[new header and a secret admission]

Look! A header! I finally broke out those rusty Photoshop skills to give the blog a more personal touch. If I weren’t poor, I’d buy the credits needed for the colors on the header to match the blog, but noticed the blue-green matches part of the journal image.

The image is from one of my journals I now use for Morning Pages taken by a lovely friend of mine for an article I’ve written but haven’t yet edited and submitted. Part of me feels my art, while it may be evolving, isn’t as good as the “professional” art I’ve seen in magazines and books. Published images intimidate me; my work doesn’t feel as embelished or colorful or original.

I do admit, I’ve gone through “phases,” times where I would find some aspect of another artist’s work I liked and tried my hand at copying it. As I work at things longer in my journals, and now, on canvas (more on THAT tomorrow), I’ve been discovering my own style — techniques or looks I like that are combinations of several things I’ve learned. But I still feel like the new student struggling to break through that shield of being unknown.

Except I’m the block on my own path. I glow with humble appreciation when I get comments from complete strangers on my flickr stream, but I’m still afraid they’ll laugh at me and ask me to try again later when I’m “better.” Being rejected from publication would not only temporarily crush me as a writer, but perhaps have longer-term effects on me as an artist.

Any advice?

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