This week’s episode of The Artistic Biker Live! landed on Cinco de Mayo.  I thought in celebration of that, I would do a brightly colored villa adorned with tulips.  Why tulips? Because the following Sunday is Mother’s Day here in the U.S. and apparently, tulips are the traditional flower of Mother’s Day.  Anyway, once I painted the tulip in the journal, I really liked the way it worked with that background.  So, I set the journal page aside and did a mock-up painting to see if the tulip would lend itself to my larger expired calendar painting canvases.  I believe it will work out very well, and I’ll get some practice too.  The first one is already promised to my mother for Mother’s Day.  Click Here to Watch This Week’s Episode!

Don’t miss The Artistic Biker Live! every Thursday night from 6-8p CDT.

Announcements:

21 Secrets is still going on over at Dirty Footprints Studios.  If you are unfamiliar, Connie Hozvicka gather’s 21 great teachers under one workshop to give you several weeks of 21 different styles and techniques.  Click Here for 21-secrets!

Moon-light Studios is gearing up for a 10-week certified drawing class.  Upon completion of this class, you will receive a certificate of completion to add to your arsenal or just paste into your journal.  The class is designed to help any skill level artist improve.  The best part is the class is only $25! I lied, THE BEST PART is that of that $25, Jay will donate $5 to Oasis Studios and Gallery (my studio where we broadcast The Artistic Biker Live!).  He also has said that anything you pay above that, he will donate too! Click Here for Moonlight Studios Drawing Classes!

Dale Anne Potter is still raising money for her trip to Madrid, Spain. For those who don’t know, she has been invited to participate in an artist’s retreat there.  All she needed was a way to get there and a place to stay while there. Oh, and food and spending monies.  Well, her air fair and hotel are paid for.  Now she’s trying to get food and cab money.  If you can donate, Barb and Mitzi will make you stuff as a thank you.  If you can’t, spread the word so that others might be able to.  Click Here to Donate to DaleAnne!

While we’re talking about donations, in the upper right hand corner of this sight you will see a donate button.  Please feel free to click that and make a contribution! Click Here to Donate to Oasis!

Trevor Jones Art is looking for 140 artists to donate a post card sized work that is environmentally themed for a showing and auction in Scotland to save the Caledonian Forest.  If you would like to participate, or know someone who would, send them his way.  Click Here to Art for a Forest!

If you have any announcements you would like to see here, send them my way.  I’m happy to give back to a community that has given me so much! Click Here to Add Your Announcement!

What’s On Your Easel?

Several people sent me links to their works this week and I had technical difficulties that couldn’t be resolved in time for the show.  I will try to get the ones I missed on the air next week, but here they all are for your web perusing enjoyment!

@Ikerrilove from twitter sent me what she was working on, “Art in the Dark”, as she was working by candle light with no electricity!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ikerrilove/5665908185/lightbox/

@mique_w sent me a couple of digital works she had going on:
http://twitpic.com/4tvbjo/full
http://twitpic.com/4tvbpo/full

@spinrants sent me images from his digital design class he’s taking:
http://ow.ly/i/b0BJ

@katost sent me a pic of this lovely painting that is now on her splash page of her website!
http://www.wix.com/katost/kat-ostrow

If you or anyone you know would like to be featured in What’s On Your Easel? send them my way! Click Here to Add Your Easel!

Teh YouTube:

You can watch this week’s video at Teh YouTube, or in the embedded player below:

Last week on The Artistic Biker Live! I used opposite colors and then used my computer to invert them and paste the resulting image in the corner

You can watch the video at The You Tube, or in the embedded player below:

My buddy Juriaan has gathered up a BUNCH of his fine art and craft art and performance art and you-name-it art colleagues and friends and has made himself a little magazine called “The Dark Muse”. It’s a VERY ambitious project in that he aspires to include ALL things art. Now THAT’S living the creative life! Bravo, my friend, bravo!

Check out his magazine, The Dark Muse http://thestudio.freeforums.org/the-dark-muse-downloads-f21.html

This week I’ll be talking with Juriaan, a freelance artist in Seattle, WA.  ”Jay” and I will be discussing the importance in a strong drawing foundation in ALL of the arts and how to get there in your daily practice.  Also, this week there will be a drawing for membership in Leslie Herger’s Old Skool Drawing Class.  Be sure to check out The Artistic Biker Live! every Thursday 7-9pm U.S. Central time.  http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-artistic-biker

Upcoming events on The Artistic Biker Live!:

19AUG2010 Juriaan The Viking will be joining us to discuss quick drawing techniques that can easily applied anywhere, and life as a professional artist!

26AUG2010 Ricë Freeman-Zachery will be joining us discussing her amazing textile works, sewing, and meeting great people even in West Texico.

Podcast Update:

For the last few weeks I have been struggling trying to pull usable audio out of the ustream broadcast so that I could publish the interviews here as a podcast.  THAT seems to take a lo-oo-ong time.  I will have to figure out another way to do it if I’m going to get all of these recordings online in a more timely manner.  But, after the long wait, here is the interview with the Journal Girl herself: Samantha Kira!

My first interview with Rhomany went so well, I was eager to do another one.  This time I met with the supreme art journaling enthusiast, and skilled bookbinder, as well as lovely and talented (that’s enough sucking up) Leslie Herger of http://Comfortableshoesstudio.com and http://artjournaling.ning.com.

Of course, I wasn’t quite cool enough to hit the “RECORD” button during the interview, but I did manage to capture it on the Ustream broadcast of The Artistic Biker Live! This is what I managed to pull out of that broadcast.  Also, as an aside, when doing video like this, it is always important to know where your Picture in Picture is!

Any other Aquarians out there? Anyone getting any journaling done in the cold?

This journal page background is a frozen watercolor experiment. I splashed watercolors on a SOAKED page and then stuck it outside in the 2°F and let the water freeze to push the watercolors around.

The planets are spray paint or acrylic and the stars are Christmas wrapping paper.

You can watch the video on YouTube or on the embedded player below:

Wow! Another week has passed and it’s time for another installment of Creative Every Day Monday.  This has to be, without a doubt, the easiest post to write.  On last week’s Creative Monday post, you’ll remember I talked about hashtags and using them to search with?  Well, every day this week I posted my Creative Every Day challenge on twitter using the hashtag #ced2010.  A simple search of twitter using my moniker, Blade21292, and #ced2010 gave me the list for this week!  So, for your enjoyment and hopefully inspiration, here are this week’s tweets about my Creative Every Day journey:

1. Tuesday Blade21292 http://twitpic.com/wuy9o – I don’t think this tweeted#ced2010
2. Thursday Blade21292 http://tweetphoto.com/8237467 In case the show won’t qualify 4 #CED2010 Tonight, 8-10 pm cst, The Artistic Bikerhttp://tinyurl.com/ybgsmc84 days ago from TweetDeck
3. Thursday Blade21292 I think this qualifies for #CED2010http://tinyurl.com/ylqt5kk3 days ago from TweetDeck
4. Friday Blade21292 It was my turn to cook so a quick twenty minute meal off the cuff for #ced2010http://tinyurl.com/yjwna3e2 days ago from TweetDeck
5. Saturday Blade21292 I’m gonna use my artjournaling.ning.com spray paint workshop video as my #CED20101 day ago from TweetDeck
6. Sunday Blade21292http://twitpic.com/xm8w1 – Cool frozen watercolor bckgrnd #ced2010about 23 hours ago from TwitPic
7. Monday Blade21292http://twitpic.com/xq1dw – Spraypaint vid production for#ced2010about 4 hours ago from TwitPic

I was just saying to myself the other day, “Hey Blade,” because me and my self are on nick name basis, “why don’t we find some kind of challenge to do where we have to art every single day in some fashion?”

And I responded, “Pray tell, whatever do you mean?”

“Well,” I said, “we’re always trying to encourage people to create something everyday for at least 10 minutes a day.  What if we had some kind of challenge to join where we did just that?”

“I believe you have hit upon something there,” I said. “Let’s Google ‘Create Every Day’ and see what we get.”

Lo and behold I found Creative Every Day! OK, it didn’t really happen that way.  What actually happened was I saw a TON tweets on Twitter that ended with the “hashtag” #CED2010.  Now if you don’t know, a hashtag is a marker of sorts. It allows people to search on Twitter, and really any other site, for like minded themes.  Usually it’s a group name or some other way to make a search easy.  So I searched for CED2010 and that’s how I found it.  :)

From the website:  Creativity is meant in the broadest sense, so it doesn’t have to be something art related. Your creative acts could be in cooking, taking pictures, knitting, doodling, writing, dancing, decorating, singing, playing with your kids, brainstorming ideas, gardening, or making art in the form of collage, paint, or clay…or whatever!

Of course I am doing it.  Mostly because I don’t have enough to do with my spare time.  On Mondays, we are supposed to update our blogs about what we have done to be Creative Every Day!

• Friday, January 1st, I shot video for the spray paint workshops on Artjournaling.ning.com.
• Saturday, January 2nd, I recorded a song for this week’s youtube video.
• Sunday, January 3rd, I spray painted elements for my journal and my video.
• Monday, January 4th, I spray painted a scene in my journal:

On New Year’s Eve, I invited several members of the online community to produce a quick video to usher in the new year.  Seeing that I asked on such short notice, I was VERY pleased at the number of videos I received.  You can see that show at the U-stream site.  A HUGE thanks goes out to:

• Klair Scattergood better known as Rhomany of Rhomany’s Realm, you can see her video response on her channel HERE. You can follow her on twitter @Rhomany.  She’s an artist, art teacher, human. AND you get Rosie & Marmalade updates.
• Mike Gray of Life In The Rough.  Normally a flaming golf fanatic, he shows artistic solidarity by not shaving and having a paint brush on hand in his video shown HERE. You can follow Mike’s antics on twitter as@doubleeagle.
• Leslie Herger of Comfortable Shoes Studios, where she shares her passions for journaling and book binding.  Her video response can be seen on her channel HERE. You can follow her on twitter as @lessherger.
• Tamara LaPorte or better known as Willowing.  You can see her video on her channel HERE. She’s a beautiful person, artist and singer, and if you follow her on twitter as @willowing, you also get Dyl pickle updates!
• And finally, Marie Angel, Will & Eric Blumentritt, and Larry Meeker A.K.A The Snake Charmers.  I actually used two videos from them, the one they made for me which can be seen HERE and the one I ripped from their channel just because I liked it so much and it needed to be shared.  That one can be seen HERE.

As many problems arose in 2009 I have to say that I am glad to see that one go!  It was a rough year emotionally, financially, and professionally.  But as bad as it may have been, let me tell you some of the amazing things that came out of it.  In 2009 I lost 75 pounds, I celebrated my first anniversary of being nicotine free, and we found out that we were having another baby, this time on purpose!

And then there is The Artistic Biker.  This site launched in 2009 as art began creeping more and more into every aspect of my life.  Every time I let art and creativity shine some light on a problem, it got better.  I created this space to share that light with others.  I couldn’t be happier with the direction it’s going.  2009 saw the launch not only of this website, buy also my Flickr site where I post tons of images, YouTube Channel where I post a weekly video series, Facebook Fan Page where I post everything I find that’s art related, I am all over Twitter in the art, golf and adult entertainment (R rated, not X) twibes, and the launch of The Artistic Biker Live U-stream weekly broadcast, and creating tutorials for Artjournaling.ning I also started a Podcast and finally, a Newsletter to help followers keep track of it all. Whew!

2010 began with my beautiful young pregasaur and Girl2 bringing me coffee and biscuits in bed.  Breakfast in bed, surrounded by beautiful girls is the start of a GREAT year to come!

On New Year’s Day, I posted a youtube video for the New Year’s Art Journal entry.  While I was editing the video it was discovered that I had failed to turn the camcorder back on after pausing it for the hairdryer!  Luckily, I had the U-stream footage to fill in and complete the demonstration.  There will be a great many more videos done this way as I’m constantly improving the production quality and I’m having so much fun doing them.  You can see the video on my youtube channel HERE, or in the embedded player below: