spread of hors d'oeuvres. She let out a giggle when she bit down. What girl wouldn't?

As we were walking around I pointed out different pieces to Jarrod that I enjoyed. After we made our way back to where we started, Jarrod pulled our checkbook out of his back pocket. "Did you know I brought this along? Which one do you want?" My bewildered reply went something like, "huh, what do you mean?" You see, the Scheunamanns are currently on a tighter than normal budget right now, and buying the Beautiful Graphic Blue Bird Painting that I wanted seemed very frivolous. So, we left the show empty-handed.

The Beautiful Graphic Blue Bird Painting did not like being left at the show. During my six mile run the next morning I didn't stop thinking about it. My thoughts went something like this: "How do I expect people to pay to hang my art on their walls if I'm not willing to pay for original art to hang on mine? The Beautiful Graphic Blue Bird Painting is more than just beautiful, it represents this season of our life. Our awesome little house. Our cute neighborhood. Our love for finding big joy in simple & small things." I had myself talked into needing that painting.

Needless to say, that beautiful painting is now hanging on my wall. And every time I look at it I am reminded of the joy of this season of our life.


The Beautiful Graphic Blue Bird Painting is by Lisa Kesler. She named it "Distant View."

AC Premium Member Here.

I finally did it. I joined the AC Premium Community. I've been tip toeing around the main Accidental Creative website for months now listening to free podcasts & reading the public blog. Always eating up everything Todd Henry has to say. Now that I took the plunge (at only $9.95/mo) I have access to the entire archive of podcasts. I listened to four today!

I did have a little push from Accidental Creative - they are running a special right now where the first 30 days are free. So, you too can try AC Premium & enjoy their creative coaching.

** AC Premium is now AC Engage. Same greatness. Different name.