I don't want this to be another eBay platform for me.  I am a proud capitalist and yes, its my intention to make money from my art, but most of you here are already in the other blogs and websites where I post my big sales pitch posts.  I plan on posting new art here in my gallery, and maybe something at the end of a blog entry.  We'll see how my resolve holds out.  There's definitely a benefit to posting to as many places as possible.  It helps with search ratings, for one, and it gives you exposure for another.  But I feel like I am missing out on the community aspect of fantasy art sometimes.  I mean, I've been commenting on the journals of some of my favorite artists for a few years now and I still don't feel comfortable calling them by their first names!  I feel like an outsider, so maybe if I interact more I will feel more comfortable.

I'd love to connect with other artists here.  I have been in a creative rut for about two years now.  I feel like I've lost my way, and I think talking to other artists may help.  I'm not a spiritual person in any regard, but I feel like I can find a balance between being realistic and having a spiritual connection to something, anything.  I'm not religious, and never will be, but I still want to be moved by something bigger than myself that can't be explained.  The closest I feel to being spiritual is my love of the weather.  I am fascinated by tornados and waterspouts, I'm enthralled by thunderstorms, I LOVE the rain, I love it so much.  I love bright cold days.  I think I would love Fall and Winter, but living in Florida I don't get that much.  We get Summer, then Summer, and Summer, and then a Brief Spring.

 I need to have a painting done by October 10th for an art show I've signed up for, but I'm feeling uninspired.  I'm going to paint this figure again:

(here I am, talking about making this site less commercial and I link to an eBay auction.  In all honesty, my eBay store is better organized than my website, so its just easier to link there than dig through a bunch of pages on my website.)

Anyway, the painting needs to be small format, so it shouldn't be too difficult.  I painted that during one of my inspired periods.  I feel like I did my best work in 2005 through mid 2006.  In 2003/2004 I made the switch from doing anime and manga fanart to original fantasy paintings, but in actuality I started doing fantasy art first thanks to the popularity of Brian Froud's work when I was in highschool. All my life until I saw his work I only drew animals, especially horses.  I looooooooooved horses.  I was a huge fan of The Black Stallion books, and Black Beauty, and anything with a horse in it.  My favorite book, The Black Unicorn, was a discovery based entirely on the beautiful painting of the "horse" on the cover.  I bought it at a middle school book fair, my favorite school event.  The cover had a black unicorn rearing in the desert.  It actually took me two more years to read it because it was a little too grown up for my middle school interest.  Isn't it funny as an artist to hear, "you can't judge a book by its cover."  When I hear that, I go "aww :(" because as an artist and illustrator, its my goal to make a book cover indicative of the inside!  Oh well.

 Wow, what a ramble!  But this was my goal.  Now I'm off to comment on some pages!