Inspired by the Meteor Shower last week. I actually say my first shooting star in the city of Los Angeles EVER. It was exciting to say the least!
And SO is Periscope. This new social media platform and what’s happening with it right now, is EXCITING!! And my love for it is growing fast. In fact, this is the first painting I started LIVE on a Periscope Broadcast.
I am enjoying sharing and chatting with you all so much, I’m going to keep scoping every day this week. You can join me again live in five! If you have missed any, for a little while longer, you can watch the replays at Katch.me/creativethurs
And you can find the original of this painting just posted to creativethursday.com
AND for those of you wanting the WHITE BOARD from yesterday’s Scope, click here to find it on Amazon. {and yes! I am an Amazon Affiliate}
So excited to start seeing the "tinies" hitting shops! Even more excited to see what you all are going to make with them!
If you aren’t yet familiar with the "tinies"? They are the characters and story behind my newest fabric collection, also my first with Kokka Fabrics in Japan. If you want to know more about the story? You can read about it in this post. But to sum it up, "in a world that encourages BIG, sometimes it’s {also} ok to be small".
With this theme in mind, all of the designs are a small, tiny scale! Perfect for quilting and patchwork, and bags and apparel, and everything I personally love to sew. I promise to have more photos of "the tinies" in use and in the wild soon.
In fact! Momen + - one of my favorite fabric stores in the L.A. area, especially for Japanese fabric, is hosting a contest using the "tinies". And those of you not local can participate too!
Here are all the details:
Bring anything you’ve made using the "Creative Thursday" collection for Kokka Fabrics by Friday, August 28. Entries will be on display August 22 - 29. Contest participants will receive a 20% discount on Creative Thursday/Kokka fabric. Entries must use Marisa’s fabric only. Solids can be used. Marisa {that’s me!} will judge the entries and select the top five winners. Winners will receive a Momen+ gift certificate. **This contest is limited to ages 16 years and up. For Non-Local Entries, send in a photo or mail in the entries including a self-addressed and self-stamped return envelope.**
If you are local and want to join us in person! Momen+ is hosting a special reception on Saturday August, 29 from 12 - 2 pm with sandwiches and drinks. This is when I will also be announcing the winners to the Momen+ contest.
1323 El Prado Avenue Torrance, CA 90501
For even more sewing encouragement! I’m also going to give away a fat quarter bundle in the color way of your choice. Just leave a comment below telling me what you are going to make with "the tinies" fabric before this Sunday @ 11:59 pm PST and I’ll choose a random winner on Monday. This contest is open to fabric lovers worldwide.
I’ve been wanting to share a list of shops carrying my fabric FOREVER. Please send some love and buy things! at your favorite local and online fabric shops. To get you started here’s a list of shops carrying "the tinies" so far.
See you back here on Monday! with the fat quarter bundle winner.
And the winner IS #4! Caroline!! Congratulations! I’ll be in touch with you via email to get your fat quarter bundle to you!
If you don’t know! I’m LIVE streaming a broadcast every day this week on Periscope. Art + Biz + Tech Tips and thoughts on the Creative Life. And I’ve been using this painting as my daily reminder and cheerleader.In case you missed any of the broadcasts? you can still view them here.
http://katch.me/creativethurs
If you want me to answer any questions cover any topics, just tweet, email or share them with me in the comments below. So far...nerves aside, having a great time chatting with you all!!! see you on the Scope later today. {To view Periscope just download the free app to your phone or iPad and follow me @creativethursday}
"you got this" original is available or purchase it as a print
New Prints! You can find them all at creativethursday.com
Also, I’m doing it! Periscoping LIVE today at 12PST with the topic of Artists vs. Social Media. Join us live on Periscope @creativethursday or you can catch the broadcast for 24 hours afterwards. see you then!
https://vimeo.com/135502112
I woke up projecting myself into the future saying "Oh, remember the days when we used to Periscope?"
That’s what I say about blogging now. I totally have nostalgia for the days when I only kept a blog. Lol.
Speaking of! Five minutes into deciding to keep my blog and... I’m super excited about this {almost} new App called Periscope. Heard of it yet? I first heard of it only a few weeks ago, and just joined it over the weekend. {My handle is creativethursday if you want to follow me there.}What I’ve been repeating in every one of my Persicope videos is that I am: #alreadyobsessed.
Quick Periscope Tutorial:
- Download the App to your Phone. You can now broadcast LIVE VIDEO from your phone {only your phone, not your computer} which means of course you can take Periscope with you everywhere and Scope from anywhere that your phone has service.
- People who follow you, or just decided to pop in on your broadcast, join it and can then chat with you {up to a certain amount viewers. if it’s a large group of people who’ve joined, somewhere in the hundreds I think?, the comments will automatically close so it doesn’t get crazy overwhelming. Viewers can also "like" your broadcast by tapping the screen which creates lots of pretty colorful hearts. This is encouraged because apparently your popularity on Periscope grows by the combined number of hearts you receive from all of your broadcasts. One person can "heart" you hundreds of times on one video by the way. If you have any trolls, you can block them easily. You can also do private Periscope chats! Hide the chat altogether or just allow people who follow you to chat, but the recommendation to get your videos seen as well as interact with and meet new people - which is half the fun, is stay open to letting everyone chat
- When you follow people on Periscope either via your twitter follower list or by choosing new people, you will receive phone notifications when they are posting live. I know this can get annoying if you follow a lot of people, but the community is still small-ish and people are not posting all the time {yet!} For now, I recommend leaving your notifications to find out about new videos, as I don’t follow my twitter stream all day which is another way you can learn about a live stream. Since Periscope is connected with Twitter, you can choose to have it automatically tweet a link for you every time you post a video. And not to worry if you miss a broadcast, you can view any new videos in your feed on Periscope.
- There is no time limit to the length of your broadcast
- The deal is, the videos only lasts for 24 hours and then it’s gone either forever or just from Periscope. You can save it to your phone {this option is available either as soon as you finish streaming or set up within the Periscope settings}, or like I did with the video above, because I didn’t know about the save it to your phone option, I screen recorded it from Quicktime on my computer before it disappeared. For nostalgia - I wanted to save my very first Periscope. The rest of my broadcasts, I’ve been practicing and they are not so much save worthy ;) Apparently there is also a #hashtag you can add to the video to save it as well on Periscope? That’s it in a nutshell. It’s very new and and I’m very new to it, so don’t hold me to everything here. Also, as people continue to use it and offer feedback it will most certainly change.
Honestly, because of Periscope, I haven’t been this excited about social media in a long time.
Of course, let’s be honest I’ve been excited every time I joined a new social media channel over the years and then given time, in this order:
- Everyone jumps on board
- It becomes less candid and more edited and styled
- I suddenly don’t feel like I’m growing my audience fast enough, so it comes becomes yet another means of measuring my self worth by comparing my life and social media following to others on the internet
- trolls try to ruin it and
- then I’m done.
No, not really. I’m still pretty present at most of my social media homes. My theory has been and still remains; I try not join one unless I feel like I can commit to them fairly consistently. And then, typically I find one that fits, becomes my favorite for the time and I run with it for as long as I feel inspired to and/or have the time to give to it.
Which, let’s face it. I’ve talked about this in my online classes before. For an artist who requires more internal/quiet time to create, engaging on social media frequently is a tough balance. I call it "brain fragmenting".
All this Periscope-ing and reengagement with Twitter this week has me thinking about hosting my first Periscope Chat on this very subject. "Artists vs. Social Media" I’d love to hear from you and get your thoughts on this, especially if you’ve recently joined Periscope or are thinking about joining?
Today is just one of those days where I suddenly have so much on my mind that I want to share with you. So bear with me here. This is kind of how it happens with me. Bursts of ideas to share and one of the reasons I’m excited about blogging again. Although I guess I could be Periscoping this right now, although it might not come out quite as concise, as even this long blog post. Remember, brevity = not my strong point!
Ok, quick tangent aside - back to my 5 points above. What I’ve noticed is that actually some social media platforms are hanging in and making a resurgence. Including Blogging, yay!! and because Twitter bought Periscope I think this will be changing the game for Twitter as well. I find this very exciting. And as someone who has complained about the demands of Social Media before, I’m not entirely sure why this excites me?! Possibly because I’m getting ready to release a video series online? and this will be a whole new form of sharing for me and the creatives I’m interviewing. And Periscope is great practice for more on camera time?
If you think about it, Periscope broadcasting is very similar to the videos I used to film from my computer and post here at my blog. Remember? the days when we used to V-Blog? Except it’s live and you can chat with me in real time. In an attempt to keep it real, I never edited the videos I posted here. However I did do up to 20 takes to get it right? ha! remember that? Not on Periscope, once you hit broadcast. You are LIVE! you can of course delete your video at any time, but someone probably saw it. Because honestly the first time I posted this past Sunday, barely telling anyone I was on Periscope I had 17 viewers.
Not going to lie, Periscope ups your game in the confidence and being comfortable live and on camera department. It’s a little nerve-wracking at first and distracting to try and share something visually compelling while also doing your best to connect with people chatting to you. Oh and then you might also have to start blocking trolls during your broadcast. Yup, the trolls are moving fast on this one.
Alrighty then, let’s just close by saying again I’m SO excited! not only about blogging, but about the possibilities with Periscope. It has reignited my love of Social Media. {yes, I did use the words love social media} I’ve decided not to whine about it anymore, as there’s no changing or slowing down the rate at which the internet is moving. Instead I’m embracing it all {because actually it’s a lot of fun} and I will still have time to make art ;)
Want to be a Periscope newbie too?
Found this detailed post on how to get started on Periscope by Meighan
Follow social media experts like Peg Fitzpatrick and Kim Garst on both Twitter and Periscope.They post very candid, friendly, thoughtful, informative videos especially on social media marketing and now Periscope.
And where do I see all of this going? Oh seriously! I just interrupted writing this post to watch a Live Periscope feed of 4 innovators Periscoping simultaneously. Basically it’s changing the world. In terms of your business, the usual connecting and meeting new people in a very personal/candid format, offering online classes paid and free, tutorials...the possibilities are endless.
