I ran across a tweet a couple months ago about a free e-course designed to “deepen & enrich your creative spirit”. It was  a two-week intensive course with daily assignments to really dig deep & get to the core of your creativity. It came with a companion workbook to be used throughout the course that you journaled in & could refer back to if needed.

Of course I clicked the link. It was free & it was all about creativity. Who doesn’t want more creativity in their lives? I downloaded everything & started looking through it. It was fabulous! It was well written & easy to follow. Plus you had one assignment per day which was totally doable for me & you only had to choose one medium to work with so there wasn’t an endless list of supplies to buy.

A lot of times, creative entrepreneurs get so wrapped up in the business side of things that their creativity is put on the back-burner. This is one of the reasons I loved Maegan’s course so much. It really helps you to explore your creativity & it’s the perfect opportunity to use a different medium than your normally do.

So long story short, I really enjoyed this e-course so I checked out the author, Maegan Beishline’s, website. What I realized was that the course I’d just gotten was 2010′s course & that Maegan was in the process of getting 2011′s course ready! Awesome!

This years course will differ from last years in several ways, but the two biggest, to me, was that in CBC 2011 participants will be using more than one medium & there’s a fee for the course this year. Not a big one. I think it’s very doable & some of the proceeds go to a charity for orphans so you’re supporting a great cause & all of Maegan’s hard work! Plus is your register early you can get a discount…always a plus!

So I recently emailed Maegan so I could ask her some questions about this years course to share with you all in case it’s something that would be of interest to you & here’s what she had to say about Creativity Boot Camp 2011.

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Image by Madeline Bea Photography

Last year, when I designed and hosted the original Creativity Boot Camp, my goal was really about helping others to embrace their inherently creative natures and start investing in those aspects of their lives. Realizing that I could be creative for myself…and that it was necessary… was a huge revelation in my life. It was like opening the blinds and windows in a dark and dusty house. Not only that, but it led me down paths that were the most authentic to me and to places I never thought I could be. My life has never and will never be the same since. I really just wanted to share that with others.

As I stood on the cusp of this new year, my personal creative goals were very simple…become more artistic. I had spent 2010 working on my skill set, really learning my camera and the dynamics of photography. I knew that I had to {and would inevitably} learn more by my daily practice…but I wanted and needed more. It wasn’t enough for me to just be able to use my camera well…I wanted to be a good artist. And to me, that was about shaping my soul…because being a good artist absolutely has to come from within.

There is a saying that to make more interesting art, you need to become a more interesting person. So I set out to dive into a variety of artistic activities just to experiment and play with art and expand my personal set of experiences. I also made a very distinct point not to shy away from new opportunities. And I began reading everything I could get my hands on. I wanted growth in big ways. I’m still on this journey. Now that I’m here in this exploratory phase, I feel like this is what being an artist is all about…exploration.

When I thought about hosting Boot Camp again this year, I knew I could not simply duplicate last year’s course. I’m a different person now and the participants from last year have grown and matured in their creativity as well. I knew that I needed to up the game for everyone. So I designed the course around my current journey.

CBC: Spring Training is all about artistic exploration…and through that exploration, getting to know yourself as an artist. It is all about doing the work and flexing the creative muscles in an effort to get to the place where you are producing very authentic work…the work of your soul. Each day of the two week course, there will be a different essay on creativity, an activity to go along with that essay, and some ideas for journaling or further thinking. Also, throughout the course, there will be thoughts and inspiration shared by other artists to really dive into the different mediums.

Being an artist is easier than ever in today’s internet society. But it also makes it very easy to be someone who is really good at duplicating everyone else’s work and calling themselves and artist. This course is about finding and growing the artist within and learning how to have our work come from our most authentic places. We tend to be really comfortable working in our own traditional mediums. And this makes it easy to slip into repetitive patterns and not come up with new ideas. But by forcing ourselves to be creative in new and different ways, we get better at being creative on a whole. And ultimately, that is what will bring us to new creative levels!

I hope to see you there!

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Image by Madeline Bea Photography

If you’re interested in learning more about this years Creativity Boot Camp, visit the website here to get all the details & see the list of contributing artists to this year’s course.

If you’d like to try out last years e-course first, you can still download it for free right here.

Do you feel that a course like this would be beneficial to you?