Let’s try this, back to my old font, which I love and trying to see if it comes through large enough to read:-) Thanks for the feedback!

I’ve been working on a new blog look as you can see. I think as your work evolves it’s important to have your website reflect your art and life. Even my studio is getting a mini redo. I’m in a purging the unnecessary frame of mind. The busier my life gets (and it’s very busy right now) the more I crave simplicity. I see beauty and peace in it.

I want my website to be easy to navigate, pretty in a simple, sketchy sort of way, and to reflect my minimalistic mood. I’ve done the same thing with my studio. For a long, long time, I was mainly a crafter/artist, now as I feel those roles switch in importance, I feel the need  for a real working studio and less of  a hobby type room. So I’ve de-stashed, getting rid of the unnecessary and I’m trying to make everything in there work in the best functioning way possible.

Sketching on a regular basis is something I’ve been doing since 2008, It has become a form of self discipline that allows me to stay in touch with my creativity on a very simple level. It comforts me and is something I can do with just two basic tools; pencil and paper. I can do it anywhere, on any paper, with any pencil. It’s doable. The more my art life goes in new directions that are less about creating a piece and listing it for sale, the more I need this daily discipline. I’ve started to turn some of my sketches into rubber stamps to use in my upcoming workshops. As I move to more live teaching venues than online workshops, I find that I want to use my own materials as much as possible, so I’ve had stamps and stencils made just for this purpose.

Some have been asking about a tutorial showing how to use my new Portrait Sketch Stamps and I’ll be working one up this week to post here. These stamps were created to use in my only new online workshop for 2011 so stay tuned for that as it will show many, many ways to use these stamps to learn portraits and create awesome journal pages in the process!

I’ll be tweaking the new ‘look’ on my blog over the next couple of weeks so if you notice anything amiss drop me a note-it’ll be greatly appreciated!