My tiny tangle

So this was a big challenge, or small, depending on your love/hate of punny references.
I did buy a Prismacolor purple 005 to take on this task,
At first I was trying to cut a tiny inchie then abandoned that idea and just went tiny on a normal sized page.
Here are the two I was able to do...

I may attempt to do them a little bigger.
    ~s

Submitting art to my local art gallery

This week I took another step on my art journey and went to one of the local galleries to see about how to submit my art for consideration!  A risky step for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that I have no illusions as to my amateur rank among artists.  But all 23 of my Ustream followers, Ranza included, assure me that they like my work, so I am encouraged to just go for it!  So here is what I found out:



1.  It is a juried submission process--which means three or four "judges" will review my artwork, which I can direct them to by way of my blog (easy enough I thought with much relief...until I realized I haven't blogged since LAST YEAR!).  The lady said it's a pretty informal process.  They invite me to come in, ask me some questions about my work, then when I leave, they talk about me.  Nothing like pure bluntness.



2.  As is to be expected, they get a piece of the pie once my art sells.  15%, which I thought pretty reasonable, and certainly better than the 30% the other place claims!



3.  But of course there is a catch.  A fly in the proverbial soup.  It also costs $75/month to display my artwork in their gallery.  Ouch.



4.  You know what's worse than a fly in your soup? Discovering a hair right next to it.  So this was all sounding relatively doable.  Then she hammered the nail into the coffin of my dreams of getting into this gallery.  Too much with the analogies? Sorry, I can't resist!  So the kicker is that to have your artwork on display there you also have to work at the gallery two full days a month.  I don't think that's within the realm of possibility!  Tell me how that's supposed to happen when you already work full-time???  Double-ouch.



So thank goodness the other "gallery" in town, which is really an artists' cooperative store, doesn't require me to work.  Here is a link if you'd like to get a feel for what Studio616 is like:  https://www.facebook.com/Studio616McCall/photos It's a wonderful conglomeration of eclectic artwork and styles.  They carry jewelry, paintings, prints, cards, fiber art, plant art...Every time I go in there I just find myself wanting one of everything!!!  They do take a larger percentage, 30% for each sale, but they would only require 15% if I were able to work there.  I have an appointment later on today to take in some of my canvii.  Ideally, I would sell privately and that way no one would get their cut.  Etsy is an option, and there are other online art venues as well (but I think that might be a topic for another post!  Maybe I will try and put my next batch of paintings up on Etsy and see what happens :) Yay for sending beautiful artwork into the world!!!



I'll leave you with an image of one of the paintings I'm working on this week--and a challenge for my fellow blogger:  the theme is SMALL--think INCHIE! Style: Zentangle.  The only other requirement? it has to have purple--GO! ...you have 7 days from now to complete and post it here.

Happy arting everyone! 

~jo

Here goes nothing... no, it's something, kinda...

So where to begin, you'll soon recognize who the more experienced writer is of the two of us (ahem... not me).  Well, even though the last post says my name at the bottom - that was all Jo.
She's pretty awesome, her art, her personality, her listening and observing skills, her genuine-caring-great-all-around-kind-way of being, etc.  Just join in on one of her streams over on Ustream and you'll see that in about 0.09 seconds - if that.

Keep in mind Jo and I haven't even met in real life... yet..

Oh, and Hi! :)  My name is Suzanne (aka Concernedowl just about everywhere online - I am an Instagram addict, Twitter-lover, and Pinterest obsessed) - I live in north eastern Massachusetts and proud of it!

I am an artist.  There, yup, I said it.  It felt weird a few times I actually said that out loud, but I have come to terms with my affliction, erm, blessing.  Not schooled by anyone but Ustream, YouTube, blogs, books, and magazines.  I am also a CZT® (Certified Zentangle® Teacher) who needs to start teaching again.

Jo definitely said most of it best in her intro of the blog.
As if you couldn't tell, I didn't even really think about this post, at all.  I just wanted to put a little out there about me, which wasn't really much, but I'm sure I'll spill more in due time.

I'll leave you with a Zentangle tile I am almost done with.

In non-traditional Zentangle ways I purposely did make it look like a daisy because of who I am giving it to on Saturday.  And the star petal isn't really a tangle per se, I just really like stars and I believe the recipient does too (well, at least I'm sure she won't dislike them).  I either might add lettering or more petals, time will be the judge of that, I'm sure. I may be a little bit of a procrastinator, or a big bit of one, heh.

Signing off for now to probably putz around and not do things I really should be doing (hey at least I'm truthful, right?).

~S

An Encouraged Journey

A late-night kick-off to what promises to be a fun and challenging, but most of all, inspirational blog!  I am Jo, an Idahoan mixed media artist and puppy-momma, wife and lover of mountains and trees.  Here is my version of the story:  Suzanne and I met by way of a wonderful online art community over at Ustream.com.  It is a fantastic website where you can watch people all across the world streaming live video on just about any topic.  I stumbled across a live mixed media art stream, decided to try out the chatbox, where you can chatter with other audience members, and that was it!  I was hooked! Suzanne and I met by chatting on someone's stream--don't remember who's, sorry!  Anyway, we discovered right away after just a few conversations that we have a ton in common--we are about the same age, we both love cats, and most importantly, we like the same style of artwork.  That might be putting it mildly. If I gushed at something beautiful in someone's show, she gushed too.  If she said she had such and such a pen, I went out and bought it.  I probably sent her a question about something and discovered her wicked sense of humor.  And boom, just like that, our friendship was struck, one that crosses an entire continent, from Boise to Boston, fueled by our love of mixed media art.

"Chicks Rule" 

(acrylic, watercolor, collage)

I should really do one of these inspired by Ranza and Jo's arty friendship!

Suzanne and I have traded artwork and supplies, inspired each other, and purchased the same ebooks.  We've compared notes on techniques and agonized over arty details together.  Then one day, we put our heads together (ok really we just bemoaned the fact that we both felt something was missing in our blogs) and decided that what we really wanted was to create a blog together.  We hope this blog will become something that inspires other artists and expresses the element of fun that we get from creating our art--it'll morph and grow, it'll challenge us and our readers, it'll be a source of joy and of headaches, but...As we dive in headfirst to this challenge there is pretty much one thing we know for sure.  We can't over-think, or over-process (as I edit this blurb for the 5th time, ha!).  We've named our blog An Encouraged Journey, because that is what we do, encourage each other.  This blog is going to be fun for us to write, and hopefully fun for you to read!  And it will hold true to something I hear over and over in our online art group:  "There Are No Rules!"  (Awesomesauce!!!)