A Monday Morning in Barichara 9 (B&W) by Alan R Estes

Like most typical Mondays, I started my day with a nice warm cuppa and some quality time with my feed reader to ease into the work week.  I saw two fantastic posts today that I simply had to share.

The first is over at Empty Easel. Kate Harper has posted a very motivational interview with Rice Freeman-Zachery, author of Creative Time and Space: Making Room for Making Art.  

QUESTION: What is the most common reasons artists give you, to explain why their art is “on hold”? How can we avoid this before it happens?

Everyone likes to talk about how their families couldn’t adapt if they took over the living room for painting, or quit cooking dinner, or didn’t do carpool duty several days a week.

The one, single, biggest problem, is that people don’t take their creative lives seriously.

What you need to think about is what you want to remember as you’re lying on your deathbed. Do you want to remember mounds of snowy, neatly folded sheets, or do you want to remember painting a tree?

And how do you think your family wants to remember you? As someone who always had shiny tableware, or as someone who was joyously mixing pigments and singing at the easel?

Your family loves you; they want you to be happy. If you’re an artist, you can’t be really happy unless you’re creating.

Check out the full interview:   10+ Ways to Make Time for Your Art: An Interview with Rice Freeman-Zachery

The second comes from Alyson Stanfield:

Not too long ago, I was using the Art Biz Blog to post short snippets of information. For instance, in an October 2007 post, I mentioned a blog entry by someone else and encouraged you to read it. I wouldn’t do that today. Instead, I’d use Twitter and tweet it. Or I’d write a longer blog post that went more in-depth about the original post: what was good about it, what I disagree with, etc. Social media has evolved and changed the way I approach blogging. Here is how I see the missions for the top three social media platforms I use.

Read Alyson’s full post where she discusses her personal strategies for blogging, Facebook, and Twitter: Outline a Social Media Mission

Have you read something that really inspired you today? Feel free to share it in the comments!

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Hello Sunshine Earrings by Vickie Millier

We’ve posted photography tutorials in the past, usually geared toward photographing 2D art. But we couldn’t resist sharing this great tutorial on photographing your 3D work, whether it’s dolls, jewelry, or other objects, found via Digital Photography School.  We know your art is awesome, so why all this fuss over how you photograph it?  Writer Natalie Norton sums up nicely:

I’ve recently spent a lot of time perusing sites like Etsy and other “small market” online vendors.  The other night I spent a considerable amount of time on Etsy searching for something very specific.  As I was sifting through the gazillions of similar products-alas, none of which ended up being exactly what I was looking for- I noticed a trend: If a product had a bad photograph, we’re talking the little thumbnail preview image here, I would not even click through to see the product details.

Natalie’s tips in a nutshell are:

• Turn of the flash
• Remove distracting elements
• Utlize Simple Staging
• Employ creative depth-of-field to highlight product detail

We strongly recommend your check out the full article at Digital Photography School.  Remember:  in the online environment, the quality of your photographs can make or break your art!

For further reading:

Image is everything: Photographing your art

Live Studio: Photography Basics

Like what you see here?  We hope you’ll consider leaving a comment or subscribing to one of our feeds. Never miss another cool post from EBSQ. Subscribe to EBSQ: Art Meets Blog v2.0 by Email today!

Halloween is a fantastic time for artists to put their creative skills to practical use. Tired of banal triangle eyes and noses? Want to do something a bit different, or even personal, with your jack-o-lanterns this year? Photojojo has a great tutorial on how to make a scary photo pumpkin pattern that is sure to make your pumpkins the toast of the neighbourhood.

Do you have a favourite artsy-pumpkin technique? Tell us about it in the comments!

Photo credit by Photojojo

A look at some of the links we liked this past week, found via our feedreader:

DIY: Organic Painting

Painting doesn’t have to be toxic. If you give this a go, we’d love to see your results!

via Crafting A Green World

Vintage Halloween

Get inspired by this gorgeous vintage Halloween ephemera!

via Bad Banana Blog

Maybe you can’t make money doing what you love

another gem from Seth Godin. Read it now; you’ll thank me later.

Radiohead’s numbers are in, and yes, the experiment worked -Mashable

Further proof that the self-representing artists model is one that can work. Let the public decide what is and what isn’t good art…or music. This also frees the artist to be truly creative, experimental, and to throw multiple things at the wall to see what sticks rather than follow the industry’s formulaic script to “success” on their terms.

further reading on EBSQ:

Radiohead Embraces the Self-Representing Artists Movement

If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’re either a self-representing artist or know one. Go read this  now. It’s frakkin’  brilliant, and I guarantee it will resonate with you.

(found via Seth Godin)

People love to be winners, adore receiving freebies, and cherish the chance to be chosen!

Hosting an art giveaway on your blog is a win/win for everybody. You gain all kinds of exposure, reach a new and wider audience, as well reward your loyal readers and the ultimate winner.

There are a variety of methods for hosting a giveaway:

1. Winner by comment – Invite your readers to comment on the giveaway post and that serves as their entry.
2. Winner by link – Have your readers post a link to your giveaway, then comment on your page where the link is hosted. Once confirmed, they are entered into the entry pool.
3. Winner by banner – Instruct your readers to post a banner to your blog on their website or journal. Once confirmed, they are submitted to the entry pool.
4. Winner by challenge – Inspire your readers to fulfill an art project, post their results on their blog, and comment with the link to their results, which enters them in your drawing.

This is a great time to jump into this! Lisa Oceandreamer is running One World One Heart in order to bring bloggers together. There are already 103 participants and more joining every day. You can too – just read the guidelines and host your own giveaway!

Hosting a giveaway is a load of fun – so is winning! Here is a list of other artists and crafters who are holding their own:

** Catherine Matthews-Scanlon is giving away two copies of her book, Art from the Heart. Hurry – ends today!
** Melanie Aka “Mommy Doodles” is giving away a Nurssery Bedding set
** Jen Worden has a weekly art challenge, and participants are entered to win her finished project
** Regina is giving away a February Love collection
** Denise Lombardozzi is giving away a sweet little felted piece
** Goobeetsa is giving away a card
** Shannon hosts the Bloggy Giveaways site, where she features a different giveaway every week! Comment this week to win a gift certificate for a handcrafted bag.
** Tom Brown will be giving away one of his paintings, sometime this month. You’ll have 24 hours to email him your entry once, he announces it – so keep an eye on his blog

(I hope to post a list of art related giveaways at the beginning of every month. If you will be hosting one, let me know and I’ll add you to my list!)