Michelle’s Art Blog

Okay, this is one of the coolest videos I’ve seen in a while. I’m going to try to embed it here so everyone can see it.

Diane is one of those great artist who has her hand in pretty much everything. You see her everywhere. Twitter, facebook, VSS. I applaud her with her willingness to go all out in promotion and I hope to learn the tricks she has learned over time. So, please follow the link to our Manic Network to see her beautiful artwork.

Please visit her website as well.

I am a bad Manic host. I lapsed and was not able to properly spotlight a very wonderful artist named John Blackford. So I thought I would just post his work along with his website.

Find more photos like this on Manic – The Author/Illustrator Network

John’s Website

Thanks for looking!

Well, yesterday we were holiday shopping in 76 degree weather. It felt like a beautiful spring day. Today on the other hand is Christmas Eve. We have blizzard like conditions with a wet soggy ground and snow with sustained winds of 20-30 mph. It’s really nice, our first snowfall on Christmas here in Texas in as long as I can remember. Problem is the wind is so strong and cold it literally takes your breath away. My kids could only spend about ten minutes outside. This after we had to rush to the store to pick up some gloves and hats. Everyone else apparently had the same idea.

Merry Christmas to everyone out there, and stay warm!

Ever have one of those days when you know starting off, it’s going to be a bad day? I have a new app on my iphone, for fun and research. A tarot card app. It’s pretty cool, except I don’t know how to read them at all. It gives you a general meaning, but it doesn’t put all the cards together for you. I hit the basic 3 reading and my present card was ‘the devil’ card. Hmm… my past was the upside down ‘9 of wands’ card and my future was the upside down ‘3 of swords’. From bad to worse. I’m not really a believer, but then I went to work. About an hour and a half into work, I was accidentally booby-trapped by one of the family members of a patient who had put a large wheelchair near the storage room door. As I was exiting the storage room door, supplies in hand, my leg tripped over the leg of the wheelchair. As I tried to catch myself with my other foot, the wheelchair leg followed me and grabbed it as well. I couldn’t stop myself, I couldn’t catch myself, I fell forward hard. I simultaneously hit both knees and a wrist as I fell face down on the floor. Thankfully I was saved by there not being any witnesses to this with the exception of two nurses who came along afterwards and found me on the floor. I think youth saved me as hard as I hit. I might have broken my kneecaps had I been twenty years older. I’m no worse for the wear a day later, with the exception of a sore shoulder muscle. Oh well. Count my blessings, at least I didn’t break anything.

I’ve been procrastinating something terrible. I don’t know why I do it. Maybe I’m afraid of success, maybe I’m even more afraid of failure. Whatever the case may be, I’ve been doing everything BUT what I need to do. I’ve already gotten a really good critique of a story I’m working on from an agent no less. I have pictures to go with this story, but I haven’t yet fixed the story. All I have to do is fix it and send it out. But what in the world have I been doing? Writing an MG novel. Painting pretty pictures. I need to do that first and foremost, get it sent off and then while I’m waiting I can work on my pretty pictures, write my MG or even start on that portrait for my friend at work. (I’ve been procrastinating that one too because it’s 4 people and it’s going to take at least 3 days sitting at my art table.) Next week, I’ll start it next week. I was wanting to get it done before Christmas but there are always more interesting things to do. So, I have some goals for this month, and that is get the family portrait done, and send off my finished story to someone who cares.