You are invited to spend the year with me as I develop my journal art practice. You can skip all the hoopla and just sign up here for free.  You will get a welcome e-mail with all the details you’ll need to get the most out of this offering.

How Does It Work?

You sign up for this newsletter. Beginning in January 2012, I send out two or three e-mails a week containing my musings on the subject of journal art and memory keeping. Along with my musings, you get links to videos I produce that feature ways to create a sustainable art practice, journal art tips and tricks. links to resources I find on line that inspire me and are bound to inspire you too!

You can also join our Facebook Group and our Flickr Group should you wish to share what you create in response, but this is totally optional. We also have a spot where you can share your blog or photo sharing site so we can all find you!

All posts will be archived here at wildpreciouslife.com so that those who sign up throughout the year can access all the content. All posts will be password protected and the password will be provided in the e-mailed newsletter. Please don’t share the password. If someone wants to sign up, direct them to this post and they can access all the content on their own.

How Much Does It Cost?

Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Zero. But there will be a tip jar should you feel generous.

What Do You Get Out Of This? (And are you crazy?)

You know the old saying “Teach what you want to learn”? Well, I want to learn to maintain a sustainable art practice. I also want to learn to trust, to be vulnerable without giving myself away altogether, and to extend myself in love with no strings attached. Think of this as an exercise in edifying my character.

What Do I Get Out Of This?

You get lots of inspiring posts that might inspire you to create. You will also get the occasional digital collage sheet or in depth tutorial. You get the best of me, and while some weeks that best will be less than shiny, it will be real.

How Long Do I Have To Stay?

As long as you want and no longer. If Book of Days isn’t for you, please use the unsubscribe button the appears in every newsletter sent out. No hard feelings, no worries.

What Is A Book Of Days?

A Book of Days is my name for a daily encounter with myself on paper. The label makes me think of Victorian diaries in which gentlemen and ladies recorded each day’s highlights. Who came for dinner? What was served? What was the weather like? While I will probably not focus on externals, I will be recording my own internal weather, what fed my soul, poetry (or small stones) I write, questions I’m asking myself, who inspired me…

This process developed while I was recovering from a bad emotional blow. It was very much inspired by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer‘s e-course 30 Days In Your Journal and Donna Downey‘s Inspiration Wednesdays. From Julie, I picked up the habit of recording more than one day’s memories on one spread. From Donna, I picked up the desire to do at least one intricate spread per week in  my art journal.

What Can I Expect?

Every Monday I will sit down to tackle a full spread all in one go. These spreads will handle weighty content: my intentions for the week or something I’m struggling with, for example. These videos will be released by Wednesday morning at the latest.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I will record the work I do in my Book of Days, making little notes throughout the week on one spread. These mini-dates with myself will be captured on video and then edited down and, in some cases, time lapsed so that you can see how the week’s spread evolved. The video captured during these sessions will be released late Saturday night or early Sunday morning.

I will be taking Saturday off so I can have a break from navel gazing, and I will be taking Sunday off so I can keep my commitment to Wild Precious Studio to do my livestream at 1 p.m. EST.

Each video release will come with my own musings about the process, new techniques I learned, artists I came across, thoughts or feelings I’m having…

Some weeks will contain more than two video entries. Others may only have one, especially during the weeks where I am teaching other classes. (For Example, I’m in Lifebook in June and August of 2012. During those periods, I may be stressed to get more than one email out to you.)

At the most, you can expect three e-mails per week, two of which will have links to videos I’ve produced for you.

Sometimes, Things Will Get Heavy

This will be a very intimate offering, which is why I’m formatting it this way. Instead of hanging my guts out for an anonymous audience, I’m hanging my guts out for people I can at least contact by e-mail. :) I am a survivour and sometimes I talk/art very frankly around those issues. If you are easily triggered by this kind of content, this programme is probably not for you.

Why E-mail? Why Not Do This At Wild Precious Studio?

The email format means that you don’t have to extend any effort at all to get the material. Open the e-mail. Boom. There it is. I like this idea. I like the idea of something so freely offered from the depths of my heart that all you need do to get it is to click, open, and read.

Wild Precious Studio is a more formal venue than this, and it is not wholly my own. I don’t want it to become “the Effy Wild show” over there, you know? I want to provide space there for *other people* to share. This is my own personal offering, and though I welcome you to join me in the studio, this is a completely distinct offering from the things I offer there.

Sound Good?

Sign up here. Your welcome letter will contain a link to a page here on the official blog where you can access two videos: One will teach you how to create your own altered book of days and the other will teach you how to transform a composition notebook into a workable book of days. These videos are only available to those who actually sign up to receive the newsletter, so please don’t share the link.

I’m blissed out to have you join me.

xo

Effy