Make Your Mark

In this episode of The Practice, I’m showing you what happens when you feel an instinctive mark, color, or idea and replace it with the safer choice before your brush ever touches the paper.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

* Why your brain edits your creative impulses before you consciously make a decision

* The difference between a craft edit, an audience edit, and a self-protection edit

* A simple three-step Edit Protocol ...

What if making art is not only about creating something beautiful? What if the things we make can speak back to us?

In this conversation, I’m joined by artist, teacher, and intuitive guide Stacey Vajta of The Feisty Crone. Stacey creates spirit dolls and magical creatures that hold stories, emotions, and wisdom.

Together, we explore the difference between simply producing art and feeling creatively alive. We talk about the rule...

What if the secret to making more art is lowering your expectations and using the time you actually have?

In this episode, I talk with artist and Substack writer James O’Boyle, creator of The Doodler.

James works full time, yet he has built a consistent sketching practice by keeping his materials simple, using small pockets of time, and letting go of the need for every drawing to be perfect.

We talk about why consistency matter...

What happens when two artists pull out the work they usually keep hidden?

Mariel and I recently went Live on Substack to share the art we might never show anyone. The pieces that felt ugly. The ones that did not turn out the way we imagined. The experiments we abandoned and the paintings we simply never finished.

And we laughed. A lot.

Because once we brought those pieces into the light, they did not feel quite so terrible anymore.

Th...

What if confidence isn’t something you need before you begin?

So many of us wait until we feel confident enough to make the painting, send the email, have the conversation, apply for the job, share our work, or try something new.

But confidence may have the whole thing backwards.

In this episode of The Art Coach, I’m talking about something I learned from watching my grandson learn to walk. He didn’t need to believe ...

Make Art Be Happy | 22 minutes 37 seconds |

Episode description

A piece can be skillful. The proportions can work, the color can work, other people can admire it, and you can still look at it and feel strangely absent from it. Nothing is obviously wrong. Something is missing. This week Lynn makes the case that what is missing is not more skill. It is more of you.

She tells the story of the drawing she made the day after Belle died. S...

Your voice isn't a finished destination, it's the ongoing conversation between you and the work.

In this episode I tell the story of one honest mark on a napkin and what it revealed about an artist who, beneath sixty years of beautiful work, was still waiting for permission.

It's about the difference between making something beautiful and making something honest, and the mark you almost make but talk yourself out of.

The newest rou...

You keep your word to everyone. Your kids, your husband, your friends, the people at church who somehow got your number. But that painting you stopped doing, the walk you keep meaning to take, the book with the bookmark stuck on page 12 since spring?

This episode is about the promises you only ever make to yourself, and why those became the ones it feels safe to drop.

This isn’t about guilt, and it isn’t about discipline...

There is a kind of stuck that does not look like stuck.

It looks like competence.

You are making, you are finishing things, the proportions are right and the color is handled, and anyone looking would say it is pretty good.

And then you stand in front of it and feel almost nothing, because you know something they do not.

It is correct and empty.

It looks like art, and it does not feel like yours.

This episode is about that flatness,...

What if your exhaustion isn’t coming from doing too much, but from giving yourself away before your day even begins?

In this episode, Lynn explores a different way of thinking about creative energy. She challenges the belief that we simply need more sleep, better routines, or more discipline. Instead, she reveals why so many creative women feel empty before they ever sit down to paint, write, or make something that belongs to ...

MAKE ART BE HAPPY · SHOW NOTES

The Chair You Won’t Sit In

Self-Worth · why you can’t rest, and the belief underneath it.

Episode description

You sit down, and within a minute you’re up again. You finally have the time, and you still can’t take it. If that’s you, this episode is about why, and it isn’t what you think.

Rest that won’t come is not a discipline problem. It’s a belief. Somewher...

You can decide what everyone else needs in a heartbeat. The dinner, the gift, the hard conversation, the right thing for your kid, your friend, your mother. You’re good at it. People count on it.

So why does it go quiet the moment the decision is for you?

The studio time. The price. The no. The yes that isn’t useful to anyone but you. Suddenly you need more information. You want to talk it through one more time. You&rsquo...

I need to share with you what happened this year.

Not because I have it all figured out.

But because I’ve been walking around asking myself how does that happen and I think I finally know.

Fourteen months ago I had a mastectomy.

A small, dark time.

Scary in ways I won’t minimize.

And yet, lying there before surgery, I had this belief.

Not a wish.

A belief.

That I was going to beat this.

That I was going to love my new bod...

This week I read a story about myself.

Halfway through, I realized I didn’t recognize the woman in it.

The article was written after an interview about my reconstruction journey at Hoag Hospital, after not getting the results I had hoped for at another prestigious health center.

I felt grateful they wanted to tell the story.

So I sat down with coffee and began reading.

She sounded broken.

Wounded.

Like someone life had simply happe...

I was out for a walk today.Same pond.

Same path.

Different body.

Different life.

Almost exactly one year ago, I was here too.

But then, I was walking with a walker after a bilateral mastectomy. One breast removed.

One rebuilt using a flap surgery where they take fat from your belly and rebuild the breast.

I had no idea what I was getting into.

I only knew one thing.My health mattered more than anything else.

This time last year, like s...

I just got back from my grandson’s transitional kindergarten classroom.

There was art.There was relationship.There was that soft, steady feeling that happens when people are making something together.

And it stirred up a memory I haven’t shared in a long time.

My art practice began in 1989.

I was married with a newborn. Elizabeth was just a couple of months old. My oldest son was four. My husband was a hospital administrato...

Let’s talk about something almost every creative woman has done at least once.

We buy the course.We feel hopeful.We feel excited.We feel like “THIS is the one.”

And then…

We don’t start.Or we start and disappear.Or we finish… and still don’t implement.

And we quietly wonder what’s wrong with us.

Why we buy courses in the first place

Most of the time we’re not buying information.

We&r...

Most women who are drawn to art carry a quiet belief.

I am not an artist.Art belongs to other people.I missed my chance.

It often feels like a fact.Something settled long ago.

But that belief did not appear out of nowhere.

It was shaped by childhood moments.A comment in school.A comparison that stung.A paper that did not look right.A teacher who moved on.A feeling of being behind.

So you learned to hesitate.To hold back.To apologize for...

Most creative women think they need to feel motivated, calm, confident, or inspired before they sit down to make something.

So when they feel tired, anxious, sad, flat, or overwhelmed, they wait.

They scroll.They clean.They overthink.

And the art table stays empty.

What I shared in today’s video is simple and important.

You do not need the right mood to create.You need permission to bring your feelings with you.

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