Tea and Cake with Gracie featuring Donna Mulholland

Hi Guys! Welcome to a series we run on the blog called: Tea & Cake with Gracie :) My awesome friend and colleague Gracie Howle interviews inspiring artists and posts the interviews (including some free offers not published elsewhere before) here on the blog every 2 months or so. I love to create art and bring amazing artists & people together in my classes, in person and on social media. As part of this drive, I want to help bring more exposure to some of the amazing artists out there! Today Gracie’s interviewing Donna Mulholland. Make sure you check out Donna’s giveaway and free video tutorial below, PLUS Donna’s offering you a 15% discount in her shop! Tam xoxo

If you love Artist Interviews make sure you read the previous Tea and Cake with Gracie ones – click on artist’s name to go to their interview: Wendy Brightbill / Whitney Freya / Violette Clark / Melissa Dinwiddie / Tascha Parkinson / Susana Tavares / Lynn Whipple / Karine Bossé / Jenny Grant / France Papillon / Jenny Wentworth / Kristin Dudish / Rachael Rice / Angela Kennedy (Pennystamper) / Andrea Gomoll

Halloweeny Hellos! I’m sure you will be inspired by this months interview, video tutorial and giveaway with the fantabulous Donna Mulholland! Donna shares her Upcycled Art video tutorial with us and is also offering ALL READERS 15% off in her website shop until December 31, 2017! PLUS Donna’s giving away to one lucky reader an abstract hand-painted-by-Donna totebag! Read more and join in below! :) Beaming you all love and blessings, Gracie x

1. Welcome Donna! Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.

Hi Gracie! I’m Donna Mulholland, an artist from Atlantic Canada. I’m all about bold colour and expressive freedom in my art. I love to create free, loose and bold abstracts. I work mainly in watercolour and acrylic, with some mixed media. My newest fancy is upcycled collage … using old work on paper and canvas.

Donna’s giving away to one lucky reader this gorgeous abstract hand-painted-by-Donna 12.5 x 13″ totebag! Awesome!!

*GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED * GIVEAWAY WINNER ANNOUNCED:
Thank you to everyone for joining in the giveaway, we loved reading your lovely comments! The randomly drawn winner is:

tess1960
who said:

Congratulations to Tess! :)

Donna’s Freebie Offers!

Watch Donna create an awesome upcycled collage piece in her video:

(Click the ‘play button’ to watch this video or click on the review link here: Review Link)

We’d love you to share any art you create in response to Donna’s awesome video above! Post your work in the Willowing & Friends Facebook Group where people who have done Willowing Classes hang out and share their work and connect with each other! It’s a fun place to be, we’d love to have you! Just click here and then click on ‘request to join’ if you want to join the group :)

Donna’s offering ALL READERS 15% off in her website shop!
Use the coupon code TEAWITHGRACIE to claim your discount.
Coupon valid until December 31, 2017!
You can find Donna’s shop here: donnamulhollandstudio.com

Learn more about Donna in the following interview:

2. You say: ‘My approach to art and life is “unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket … don’t do it.” Thanks for that quote, Charles Bukowski!‘ . Can you tell us a bit about the last art work that ‘came out of your soul like a rocket’?

I love it when art comes “out of my soul like a rocket.” (Thanks for the phrase, Charles Bukowski.) That happens when I’m in the zone and creating on a regular basis. It’s about showing up in front of the canvas, not with a photo or a sketch of what I want to paint, but with an open heart, a curious mind and a playful spirit. It’s not about painting things that I see, but about allowing and following the process. (Sure, sometimes things don’t turn out well. But hey, I just call those pieces unfinished or collage material!) One such piece that came straight from my soul was a piece I painted in the summer titled “Summer Magic.” It was a journey into the unknown that birthed the rest of the Summer Garden Collection.

3. On your blog you talk about ‘Ten Ways to Paint Like Yourself‘. Can you tell us a bit about your own journey that led to you painting like yourself and developing your own style.

Learning to paint like yourself is a real challenge and a real reward. I came back to art in my mid-forties, initially working in watercolour. I started out creating traditional representational work, albeit in a loose style. I loved it immediately … I couldn’t stop myself from painting.

From there I stumbled into watercolour journaling, where I was inspired by mixed media art journallers. The journaling was the real game changer for me, art became about exploring and expressing myself rather than painting pretty pictures of external “things.” Journaling really helped me to develop my own style and eventually led me back to a revitalized fine art practice.

I strongly relate to an internal focused process-oriented painting process; discovering what will happen … rather than planning a piece out beforehand. However, I am still very interested in the elements of design – value, contrast, composition, etc. – and do like to work in series, so I am not a true process painter.

4. You create a lot of ‘collections‘, can you tell us how these collections are started and how they evolve. When you start creating art for a collection, do you start with an idea of what the collection will be about, or do you just start creating and see where it leads?

Over the last year or two, I have been doing fewer real-time exhibitions, instead creating and releasing online collections in my website shop. I was inspired by other artists on Instagram to try this out. I really like exploring a theme to create a series of paintings and do well with deadlines. I like the thrill of planning and executing the launch as well. (Of course, I still have much to learn!)

My Summer Garden Collection, a small and joy-filled collection inspired by my love of flowers and gardens, released via Instagram on my website this past summer, followed a frustrating creative lull. I was tired after moving my studio back home at the end of May. (Moving is always more work than you think it will be, eh?) What got me going was finding a theme that was meaningful to me. The first thing that came to mind was my love of witnessing the cycle of growing things in spring and early summer. As simple as that notion was, I was instantly motivated to celebrate my love of gardens and wildflowers. I went from stuck to joyfully inspired in short order. Of course, the real magic happened once the paint was on my brush … and I haven’t looked back! (Although of course, creative lulls are completely normal.)

Thank you Donna for sharing and being here with us! You can find out more about Donna on her website: donnamulhollandstudio.com or through the links:

Instagram: www.instagram.com/donnamulhollandstudio
Available Art in the Shop: www.donnamulhollandstudio.com/store/c1/Featured_Products.html
Website: www.donnamulhollandstudio.com
Blog: www.donnamulhollandstudio.com/blog
Online Classes: www.donnamulhollandstudio.com/classes.html
YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCglKaIj3MmeTQxHdk6v3bCA

Remember that you can get Life Book 2018 with a whopping 20% discount code!!!! Don’t lose out on snagging up this fantastic deal!

Life Book includes 85+ creative & wellness sessions, the virtual gift bag with extra goodies, perks & discounts AND be entered into a prize draw so you have the chance to win some super cool creative prizes!, whaaat?! SO AWESOME! :D