Flying Lessons: Round Two Part Two and Questions for You!

Another one of my new photos.

 
Back to Flying Lessons!

In the second week, the lessons concerned developing an internet presence:  websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc.  I have all these, sans the website.  My wonderful friend Emily, besides being an amazing florist and my #1 creative-biz cheerleader, is handy with web design and has offered to build me my first website.  She gave me an assignment -- find some websites I really like and pinpoint the elements I like about them.  Surprisingly, this has not been an easy task.  I realized that I mostly look at blogs, not actual websites, so I had to go hunting for them.  And honestly, it was difficult to find some I was impressed by.  Do you have any favorites to share?

I have been thinking about my blog (and Facebook and Twitter too).  I feel like I should be writing more "high-value" posts (I can't remember where I saw that terminology, but I mean posts that give something to my readers that they value).  I have such lovely readers/friends and I'd love to hear your feedback - what kind of posts do you enjoy reading (here or on other blogs)?  What draws you in?

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Terrible Pieces

Recently I posted about my desire to make a living from art, and my simultaneous fear of the learning process and of making mistakes (thank you for the encouraging words you left in the comments! :) ).   I figured one way to get over this hump was to give myself permission to make fifty terrible pieces of art (maybe that's a LOT of terrible art, but I figured better safe than sorry...)  Fifty pieces of technical mistakes, smudges, bad color choices, weird composition, flat faces, uneven facial features, give-up-in-the-middles...  And it helped.

As proof to you, here is Terrible Piece #1 (in background) and #2 (in foreground), both still in progress:

I really am horribly impatient.  I can't wait for paint to dry (even acrylic paint), so I end up smudging lines and smearing colors and tearing holes in paper.  Funny, because when people would hear what I used to do for a living for seven years (working with children with autism), they always exclaimed "Oh, you must be SO patient!"  No.  Absolutely not.  Not me.  Not in any aspect of my life.  I open the oven too soon to check on the cake.  I flip the pancakes before they are ready.  Maybe this explains why I like all my food a little under-cooked.

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Flying Lessons: Round Two

A few months ago, I participated in Flying Lessons, Kelly Rae Roberts' first (and fantastic) creative biz e-course.  Flying Lessons was so packed with amazing and valuable information that it was difficult (if not impossible) to really absorb it in the moment while the e-course was running.  Almost every day, Kelly posted tons of information, and then the comments! Wow.  Over 500 comments most days.  Half of the fun was "meeting" the other course participants and checking out their blogs and websites and beautiful work.

Now I found myself voluntarily sans full-time job, with a little more time on my hands.  I've decided to start working through Flying Lessons again.  In the first week, the lessons cover goals, commitment, fears, and several days on the art and logistics of blogging.  Phew!

The "fears" lesson is particularly speaking to me right now.  If I am honest, I spend hours daydreaming about making a living creatively -- reading books and blogs and making grand plans.  And then I avoid actually creating anything like the plague.  I realize that I do that because of fear -- the fear that I will find out that I am actually not creative or talented at all, and then I will have to give up the dream.  While I don't make anything (and fail at it), I can still live in my fantasy future.  I also know that there is a learning curve to anything -- while I don't expect my first knitting or sewing attempts to be professional, saleable quality, for some reason the thought of making art or jewelry that I'm not thrilled with makes me want to give up before I even start.  Ridiculous, I know.  Does anyone else relate to that??

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