Comparison is the Thief of Joy – Newsletter Thoughts

I don’t know if you know this, but I’ve been writing some thoughts in my monthly newsletters – thoughts on creativity, making art, and being an artist – along with some other info about what is going on around here. In January I shared the following – a topic that I feel really passionate about as both an artist and teacher. I hope you enjoy and you can sign up for my newsletter HERE for more of these :)


“Comparison is the thief of joy”
I truly believe in this. Trust me- I know. Been there, done that… many times. While I am checking out the amazing work of our students in Creative JumpStart and reading hundreds of comments, I stumble once in a while over something that goes like this: “I tried it for the first time but it doesn’t look perfect!” and all I can think is, “how amazing you actually did this and hey, this looks pretty awesome – I cannot believe you did this the first time”. And trust me the latter is not just some Nat-Kindness-Program – because oh boy you should see some of my first takes on something. There is a lot of Schtuff that goes down the drain. I also admit I curse a lot in my studio… you don’t want to hear me some days.

The problem with a sample or tutorial we art teachers show, is that we usually do not show the many, many in between steps, the failures, the ugly stuff. I make a lot of ugly stuff …my trash bin is littered with ugly stuff right now from a “brilliant idea” I am working on for a technique for an online class. Trust me… I am getting there. I am making notes on what worked and what didn’t. I am still thinking about how I can tweak it and make it work so that I like it and that it comes closer to what I envision, and then I will teach it. This part makes me actually excited and if it doesn’t get to that point that I want to teach it, oh well! I learned something new. EVERY TIME. None of this is wasted.

But to get back to the initial point: I usually don’t show in my classes the many hours that it took to get to that point, and the really bad failures along the way, because that is not what the class is about. Maybe it should be… I have thought about a book called Art Failures… but I guess now that I put it out here someone else might write it – LOL.  

So in the end, as a student, I hope that you might have it easier because I can give you some tips on the way: which materials to use, what worked for me, and what you should or maybe should not do. (Hey, ask me how I know what not to do ;) But at the end of the day you still have to put the work in if you want to have it look as you envision . “You haven’t even tried as many times as the Master has failed”  is one of my other quotes I have been saying for years in my classes, as probably some of my longtime students eyerollingly will notice ;) . But the reason I want to stress this is that you shouldn’t compare yourself to your teacher or your co-students because you will be taking the fun away from trying something new and exciting. You don’t know how experienced the other students are, how many times they tried, how often they work with the material, yadayadayada. Look at their work as something that could spark an idea in you or as another take on the same theme. And if that still doesn’t keep you from comparing yourself to others… then take a hiatus in looking. That is absolutely ok – I do that ALL the time. 

Don’t take the fun away from discovering something that you might explore further, and from the experience of getting better, and maybe even taking it to a whole new level than you initially started out with. Don’t let perfectionism and comparison creep into your hobby and something you love doing – there is enough of that pressure out there in all sorts of other areas of our lives. Kick it to the bin… along with the fun ugly stuff you do and embrace it like I do. A full trash bin or drawer of “new collage paper” is a sign of lots of great hours in the studio. Have fun – fill your waste bin!
-Nat


I hope you enjoyed my thoughts. If you’d like to read more, please sign up or my newsletter HERE for more of these :)

Comments (3)

  • Cate D

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    Excellent thoughts and a great reminder. I know I am sometimes guilty of this and it totally steals the joy.

    Reply

  • tracie

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    Great reminder!! Thanks Nathalie

    Reply

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A Look Back – Cool Stuff You May Have Missed 13

A Look Back – This time I’m looking at Collage Papers – a fun and easy way to build layers and to bring more visual interest to your mixed media pieces. If you are like me and you don’t like anything to go to waste, read on! I have some ideas from the archive on how to use all those beautiful collage papers from your stash.

A Look Back is a blog series to show you some projects and posts that you may have missed – sometimes going WAY back in the archive. I think it will be fun to revisit a few ideas that we haven’t seen for a while. I’m excited to see how a little look back might inspire something new in the future :)


First up is a post from way back in 2014 – some canvases I made using my Elephant stencil and collage papers. Look at all the yummy patterns and textures I’ve brought together here, everything unified by the shape of the elephant.

Next up is a post from 2015 where I use some different collage papers for an abstract background element. I used acrylic paint to unify the collage with the ground.

In this 2017 post I combined my Beacon stencil with collage paper I made from cleaning the stencil (the red reverse of the image). I like this play with the pattern and its opposite.

For this Play Date in 2018 I used foam stamped collage papers to decorate Easter Eggs – a festive alternative to egg dyeing and perfect for using the bold patterns of my foam stamps.

Finally from this 2019 art journal page, I used collage papers to create the dress for my sketch. Collage papers give the dress a random pattern which always looks cool.


I hope you enjoyed A Look Back through my archive and maybe you are inspired to try some different things now too.

Here are some of the supplies I used in these posts:

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Good Vibes Only Mini Painting

Here is the mini version of my Good Vibes Only painting I showed you a couple days earlier.

I was inspired by my Strolls through the Hood in Jersey City for this little mixed media painting. The classic brick apartment facade is given energy and life with a series of colorful murals – something that is common in my hood where a renaissance of development and hope is happening. That energy is also reflected in the sky and ground – with layers of buzzing pattern.

Good Vibes Only Mini” is an original painting made with spray paint, markers, acrylic paint, gouache, and stencils on canvas board and measures 8″x8″ and available now :)

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Whole Lotta Love – Nicole Watson

Hello from my Creative Squad! Today we have a lovely post and video from Nicole Watson, who brings us back to those early school days and the Valentine’s Day tradition of exchanging small paper cards. She is using my Hex Large rubber stamps and my Art Deco Fairview stencil and this month’s theme: Whole Lotta Love – Who or what sets your heart aflutter this time of year? Let’s pay tribute this month to those warm fuzzy feelings of love and create something that celebrates that universal emotion.


When I thought about this month’s theme along with Valentine’s day and love, I remembered back to elementary school and how much I loved (for lack of better word!) our classroom Valentine’s Day celebrations. I think most of my classmates liked that day for the candy, who wouldn’t?? However, my favorite part was opening all the envelopes in anticipation of the paper card that was inside. This must have been a hint of my future love for ephemera!

I wasn’t exactly sure where I wanted to go with that on my journal pages, until I ran across some old Valentines in a package of vintage cards I had in a drawer. With one of those in hand, I decided to pay homage to that memory on my pages.

Check out my video to see how it came together and read on below for a complete step out.

I played around with Nat’s Large Hex stamps hoping I could make a heart out of them. I stamped the hex shapes with versamark onto my journal page that I had already gessoed and layered with a page from a song book that just happened to be about a valentine! This process was a little tricky as I masked some of the stamps with tape to make some of the smaller areas of the heart. I also stamped some outside the heart on the page and also the canvas page to the left. I didn’t know if it would work on the canvas at the time. (spoiler: it did!)

To add color to the page, I grabbed my pan pastels and layered different reds and purples over the heard area. The versamark grabs the pastels and makes that area darker than the others, allowing the heart to pop off the page. I sponged the pan pastel all over both pages. At this point I realized I needed some more versamark lines and designs in the heart and could also use some outside of it, so I experimented by stamping additional versamark and going over it again with pan pastel. Thankfully, this worked!

When I was happy with the pastel and versamark, I sprayed my pages twice with fixative. I felt the pages need a little bit more, so I grabbed Nat’s Art Deco Fairview stencil and sponged some bronze pastel through it in several places. I also added some of the bronze around the edge of the heart. When I was finished, I sprayed another coat of fixative.

While it was drying, I played with the valentine ephemera and happened to see some pink embroidery floss on my desk, so I stitched the floss onto the canvas page for some more texture. After this, I added some spatters of fuchsia acrylic paint around the heart and on the canvas page along with some gesso and tinted gesso.

At this point, I felt like the heart still needed some definition, so I grabbed my hard-pastel sticks to trace around the heart along with my stabilo pencils. I used the stabilo to create some shadowing.

Finally, it was time to add my little valentine bundle to the canvas page and some word stickers. After these were added, I spattered some stabilo and paint on them so they would feel a little more cohesive to the rest of the pages.


Wow! Thank you Nicole – so many gorgeous layers and what a thoughtful reminder when it comes to love too :)

Want to give Nicole’s project a try? You can find all my Stencils and Rubber Stamps in my Online Shop and in addition to book page/ephemera, here are some of the other supplies Nicole used:

Feel inspired? Working on something yourself that you’d like to share?  I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my next  “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

Comments (1)

  • Debbie Gaetz

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    Your journal art is totally inspiring!

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Sale Ending and Workshop Beginning!

Today is the LAST day to save in my online shop for my Valentine’s Day Sale. Shop around and enjoy 14% off physical products including rubber stamps, stencils, foam stamps, Giclee Prints of my artwork starting at just $25 and original artwork by me starting at just $35!!! Stuff is going fast and the sale ends at 11:59pm EST tonight, Feb 17th 2020. Just enter the coupon code LOVENAT14 when you check out.

Also today my newest online class Artful Adventures with Gustav Klimt is getting started!!! You can still get in at the Early Bird price until 11:59pm EST tonight, Feb 17th 2020. It is my 3rd workshop in the Artful Adventures series and this time we are looking at the gorgeous artwork and style of Klimt and learning how to bring some of his tricks into our own art journals and artwork. Join us in the classroom as we get started today!

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Stroll Through the Hood – February 2020

Strolls through my hood get me out of my studio, they help me get unstuck and often I get inspired by what I see and get new ideas to create something. It is part of my philosophy about Artful Adventures in Mixed Media – which is the subject of my book. Here are some photos that I gathered in the last couple weeks.

This furniture store has been having “last sale” ever since I moved here 6 1/2 years ago-but now that they sell these paintings it looks real. LOL. I am amazed by the amount of stock of this painting and have even thought of buying one …could be a good surface and the frame is fun :)

our secret beach – clear statement- we do not need a bigger golf course for the people that can afford half a million dollars annually for their membership here.

What we need are rusty boxes that make our phantasy spin …hahah- I love this one it looks like a face sticking out it’s tongue.

It is just so beautiful out here- I really love coming to Liberty State park with my bike-

I love these red thingies (no idea what they are actually called)

I had some wallpaper made with my fan designs – which I really love. The one on top is at the entrance wall to my studio

And this one is one a wall in my studio bathroom – We didn’t renovate the bathrooms yet – that has to wait for some other time when we are recovered from our initial renovation but this was a cheapish way to oomph it up for now a little bit.

I am so happy to see this house in my neighborhood being renovated- This house was on the market many years ago and it was in the saddest state you can imagine ( I am sure i snapped a picture but couldn’t find it) and now it is back to it’s glory!!

Love the beautiful ceilings you find all over the neighborhood stores.

Fun Mural with cat :)

Hope you enjoyed this little stroll – let’s see what I discover for next month :)

Comments (10)

  • marshavalk

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    I love your strolls through the hood! They seem so much more interesting than strolls through my hood. Which probably isn’t true. And, I do miss taking random photos. I should probably take this as a cue to pick it up again! <3

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      yes- I would love to see your strolls through the hood!!!

      Reply

  • Cathy

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    I love your strolls through the neighborhood! Thanks for sharing all the interesting things that catch your eye.

    Reply

  • Caroline Mach

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    The “red thingies” are the “fruit” of staghorn sumac – it is very common in southern Ontario where I live.

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      Oh thank you so much Caroline- Now I learned something!!!

      Reply

  • ARHuelsenbeck

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    When I was growing up, I went to Catholic school, and almost all the families had The Last Supper in their dining rooms.

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      I remember my grandmother in Italy having one up too in her bedroom. But Dining Room makes perfect sense!

      Reply

  • Robin Seiz

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    I love the gratefulness you feel for the little things.

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      Awe- thank you Robin – I think I have always felt that it makes life just go easier if you embrace the little good things :)

      Reply

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Inhale / Exhale – Art Journal

“Inhale the future… Exhale the past.” 

I was playing with my new Posca fine markers in this art journal spread that is kind of a study for the Good Vibes Only and Good Vibes Only Mini paintings. For my background I used my Kyoto, Tokyo, and Signals stencils layered on top of each other with acrylic paint and gouache.

I am loving the Posca Markers -I used to use the thicker ones all the time when still living in Germany but when I was an Ambassador for Liquitex I had to switch the markers. While I love the Liquitex Markers I miss having some thinner yet intense markers and I just thought I should buy those even though I might have enough markers for the rest of my life. I love them – they are so opaque and beautiful and flowly- a bit rough to use on textured surfaces as they easily “spritz” but on flatter surfaces a breeze. Def. glad I bought them. The white Posca Marker is not hundred percent convincing me yet, but I have to try again as it might be due to the Gouache paint that I used on some areas which gets reactivated when wet.

Here are some of the supplies I used including the Posca markers:

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Valentine’s Day Sale in the Shop

I’m celebrating the Day of LOVE with a SALE in my online shop! You are all my Valentines after all :)

Just use the coupon code LOVENAT14 for 14% off all physical products now through Monday, February 17th at 11:59pm EST.

Artwork, stencils, rubber stamps, foam stamps, mixed media chips, mugs, and my book are all part of the sale. Things are going fast so if you had your eye on something, better hurry into the shop!

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