Artist Interview: Whitney Ferre

Following on yesterdays book review and giveaway (there is still time to leave a comment for a chance to win!), I’d like to introduce you to Whitne Ferre, the author of  “the artist within: A Guide to Becoming Creatively Fit.” I think you'll enjoy getting to know her a little better.

Tell me your story. What is your background? 


My story gives others hope! I grew up as a “wanna be” artist. I did not think I had inherited “that gene”. I was envious of my friends who could draw or paint. I stuck to “safe” crafts and pined to paint. It literally wasn’t until I was in the process of opening my first art center, The Creative Fitness Center, that I started to paint. 

I was reading a book called Zen and the Art of Making a Living and the author insisted throughout the book that one has to develop an “Artist Mentality” in order to create the life of their dreams. I was sold, but had only experienced fear and difficulty trying to sign up for an art class as an adult. So right there I had the classic light bulb moment—to open a right brain gym so people could do their creativity workouts and strengthen their Artist Within so that they could go back out into their world and CREATE the change they desired.

What do you love about being an artist?


What I love is the natural curiosity and enthusiasm that comes with the “artist mentality”. When you make art, you cultivate an open mind that is receptive to spirit and to “Pure Potentiality” (from Deepak Chopra). I love noticing colors in the sky and how the light is illuminating the view out of my window differently each day. I love that wave of inspiration that seeps through you when you see something you want to paint, or a color combination you want to use. 

I want my paintings to make people want to paint themselves. We have put art making on this pedestal and, in essence, only given permission to those with “talent” to create. We ALL can share this gift that makes us human. 

Why do you teach/coach/write?

My whole career FOUND me. I so love connecting with other people. In “left brain mode” we each see ourselves a separate from the whole. I just re-read an Einstein quote that said, “A human being is part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings as something separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and too affection for  few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison…” 

What are your realistic goals and pie in the sky dreams?


Here it is…I want to world leaders to PAINT TOGETHER and THEN go into the United Nations to negotiate world peace. That would be tremendous.

(And from Whitney) As a  THANK YOU for reading this article, please email me at whitney@creativelyfit.com to receive a coupon code for a 2-for-1 offer for the entire 3 Step Program so that you can join with a friends and support each other’s creative dreams! 

Book Review: The Artist Within - A Guide to Becoming Creatively Fit

I've just read "The Artist Within: A Guide to Becoming Creatively Fit" by Whitney Ferre.

The book has an interesting twist. It is a life-balance-creativity-self-help manual couched within a breezy basic design manual. A rather unique concept. I think the purpose of the book is not to teach you to become a fine artist, but to help you add creativity to your every day life. Not a bad goal. In fact - it's a goal I heartily agree with.

After briefly explaining a design principle such as "contrast" she asks you to do a few right-brain exercises to exercise your creative muscle. The projects are wonderfully childlike and freeing. 


For instance: When talking about the design principle of Unity she says "In life, a lack of unity can distract us, make us feel like we are stretched too thin. If you feel this way, try finding the common thread in your life, what is vital. This will help you to refocus your energies and gain a greater unity of purpose."


The creative exercises that go along with the concept  include creating a torn paper family tree where you write  thoughts related to unity on any paper available to you, tear it up, and paste it into tree form. Another project might be to create a sculpture from the items in your junk drawer - symbolizing unifying the disparate elements of your past. Much more instruction is given for applying the principle of Unity to work or family life than how to create the art - but that's the point of the book.

I like the idea. Once I understood that the book was more about life coaching than fine art instruction I really enjoyed it and had fun thinking about different areas of my life that could use a creative boost. 

As a fun special just for you, my friends, 

I'm giving away this book 

to one lucky commenter on today or tomorrow's post. 

Answer me this.

How can you incorporate the principles of balance, contrast, repetition or unity into your daily life? How can you integrate the creativity that you apply to your art into the act of daily living?

I'll be interviewing Whitney tomorrow, talking a little more about her story. You can leave a comment on that post too and double your chances to win her book. Check back next Monday the 16th of May to see if you've won.

The Space Between

I'm proud to announce that my piece, “Dream” (above) has been accepted into the special exhibit “The Space Between” curated by Jamie Fingal and Leslie Tucker Jenison (of Dinner at Eight Artists). I am very honored to have been chosen to be in this group, as it includes many women I know and whose work I admire.  

The exhibit will debut at the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach July 28-31, 2011 and is sponsored by Moore’s Sewing Centers. There is a possibility of the show exhibiting at the  International Quilt Festival in Houston also, after securing a sponsor.

This piece was a learning experience - disasters overcome. You can read about that adventure here. A lesson in not doing things late at night - and in creatively working around or through those wonderful "design opportunities."

Gesture Drawing

I've been experimenting with another drawing exercise - gesture drawing. It's almost a polar opposite to Contour drawing but a great companion to it.

Here is how Kimon Nicolaides describes the process in "The Natural Way to Draw":

"Find somewhere that if full of active people, a playground, a football game... etc. As the people you watch move, you are to draw, letting your pencil swing around the paper almost at will, being impelled by the sense of the action you feel. Draw rapidly and continually in a ceaseless line, from top to bottom, around and around, without taking your pencil off the paper. Let the pencil roam, reporting the gesture.

You should draw, not what the things looks like, note even what it is, but what it is doing. Feel how the figure lifts or droops - pushes forward here - pulls back there - pushed out here - drops down easily there.

As the pencil roams, it will sometimes strike the edge of the form, but more often it will travel through the center of forms and often it will run outside of the figure, even out of the paper altogether. Do not hinder it. Let it move at will. Above all, do not TRY to follow edges.

It is only the action, the gesture, that you are trying to respond to here, not the details of the structure. You must discover - and feel - that the gesture is dynamic, moving, not static. Gesture has no precise edges, no exact shape, no jellied form. The forms are in the act of changing. Gesture is movement in space.

Like contour, gesture is closely related to the tactile experience. In contour drawing you feel that you are touching the edge of the form with your finger (or pencil). In gesture drawing you feel the movement of the whole form in your whole body." 

I did these sketches at the North Carolina Museum of Art amid the beautiful and very active Rodin sculptures. I've been enjoying doing these kind of sketches but think I need to get a bigger sketchbook for them than my little carry-along sketchbook. I've filled up a third of the book in one week doing these.

Quilting Arts Challenge

Are your inspired by the projects in Quilting Arts magazine? If you like trying out new ideas and techniques, Muppin from the Quilting Arts Forum has a new challenge for you. The artwork can be any size and any technique that you have seen in the magazine over the last 10 years, but your work should be something new made for this challenge. Upload your photo to the forum page by May 31st and show your stuff! Random participants will also get prizes.

I'll be popping up over there once in a while to spout off encouraging words. And I just know..... of course you are going to choose to be inspired by one of MY articles. wink. wink.

For Your Inspiration: Bees

I could watch big fuzzy bumblebees all day. 

And I love the macro feature on my camera.

Contour Drawing - Raleigh Sketch-In

Henry Spencer Moore
Large Standing Figure: Knife Edge

Last Saturday I had the wonderful opportunity to go to the North Carolina Museum of Art for the Raleigh Sketch-In. 

The weather couldn't have been more perfect and the museum has beautiful grounds and a wonderful collection.

We began the day with a contour drawing exercise. It's one of my favorite ways to LOOK at something. It's not about the drawing at all.

I've been reading "The Natural Way to Draw" by Kimon Nicolaides and here is what he has to say about the exercise. Even though I have been doing contour drawings for a while now, what he said was a revelation to me.

1 - The Sense of Touch

"Imagine that your pencil point is touching the model instead of the paper. Without taking your eyes off the model, wait until you are convinced that the pencil is touching that point on the model upon which your eyes are fastened. Be guided more by the sense of touch than of sight."

Blind Contour Drawing

2 - An Experience, not a Product

".. a contour study is not a thing that can be 'finished.' It is having a particular type of experience, which can continues as long as you have the patience to look."

3 - Contour ≠ Outline

"Do not be misled by shadows. When you touch the figure, it will feel the same to your hand whether the part you touch happens at the moment to be light or in shadow. Your pencil moves, not on the edge of a shadow, but on the edge of the actual form." He shows two apples and explains that an outline including both apples is a visual illusion. In a contour drawing your finger/pencil would have to leave one apple (lift from the paper) to get to the other apple. "A contour can never be an illusion because it touches the actual thing."

It was a whole different experience to actually imagine my pencil touching the subject and to realize that I have looked at shadow or though of outline

Raleigh Sketch-In 

NCMA grounds ..... as you walk past this boulder there is a surprise

Collapse I by Ladelle Moe

It's huge. I find the combination of the feelings of nature and fallen monument to be intriguing. I think a good time was had by all. We intended to meet back together for another sketch exercise at the 

beginning of the second hour but all were late as time just seemed to stand still/fly by as we lost ourselves in the meditation of drawing and seeing and experiencing the art. I think I am learning that my experience of the world is richer when I have a drawing tool in hand.

Our littlest Sketcher