I finally got it!

I finally got my Mary Engelbreit winning prize pack, and look at what was inside! :D

If you can't tell, that's cherry smelling soap in the reindeer box. :)

Update

Okay, I didn't win the Mary Engelbreit contest. :( But that's okay, because I still get a signed copy of her Mother Goose book! :D You can go here to see the winner and her entry. Congrats to the winner, Joy Codd! You had some great ideas! :)

I'm a finalist

Okay, I'm so excited. I just found out this weekend that I'm one of the ten finalists in a contest Mary Engelbreit had on her website! The contest was to come up with ideas for a baby shower using Mother goose as your guide, and mine was picked as one of the top ten! So, now, I just have to wait to see if I'm a grand prize winner or a 2nd through 10th winner. :) Either way, I think it's awesome! I've never been a finalist in anything before. I'm honored just to be among the top ten! As I've said before, Mary Engelbreit is one of my favorite artists (She truly is the reason why I became an artist), and I'm so honored she picked anything I created as a 'winner'. Of course, these were just some of my ideas. No art work was submitted, but still, it's so exciting! You can go here to see my name and everything!

My "Other" blog

Okay, I've decided to start another blog. This one incorporates children into my love of art and children's illustrating. I have one neice and two nephews (so far) and no children of my own yet, so they will most likely be the children featured in my blog. Over the weekend, me and my neice did our first, real art project together, which you may view here. It's not the best work we could have done, but it's a start, anyway. :)
Hopefully I'll be able to post something there maybe once or twice a week, but don't hold your breath. My neice and nephews all seem to have short attention spans when it comes to sitting down, so if we start a project, it may take awhile to finish it if it ever even gets finished! :)
I hope this will inspire some other artists to incorporate children into their hobbies or work and show them why you do what you do and how much you love it. Who knows. You may help create the next Mary Engelbreit or Bob Ross. :) (My favorite artists.)

Inspirations

I have had many inspirations for my art. I can only think of 3 famous artists who have made me the artist I am today. One is Thomas Kinkade. I love his work. The only problem, I could never do art like that. But his work has inspired me to be more creative and to try to paint things realistically. The second artist who has inspired me is Mary Engelbreit. My mother bought a calendar of hers a couple of years ago and I have been entranced by her work ever since. It was her work that actually pushed me into art. Before I merely twiddled my thumbs with it, but when I realized that I could use markers and colored pencils instead of paints, it launched my love for art. If I hadn't worked with those mediums first, I don't think paints would have been so easy for me. I learned to mix and create colors with colored pencils first and then I realized how to do that with paint.

Third, the artist who has inspired me for many years, is Bob Ross. I absolutely love watching his shows on the educational channel. He is the funniest artist I have ever seen and I wish that I could have met him. With his artist views of "Happy accidents" and "furry friends" he has played a huge role in the shaping and progression of my art. Recently I studied his work from one of his workbooks that I have and I loved how it came out. I've tried to imitate his work before, just for practice, but have never been able to do so. I always imagined that if I ever did anything close to his work, then I was a true artist. And now, at last, I have created something similar to his. Because it is based on his work, it is not necessarily my own ideas, but I did indeed paint this myself. Of course, if you love Bob Ross' work as much as I do, I'm sure you'll be able to tell the difference. I plan to give this painting to my mother as soon as I can frame it.