Blogging was new to me about five years ago and I must confess to how many hours I wasted going from one link to another. I was so inspired by reading and looking at other artists' work that I felt I should blog too. I had so much in my sketchbooks and hidden in files that I wished to share but could never get anyone to sit still in my studio for long enough.
Four years and a month ago I started Skivington So Far. Now I have another blog site that is devoted to my flower paintings and nothing else. Janice Skivington Paints Flowers.
I have kept up a website of my illustration work separately for much longer.
I owe so much to the online presence of so many artists who share so generously. I am going to mention some here just to share what they have meant to me. One of the very first is Elizabeth Dulemba, her website is here. Elizabeth posts almost daily and I read her blog for a variety of news in the children's publishing industry, tips on writing, illustrating and more. She was so generous way back when I was first working on gathering my work for a website. I wrote to her with questions and received immediate help. Just what I needed from a pro and more than I could ever have found on my own. This is an example of the very best of what the web could be when all are open to sharing information. Unfortunately too, I recently read her post on how much of her line art is being used everywhere without permission.
Frank Ordaz and James Gurney are two other artists whose blogs I have found so instructional and inspiring. I have seen their work for years, (I have bought all of James Gurney's Dinotopia books for my kids) and didn't realize that they are both alumni of The Art Center College of Design as am I. I have learned so much reading their how-to articles, explanations of color palettes, and painting technique that I feel it has been a graduate course for me.
Another artist whose blog writing has been the equivalent of graduate school is Stapleton Kearns. He is a scholar and a gentleman with an old-fashioned intense disciplined approach to the work of painting. He is also funny but incredibly informative. I thought so much of him that I went to one of his workshops on landscape painting. It was worth it.
There are many more I could mention, I am always being accused by my family of wasting time reading blogs. If they could only understand how very much I have learned and still expect to learn.
