The Joyful Creative

Deborah O'Toole
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The Joyful Creative is a source of inspiration for integrating creativity into your busy life. Whether you're into painting, writing, knitting, music, cooking, or gardening, I firmly believe that nurturing your creative practice is essential for your wellbeing. Join me as we embark on a journey to reconnect with the creative passions that bring us joy. Together, we'll explore practical and holistic approaches to creativity, uncovering its profound impact on mental health and overall wellbeing. Through insightful discussions and practical tips, I'll help you navigate the challenges that often hinder regular creative expression. Whether you're looking to reignite your creative spark or embark on a new creative journey, The Joyful Creative is here to support and inspire you every step of the way. Connect with Deborah Website: https://www.deborahotooleartist.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deborahotoole_artist/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeborahOTooleArtist YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3gc0po1jqZEJ-grZUYYCgg

  1. Let it go

    12/04/2024

    Let it go

    I'm sure I'm not the only one having a tough time right now. Life get's hectic at this time of year, and when personal crises pop up simultaneously, it can be completely overwhelming. At times like these my advice is to show yourself some kindness and just let some things go! If those things are important (like your creative practice!) give yourself a grace period and simply pick it up again whenever you can. Let's say "no" to hustle culture and embrace peace and joy this Christmas season. In the spirit of all that, this will be my last episode for the year. But fear not, I'll be back in 2025 with more inspiration and encouragement to help you live your best creative life. Subscribe to my mailing listSend me an emailFacebookInstagramOrder my colouring Book - It Starts With A Heart Transcript: Welcome to The Joyful Creative. I'm Deborah O'Toole. I'm a multi passionate creative and I believe regular creativity is essential for well being. Whether you love painting, writing, knitting, music, gardening, or any other creative pursuit, here you'll find the inspiration and support to make your creative practice a joyful priority in your busy life. So let's get creative.  Hello, my friends. Welcome back to another episode of the joyful creative. I hope that you're all going well at this late stage of the year. It is getting towards Christmas. I mean, we've still got three weeks before Christmas but I don't know, every year it just seems to ramp up earlier and earlier. And here we are in the first week of December and it already feels like it's been going on for a while and there's still a bit to go.So I hope that you're all coping well, not stressing too much and keeping calm and creative through this time. I have to admit I've had a bit of a tough week. My father passed away a few days ago.  And, he was, he was old. He was in hospice and he'd had a stroke a couple of months ago. We knew that the end was close and he had a very peaceful and comfortable end. He was very much at peace with his life and was ready to go. And I am grateful that he didn't suffer for too long or you know, be sort of hanging around in this limbo state of not really having much of a quality of life for too long. So it was  in some ways a relief. And I didn't expect that I would feel particularly emotional. I think there's a difference between when people are old and and they have had a wonderful life. And when they pass away, there's some sort of sense of contentment and peace about them passing, as opposed to a young person where that can be very tragic. I hope that isn't triggering to anybody. But nevertheless, even though I couldn't have wished for a nicer end for my Dad, my body is just telling me something. And it does seem really disproportionate to the emotions. I mean,  I have been on the verge of tears on and off for a few days, it's not like I'm howling and completely distraught and very emotional. I don't feel that way. I feel pretty emotionally stable. And yet my body is just fatigued and I'm having body aches and brain fog like I've never known it. It's just very difficult to think clearly at the moment. This is a kind of grief I was just not prepared for. And I'm sure that there are people out there who can relate, who have gone through the same experience.  And I feel for anyone who's going through this.  On...

    15 min
  2. It's ok to pivot

    11/27/2024

    It's ok to pivot

    Are you curious about trying a new medium? Is there a little voice inside urging you to break out of your usual creative routine and do a different thing? Well guess what? It's ok to pivot! Don't let the fact that you've invested time, energy and money into one medium, your lack of storage space for more materials or your identity as a particular type of creative prevent your expansion in new creative directions. It's all doable and it's part of your creative journey, so embrace the pivot. Subscribe to my mailing listShop the studio saleSend me an emailFacebookInstagramOrder my colouring Book - It Starts With A Heart Transcript: Welcome to The Joyful Creative. I'm Deborah O'Toole. I'm a multi passionate creative and I believe regular creativity is essential for well being. Whether you love painting, writing, knitting, music, gardening, or any other creative pursuit, here you'll find the inspiration and support to make your creative practice a joyful priority in your busy life. So let's get creative.  Well, hi there. Welcome everybody back to another episode of the joyful creative. Before I get into this episode about pivoting, I would like to mention that my studio sale, which is currently live for my subscribers will be open to everybody else on Sunday this Sunday, the 1st of December. I will add the link to the show notes.  It's basically just go to my website and have a look at what's there. I have put lots of images and reels on my social media in the last couple of weeks. So if you're interested in what is available just have a look back at some of those posts. And you'll be able to have a good look at what they are.  They're a little pieces of mixed media on paper. Some of them are water colour, some of them are black ink and all of them have been embellished with the coloured pen, black pen, some glitter pens, metallic pens.  Some of them have some hand stitching on them as well. And they're all just process pieces that have been part of my exploration of this new media. And I've really had a good time doing them and I look back and I still really love them.  I would love to keep them all but I am moving house again, and it would be lovely to just clear them out so that, you know, they're not just stashed in a drawer in a box somewhere when I get to the other end, I would love them to fly off to new homes.  So yes, that will be open this Sunday and I will only have it open for a week or so because while I'm in transit, which will possibly be a couple of weeks, there's no way I'll be able to fulfill any orders after about mid December. So, if you are interested in grabbing a little piece for yourself or for a Christmas present, remember, it's so lovely to give handmade presence gifts for your family for Christmas and loved ones. And look, they're just little pieces on paper at the moment, so they can be mounted in a frame under glass, which really does elevate them and makes them look really special. Or if you just want to casually pop some bulldog clips he can hang it directly from a bulldog clip, or you could put two bulldog clips on each side of the page and add some ribbon or string and hang it up on a little hook. So they're just nice little things to have around, little bit of...

    19 min
  3. Creativity for destressing

    11/21/2024

    Creativity for destressing

    I'm sure I'm not the only one suffering some overwhelm at this stage of the year! But I think we can all safely say that this is no different from any other Christmas lead up and maybe if we remember how we managed to get through it every year before, we might just feel empowered rather than on the verge of break down! A little mindful creativity (hello mindful colouring book!) even a few minutes a day can also do wonders in keeping us on an even keel during the silly season. Subscribe to my mailing listSend me an emailFacebookInstagramOrder my colouring Book - It Starts With A Heart TRANSCRIPT: Well, hello everyone and welcome back to another episode. Thank you so much, everybody for listening in. Gee, we're really getting so close to the end of the year and I think I'm not the only one that just starts to feel this incredible overwhelm at this time of the year. I mean, it happens every year. Doesn't it? And I just don't know why it always has to be like this. Every year I approach, you know, get into sort of October seeing what's on in November and December. And I try so hard to really just make it easy, but for some reason there is just so much that we always want to do before the end of the year. I don't know why the end of the year is the important time to do all the catching up and all the things, the parties. We should just be having parties all year round. I don't know why we have to catch up with people before Christmas. Because there's a lot going on before Christmas. You know, kids are finishing school and they've got their graduations and their last, this, and their last to that. And you know, work things of course and end of year, this and that. And I get it. It's always the same. I would love it to be different. I'm not sure what I can do to make it different in my own life, even though I, I think ahead for it. But here I am again feeling completely overwhelmed with things to get done by the end of the year. And on top of everything, we are moving house, not just moving house, but relocating to another state. We're in Brisbane at the moment and we're heading down, back to Canberra in Australia. We're in defence and we have packers come to pack up our house, which I really appreciate because it takes a few guys a whole day to do it. But there are certain things that just need to be organized beforehand. I always have a compulsion to really tidy up and clear things out before they arrive, because what I don't want is to unpack at the other end with just a whole lot of things that I feel a bit resentful about. Why do I even have these things? Or why didn't I just chuck that away before we, we moved? So that's always a bit of a project. There is one good thing about moving fairly often and we have actually moved. I just realized it's like four times, this is the fourth move in four years. So because we have moved fairly frequently I can say that we don't have a lot of major decluttering to do. We've sort of done that pretty regularly. And in the last few years, or in the last two years, since we've been here, we haven't accumulated too much. But even saying that there were still things that I have now that I just, I just know I don't need anymore. And that's just a thing I've decided in the last two years. So will I get rid of them? I'm not sure. It's big things like a sewing machine and mannequins and things that I used to use when I...

    17 min
  4. Creative friends

    11/13/2024

    Creative friends

    I've found myself some creative friends and it's been surprisingly lovely for this lone-ranger! I highly recommend connecting with a person or a group who can be your support, your cheerleader and keep you accountable to your creative practice. Subscribe to my mailing listSend me an emailFacebookInstagramOrder my colouring Book - It Starts With A Heart TRANSCRIPT: Well, hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the joyful creative. And I hope that you're all feeling like you're enjoying some joyful creativity at this late stage of the year where it's starting to get a little busy, a bit frantic. Creativity is so important for our mental health and just to keep us centred and grounded. And I know that when we're busy, sometimes the creative pursuit is the thing that gets dropped off the to-do list first. But I'm here to advocate for creativity becoming or remaining at the top of the list so it's a regular thing that you do for your wellbeing and your mental health and your self care every day, or at least many times a week, just to keep you on that equilibrium, because it just might be the thing that gets you through this silly season. Today I wanted to talk about creative friends, but before we get into that, I wanted to remind you that I have a studio sale coming up, it's going live on the 24th of November 2024. At 7:00 PM Brisbane time Australia, which is 8:00 PM Daylight savings for the rest of Australia. And, God knows what time it will be around the world. I'm sure you could figure that out if you're not in Australia. And you might be wondering what a studio sale even is. Well, a studio sale is a where an artist or creative will sell the experiments samples, exploratory works that they'd been working on within a medium. They're not fine art, finished works that they would normally put on their website or sell in a gallery So what I'm doing is selling... I've got about 26, small works on paper. And this has been the exploration that I've been doing with watercolor ink, Pen glitter pen, a bit of stitching and they're all works on paper. Most of them are around about A5 size, but some of them are A4. But I'm selling them all for $35 Australian each. And that includes free shipping. And the reason I'm doing this really is because I do need to clear out my studio because I'm about to move house again. Moving from Brisbane to Canberra. And I look around and you know, I've got this pile of, of works and I just love them all actually, I would love to have them all up in my studio. I might keep a couple. But there they're just so pretty. I just can't bear for them to just be in a pile or in a drawer somewhere just as a memento of what I did this year. I've certainly gained a lot of insight, a lot of wisdom, a lot of skills about how to use watercolor and pen glitter pens in the way that I like to express myself creativity, which is more abstract I guess. A lot of people go to watercolor classes because they want to recreate something that's a bit more realistic, but that's certainly not my experience. I am really an organic artist. Organic artist, is that really even a thing? My way of working is really, I love to let the materials dictate the direction of the work. And then I can apply my creativity to solve the design problems, to make it cohesive. And I find that a really lovely challenge And I'm going to say that usually the...

    18 min
  5. Do it messy!

    11/06/2024

    Do it messy!

    I almost didn't record an episode this week because I'm away from home and don't have my microphone with me and I was concerned about the sound quality. But then I remembered my new motto "Done is better than perfect" (not mine originally but I'm embracing it!) and realised I should just get resourceful and do it anyway, even if the results are a little messy. The same goes for creativity. We could all use the excuse of having lack of time or other resources or the lack of faith our own ability to stop ourselves from doing cool creative things. But that would just be dull and lead to regrets. I say do it messy and do it anyway! Subscribe to my mailing listSend me an emailFacebookInstagramOrder my colouring Book - It Starts With A Heart TRANSCRIPT: Well, hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Joyful Creative. Today, I'm recording this episode directly into my laptop rather than through a microphone because I'm currently away from home again, and I don't have my full set up with me. I'm currently staying in what used to be student accommodation in Canberra. And it's quite an older buildings so when people come in and out of their rooms and use the shared bathrooms, the doors tend to bang quite loudly and also, while the location is great for getting around and going out for coffees and restaurants and things there is a constant street noise. There are sirens and horns happening all the time. And so I just hope that it doesn't affect your enjoyment over listening to this episode. I normally pride myself on a high level of professionalism. It might be the performer in me, I really want my audience to have a great experience. So when I knew I was going to be away and I wouldn't be able to bring my microphone and headphones with me, I almost thought that I'd have to miss a week of recording this podcast. But this year, I've really turned a corner where perfectionism is concerned. And where before I would stop myself from doing something, if it wasn't going to be perfect or I would procrastinate and overthink it, or just take a really long time completing it, now my new motto is "Done is better than perfect" I didn't come up with that myself. You might've heard it before. For me, it's taken some pushing out of my comfort zone to embrace this. And to be honest, I still don't really like it. I still don't like feeling like I'm doing things half-assed or not quite to the best of my ability. But also I recognize that it's not that I'm lazy or I don't care, or that I'm happy with what I deem to be a sloppy outcome. But the fact is sometimes I have less than optimal resources available to me. Like right now, not having my microphone. Usually the lacking resource is time. And of course, if I had a microphone with me now, I would use it. If I had unlimited time, I would spend more of it on perfecting everything I do, but I don't. And so the alternative is that I either do things imperfectly or I don't do them at all. And I've come to the conclusion this year in particular that in my short time on this earth, I would rather just get things done and achieve things and have the experiences with the time and resources I have rather than not do them at all. And I really just have to let go of the unrealistic expectations of myself and give myself credit for what I do manage to achieve. It's interesting isn't it? That if we were...

    12 min
  6. Give yourself permission

    10/30/2024

    Give yourself permission

    This episode was inspired by a ground breaking music concert I saw this week. There were combinations of artistic elements in this show that I didn't believe would ever be seen on the one stage. I was blown away, and excited by the creative possibilities that exist if we just allow them to. I share a vulnerable admission and encourage you to give yourself permission to do the seemingly silly, the crazy and the impossible. Subscribe to my mailing listSend me an emailFacebookInstagramOrder my colouring Book - It Starts With A Heart TRANSCRIPT Well, hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the joyful creative. My name's Deborah O'Toole, if you didn't pick that up in the intro. This episode is a little unplanned, it's really come up from something that happened this week and I was really inspired to talk about it. I went to see a concert that really blew my mind and just reminded me of what's possible creatively speaking. The concert was Esperanza Spalding. She's an American jazz bass player. She plays upright and also electric bass and she sings and composes, and I've been following her for a little while and yeah, she's just completely mesmerizing to watch on stage and incredible bass player in her own right just as it is. But in this concert, as well as the small band (she had a little ensemble) and also two contemporary dancers were on stage, not all the time, but when they did come on, at times they were improvising their movements to the instrumental solos that the instrumentalists were playing. It was just, I found it really fascinating because I really love dance, particularly creative and contemporary, interpretive dance. And I just found that it had me so visually engaged as well as listening to the solos because the musicians were unbelievable as well. But I do admit that sometimes when I'm listening to a jazz gig and I'm hearing an instrumental solo for an extended period of time, I tend to get a little, I'm not going to say bored, I just get a bit restless. I'm sure that there are jazz musicians out there who would think I'm completely mad because they're just hanging on every note. I am hanging on every note for about the first, maybe three minutes. And then after that I can tend to drift off, but having these dancers on stage adding this visual element was just, I just thought it was so inspired. Um, yeah, just such a creative, amazing idea. But for those of you who are not familiar with the jazz scene, I can, I think I can safely assure you that having dancers in a jazz concert is not the done thing. I've never heard of it. Yeah, it was quite a new thing. She also incorporated spoken word in her recitatives when she was, I couldn't really figure out whether this is patter things she was saying in between songs or whether it was actually part of a song, but it was, it was kind of a spoken and kind of song and it was sort of along with music. Um, but it was just very theatrical and theatre and jazz... I don't think they really a thing together. And look, I have that notion because I had an experience that I had very, very early in my career. I was in my early twenties and I was auditioning for a jazz course in Melbourne, I won't say which. College it was. But they really had two streams. You could either be a classical player or you could be a jazz player. And I sort of, wasn't really either one

    14 min
  7. Gift your Creations

    10/23/2024

    Gift your Creations

    Hand made gifts are always that little bit more special aren't they? And with Christmas looming, now is a great time to utilise your creative talents and make unique gifts for your loved ones. In this episode I share some great hand made gift ideas and guidelines on how to get them done without last minute stress! If you don't have the time or inclination to make gifts yourself, a hand made item by another creative is the next best thing (I will have some perfect gift-worthy mini artworks available in my upcoming studio sale; make sure you're on my mailing list) Or if your loved one is creative, how about putting some materials, tools and patterns/instructions together to encourage their creativity? Listen in for the goods and happy creative gift giving! Subscribe to my mailing listSend me an emailFacebookInstagramOrder my colouring Book - It Starts With A Heart

    17 min
  8. Reflections on my trip to Italy!

    10/16/2024

    Reflections on my trip to Italy!

    I'm back from my mind blowing trip to Italy with some insights on finding creative inspiration wherever you are and my light bulb moment about finding my creative voice. Listen in for the juice! And make sure you're on my mailing list of you're interested in my upcoming studio sale... Subscribe to my mailing listSend me an emailFacebookInstagramOrder my colouring Book - It Starts With A Heart

    15 min
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About

The Joyful Creative is a source of inspiration for integrating creativity into your busy life. Whether you're into painting, writing, knitting, music, cooking, or gardening, I firmly believe that nurturing your creative practice is essential for your wellbeing. Join me as we embark on a journey to reconnect with the creative passions that bring us joy. Together, we'll explore practical and holistic approaches to creativity, uncovering its profound impact on mental health and overall wellbeing. Through insightful discussions and practical tips, I'll help you navigate the challenges that often hinder regular creative expression. Whether you're looking to reignite your creative spark or embark on a new creative journey, The Joyful Creative is here to support and inspire you every step of the way. Connect with Deborah Website: https://www.deborahotooleartist.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deborahotoole_artist/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeborahOTooleArtist YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3gc0po1jqZEJ-grZUYYCgg

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  • Creator
    Deborah O'Toole
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    20
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2024 Deborah O'Toole
  • Show Website
    The Joyful Creative