How many times have you opened your art journal or sketchbook to ‘do some art’ and been frozen by the blank page? I know it happens to me. And more often than I care to admit. I’m usually afraid of making a mistake, marring the page or putting time into something that, in the end, I won’t like. I become a perfectionist. And it paralyzes me. If you identify with the creative process outlined below and get stuck by #5, you’re not alone.

The wonderful Carolyn Dube has masterfully redefined “mistakes” as “OOPS” (Outstanding Opportunities Presenting Suddenly) and if you haven’t heard of this before, you really need to meet Carolyn. She was recently interviewed at Dirty Footprints Studio as a prelude to her participation in an online workshop, 21 SECRETS 2014. In the interview, Carolyn talks about how to face fear, how to get around it, how to work with it. There are so many juicy tidbits to take away!

For example:

“I have tried everything in the aisles of Michael’s. I kept thinking it was the specific craft or art that I was doing that wasn’t right, but it was really the way I was treating myself.”

“Because I couldn’t be an expert right away, that inner critic just came ramping up… I spent 15-20 years in that battle with that inner critic.”

“I now realize that the things that I look at longingly are things that I want to do.”

Watch the free video interview here: Video Link. You’ll be inspired, learn how to begin to reframe your fear and best of all, be encouraged to create. What more can you ask for when staring at a blank page?