50 Ways To Ditch Your Inner Critic

Today's video post from Cow Art and More oil painter Shannon Grissom gives advice for artists and art enthusiasts. Watch her short, energetic video on how to deal with your inner critic!

Monday's agriculture website: The Fields Project

Today's website of agricultural interest incorporates art as well. The Fields Project tries to bring the two communities together. It is located in Illinois, nestled amid state forests and parks, historical sites, sandstone outcroppings, prairie vegetation and wild life. This wide and varied habitat provides endless subject matter for artistic expression.

The objective of The Fields Project is to focus public attention on art, agriculture, and natural resources while creating new relationships between artists, farmers, environmentalists, and educators. For artists, the center has a nine-day program that includes lodging on a working farm. During this time, the artists are encouraged to create their art within their medium, or create art directly to the land itself. Visiting artists can also display and sell their work.

Friday's art related article: USING MILK TO MAKE ART

Need a cool way to experience art with your kids? Check out this video on how to create moving art images with milk and a few ingredients.

Friday's website of interest to art enthusiasts: WEARABLE ART BLOG

Today's art related website of interest to share with blog readers is the "Wearable Art Blog." The Wearable Art Blog is dedicated to building appreciation of the most talented jewelry and fashion designers specializing in handmade design from the U.S. and around the globe. This blog is a photojournal showing fashion as art and vice versa. In addition to showing clothing, it shows jewelry and hand bags, along with men's fashion.

Friday's website of interest to art enthusiasts: DENVERARTSYGAL

For anyone who loves art and music, I have found a great blog for you to follow. The blog is by Denverartsygal. I wish I could tell you more about her, but she doesn't list any additional information about herself. She has beautiful videos combining art from some of the world's best artists with appropriate music. There are other blog posts too about a variety of topics, mostly dealing with photography. Another warning as well, you will have to look through the titles of her blog posts to find the ones that interest you; there is no search box on her blog.

Nonetheless, it's a great blog for an "art vacation" and you'll find me retweeting her posts from time to time if you follow me on twitter.

Friday's website of interest to art enthusiasts: ABOUT.COM'S HINTS ON DECORATING WITH ART

I get questions from time to time about how someone should go about selecting art and deciding if it is the right fit for their room. I found some easy-to-follow articles on about.com on using art for decorating. This page covers topics from how to arrange artwork, how to hang artwork, and how to solve decorating challenges with artwork. I found it to be a great beginning level explanation of art and how it can be used to tastefully decorate a space.

Friday's art website of interest: THE KEY WEST ART CENTER AND GALLERY

Since I am in Key West, Florida, on business today, I thought it would only be fitting to write about the art scene here. Today's website is for The Key West Art Center and Gallery. The center is a non-profit organization devoted to the encouragement of local artists by furnishing them with a central market place for their work. The art center and gallery is currently housed in a historic quaint wooden building in the midst of the city’s old town waterfront area. The membership has monthly meetings where not only do they discuss the business of the gallery, but they also provide demonstrations of their art to the public.

Friday's website of interest to art enthusiasts: WORLD WIDE ARTS RESOURCES

(For any new followers to this blog, I try to post a website of interest to art collectors, enthusiasts and artists every Friday.)

Today's website of interest is the art history section of World Wide Arts Resources. This site is a good reference for information about a particular period or artist. The artists are listed by style, time period, and nationality. Search options are also available.

Friday's website of interest to art enthusiasts: THE MUSEUM OF BAD ART

Friday's art website of interest is a tongue-in-cheek look at bad art. While I hesitate to call anyone's art bad, the art on this website made me rethink that idea. It certainly is worth a good chuckle to visit The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA). The group started in 1993 with its first hanging exhibition in a basement in a Boston, Massachusetts, home. It has since expanded to Dedham Community Theater, also in Boston, where it has permanent exhibition space.

Friday's website of interest to art enthusiasts

Today's website worth mentioning is Museum Spot. This website is a great starting point for anyone looking to find museums in a particular area or serving a particular industry, such as agriculture. One of the most interesting features I found was downloadable podcasts of tours of different museums from around the world. The information on the site is free.

Valerie's advice for other artists

What advice do you have for wanna-be artists?

If I—a little ol’ lady school teacher--can do it, you can do it! I taught college English or served as a college administrator my entire career, never having picked up a paintbrush until I was 58 years young. You, too, have something to express, whether it’s joy or pain, hope or despair. Paint is a great place to start. Don’t restrict yourself with “I can’t draw” (neither can I, my friend); or “What will people think?” (who cares?) or “I’m too old” (as long as your fingers or toes or mouth can hold a brush to dip into paint, you’re plenty young enough).

Picture credit: "Mint chip moos", acrylic on canvas

Great month on Cow Art and More

I just wanted to thank everyone for the interest and sales the website has garned in the last few weeks. We went "live" in September and are thrilled that the art on the website is being received so passionately. I have new work to add to the catalog, and I'm always scouring for new artists. We at Cow Art and More hope all the gift recipients are thrilled with their new art!

Cow Art and More links up with U.S. Guernsey

Cow Art and More is proud to be listed as a merchandise partner on the U.S. Guernsey webite, the official website of the Guernsey dairy breed. Find us here.