"Lady Beatle" - Digital Mandala

I adore the colours in this one. Shades of aqua/blue and pink together make me so happy. I thought this one looked like a scarab in feminine colours, so I called it "Lady Beatle".

"Lady Beatle", Digital, September 2015

"Connection" - Digital Mandala

This one reminds me of those construction kits that were a thing when I was a kid. Not sure if they're still around. I think they were called Konnects or something. They were like plastic paddlepop sticks with holes in them. I've named this one "Connection" based on that memory.

"Connection", Digital, October 2015

"Circuit" - Digital Mandala

Tinkering with computers must have put me in the mood to draw something that looks like a piece of computer hardware. It must have been an unconscious connection, because I don't think I would have even noticed if it wasn't for the green and gold colours that look like part of a motherboard.

"Circuit", Digital Mandala, October 2015

"Naughts and Crosses" - Digital Mandala

Another stripe-style mandala. I like the happy white cloud shape in the background.

"Naughts and Crosses", Digital, September 2015

"Naughts and Crosses Tiling", Digital, September 2015

"Cross Stripe" - Digital Mandala

Another mandala from back in September. I think I need to keep better track of which pictures I've uploaded and which ones are already on the blog. When everything is all together in one folder it's easy to lose things.

"Cross Stripe", Digital, September 2015

This one becomes a patterned stripe in tiling form, because the pattern doesn't touch the sides. So that's a kind of cool thing to do.

"Cross Stripe Tiling", Digital, September 2015

"Blue Totem" - Digital Mandala

This is another one that didn't get posted from September. I like monochromatic colour palettes. Not much else to say about this one.

"Blue Totem", Digital, September 2015

"Frogger" - Digital Repeating Pattern

Lots of blue and green shades in this one. The aqua dots make me think of the little sticky toes on a frog, so I've called it "Frogger". The more I look at it the more eyes I see.

"Frogger", Digital, September 2015

"Mermaid" - Digital Mandala

I loved this one so much I made it my new Facebook cover image. In hindsight, I wasn't that happy with the 'temporary' art I'd put there but forgotten to replace. So glad I finally realised that I had nice new art to replace it with. The brighter colours really freshen the page up.

"Mermaid", Digital Mandala, October 2015

"Chrysalis Psychedelia" - Digital Repeating Pattern

Today's piece has a bit of a simpler shape than some of the other art I've been working on recently. It's just an oblong with some marks inside. I'd like to create more like this, because I think it makes a rather striking repeating pattern. It's simple, but the gradient adds a bit of texture to it. The shape makes me think of a butterfly chrysalis, hence the title.

"Chrysalis Psychedelia", Digital, September 2015, 36x24 Inch

"Dream Catcher" - Digital Mandala

This is the other artwork I'm considering for my first printed handbags. I love the aqua and blue tones in this one, but I still think I'm edging just slightly towards the first. This one makes me think of feathered Native American headdresses or some kind of Mardi Gras decoration. 

"Dream Catcher", Digital Mandala, September 2015

I would have liked to create something new today, but I just spent the morning trying to fix some problems with my wacom tablet. It seems I need to spend an hour fixing things every time I try to create something. But I'm pretty sure I'm close to having all the kinks in my workflow ironed out.

Autumn Feathers - Pals Paper Arts Challenge 271 - Digital Mandala

A little out of my comfort zone with this colour scheme from Pals Paper Arts. Brown is well outside my usual choice of colours, but I guess that's what makes these challenges interesting. It's something a bit different, that you wouldn't have necessarily chosen for yourself. That makes it a bit more fun.

"Autumn Feathers", October 2015

I've posted both the single tile and the tiling version, as the tiling would be a bit harder to see in a thumbnail. Also I'm not sure if it's just me, but my blog pictures seem to be coming out a little blurry. I'll have to keep an eye on that. Hopefully it's just my imagination.

"Autumn Feathers", October 2015

"Disco Ant" - Digital Mandala

Another of my mandalas, completed back in September. I have to start posting these as I do them, rather than thinking of something clever to say, or they'll never get posted.

"Disco Ant", September 2015

"Space Highway" - Digital Mandala

Talking about your own art can be one of the most difficult parts of the process. I've always wanted to share what I'm working on with others, but coming up with a spiel to go along with it tends to trip me up. It feels strange to just post an image with no accompanying explanation, but I find there isn't much to say. I'm not a very conceptual artist, so even coming up with a title can be tricky. And while I like to be a positive and uplifting person, talking about how much you like your own art leaves you balancing the fine line between obnoxiously self-confident and annoyingly self-deprecating. It can be hard to convey the fact that you're happy with your work (sometimes more than others) but you see there are things you'd like to improve upon and areas you'd like to explore. Except in that one exact sentence, and that hardly lends itself to a second blog post.

My favourite art bloggers seem to have galleries that they exhibit in, art-related businesses that they run, sponsors to talk about, or ongoing personal projects to discuss. It's easy to compare yourself to someone who has spent many years cultivating their online presence and find yourself falling short. But it's important to look at the things they do well and create those traits in yourself. 

I wonder that I don't have any projects to work on, but I don't start them. I get distracted easily by other ideas, which makes it very difficult to work in series or finish a long term project. But I intend to change that. For the last few months, I've been planning to have some things manufactured with my designs and sell them online. In a manner that is most unlike me, I've made concrete steps towards my goal, rather than planning things in the abstract until I lose interest. I know I have to see actual results, such as sales of products that I've created, so that I know the effort is worthwhile and I should keep going. The next step is to decide which artwork should adorn my first item and have the sample made up and sent to me.

I've been working on several abstract designs that I can have printed on handbags. So far, this is my favourite. Whether this ends up being my first printed design or not, I still haven't decided. But it's nice to be making art that I can feel proud of again.

"Space Highway", Digital, September 2015

Valencia - Symmetrical Tiling Digital Abstract in Pink and White

Uploading images is not nearly as fun as creating art, but I'm starting to streamline the process a bit. Here's another of my new digital artworks. I named it Valencia because the little sections in the middle reminded me of orange segments. 

"Valencia", Digital Symmetrical Abstract

I really love the look of one colour on white. It's very simple, yet works so well. I'd love to have this pattern printed at Spoonflower and make it into a shirt or dress at some point. If you're interested in purchasing prints or items with my art on them, you can check out my Fine Art America or Society 6 stores. Fine Art America is also great if you want to see my art in more of a gallery format, rather than in blog posts. Thanks for looking. :)

Taking the Plunge

Now that I'm not pushing myself to post everyday to my blog, I find that I'm trying to come up with blog posts that contain more substance. If I only post once or twice a week, I feel like I should be able to come up with something relevant or profound to say to accompany my art or my process. Which is all well and good. But the pressure of creating fewer, better quality blog posts is leading me to avoid posting at all. I've still been painting and drawing this past couple of weeks, of course. But the idea of the deadline that spurred me along is gone. I've been second guessing the things that I want to say and the work-in-progress paintings that I could have posted over the last few days.

I find that this happens a lot with my art. I'm getting better at the concept of just creating something, without worrying whether it will be right or good enough. But when it comes to things like taking print quality images of my finished art, connecting with other artists and bloggers, writing tutorials and useful guest posts to share my art around and developing blog traffic, I put it off. I think there's a part of myself that puts these things off because they make it too real. If I haven't done them yet, I can still consider myself to be at the beginning of my journey. I haven't made the attempt yet, so I can't consider that it hasn't worked.

It's not even the fact that I believe it won't work. I'm almost positive that if I do the things on my to-do list, it will increase traffic to my blog, followers on my Facebook page, sales of my prints and original paintings. But the nagging feeling is still there that it won't happen straight away, or at all. As long as these concepts are in the future, I don't have to deal with them just yet.

Now is the time to let go of that mentality, and move forward. It's time to start really trying to advance my artistic career and see where it takes me. One day I'd really like to be able to work as an artist full time, both teaching art and selling my work. The only way I'll ever get there is to do what any other successful artist has done - plunge in and start working towards it. It won't happen all by itself. There won't ever be a better time than now.

After writing this blog post and psyching myself up, I finally got a decent quality photograph and uploaded my artwork Austin to Fine Art America. Judging by my previous blog posts, I've been meaning to do this since about August last year. Better late than never. You can now buy prints of this image as well as throw cushions, phone cases etc. The original is also still available for sale for $1800.

"Austin", 29x39, Acrylic on Canvas, $1800

Spoonflower Wacom Inkling Digital Sketch Pen Giveaway

Spoonflower have just posted a competition to win a Wacom Inkling. I was looking at these a while ago when I was researching graphics tablets and thought it was a pretty good idea. Apparently you draw directly onto paper and the little sensor picks up each stroke and makes a digital copy of it.

If you click my referral link and enter, I get an extra entry, so I thought I'd post about it here. Click Here to Enter.

Also, since I need a pretty picture to go with this post, here's a sketch which might become one of my next paintings.

"Pink" (Working Title), Pencil Sketch, August 2014