Art by Niki Hilsabeck

"Lil' Goat" 5 x 7 Mixed Media on Watercolor Card Original Sold It's been a while since I've posted, although I've been painting most of the time since the last post. I'm familiar with writer's block. The way I got around it was to force myself to write for a set amount of time each day, which was easier to do if I already had a story in progress. Artist's block is different for me: there are plenty of things I want to paint, but I have trouble deciding which projects to devote myself to, because I hate to start paintings and not finish them. Daily painting still keeps me in practice, but if I don't find the finished product particularly inspiring, it makes it harder to start a new piece the next day. Here are some ways I've found to get around this particular brand of artist's block: Play with media-- the goat painting above actually features pomegranate juice as the purple in the background. (I actually squeezed a fres

No art today. I'm alternating between irritated and slightly amused. I'll be posting the following on my journal on RedBubble instead: Arrrgggh! Once again, someone didn't take the time to read. I don't do Facebook, or Twitter, or any social networking-type stuff because I don't trust myself not to post knee-jerk reactions online. Today, I'm going to post one on my blog. I recenly wrote an article for Empty Easel. (You can read it for yourself here: http://emptyeasel.com/2012/02/07/if-art-is-a-language-how-well-do-you-communicate/ ) The point of the article was to express that if people aren't understanding your work as an artist, it helps to take some time to communicate with them so they do. To be fair, Empty Easel does some heavy-handed editing that can affect the meaning of some of the articles posted. I've seen this happen to other artists who submit articles to this blog. I knew that when submitting my article, but figured I would take my chances.