Blog Hop and space give-away on Ever After e-course

There is new collaborative e-course coming up on 1^st of July, on the theme of fairytales, run by Tamara Laporte – “Ever After 2016”, and I am a one of collaborative teachers. A dream come true! And not because collaborative on Tamara’s e-courses feels like winning a Noble Prize to me, but because I am honestly madly hopelessly inevitably crazy about fairytales. That’s why I made myself Tallulah, so that I could have an excuse to read fairytales at bedtime every night. Ok, last part is not true, Tallulah has a happy OOOPS! (but winning the Noble part is true – I swear!) To get to the most important part of my babbling – you can win 1 free spot on this e-course, that I am entitled to give away!

Do you know what Blog Hop is? If you don’t, it works like this. Each day hop to the blog of a collaborating teacher (list below), read what their conditions for winning is, comply with conditions, hop to the next blog next day, to do the same. You can up your chances of winning a space by entering all the other teacher’s giveaways. 12 chances to win is very cool! :)

The Draw Is Complete: The random winner is - Sandra Schmidt! Congratulations Sandra!

A bit more about Ever After: it's a mixed media art & style development course with a fairytale theme hosted by Tamara Laporte from Willowing Arts. Tam is joined by 12 popular mixed media art teachers who will all share beautiful fairy-tale inspired lessons with you AND, in Module 2 they will also divulge all their hints and tips on how they developed their own style and how YOU TOO can find your own unique voice as an artist!

You can find out more (and sign up with the Early Bird price) by clicking HERE.

My chosen fairy tale is Snow White. My lesson will be inspired by this fairy tale, and my presented work will somewhere along the line of this style of painting:

Registration opens on May 16th 2016 and the class begins on July 1st 2016. So if you want to start your summer drawing and painting fairy-tales, exploring your own personal story and style and hang out with a wonderful creative community of like-minded souls, be sure to join once registration opens! :) Keep this page bookmarked so that you can sign up the moment it goes on sale! :)

Good luck with the draw!

Hugs,

Annie.

Blog Hop Dates	Blog Hop Schedule	Site
2nd May 2016	Tamara Laporte	http://www.willowing.org
3rd May 2016	Micki Wilde	http://thesecrethermit.blogspot.co.uk/
4th May 2016	Andrea Gomoll	http://www.andrea-gomoll.de
5th May 2016	Carla Sonheim	http://www.carlasonheim.com
6th May 2016	Annie Hamman	http://anniehamman.com
7th May 2016	Karine Bosse	http://www.kabostudio.com
8th May 2016	Cinnamon Cooney	http://hartparty.blogspot.co.uk/
9th May 2016	Mystele Kirkeeng	http://www.mystele.com
10th May 2016	Galia Alena	http://www.galiaalena.com/
11th May 2016	Jane Davenport	http://www.janedavenport.com
12th May 2016	Rachelle Panagarry	http://www.rachellepanagarry.com/
13th May 2016	Effy Wild	http://effybird.com

30 faces in 30 days – how far would you push yourself?

I always wanted to do a challenge like that, since I have noticed them running online for the last few years, ran by different artists each time, but I just couldn’t get to it. So when Galia wrote to me directly and offered to host it together, I jumped at the opportunity. I knew it would NOT be a challenge to me, I paint every day anyway, so how hard could it be – I thought? And it probably would have become a lovely breather, have I not gotten very ill from about 10^th of April. It turned out I had a chronic labyrinthitis for the last 7 years (recurring inflammation of the 8^th cranial nerve in the inner ear, by a virus). This time it hit me hard. I was dizzy 24/7, riddled with anxiety and occasional panic attacks. It took me several appointments with the doctors up until 28^th of April to figure out what was wrong with me. And I had to paint a face a day.

I didn’t have to, but I it also turned out that I hate to give up, even if I lost my last bit of health and sanity. The discovery made me feel very bad about myself. I know many people would be proud to tell of themselves, that they won’t give up a challenge, but I wasn’t. It’s not that I won’t give up the challenge, I COULD NOT give up the challenge. Nothing would stop me from completing it. Expect perhaps death. Fortunately it didn’t come to it. I tried to juggle 4 year old demanding little girl, and family life, household routines and numerous visits to doctors, painting 3 paintings for upcoming art collective auction (on top of other 30), and filming 6 art videos for other people’s workshops that I have had commitments to. I didn’t want to drop a single thing. In a mean time Galia’s beloved cat died in mid April and she slowed down completing her own challenge. I envied her. Why can she just let go and I cannot? What is wrong with me? I kept asking myself this and sometimes thought that among all the appointments I should schedule psychiatrist as well.

I think my main problem was being the instigator of the challenge. Commitment can become a terrible thing, that just eats you up alive. If I was just a member of our group of 200 I would have just left it. But I felt like a circus juggler in a middle of stage in a middle of performance, I imagined the audience just waited for the next painted face to appear. Reasonable part of me knew that it’s just an illusion, that everyone in the group were just focused on themselves and their own challenge, instead of sitting a waiting for my face to appear, as if I was the only source of inspiration. My inability to self-regulate in a situation like that shook me to the core. I also realized that I would have recovered the virus much faster, have I not had so much stress accompany it.

Below are my 30 faces. Will I do it again? Probably not. I will not presume that I will not get ill, or I won’t get some family emergency. Because shit happens. Life happens. I have learned my lesson, and I will paint my 5 or 10 artworks a month. Stress free.

Students work and testimonials from Fearless Expression

  Fearless Expression workshop is up and running since 29 of February and new students are coming in every day. We have lots of magnificent art created by very talented artists. There are fabulous works of arts done with kids, and one mother have done it with each of her 4 kids! And there are really beautiful works of art produced by artists by themselves, without children, using fearless techniques learned from Tallulah and me. Below are some of the students works, and there are so many more, I wish I could proudly display them all here, but in this case the page will go on an on!

If you are still thinking about signing up, it's absolutely not too late. I am here for support and daily check our FB group to comment on new entries. Everyone in the group is very kind and gentle with comment, we get encouragement from each other daily. Registration page is HERE.

Here are few testimonials:

You are so wow just wow! I haven't ever been a technical painter, I have no formal training and have always felt this has held me back. In your fearless expression class, I have felt like I can finally give myself permission to do my art the way I was meant to. From the heart and soul, not worried about whether I am "good enough" to call myself an artist. I want to thank you for this! For me it's hard to be vulnerable and let my guard down, and with your class, it has given me courage to take back my worth! It's so liberating every time I do a piece from your class, collaboration with Rosie or watch Rosie! It has not only changed my perception of art/creating, but on life in general! You my friend are doing such amazing work on a soul level! I hope you realize how inspiring you are! – Sara Burch

I've spent the last hour or two watching videos and I've enjoyed them so much... you guys are just a joy to watch and I've had lots of fun and been really inspired. I've given another layer to my first canvas and annihilated another unwanted picture! Thank you again, I really feel that with your help (and Tallulah's!) I'm growing as an artist. You guys are fab! – Jo Hudson

To read more testimonials please CLICK HERE.

Art exhibitions can be virtual.

As artists we are all dreaming to someday being able to hold our own solo exhibition. It’s a big deal. More for telling yourself that you did it, than for the money’s sake.  I never really researched the possibility of doing real life exhibition, until I was offered a virtual one. Whaaat? Auctioneer Stephanie Gagos took a chance on me and offered to do online solo auction of my art. Fortunately I have a tendency to create large body of work quite fast, put some on etsy and forget about the rest. So there was a lot to choose from. Stephanie selected about 12 originals and 12 reproductions, plus I painted few more specifically for the auction, and we scheduled it for 9^th of February as a Facebook event, which is coming up in just 6 days. We have about 193 confirmed attendees so far. Any 7 of you that would like to make it a round number?  :) Am I nervous? Of cause I am. The biggest fear there is and always was for all of us is that no one would show up. I almost imagined the echo of my virtual steps in my empty virtual gallery…… Brrrrr! Nope, I prefer to hope for the best, thank you very much.  :)

To those of you who haven’t heard of it yet, here is a chance to see really LARGE stock of my art in one bunch, in all sorts of sizes, mediums and styles. Plus some might go for a reasonable opening bidding price, so do pop in if you are curious or would like to owe a piece: https://www.facebook.com/events/567708830053196/

Below are some of the original and reproductions that will be offered for bidding on 9^th of February:

Chat to you later again, and if my ego would get a serious crush, don't worry I'll be back with more art and more of everything else. Because "art goes on", and we cannot stop it can we?

Story Art Stages

Hello Dear Artists! The busy season is in. It is especially evident in the tourist town of Hermanus South Africa, that I am in. Tourists are living us all out of town, lol! No parking, no tables in the restaurants, almost no air left, he-he. But well, we Hermanians know special secret places to hang out…

I’ve been busy with all sorts of things art lately.

Below are my recent story art works and reference images I used for them. Some of you have seen it on FB and Instagram, but I wanted to share here stages of my work and how they arrived where they arrived.

“Hanging out with the angels” had 3 different girls put together in it, plus 3 separate pairs of feet plus two pairs of arms plus a bird. Below are stages of this work:

'

And here are the reference images I used to put it together:

“Crescere. Grow” was inspired by an image found on Pinterest, plus ballerina feet:

I have had inquires on whether I am going to make bigger e-course related to story art, and I am considering to cook up something like 3-4 weeks long next year closer to June. I would love to hear if any of you would be interested.

As many of you know I am also participating on collaborative 1 year long e-courses, that start on 1^st of January 2016. In Life Book I am doing collaboration with Tallulah on 18^th January and Intuitive art (much like my story art but without reference) in August.

On Let’s Face it I teach palette knife technique in colourful face and 1 full body piece also related to story art. 16 fabulous portrait teachers will be teaching there for the whole year!

Only 2 weeks left until these two incredible workshops start!

Will chat to all of you later in few days with more arty things. I am planning few blog posts this months, please forgive me – I just have too much to share. :)