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!!!)
