Saturday, October 11, 2014

Little Owen

Today I visited the Stony Lake Furniture Company, a beautiful store located in Lakefield, Ontario.  They specialize in locally designed and handcrafted furniture, art and home decor items. It is perfectly curated and has a light and comfortable feeling that reflects the natural beauty of area.

While there I got to meet Owen, store owner Lisa Besseling’s adorable brussels griffon.  She assured me that Owen could handle the stairs quite well, but he seemed happy to survey his territory from his perch at the top of the stairs.


How cute is this little dog?!  Apparently he's a bit of a local celebrity too and has his own Twitter and Instagram following.  You can see more of Owen at @OwenTheGriff.



Saturday, October 4, 2014

Meet Alex

In Lisa Congdon's information-packed online class "Becoming A Working Artist" on CreativeLive.com,  she mentioned that IKEA makes a great unit for storing art work.  I just had a look on IKEA's website and met ALEX...and he's wonderful!    

The ALEX Storage Unit comes in white or gray and the dimensions are
Depth: 18 7/8 "
Height: 26 "
Width: 26 3/8 "

I want this...no, I NEED this!  I'm finally getting my "studio space"  in order and this would make a great addition.  I use quotations because my "studio" is a very small room in my house that has a few other uses too, but it's where I make most of my art.  
Now I just have to get myself to an IKEA ASAP.




Thursday, October 2, 2014

Becoming A Working Artist

September 30th and October 1st I attended a live online class called Becoming A Working Artist on CreativeLive.  They are an excellent website that hosts a wide range of classes for creative people.  They stream a lot of classes for free and you can purchase specific classes to watch on demand.

Becoming A Working Artist was taught by artist Lisa Congdon, author of the indispensable book Art Inc. She is an artist who's work and career I have followed for quite a while and I consider her a mentor and role model for my artistic endeavors.



The 14 hour course was comprised of 22 segments that ranged from Embracing Yourself As An Artist, Actionable Goals to Achieve Your Dream, Crafting Your CV, Statement, Blog, & Portfolio, Understand the Fine Art World, Successfully Promote Your Work, Make Money Selling Your Own Work, Understand Illustration & Licensing, and Planning for Success.

 I highly recommend Lisa's course and book to any artist who wants to get serious about what they are doing and take their art career to the next level of success, whatever form they envision that being.  It's really given me the tools to start heading in the right direction and the motivation to do it.  Thanks Lisa!