In with the New!

A Happy New Year to you all! I love the idea of beginning with a clean slate every 365 days.  It's like having a large, shiny white canvas and complete and total access to an art supply store; the possibilities are endless!  I like the idea of using "tried and true" and I like the excitement of exploring the new.  That's what January 1st feels like to me.

I've been thinking about a new look for "Angelia's Art Journals" since autumn, and I've also been thinking about new ways to share with you and how I can blog more efficiently.   All that thinking and brain storming lead to the creation of a new look and some new features that I hope you'll enjoy.

My first new feature is "Tuesday Tips & Techniques".  I'm going to show you all my little tips, tricks, and methods, and hopefully, there will be plenty of accompanying video.  I'm still trying to work out some tech issues with compression and conversion.  We'll see what happens!

The 2nd new feature I'm offering is "Wednesday's Word".  I love words, and a lot of my artistic inspiration comes from song lyrics, quotes, and the origin and meaning of words.  This will be a weekly feature that I hope inspires you to contemplate your choice and understanding of words in your creativity.

The new feature that I'm most excited about is "Thursday's Child".  I've met a wonderful array of very sweet and talented creatives through sharing my artwork here on the Internet, and I want you to meet them, too!  "Thursday's Child"  is a weekly interview segment with my friends and fellow creatives.  I was thought about how much we all have in common and how "like finds like".  I  thought about the commonality of our struggles, our loves, our fears,  and our incessant need to create.

"Thursday's Child" was inspired by the line from the poem ("...Thursday's child has far to go") and by the David Bowie song, "Thursday's Child" ("All of my life I tried so hard/doing the best with what I had/sometimes my courage fell to my feet....)  Anyway, that's how "Thursday's Child was born, and the first segment premiers this coming Thursday with Kelly Watts.

Kelly has been an ongoing source of inspiration to me since I started following her blog almost a year ago.  One of her posts inspired me to focus on one word for 2011.  I've chosen "love" as my focus word.  If I can focus on "love" in all it's different forms and meanings, and start with myself, just how great will this year be!

I leave you with one of my favorite photos from the last day of 2010.  I took it at Mentor Headlands yesterday around 10:30 am.  It looks extremely cold, but there was a gentle breeze out of the SW and it was around 50 degrees.  I was there for 2 hours and spent the last 20 minutes watching a bald eagle feed from a small ice floe just off shore.  (I got a few pics but they're really bad.  I hope to get some good ones of my eagle friend soon!)

So, Happy New Year!, my friends.  I'm looking forward to an exciting year of unending possibility and I hope you are too.  Until next time, Celebrate, Love, and CREATE!