Author: Bethaneelee

Becoming A Visual Story Teller – Day 1

I’ve always had a fascination with documenting life through journals and photos mostly, and I love seeing other’s projects as well. I’m envious of the people who have the sticking power to see a journal through to the final page. For year’s I’ve struggled to keep a regular practice of this…I’ve failed many many attempts at project 365’s and I have stacks of unfinished journals through the years. Don’t get me wrong they’ve all served some purpose at any given point in time but I don’t have a single completed project. I think I’ve failed because I haven’t given the effort to make it a part of who I truly am, my life feels boring and uneventful most days. I mean c’mon am I really supposed to document silly things like chores?

The answer is yes…EVERY SINGLE DAY is a gift, the mundane is a gift, and it took a global pandemic for me to open my eyes and see that life is worthy of documenting even when it’s unremarkable. I get a great deal of enjoyment from seeing the things I have captured over the years even in their uncompleted stages. One day, my pets will be gone, one day I will be gone, and even as boring as I think my life is, it’s worth keeping those memories because I never know when I will need to go see those memories.

As much as I love photos, I really want to start getting into visual story with video. Today I started my 4th 1 Second Every Day (aka 1SE) video project where I embark on capturing daily 1 second video clips over the course of the next year. At the end of the year I will have a highlight reel of my life through my eyes. I haven’t completed one of these projects yet and I hope try #5 will be my first completed 1SE. I won’t know until I try again and my goal is to get creative with the boring and make it remarkable. I’ve put a few things in place to help me not forget in these early days. One…give myself grace, life isn’t perfect, or always video worthy but it’s my job to make it a success. Two, I’ve created 2 daily alarms on my phone to help me remember to get my daily video clips. Three….even if I miss a day, I will use a previous video…no one will really know and no one really cares if I did that July 22 or July 23…don’t let perfection be the death of this project.

To kickoff this project I’ve included a video clip from days past at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum Fall Color Festival. This marks the beginning of the many snippets I will be taking in the future. Sadly with COVID, I don’t know that I’ll get to participate in any events like this as we as humans have isolated ourselves away from friends and family, covered our faces and stand 6 feet apart from each other in gatherings of 10 or less, so who knows when and if life will ever return to days like this. This is why it’s so important to document life.

Sunset

I want to improve my art skills and one of the tools I want to be proficient with is the iPad. It’s a very neat and portable way to do art. Don’t get me wrong …I really enjoy using actual art supplies as well but sometimes you just want to travel light and still create.

I find learning how to draw on the iPad a little intimidating because I just don’t know how to effectively use all the tools and brushes available to me in the Procreate application. Coupled with using the Apple pencil and all of its capabilities it can be very frustrating to create anything that looks somewhat like an adult drew it and not a 2 year old.

I decided to stop sitting on the sidelines and roll up my sleeves and get to work learning and taking action…for reals this time. You see, I’m a bit of an online course addict and I use education as a major part of my screen time entertainment but I’m terrible at actually doing something. It’s kind of like reading books about swimming but never actually getting into the water. The best way to demystify everything is to get to it. So I did just that with my “Enjoy The Waves” piece.

A couple of days ago I joined the June Lettering Challenge from iPadLettering (Karin Newport) I saw on IG as a way to begin practicing and improving my lettering. We use the #ipadlettertogether to tag our lettering projects for the challenge. When I started exploring the hashtag I found that I was a bit out of my league with it. Everyone has these amazing art pieces along with the words and I’m still just trying to letter without having to trace the words (yikes!) So I got lucky today when I hopped on YouTube and found this tutorial from Art With Flo. I knew it would be perfect for one of the phrases that are part of the June Lettering Challenge.

I found the Art With Flo tutorial very easy to follow and had great success with it. A few of the techniques required a little getting used to but that was no issue because I just cleared the layer and did it again. I am very excited with the way it turned out. I now have a learned a technique to create gradients and ombre effect which will come in handy for skies in the future! I also got exposure to some brushes and good applications for them.

I’m pretty sure actually doing tutorials will help me build the skills I need to start working on my own art pieces. But for now I will continue to work on tutorials and learning new things!

BethaneeLee Creative Reboot

I originally started the BethaneeLee Creative Blog to be my little corner of the world where I can share all the things I love to dabble in. I was previously blogging in a time when I was in a state of complete overwhelm burning the candle at both ends, working a soul sucking corporate job and running a wedding photography business in my off time. There were a lot of off-topic posts which were more of an outlet to work through the stress I was feeling and I got away from the true goal of this blog.

I’ve mentored under some amazing online entrepreneurs like Amy Porterfield, Pat Flynn, and James Wedmore. These people are the cream of the crop in their specific areas. All of them have somewhere along the line taught that you need to pick a niche and show what you want to sell. It is very sound advice, however I found that I still need a place where I can be me and show the many things that I’m in to. A place where I can break the rules and do what I want.

So here we are. I’ve hidden all old posts and I’m starting anew. I have a new job, I’m no longer running a wedding photography business and I am in a much better headspace than I was last year. Job loss, the pandemic and riots have given me the opportunity to slow down and reconnect with my creative side. I can’t wait to start sharing and adding tutorials along the way.