Do What You Love WEBucation...My Online Courses

Do What You Love WEBucation

Special LOW Introductory Prices

Now accepting students for Summer Quarter 2010!!!h

DWYL WEBucation e-courses are conducted in a supportive, nurturing environment within a password-protected forum website. The website is easy to navigate to make your classroom experience enjoyable and conducive to learning. The study at your convenience concept allows you to work at your own pace, in your time frame and in your fuzzy bunny slippers...if you so desire. At 2 AM or 2 PM, the DWYL student can choose to work whenever they like during the quarter.

Sign Up Today - Class begins 8/9

The Art of Doodle Portraits - $58 4 classes + Q&A session

If you ever wanted to incorporate faces into your artwork, this workshop is for you. My method will have you drawing faces within the first half hour of class. Then we will explore the different features in depth...mouth, nose, eyes and hair. In this combo video instruction, written instruction and Q&A session, you will learn to love drawing faces as much as I do. 24/7 access to videos, discussion board,

Class Description

Part 3 of Rebecca's ongoing Doodle Series. Even if you have never ever drawn anything before, you will create a beautiful Doodle Portrait. Even if you think you can't draw, you will make a beautiful Doodle Portrait. In this course you will learn the formula for facial feature placement, how to quickly sketch and shade features, then colorize them with mixed media tools like watercolor pencils, acrylics, etc. You will also learn how to create one of Rebecca's beautiful textured and layered backgrounds.

Class Syllabus

Week One

• The Art of the Quick Sketch Doodle Portrait video
• Doodling exercises - the structure of the face
• The Facial Grid - Rebecca's quick placement of features formula
• Journaling/Sketchbook discussion

Week Two

• How to draw and shade the eyes video
• Doodling exercises - the structure of the eyes
• Building facial skin tones with watercolor pencils and paint

Week Three

• How to draw and shade the nose video
• Doodling exercises - the structure of the nose
• Textured and layered background techniques

Week Four

• How to draw and shade the mouth video
• Doodling exercises - the structure of the mouth
• Embellishing and finishing the face

Q&A

• Bonus session with Rebecca where you can ask anything about doodle portraiture

Bonuses

A forum with discussion boards, Student Gallery, plus an Web Gallery Exhibit on Cre8Tive Compass Magazine.

Click to pay for the class

other courses are here: Do What You Love Webucation

my heart in my hand...

i love the gifts i find on the beach each morning...today i found this beautiful heart shell fragment...can you imagine my excitement at this discovery?

i am so grateful for the many graces of my life...to be able to walk on the beach every day of my life is a blessing beyond measure...that is why i hold my heart in my hand today...it is bursting with joy...

the changes that are happening in this transition period have been amazing...i am growing so much and discovering just how much strength i have been given...God is indeed good to me and i am believing for a miracle...and best of all i am learning that i need very little to survive and be happy...

ideas are everywhere...job opportunities less so...i am having a lesson on hard work this week...i guess i have always thought that if you worked really hard the money would follow...one of the issues i have about money...

MONEY does not equal hard work

and

HARD WORK does not equal money

while walking along the beach this week in meditative prayer i have learned the parable of shark's teeth...i always invite Jesus to walk with me...and i open my heart to receive His guidance...

i love to linger in a shell bed right where the waves are washing the shore looking for shark's teeth...if i look with deep intensity and concentration, i usually find a few...if you have ever walked along the shore with me you have seen me spot one out of the corner of my eye, bend down and pick up a beautiful specimen...

so why do i sometimes labor over a shell bed when i could walk along and find the shark's teeth that i am meant to find...laying there for me as if placed by the hand of God...it is not difficult or time consuming...it just happens...all i have to do is be quick enough to grab it before the water washes it away...

is the same not true about your life and your business...if you try so hard and labor frantically for success it seems illusive...but if you let go of the need to succeed and steadily work in the flow...it seems so much easier to accomplish your goals...and find the successes of life...

and these are the life lessons i so need to learn...asking for help when i need it instead of shouldering the entire burden myself...going with the flow instead of fighting upstream...letting go of the need to be in control all the time...walking steadily toward my goal and taking the time to enjoy the journey...

gratitude...

i am grateful this morning for all the blessings i have in my life...especially the special people who have remained steadfast during the dark times of the past two years...

"Transforming or changing something in your life takes courage because you can't see what the actual outcome will be. So, what are you not doing 'now' because of what 'might' happen in the future? You will never know what is on the other side of that decision until you make the decision...and then take action!. So what are you waiting for?" - Yvonne Rice...Smiling at you here!

i have been through my dark night of the soul...and i have emerged from the cocoon of self-doubt, fear and suffering stronger, more attuned to the energy around me, with an open heart and a renewed purpose, humbly grateful... and with the courage to stand in my own truth...

i have wisdom i never wanted or imagined i needed...and i have made the spirit-led decision to share this wisdom with those of you i am in this world to teach...you know who you are if you have been led here to find your path to becoming an holistic wealth being...i embrace you and i am here to serve you...

see my last post for more details...

your heart's passion...

passion is the life blood flowing forth from you to connect to the world...

what is your burning desire...

what keeps you up late into the night without regard to time or space...

what fuels your soul?

You must be able to passionately describe your vision. You must have a fire burning inside you. You must be driven by your dream. I received this question from a former coaching student. The following is the question and my answer...it describes my feeling about passion...

I am a fan ... read you in the The Faux Finisher all the time ... you have the life I should have had ... and hope to have something similar soon ... thank you for your inspiration and your advice ... M

M:

Thank you for your kind words. I pray that your dreams come true soon. You can always start part-time while doing another job. I did!! It takes patience, but is worth it in the end. If you have a passion for painting and believe in your skills, you can do what you love every day...I promise.

To help you do this, I will share a Secret Plan to reorienting your life around your passion. This is actually a session from my Mini Business Workshop. The plan begins with passion and leads to success.

The first step in the plan—starting from the heart and discovering your passion—by identifying your dreams. Start from any other source and you set yourself up for frustration and regret. Fulfillment comes only when the results you seek and the activities you embrace are in accordance with the person you are. You cannot look to reason or judgment for insights into your soul. Who you are is what’s in your heart.

Make A Decision, Make A Commitment

You have probably thought and dreamed about having your own business for years. All too often people convince themselves that you could not succeed. You fail to make the DECISION TO GO FOR IT.

This is the simplest step to take for your future, but many people fail to take it and live their lives with regrets. Just decide that you are going to go for it and make a commitment to make this goal a reality. It’s that simple! Do you know how many great artists are working jobs that they hate, dreaming of something else, but refusing to take this one step? It costs nothing to decide. Commitment is free. You are limiting yourself. Why?

You must be able to passionately describe your vision. You must have a fire burning inside you. You must be driven by your dream.

My second little secret to achieving your goals is writing them down. Take a sheet of paper and write the following - "I must be a decorative painter and I am committed to making this a reality." That is all you need to do now. You have taken the first step toward your dream, you have put it on paper. Now your brain can start working on how to achieve it. I am proud of you.

After you come to terms with your Dream, it is time for reasoning and rationalizing. You must clarify your purpose and define your actions—you need to think. Because the world can often dissuade you from pursuing your passion by presenting roadblocks. You must pursue it with forethought and care. Careful and thoughtful planning can help you define a purpose and set a strategy for following your Dream. This is our Business Plan

Once you have felt you passion and thought it through, it is time to act. Equipped with both your passion and your plan, you will begin to make changes in your life. This is Taking Care of Business.

If you remain true to your passion and follow these steps, you will find the results you seek. And you will also reap rewards you never anticipated because passion can take you to another level of living. It can open worlds and expand horizons. It can bring new awareness and heightened perceptions. It can empower and improve. Your idea of Success may change as you begin to fulfill your potential, but your passion will propel you onward to even greater achievement and happiness.

so what point am i trying to make with this? last night i spoke with one of my mentors. He asked me about my new business model and asked me to describe it. I faltered at first and then went on to describe 2 or 3 business models i am trying to marry... He listened and then said, "Rebecca, you have a track record and an established brand with the Doing What You Love. You have credibility and name recognition, why do you want to change that?"

this was written about me a few years ago:

A master decorative painter, widely-read columnist, popular motivational speaker and instructor, Rebecca E. Parsons has spent over 30 years honing her craft. For the past fifteen years she has been advising, mentoring, and consulting creative entrepreneurs worldwide. Her knowledge of the business and her passion for successful entrepreneurship have made her the industry’s most recognized advocates for business success. Her book “Do What You Love–Love What You Do, The Step–by–Step Guide to Creative Business,” is hailed as the best business guide on the market.

so i am wondering why i have lack of clarity and focus at this time...i need to follow my own advice and teaching...i opened my book this morning searching for the passages about passion and realized i need to sit down and read my own book!!! and do what i have always told students to do -- ACT!!!

(r)Evelation...Day 1

"Circumstance does not make a woman, it reveals her to herself",  paraphrased James Allen from As a Man Thinketh

(r)Evelation

The circumstances of my life these past few years have (r)Evealed much to me...I have grown as a woman into my own place of freedom. The best part was uncovering the freedom to live an emotionally authentic life...my life lesson. And I have never been as excited and passionate as I am about this platform...

This is Day 1 of the unveiling of my new business platform. I will give you a little nugget with each post... This (r)E-Branding is a result of my stepping into my life purpose...embracing who I am fully and (r)Everently...and stumbling headlong down the path with joy and wild abandon!!!

Last week I offered a sneak peek with (r)Evolutionary Times...This is a time of (r)E-Engineering, (r)E-Purposing, (r)E-Branding and (r)E-Invention at (r)ebecca E. Parsons Studios, Inc.

It started with a significant (r)Evelation... By revelation he made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore in few words. --Eph. iii. 3.

Revelation \Rev`e*la"tion\, n. [F. r['e]v['e]lation, L. revelatio.]
1. The act of revealing, disclosing, or discovering to others what was before unknown to them.
2. That which is revealed.
3. (Theol.)
(a) The act of revealing divine truth.
(b) That which is revealed by God to man; esp., the Bible.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

The (r)Evelation... I am a Spiritual Business Visionary who has a life purpose of leading the transition of women entrepreneurs into The Age of Aquarius.

1) Women Entrepreneurs Stabilizing our Economy,
2) Women Entrepreneurs Reinventing How Business is Done, and
3) Women Entrepreneurs Living Fully in Their Spirituality.

You might say, “This is a really BIG Vision.” And I would agree. How will this happen?

By creating Women Led, Spirit Fed TM companies that will become the employers, the role models, and the innovators of a new way of doing business. The old way of doing business has not served our economy, our planet, or us. It is time for massive change…time for new ideas and thinking…it is time for women to step fully into our innate abilities as leaders, heroines, and nurturers.

Stay tuned for the next step…

Do You Know What I Do???

Well do you??? If you have been reading my blog for a while you should know...unless I have not been so good about telling you about my Cre8Tive Businesses...after all I am a Cre8Tive Entrepreneur....

========================================

Do your readers know about your home business?

adapted from quiz by naomi dunford @ itty biz

Here's the game and challenge...answer the following in a blog post...Just Do It...NOW!!!! Don't forget to leave a comment with a link back to your answers!!!

1. What’s your game? What do you do?
2. Why do you do it? Do you love it, or do you just have one of those knacks?
3. Who are your customers? What kind of people would need or want what you offer?
4. What’s your marketing USP? Why should I buy from you instead of the others?
5. What’s next for you? What’s the big plan?
   

So here are my answers....let me know if you knew what I do...I will be most interested in the answer and to find out what you do...

What’s Cre8Tiva/Rebecca's game? (btw - these are my elevator speeches)

Cre8Tiva
I’m a midwife for small, sole-proprietor creative entrepreneurs. I help them birth their business idea all the way from dream through success. 

Rebecca
As a designer and wordsmith...I design and develop innovative business communication (print and web) to help creative entrepreneurs find ways to double their income and have fun doing what they love.  

What do I do?

As a creative entrepreneur, I understand the needs of the small creative business. Together we create an inspired, inventive, original, and clever action plan tailored to those specific needs. Then we walk your action plan together...with me as the companion, cheerleader and tough love advisor.

We develop your brand identity by creating the right marketing materials, with the right words to attract the right clients, achieve your business dreams and ensure your business gets noticed, sounds good and sells more. We specialize in the creation of an appealing image with compelling content that will articulate your vision and engage your audience.

Your package is customized to fit your budget and needs. Everything is possible: from website and/or blog design and content development, brand identity to collateral pieces, newsletter creation to video production. 

Why do I do it? 

I have a passion to succeed and to help others succeed doing what they love. My motto is...it is no harder to do what you love than to do what you don't... I have one life purpose...to empower you to do what you love for the rest of your life. I have been on a blessed journey for over 35 years, learning much along the way. I love to share that creative business knowledge with you on your journey to self-employment.

Who are my customers? What kind of people would need or want what I offer?

Our customers simply want to do what they love and earn a living doing it. 

Artisans and craftspeople, from any discipline, can create all day but usually have trouble selling themselves and the work of their hands. We can change that.

What’s my marketing USP (Unique Selling Proposition)? Why should you buy from me instead of the other firms?

As a boutique design firm, REP Studios, Inc. brings expertise instead of process, ways of thinking instead of methodologies. We are willing to push the envelope creatively. Our team possesses specialized design, writing, and branding skills and has a lot of experience as a small, sole-proprietor creative entrepreneurs.

Rebecca, a 35-year professional artist and business owner, leads the way with specific expertise as a veteran creative entrepreneur. This speciality knowledge brings more credibility to the table—as creative business success is our chief focus.

There are many advantages to working with a boutique firm: A more intimate connection with the designer and a designer who picks up her own phone. Your experience will be more personal and satisfying.

What do you need from your design service provider? Do you need to fix a problem; create a brand, or publish a book? Our mission and our legacy is to help shape your aspirations into a profit-making business.

Are you looking for a long-term, strategic partnership or are you looking for someone to build a working prototype and bill you for it? REP Studios offer both.

What’s next for Cre8Tiva and Rebecca?

1. Sell my art on Etsy
2. New websites up and running - U Be Creative and Art as Prayer
   
3. Tutorial and workshop videos
4. eBooks...I have written several books, thousands of articles, and millions of words in my lifetime. Convert them to e-books
   
5. Continue developing the Cre8Tiva brand

What’s the big plan?

Keep on doing what I love and helping you do it too! Launch The Artist as a Spiritual Traveler.

This was a great exercise for me today...it helped me clarify and quantify some business plans. I have been doing a SWOT Analysis...a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. It involves specifying the objective and identifying the internal and external factors that are favourable and unfavourable to achieving that objective. The technique is credited to Albert Humphrey, who led a research project at Stanford University in the 1960s and 1970s using data from Fortune 500 companies. I will show what I did in my next post...

please take a moment to become a fan of my blog if you like what you see..click at the top of the right column...have a gr8 weekend

make clay plaster and lime paint...

i love to make my own plaster and paint...have been doing this for many years... learned from my two decorative painting mentors in lyons, france...

i will be teaching this class at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina:

Adventures in Painting with Dirt

Nature Studies, Painting

July 12-18, 2009

Instructor: Rebecca Parsons

Tuition: $512.00

Come play in the North Carolina clay as we explore the lost art of paint making. We’ll dig the dirt around campus, grind and mull it to create our own earth pigments, and use it (and other natural things) to make paint. Then enjoy the rewards of using these “green” paints to create earthen masterpieces. Leave with the knowledge and skills to create paint in a variety of media: oil, watercolor, tempera, and more. Some experience is needed in any paint media—mainly, the know-how to load brushes.

an artistic journey with kindred spirits...

student work from class at John C Campbell Folk School in January

What is Creativity?

an Ability...the ability to imagine or invent something new.

an Attitude...accept change and newness, be willing to play with ideas and possibilities, develop an outlook of flexibility and the habit of enjoying the good, while looking for ways to improve it.

a Process...continually strive to improve ideas and solutions, by making gradual alterations and refinements to your works.

students during drumming part of class

Creativity is not the ability to create something out of nothing (only God can do that), but the ability to generate new ideas by combining, changing, or reapplying existing ideas. Some creative ideas are astonishing and brilliant, while others are just simple, good, practical ideas that no one seems to have thought of yet.

Everyone has substantial creative ability. Remember how you were as a child! If someone gave you paint and a brush, you painted. If they asked you to sing, you sang out loud. If they asked you to dance, you danced with joy. 

I recently read that if you walk into a first grade class and ask how many are artists, almost all children hold up their hands. If you walk into the same group of children in fifth grade and ask them how many are artists, only one or two will raise their hands. So somewhere between the first and fifth grade, creativity is suppressed or removed by the educational system. And it often takes decades to reconnect with your creativity, if at all.

So this is what I attempt to do in my "Artistic Journeys for Kindred Spirits" workshop. 

students at work

Workshop Mission and Goals

The mission of the workshop is to experience the communion with your higher self or your soul in a way that allows you to excel at your artform. We will play or relearn to play. We will write, draw, paint, tell stories, dance and drum. We will work with the reckless abandon of a child. We hope to set your creative soul free.

When students leave I hope that they know that their art is more about what happens as they work than the actual work of art itself. Robert Henri author of “The Art Spirit” says, “What we need is more sense of the wonder of life and less of the business of making a picture.”

I want them to know that you have something valuable to say with their art. I lead them through journeys that stretch them from their comfort zone. Some resist vocally, some quietly. I facilitate, they teach themselves so that the projects become internalized with the hope that they can and will continue to grow creatively when they are home.

We explore ways to expand our creativity through a series of exercises including a guided visualization technique, automatic drawing and writing, map making, memoir, and storytelling. Throughout the workshop, the exercises will focus on ways to:

1. Become overly curious
2. Be childish
   
3. Find inspiration in the world around you
   
4. Discover and use images from the unconscious
   
5. Seek out problems
   
6. Stimulate your perceptive abilities
   
7. Suspend judgment
   
8. Get over the fear of failure
   
9. Celebrate failures
   
10. Give yourself permission to fail
    
11. Give yourself the time to create
    
12. Engage your imagination with life journey memories
    
13. Work collaboratively
    
14. and much more...

There is strong social pressure to conform and to be ordinary and not creative. Don't cave to this pressure. 

class collaborative nature collage

I am Still Here...

i am sure that those of you who regularly stop by have just about given up on me this time..i am sure that i would have...i do have a good excuse for being awol...i have been really ill...

butterfly outside studio the day i got sick

when i was teaching a weekend class and a week-long class in north carolina the first of august, i developed bacterial pneumonia that turned into toxic shock syndrome (the one that killed jim henson of muppet fame)...

students from my weekend class

according to emedicine.com mortality is high with toxic shock syndrome or septicemia - "a toxin-mediated multisystem disease precipitated by infection with either Staphylococcus or Streptococcus. The clinical syndrome is characterized by a rapid onset of high fever, hypotension, diffuse rash, severe myalgia, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, and nonfocal neurologic abnormalities."

according to my doctors, if i had waited another hour to go to the emergency room, there would have been nothing they could have done to save me...it was very scary because i was fine at dinner (6:30 PM)...during dinner i started to feel chilled...and for me that is very unusual because i am hot flash hot most of the time!!!

by 8:30 PM i was too sick to call for help or get an aspirin...i had body-wracking, teeth- chattering chills...severe pain throughout my entire body...i was confused and dazed...thank heaven someone returned to my lodging and helped me get to the hospital...and thank heaven the doctors and hospital were quick to act...

an angel watched over me

earlier in the day i thought i was getting a kidney infection...i was going to the bathroom a lot...and it was hurting worse than ever before with an UTI...i was teaching, so at noon i went and got some cranberry juice and some AZO tablets...they helped me make it through the rest of the class day...i was so very tired that i almost fell asleep at the teacher's meeting after class...i left early and went back to my room to rest...

i tell you about the UT symptoms because sometimes you can get referred pain from the lungs in the urinary tract...who would ever know that???

the first round of antibiotics and fever reducers did not work...i got much worse with a temperature over 104 degrees...that is when the ER doctor decided to get a chest x-ray...and the rest is history...i had to be in the hospital three days on two intravenous antibiotics... oxygen...fluids...and rest...

rest is the cure for pneumonia...and rest i am getting because i can't seem to do much else...

JCCFS musical saw students in concert

needless to say, i could not finish my week-long class...my students were wonderfully gracious and the staff at John C Campbell Folk School caring and kind...

i am back home in florida...recovery is slow...i am very weak and dizzy if i overdo...i am coughing a lot still and have chest pain...and lots of body pains due to the toxic shock...

a study for a portrait

however, i have been getting lots of work done for my future classes and workshops...writing a new book and starting a new magazine...and readying for a move sometime this fall...est of all, i have been doing lots of artwork and journaling...very therapeutic and meditative for me...

a self-portrait of me with my beloved sir chancelot

i am blessed to be alive and on the mend...and i have missed each of you...i will be around to see you soon...

Da Da Da Dahhhhhh....

self  portrait 2008
a new Look for Cre8Tiva...how do you like the new banner and logo...I have been busy busy designing an identity package for the blog...and for Cre8Tiva...

in celebration we have a gift for you...2 tags for your use...you may use them for anything you want...they were designed with adobe illustrator templates...and personalized...just e-mail me at e-mail me and i will forward you a pdf file...

i am busily preparing for my workshops at creative palette 2008...i have decided to stencil for my demos...most people do not know the correct way to stencil...that means using a dry brush!!! so i am going to show them how to make a leaf and then shade and shadow it...for the goody bag i am going to give a stencil pattern, the tags above and a promo piece about my business...creativity workshops and retreats, business coaching, and web and blog design...

and i am about to burst with joy...

The Biggest NewsBoutique Cre8Tiva is ready to launch

Boutique Cre8Tiva, a small shopping outlet, that specialises in elite and one of a kind artwork, accessories, and fashionable clothing. Look for it in the next 2 weeks...