Welcome to The Artist's Toolbox 🧑🏻🎨🧰
Find out about our creative community
Upcoming June sessions can be found here.
You can watch a past workshop: ‘An Introduction to The Artist’s Way and Morning Pages’ here (available for limited time).
Welcome to The Artist’s Toolbox, our little corner of Substack ❤️ We are a community of creatives - from fully-fledged artists to creative dabblers - whose aim is to share tools that can give our creativity a boost. Our hope is to leave you feeling inspired, motivated and/or more creative after visiting our community here on Substack, or joining our live sessions - we run one free session every month.
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The Artist’s Toolbox is inspired by Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.
About The Artist’s Way:
The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron (1992), is an iconic book about creativity. Its 12 chapters outline a 12-week course full of tasks and tools designed to help you unblock and flourish creatively. It’s relevant to all creatives: from fully-fledged artists to those wanting to take up a new hobby, or lead a more creative, intentional life.
In 2024, we (Leah and Tasha) followed The Artist’s Way programme. We both found its specific tools and tasks so beneficial (and fun!) that we wanted to integrate them more consistently into our lives whilst sharing them with others so as to contribute to the movement that is The Artist’s Way!
For those of us who, rather than tough love, need a little (or a lot of) encouragement, Julia Cameron’s voice can be the companion we never knew we needed. I found her distinctive voice so supportive, and it helped me prioritise my art, enhancing my wellbeing and self of sense, and giving me the courage to take an artist’s sabbatical abroad, despite the uncertainty that entailed.
Natasha found the programme creatively inspiring, motivating and freeing. Although she is a practising artist - having painted all her life and exhibited - she says she’d never given herself the amount of creative freedom and investment that she now does as a result of following the programme. Since the programme, she’s bought herself a whole new bunch of materials to experiment with and signed up to new classes, workshops and creative communities!
Though Julia Cameron’s prose and programme are encouraging, the process isn’t a walk in the park. The first time I tried it, I didn’t get very far. The second time, I followed it with others, making it to week 10/12. The third time, with another group, we made a pact to hold each other accountable and managed to complete the programme! The point is, it’s much easier and more fun to journey on one’s creative path alongside other, like-minded people. That’s why our community on Substack, The Artist’s Toolbox, will be dedicated to building a creative community and sharing tools that will help our collective creativity flourish.
About The Artist’s Toolbox:
This is a space to get motivated and inspired by sharing creative tools while connecting to other creatives. We welcome all types of creativity in our community: writing, dancing, drawing, ceramics, knitting, jewellery-making, or even new venture planning! Both beginners and more experienced creatives are welcome.
This community is for you if:
You’re a creative person who wants to spend more time on your creative hobbies.
You want to connect to like-minded creative people.
You would benefit from the support and encouragement of a creative community.
You want to take up a new hobby and step in living a more creative life!
You’re heard about The Artist’s Way and are curious to engage with some of its tools and tasks.
You enjoy unwinding through creative activities.
Every month we’ll be hosting an online workshop inspired by The Artist’s Way. Some will introduce you to the book’s concepts and reflective tasks while others will be hands-on crafty creative sessions. Subscribe for free to receive workshop links.
About Us
We (Tasha and Leah) met in 2020 in Cochabamba, Bolivia, over a mural-painting project for a creative hub that Leah co-founded coming out of the pandemic. Tasha had been painting her way around South America on an art journey and Leah had settled in Cochabamba as she has links in South America (is Peruvian/British). Tasha is now back in the UK but we’re still creating together online and are excited to build a community of creatives we’ve connected with in Britain, Bolivia and beyond, both off and online.
Get to know Tasha and find out about her art journey around South America on the Wild at Art podcast.
Join our next creative session: Drawing the Wild Beauty of Bolivia: Llamas, Flamingos and Mountains. Tuesday 3rd June, 7pm UK time/11am Californian time. Open to all subscribers!
forever grateful for all that I learned in this book!!!!
Love those books were my art and creative workshops