the chickadee road::studio sessions are back!

While driving home from the Oregon Coast, Kelly and I decided to bring back the Studio Sessions!!

Join us this August for a four-week adventure that will be full of inspiration, connection, peeks into our friendship and our creative worlds, laughter, and a whole lot of love as we support one another in nurturing a creative practice.

Now what does nurturing a creative practice really mean?

Many of us dream of having a week or two or even a whole month where we could travel to a beautiful corner of the world and spend that time creating a new body of work or writing a memoir or actually using the mixed media techniques we’ve learned in the workshops we’ve taken. And then, we’d love to circle in community with other creatives who would say, “How are you doing over there? How did it go?”

This is what the Chickadee Road :: Studio Sessions are about: Creating a virtual space where we can support one another as we take a few minutes or even an hour or two a day to practice and make small moves and big leaps toward the creative dreams that wait within us.

The creative practice you work with will be up to you.

You might want to:

• Journal each day
• Begin a meditation practice
• Tell your story through photography adventures
• Paint, paint, and paint some more
• Draw in your sketchbook four times a week
• Make one small self-care move every day
• Start a blog
• Create an ecourse
• Play with self-portraits
• Have fun with color in your studio/creative corner every day

And each day, Kelly and I will be here to guide you, celebrate you, and inspire you, and your circle of kindreds will be here to catch you as you play and work and find your way.

Details

Dates: August 5-August 31

Where and How: The "lessons" + inspiration will be emailed to you, and we will gather in community in a private Facebook group and in a private Flickr group. 

Four weeks of emails include:

• Videos that take you into our own creative spaces and invite you to be present to self-care and fun
• Lessons about ways to invite in ritual and sacredness to your daily creative practice
• Creativity exercises to support your practice and keep your creative juices flowing
• Writing and photography prompts to keep you grounded
• Stories of our own journeys to reconnect with our creative joy
• Opportunities to share your stories through photos, daily check-ins, and other surprises along the way
• When you sign up, you will also receive an email with information about how to prepare for Studio Sessions, suggestions about how to choose your practice, and other good things
• Note that there won't be emails on Sundays to give you a day to simply catch-up and rest

Supplies needed:
Camera (Camera phone is fine)
Journal or notebook to write in
Simple art supplies that you enjoy working with like markers, colored pencils, crayons, and so on
A Flickr account (optional)
A Facebook account (optional) 

Register:

Registration has begun!

Cost: $69

Questions? Just email us at chickadeeroad @ gmail [dot] com (or through our email form)

Read even more about the course including our FAQ over here.

(more) poem it out

Come along on A NEW POEM IT OUT ecourse with all new lessons, prompts, and videos. I'm calling it (More) Poem It Out and I hope you will join in! 

A few of the themes we will explore include following breadcrumbs to the stories that are waiting to be told within us, dipping our toes into the dichotomy of light and dark & shadows and colors, and diving into accessible writing prompts that will push us past the fear of the blank page and into the world of poetry.

Note: You don't have to take Poem It Out (my first poetry ecourse) to take (More) Poem It Out. This course is open to everyone.

DETAILS

(More) Poem It Out 

Fall Dates: October 15 - November 16, 2012 
Registration has begun! Read on for registration information.

Where & How: The five-week course is hosted on a private blog and private Flickr group. 

New lessons are presented during the first four weeks, and the fifth week is a "Breathing Space" week that gives the community formed during the course an opportunity to continue to share the poems they are writing and other good things as the class winds down. New posts are shared every weekday (Monday through Friday) during all five weeks. Lessons are also sent by email so participants have access to the material after the course ends.

Although the material is presented over five weeks, participants are encouraged to work at their own pace, and the course will stay up for an additional two months after it ends. The Flickr group is available indefinitely for continued connection after the course ends. 

Lessons: Juicy poetry goodness will be posted five times a week, usually in video lessons, and will include topics like:

• Writing and poetry prompts
• Tools to use when you face the blank page
• Poetry creative adventure assignments
• Photography prompts to connect you with the world around you (and with yourself)
• Stories about my own poetry adventures
• Stories about why I poem and how it helps me sift through the beauty and the rawness of life
• Inspiration posts that will introduce you to poets, poems, and other good things
• Interviews with poets and poetry lovers

Supply list:

• Journal/notebook and favorite pen/pencil
• A camera (any camera is fine, including a camera phone)
• A Flickr membership (only needed if you want to share your photos)

Cost: $75

Register

Registration has begun! To participate in (More) Poem It Out this month, click the PayPal "Pay Now" button below. 

Your confirmation email from PayPal confirms your spot in the class.

A few days before we begin, I will send classroom information so you know where to go on the first day of class.

Note that I will use your PayPal email address to communicate with you. If you prefer that I use another email address, let me know when you register or via an email to liz [dot] lamoreux @ gmail [dot] com (or click here to email through this website).

To read testimonials and the Poem It Out FAQ head over here.

poem it out (a new ecourse)

The idea for this ecourse grabbed hold of me last week and wouldn't let go. I am so delighted to be sharing it with you today! 

*****

Poetry is a lifeline for me.

I think it could be one for you, too.

And I want to spend four weeks with you showing you why.

In this online course, we will explore the world of poetry from a place of wonder. We will look for poems that invite us to nod our heads and say, “Me too…me too.” We will face the blank page and say, “Bring it” and write the words that are ready to burst out of us. We will stop everything to Poem It Out.

DETAILS

Dates: April 2 – April 27

Where: The course will be hosted on a private blog and private Flickr group. Although the material will be presented over four weeks, participants are encouraged to work at their pace, and the course will stay up on the blog until May 31 to help facilitate this. The Flickr group will be available indefinitely for continued connection after the course ends. 

Lessons: Juicy poetry goodness will be posted four times a week and will include topics like:

• Writing and poetry prompts
• Creating a word toolbox to be a companion when you face the blank page
• Poetry creative adventure assignments
• Stories about my own poetry adventures
• Inspiration posts that will introduce you to poets, poems, and other good things
• Interviews with poets and poetry lovers

Supply list:

• Journal/notebook and favorite pen/pencil
• A camera (any camera is fine, including a camera phone)
• A Flickr membership (only needed if you want to share your photos)

Updated: Registration for this session of Poem It Out is now closed. To learn more about current and upcoming sessions, head over here.

Please note that an FAQ with answers to some of the questions you might have is included on the Poem It Out page. Feel free to send over any additional questions to me via email.

one more invitation to emerge...

On Monday, the Emerge ecourse with Jenna McGuiggan, Vivienne McMaster, and me begins! I am so excited about the course the three of us have created together. Collaborating with these two friends on the course material for Emerge has been, well, simply awesome. If you have been intrigued by my recent blog posts about having a daily practice and how these practices got me through "survival mode," I hope you will come along for this course because it will invite you to explore possible writing, photography, and accessible meditation practices to include in your own personal practice. The community aspect of an ecourse also gives you the environment to spend time connecting with like-minded souls as you embark on or continue your journey of seeing where you are on your path.

Jenna, Viv, and I have partnered with Live It to the Full to bring this course to you. Along with being delightful hosts with a vision the three of us believe in, Amy and Aleece have created a beautiful, user-friendly site for us to use on our adventure together. I hope you will join us as we share our personal stories of emerging from times of transition in our lives and provide you with creative tools to use as your face your own seasons of change. The course material will be available for an additional four weeks after the course ends, so you will have plenty of time to work through it even if you are taking a vacation or have other plans for parts of August.

If you have already signed up, please let me know! Can't wait to connect with you in my first ecourse teaching adventure!

emerge: an online course

joy and friendship on the oregon coast . february 2011

So excited to share this with you today!

This August brings Emerge, the premier online course from Live it to the Full, that I will be teaching alongside Vivienne McMaster and Jenna McGuiggan. Do you know Live it to the Full? Here's the scoop on this great new project:

Live it to the Full is a place of refuge for people seeking a new way of processing through a transitional period in their life. Our mission is to foster new ways of looking at age old dilemmas through art, photography and storytelling. We seek to provide quality material and qualified instructors at an affordable price and an accessible portal.

I am simply delighted to be teaching with Viv and Jenna. They are two women I am so blessed to call my friends, and they are two women who are sharing their stories with others in ways that are changing the world. (I know this to be true.) So working with them on a course all about emerging from the transitions in our lives? Yep. Sign me up. 

For four weeks this August, we'll play with words, photography, mindfulness practices, and other creative goodies to explore how we weather and emerge from transitions.

Here's the full course description:

How do we emerge from life's transitions and become more fully ourselves? Is it possible to be cracked open and made whole at the same time? Some transitions are big and bold life events, while others happen in the quiet moments of daily life. But each has the power to shape us and how we live in the world.

Come along as we share our personal stories of transition and provide you with creative tools to use as you face your own seasons of change. Through writing, photography, and mindfulness practices, we’ll explore the ebb and flow of happiness, the unique power of telling your story, and the beautiful yet precarious process of learning to trust yourself. See what happens when you allow your true self to emerge through creativity.

Registration for Emerge is now open, and the cost is totally at what I call a "happy price" of $49!

This experience will be full of juicy, bite-sized pieces to help you through whatever kind of transition (huge or tiny) that you're facing.

Viv, Jenna, and I would love to see you there.