CHA

I think I am finally settling back to my old routine after having come home from Florida's CHA. As always, it was a fun event. I ALWAYS enjoy meeting new people, and this year there were a lot of new faces...new to me anyway.

ProvoCraft hosted a wonderful gala to introduce their new product which everyone there was greatly (and I mean GREATLY) excited about. (Become a fan of Altered Arts' Facebook page to learn more about it.)

Cyndi, as always, was very open and willing to share her knowledge with those around her, specifically about Facebook. (Facebook and Twitter were hot topics this year.)

We saw some fun, new products. (Again, photos of these can be found on our Facebook page.)

I was very happy to have finally been able to meet in person our talented artist Kathleen Green. We had a lot of fun together! I even brought home a new art piece from her.

I look forward to the next CHA and hope to meet even more of our designers at some of these events in the future.

Note: Photo - Cyndi Duncan, Clara Stacko and Kathleen Green

Altered Art Has Come a Long Way

I still remember the very first time I saw an altered book. It was many years ago at a scrapbook convention. It was love at first sight. Altered art has changed a lot since then. It has expanded from altered books, to designing altered dolls, altered cards, altered boxes, etc. Wait until you see the project appearing in the summer issue of Altered Arts magazine. You won't believe what one artist altered!

How have you expanded or changed as far as creating altered art?

Happy New Year and Confession

First of all, let me wish you all a new year full of good health, love, and happiness.

If you read my challenge of September below, I was supposed to have been one of the participants in my challenge. I thought it was one of the best challenges I have ever come up with. I couldn't wait to get started, and started I did.

Now for my confession. When I was a young child, my mother bought me some science books that incorporated Disney characters throughout the book. I would open these books, grab my pencil, color pencils and papers, and draw the characters. I would get lost for hours doing this. That was the memory that came to my mind when I came up with this challenge.

Alright, so what happened? Well, I decided that I would do this again. I grabbed my toddler's favorite book and started sketching. I drew the characters but was stumped on what to do about the background; then... I saw our designer, Kathleen's, artwork. (Click on her name to the right to see what she came up with for this challenge.) Oh my goodness! I was awed by her artistic abilities. It was at this point that I froze. I looked at my drawing and just couldn't get past the background. I knew I had to complete it, so I just grabbed a bunch of watercolor pencils and started "coloring." I ended up with a mess. At this point, I was left with no other option but to start over. However, the holidays came, mixed in with some extra work, and the project was forgotten.

I have to say that I am disappointed with myself for having compared my abilities with someone else's and letting it shake my confidence in my artistic skills. However, I am pretty sure that I am not the only one who has experienced this at one time or another.

What am I hoping you'll learn from my confession? Something which I knew all along, but for one instant forgot; we should never compare our artwork to others', but instead see the beauty in all. We all have our own artistic talents and styles and that's what makes altered art such a fun form of art.

Will I follow through on my challenge; how could I not? Sometime in the near future, I will complete my artwork and share it with the world. :-)

Note: Kathleen, in the end, you helped to inspire me. :-)