The Versatile Blogger Award

Oh my goodness!  The other night I was reading blogs and starting to wind down for the night, when I popped over to Liz Crain's blog and saw her post about The Versatile Blogger award she had been nominated for.  The way this award works is that once you've been nominated, you have to nominate 15 other bloggers you like and then tell 7 things about yourself.  So I was reading along - and then saw my name on her list of bloggers!!  I didn't even know she read my blog!  Thank you, Liz :)

Liz is a fellow clay artist that I enjoy following.  She and I have connected several times over various things, and basically, I just love watching her (via the online world) do what she loves to do.  You guys should really go check out her cone top beer cans and oil cans made of all clay.  You won't believe your eyes!

So, now that I've been nominated, I need to list 15 blogs that I love to read.  These blogs are varied in their content, but I find them all worthy of reading.  Some of them have no idea who I am. But that's okay! I still love to read them.  I actually get excited when I see certain blogs have a new post up! (Does that sound weird?? It does to my ears...) Anyway, let me share with you some of my favorites...
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Alisa Burke - you guys may already know her, but I love what she does.  It's always so colorful, whether it's recipes, Easter Eggs, or her sketches.
The Art Biz Blog - this one is a new one for me.  I am so INTO the business side of the arts these days.  Very helpful site when you need ideas or motivation.
Pregnant Chicken - okay, this one is pretty much for the ladies.  And only if you've been pregnant, are pregnant, or planning to get pregnant.  This blog kept me laughing through my pregnancy.  And it still makes me laugh some days.
Figures... My Art and My Life - this girl Kristina, is so talented!  She does amazing pastels of the figure and paints beautifully too.  always so lovely to see what she's working on.
Rightbrain Rockstar - another art business blog.  Kind of gets me going when I need a kick
This Artist's Life - a blog by a professional potter.  If you ever wonder what a professional potter's life is like, read this.  She lays it all out there on the line for you.  Extremely straightforward and I like that.
Tracey Broome - She is a clay sculptor.  We were in an exhibit at Mudfire together recently.  she is also straightforward and talks about the ins and outs of making a living at what we do.
Laura Catherine - This is one of my close friends.  We keep each other going sometimes :)
A Beautiful Mess - Laura Catherine turned me onto to this one lately.  Its a wide variety of cool stuff.
Art Du Jour by Martha Lever - eye candy.  Truly.  Colorful loveliness.
Donna Downey - she is just a cool lady.  always making beautiful things and she does videos each week that I love to watch as a little inspirational break from the kiddos.  She is a big art journaler.
Ali Cavanaugh - a most talented painter.  I love her works.  Not a real wordy blog, but she always posts her paintings, and that makes it worth it for me.
Sarah Ahearn Bellemare - lovely artworks, and a mom of a little one too.
Tara Gentile - If you own a creative business, you need to read this blog.
10Women10Businesses10Questions - this is a cool blog project I'm involved in that will be launching May 1.   It's all about women and our creative ventures.  Come check us out!!
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I'm also supposed to share 7 things about myself.  This is always hard for me.  Hard to decide which things you guys may find interesting...   I can't really choose, so here are 7 random things, in no particular order:

1- I am not really a very organized person.  I just pretend to be organized!  Every once in a while, I make an effort to get my closet organized or my desk straightened, and I make a little progress but then I get either get bored or sidetracked.  It happens very easily. 

2- I have fond memories of growing up with a vegetable garden.  We have just planted one (a small one!), but I love to go out and check on it everyday :)

3- I used to think that I was a patient person.  That was before I had children! LOL

4- When I don't have the kids around, and I need to blow off some steam, putting the top down on my car (I have a yellow Mini Cooper) and blasting out some music always helps.  Right now, I'm on an Alanis Morrisette kick.  I love her Flavors of Entanglement album.

5- I think my two favorite flowers of all time are poppies and daffodils.  But then again, I like so many, it's hard to narrow it down to just two :)

6- I wish I could make my mom's spaghetti. Yum.

7- Some days, I just want to sit quietly and sketch.  No talking allowed.

Whew!  That was a doozy of a post to write.  Hope you enjoyed it, and please try to check out some of those other blogs.  Have a great day!

~Kelly

Yay! I'm back to working in the art journal

Hello everyone!

When it's crunch time before a show, everything gets put aside until after the show.  And when I say "everything" I really mean everything.  Dishes pile up in the sink and unnecessary doctor appointments get rescheduled.   Sometimes, that's just what it takes to get everything finished. 

So, I noticed how much I missed painting and journaling during this last crunch time before my show.  And I am happy to report that I am back into the journal and doing some fun sketching, just for me.  And you know what?  It feels great!  This is one page that I just played with, and had fun with beeswax.  I don't always use beeswax, but it was so fun, I may have to start doing it more.  When the wax was cooling, I carved some smaller flowers into the wax, and then added color to it with an oilstick.  Fun!

And then last night, I did some sketching, and it was just for me.  I currently don't have any plans for this one, but after I finish it, I may copy it onto some vellum and glue it onto the above background, I just started playing with.  So nothing is complete - just having fun and playing.  Good for the soul, ya know?

Another fun thing is that I signed up for Alisa Burke's Sketchbook Delight e-course, and I'm so stoked!  I wanted to take it with the rest of the class when it was offered in Feb/March, but there was no way I could do that e-course and get ready for my show.  So I had to wait until now when I had a little more time.

Hope all of you are doing well! Spring is here and I am always so thankful for the warmer weather~

Kelly

Stretching and Adding in More Creativity

One of my personal goals for 2011 was to start being more involved in the arts locally.  I started working on this at the end of 2010, so I got a little bit of a head start on this one.  I wanted to start networking more and meeting more creative people and try some new things.

This is my lovely welding booth. Number #11!

For Christmas this year, my hubby got me a welding course at the local community college.  Sounds strange, I know, but I've been wanting to learn how to weld for a couple of years now.  I am not looking to get into metal arts, but I do want to know how to make bases and armatures for my sculptures.  I think this would be great knowledge to have.  Thus the welding course gift.  So I went last week to my first class, and it was just a classroom lecture.  Lots of talk about electricity and safety and safety equipment.  All good things to know, because I don't want to get injured doing this!  My first session in the welding shop was on Saturday and the guys are all quite nice.  They don't seem to mind me being a girl, and they don't really try to help/interfere in any way, but they do little things, like make sure I can see during demos.  I'm in that class with some super big dudes, and they always make sure I can slide to the front to see what the instructor is doing.  I appreciate that!  So far, my welding is pretty bad, but I will get better as the class goes on!  I'm so glad I am trying it.  It's fun (and scary) to stretch out in new ways.


Another fun thing I did was on Friday.  Laura, a friend of mine here in Charleston, organized a "tweetup" for ladies who are on Twitter in the Charleston area.  As it turned out, it was mostly entrepreneurs and creatively-minded ladies.  It was a super high-energy kind of thing, and I think that everyone was so excited to be with other like-minded individuals.  There was talk of more group luncheons and some folks were instant friends and began to make plans for other outings.  The girl I sat across from, Charlotte, is a wedding photographer, but also loves the more traditional arts.  She was trying to convince me to go to a figure drawing class here at one of the art centers.  I took a life drawing class in college - and I was terrible!  My proportions were always off and it looked like my models had fallen out of a 6 story window, only to land in these horrible, awkward positions, instead of these lovely, graceful poses that we were supposed to capture.  BUT, in the spirit of the moment, I told her I would love to go, but that I wanted to sit in the back with shields on the sides of my paper, so that no one else could see what I was drawing. :)  But you see, I think it is good to work on drawing and sketching, no matter what the subject, and spending time on learning/practicing other forms of art is not time wasted.  So while my drawings may look terrible in the beginning, hopefully they will start to improve over time.  I will keep you posted on how the classes go, if we actually get brave enough to go! :)

How are you adding to the creativity in your life? Are you taking a fun e-course or trying out something new and slightly scary?  I'd love to hear about it!  I have seen a couple of really cool e-courses out there right now, that I'd love to try....

~Kelly