Culture
Cultural facts, history, traditions, events, festivals, foods and more from a location.
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Creative Art Lesson: Use Only ONE Color
When choosing to do an art project, we sometimes can get overwhelmed or feel the necessity to use all the “crayons” in the box- or all the colors we can, since, well, they are there! For this creative exercise, I actually challenge you to do the opposite, and only use ONE color when doing a drawing. Given I decided to draw icons or doodles of summer, I chose the color yellow. I have to admit, it was very hard to not want to go in to the drawing an embellish with more colors. Also, it was hard for me to not want to draw my swimming pool in blue (not…
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Portland Art Party: Design a Portland Food Truck
For my new Wanderlust Portland – A Creative Guide to the City book launch I had the best time getting together online with many of you for an art lesson/art party and coming up with an imaginative food cart celebrating Portland’s food truck scene! My favorite part was working together to brainstorm a food truck theme, and then designing it as we went along! For those who could not make it, we decided to go with a Japanese/French themed food truck that specialized in Japanese teas and French patisseries! We named it Pa-TEA-sserie, and decorated it with sakura flowers, fleur de lis, tea cups and of course treats. I just…
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The Psychology of Yellow
Yellow just makes me happy! I love spotting it on my walks (a front door? a yellow center of a daisy) as well as wearing it – in a sweater, scarf, t-shirt! We only moved once during my childhood, and my parents selected the yellow bedroom to be mine before I had seen it. The room had yellow checked wallpaper. It was so cheery! Perhaps that is where my love for yellow started! The Psychology of Yellow It’s no surprise to find the psychological reactions that yellow can people. Here are just a few feelings and thoughts people have when they see yellow: optimism happiness hope positive thinking friendship good…
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Portland, Oregon – Beautiful, Historic & Creative
For anyone who has been watching the news this past year or two, Portland, Oregon has had a rough go, image wise… but I’m here to dispel any myths or thoughts you may have. This beautiful Pacific Northwest city is amazing for countless reasons but my number one reason is for the sheer CREATIVE ENERGY and fodder it can provide. “Portland is a town of rugged individualists sprinkled with weirdness. It commends uniqueness and praise all types of entrepreneurs and creators, yet also has a strong commitment to community. The city embraces its industrial past, while also promoting progressive environmental ideas and sustainable practices. Portland exudes a strong sense of…
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Wanderlust Portland – New Creative Travel Book!
I am so proud to announce the 4th book in my Wanderlust Creative Travel Guide series is here – Wanderlust Portland!!! Welcome to the club. This book will not only teach you a little history of one of the many vibrant neighborhoods of Portland but also provide a creative lens in which to explore! Each chapter has an interactive activity associated with it to really get you engaged with your surroundings in a whole new way! There is also a journal section for you to record the details of your own experiences, places you visited, quotes you hear, doodles from your day. With summer almost upon us, it’s time to…
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Viva Mexico – A Colorful Collage
There is so much of Mexico I have yet to explore, but from the tiny taste I have experienced, I find it to be one of the most colorful and exciting countries to visit. Color is such a vibrant part of every community, from the festive papel picado flags draping a street to the hand embroidered floral dresses. I created this collage above and tried to represent the energy Mexico exudes. Have you been to Mexico? What was your impression?
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Creative Wanderlust Prompt: Mexico
I am lucky to live in California where I have the advantage of my state bordering the beautiful country of Mexico providing me the ability to explore it relatively easily. I say relatively, because as most know, California is a big state where driving the length of it, from the California/Oregon border to the Mexico border can take almost 17 hours. This hasn’t deterred me from some pretty extravagant Mexico adventures, especially when I was younger – like driving to Mexico for a margarita! (Yes, that was 16 hours driving time round trip from San Francisco.) Crazy road trips aside, I have had the opportunity to visit some incredible locations…
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CWC Open House – Decorate Ukrainian Style Eggs
April 2022 – Creative Wanderlust Community Open House RecapTo celebrate springtime, I hosted a wonderful, in person creative open house where we decorated eggs inspired by the rich tradition of Ukrainian/Eastern European egg designs. It was a sublime evening weather wise– almost a bit surreal that in mid-April we were having an 80 degree day, but we took advantage of this warm weather and set up outside to create. With paint pens, glitter markers and more we had a great time decorating painted wooden eggs with a variety of motifs, from traditional egg designs to our own making. As always, it was a wonderful way to come together, catch up on life,…
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Creative Wanderlust Prompt: Doodle
The Art of Doodling I’m sure you’ve done it many times before. Scribbling in the margins of your paper in a boring meeting, or while listening to a long lecture. Many times are doodling is just simple mark making, some squiggly lines or a few shapes. Sometimes we doodle more representational items, a heart, a house, a tree, a rainbow. In general, when we doodle we don’t give much thought to the final outcome, let alone what we are actually drawing. Doodling is a passive creative act, a way for us to “space out,” yet did you know if has many benefits to our health and creativity? Studies have shown…
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Creative Wanderlust Prompt: Amusement Park
With Spring Break in full force around the US and many folks hitting up amusement parks, I thought it would be fun to come up with some creative ways to explore an Amusement Park! In my Wanderlust Los Angeles book, I actually have a chapter on Amusement Parks, as they make up a big tourist aspect of LA as well as have a really interesting history. I’ll share more about that in future posts, but in the mean time, let’s get creative at an Amusement Park! Daily Creative Wanderlust Prompts: Amusement Park Monday – Draw a map of your dream amusement park. Tuesday – Use wild filters on photos from a trip to…
