I just discovered a better way to document my art process, and am moving the blog here.

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Oh boy, this guy took me forEVER to finish! My first ‘real’ canvas, I wasn’t sure how to start. Intimidating, you know? So I threw some blue and purple down a few Thursdays ago. Let it sit for awhile. Dreamed the blue/purple/green blocks of color, but with a spiral to accompany the checkboxes. Well, when I attacked it today, the spiral didn’t work. Tried lots of different colors and layouts. Didn’t work.

But then the newspaper I had used to protect my table from the paint for the checkbox squares caught my eye. I threw that on, and danced for joy – it worked!

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It looks like I’ll get do do my first fair on Dec 8 – an indie/punk crafts fair at Three Jewels, near 4th/6th. My very first! I don’t know if my stuff will sell, I don’t know how these things work, but I’m excited anyway.

I’m thrilled to have found a great yahoo group in fellow Tucson etsy folks and am looking forward to meeting the group on Sunday at a potluck.

Lots of great shots at the beach from this weekend’s trip (summary here, my very first “vacation” as a single mom, whew!). I can’t wait to use the shots in new work!

I also have a half-done canvas in blue and purple that I don’t quite know where it’s heading yet. Some ideas of blue and green squares were appealing to me last night as I fell asleep, but I was too tired to get out of bed and paint. And squares, really?! I was thinking this guy would be more abstract, free-flowing. But if squares are what I want, then squares are what I’ll do.

I’m getting energized again (too exhausted the last few weeks to create anything, really). I’m wanting to create, to run, to write…yay, I love it when the mood strikes!

I’m sort of lost.

I know I feel the compulsion to create. Take the emotions inside of me and pour it out on to paper. Via written word – use words to create mental pictures. Via images – use color, texture, to evoke the emotion.

Words come easy to me. Expressing emotion through a dynamic image using color and texture…? Not so easy. It’s a language I’m not fluent in yet. I’ve never taken a drawing class, a design class, a painting class. I don’t know the first thing about art or supplies. I just know that I need to paint. Need to put color together. Need to create.

And so I do. I started last December, with Christmas gifts, by researching online various methods of putting together what I wanted. By talking with a friend who is a first-rate scrapbooking artist – she opened a whole new world to me. By purchasing a few altered art books and some supplies (okay, a whole TON of supplies – this was before my current, somewhat tight financial situation). By experimenting and putting all sorts of fun stuff together.

I started with collage and altered photos, and am growing from there. I’m wanting to create my own images now, not just put images created by someone else together (although I enjoy that). I’m wanting to take the big, sweeping, pink and orange and turquoise colors inside my heart together and pour them out onto a gigantic canvas.

With so many pieces lying around the house and a need to have enough money to buy groceries and gas, I put two and two together and decided to start selling my work.

Etsy is easy enough – low cost start-up and now I have an online shop! Thrilling!

But how do I market that shop? How do I sell to random folks? How do I drive up traffic? In a free/low-cost way, of course. I won’t have money to invest in it until next February. February! I’ll be able to afford Internet service at my house!

I researched local trade shows. But I have to have a business license, and – fear of all fears – my work must be juried. Gasp!

Business license – easy? Hard? Costs money? I don’t know. I haven’t had time to research yet.

My work, juried?! No freakin’ way. I can’t have REAL artists looking at and judging my work. I suppose I shouldn’t be so freaked out about it, seeings as how I think my work is good enough to sell. I just worry, that’s all. It’s scary!

Help! To anyone who may have any answers, advice, further questions…Help!

And here it is…my site dedicated to mixed-media and collage painting, colored pencils, pastels, beads, altered art…anything that catches my interest.

I have one other blog dedicated to running (trail running, ultra running) and general life musings over here.

Check out my etsy shop here.

Hopefully I will have more information up shortly. I want to upload some photos and do some posting on how I created a few of my pieces, and I’d like to add links for artists who inspire me.