Late!

I see that my last post was on the 12th, so I am already a day overdue in posting. I am in the midst of participating in a teleconference for artists--not an excuse, but perhaps an explanation. This is an on-line and on the phone seminar about being an artist and selling your work. It's called SMartist-Telesummit and includes many excellent coaches and artists and entrepreneurs in the arts. Registering for this is another way for me to take my art and art career seriously. I do not know where I want to go, exactly, but this is all giving me much to think about.  Claudine Hellmuth, the collage artist whose site is on my hit list of sites, is taking part in this conference, as is one of my favorite gurus of personal growth, Michael Bungay Stainer, whose site Box of Crayons is a welcome newsletter every two weeks. I am still working on colored pencil exercises, this week on a color wheel and on mixing colors. I will post some of my work soon.

Links to Visit

I am beginning to compile a list of websites and possibly blogs that include botanical artists and other folks whose work I admire. It is on the left. Please check out these sites!

Resolution for 2008?

Well, it has been a while since I blogged. And what is a blog (noun) if one does not blog (verb). Therefore, my new year's resolution is to blog every week. From now on. It is already 2 weeks into the new year, so I am already challenged--but, as Janice Taylor says, "All is forgiven. Move on." (Who is Janice Taylor? She is an artist/weight loss consultant, with a terrific motivational blog and a book called "Our Lady of Weight Loss.) And this reminds me that I want to add a list of websites and blogs to this blog. I am taking a colored pencil class with a wonderful artist named Lauretta Jones. Her website shows off her amazing work. I will include that. In the first class, we discussed issues related to pencil use and did some exercises with lines and colors. I love the preliminary exercises that good teachers begin with. They are fun and free of judgment, since they are only exercises, filling squares with color. But Lauretta said something that I think is very profound. I told her that one big problem I had with my art work--and with pencil work in particular--was that I had a tendency to go too fast, to rush. And she said, if you rush, then you do not get to the same place. You get someplace, but not where you wanted to go. I really like that. I have been saying it over and over to myself, as I watch the tip of my pencil and try to control its speed.