Coffee grinder in graphite on ivory paper
Keep an eye out for a few more during the challenge.
Until tomorrow!
🇿🇦💜Linzé
Aside from complying with the requirements for size of the artwork, any medium restrictions, there are rules for the submission itself, and limitations on social media sharing. The last one should be the first rule any participant would comply with, because no one would want their work or their ideas at least to be copied. Crying after the fact because someone stole your idea, will not endear you to the judges.
This competition, AGAC2024, is no different in these aspects. As artists we like to share the projects we are working on - some for business, the rest of us just for fun and sharing our experiences of making art.
So if you are entering any competition, make sure to read the rules because it would be really stupid to be disqualified because of something you could have avoided.
Until tomorrow!
🇿🇦💜 Linzé
Come on, you are not too young nor too old to take part -> details.
Until tomorrow!
🇿🇦💜Linzé
It's been a while since I have taken part in the blog challenge. The problem is always coming up with new ideas so it isn't boring to me. This year I decided to change things up a bit, and it has the added benefit of blogging about something I will be doing this year: taking part in another art competition.
I took part in the AGAC (ARTi Contemporary Art Gallery & Interiors) in 2023, and decided to take part again this year. Given the style and theme requirements of the competition, there is some significant planning involved in creating the artwork, at least for me. So why not use the blog challenge to share my process and some of the behind-the-scenes work involved in creating art for a competition.
This is going to be a lot of fun, I promise.
Oh, I forgot to mention that I won't be using the letters of the alphabet as a key, it will simply be a list of 26 items. Apologies if that is not according to the rules of the blog challenge, but hey, this my blog and I can do what I want, right? 😂
Until April!
🇿🇦💜 Linzé
"Their attraction brought heartbreak. Could their struggle for survival bring them back together?"
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1508808
Presale discount available at link.
Zarina sa'Der is not just an officer of the law, she is a category one memory witness, trained to work with the most vulnerable victims of violent crimes.
Her last court case left her with nightmares which requires her to take a break to focus on clearing her special memory banks before she goes insane. As a Treasure of the Magicians' Order, the Grandmaster arranges that she can take her vacation at the High Order retreat for the ideal peace and quiet she needs.
It has been three suns since Aidan Crea lost his mate and youngest daughter in the Wa'raki war that devastated Xa'an. When his best friend accuses him of becoming a grump, he agrees to take a break before the Grandmaster orders him to. After some soul searching he realised that he needed to get back to living instead of purely existing after the loss he had suffered.
Zarina and Aidan form an unusual friendship that soon grows into something deeper, until Aidan is tasked to protect her after a contract is given out to assassinate her. Although her job exposes her to the worst criminals of society, things take a turn for the worse, when they finally find out who is behind the attempts on her life.
They find themselves pawns in a larger plot and they have to risk their hearts and their lives to finally get a chance at a happily ever after.
#adult #fiction #fantasy
Jealous of the attention lavished upon the puppetry talents of his dear sister—and tormented by visions of her torture at the hands of the mysterious Uncle Pavan who recruited her for his arcane school—Elias is determined to learn the true nature of occult puppetry, no matter the hideous costs, in order to exact vengeance.
I will not deny that I have always been fascinated with puppets.
Perhaps because I was born on a farm in Saint Siméon, a forgotten town west of Valence in southern France named after the patron saint of puppets. Despite the frequent puppet shows many families considered themselves extraordinarily lucky if a child were accepted into the Lycée Avancé des Marionettes to study such puppetry—not all were enthusiastic.
Neither my father, Patrick Clermont, nor my mother, Anne Belleau, ever bought me a puppet.
I sulked over this injustice. At the age of four, I could only watch my sister, Sonja, play with Angélique, a fairy marionette with long red hair that our Uncle Pavan had bought her.
Occasionally, when she noticed me moping, Sonja would let me pull at the strings. Although I could get Angélique to do a flopping walk, I never could make her glide so gracefully as my sister did. Sonja’s twirling flourishes of thumbs and rippling fingers gave Angélique life.
“Such talent, such polish.” Uncle Pavan rubbed his large thumbs together as he watched Angélique slide amid potted wisteria and marigolds in the garden, flow through the open patio door, and float inside up to the doll’s house to join Sonja.
Sonja played at Angélique’s strings like a harp by whose invisible sounds the marionette bobbed with buoyant grace, almost hovering at times as if her silky azure wings could truly fly.
Uncle Pavan’s own prowess at puppetry was marvelous. Some townsfolk whispered he could literally bring puppets to life. He took a dedicated interest in Sonja’s future. That is why I have so few memories of her. She left for the advanced arts of puppetry.
I was left alone.
I longed to play with Sonja as we had on brighter days of jumping on piles of bronzing autumn leaves or racing through lavender fields with the spring winds—chasing harvest mice and Swallowtail butterflies dipping amid the yellow cowslips. We’d jump and then crouch down between stalks of shuddering wheat or corn. When I brooded and stroked Sebastian, our silky-furred black cat, who had also been the playmate of Sonja, I decided that if I showed myself particularly adept at puppets like my sister, then I would be reunited with her.
He graduated with a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Washington, and an MFA in fiction from Bowling Green State University, where he served as Fiction Editor of Mid-American Review.
Creative work in journals such as Apex and Abyss, Arroyo Literary Review, Marvels and Tales, Midwestern Gothic, Psychopomp Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, and Writing Texas
His novella of weird horror Master of Rods and Strings was included in the Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Award® Reading List for 2021 and will be republished by Crystal Lake Publishing in 2024.
Find the author online at his website: https://jasonmarcharris.com/
In my last two posts I mentioned how I get (most) my ideas and how I dealt with them in 2023. This post will deal with how I deal with the 'future todo' ideas, and my thoughts for capturing the new ideas that will sprout in 2024.
I have reverted to using a Bullet Journal again, my way. No colourful drawings or fancy layouts, just the basic structure to get the myriad of things done. And the 'future todo' ideas were the perfect items to add to the Future Log. so that I don't forget about them, but more importantly find the right time to implement them.
My Future Log for 2024 is not a long list, but with more ideas popping up, the list will invariably grow as the year progresses.
About two years ago I made a lapbook with two folders inside. But I have not used the lapbook for anything, so I dug it out and removed one of the folder things; it has two pockets inside and which gave me the idea.
 |
| My 2024 handmade journal (left), with the folder and booklet (right) |
The folder will be my bookmark, and I can fit a repurposed booklet I kept from an old Daphne's Diary into one of the pockets. I made my journal for this year but forgot to add a bookmark ribbon, so the folder is useful for that too.
I have not used the booklet yet, mostly because my thoughts have been occupied with organising my studio and home office, and working on a few projects already in process.
So I will have to see how it is going to work. To be honest, it will work if I use it. How successful I found the new process, will be the question to answer this coming year.
Until next time!
💜🇿🇦 Linzé
Thank you for visiting my blog on the last day of the challenge. If you are an artist interested in taking part in a competition, there is s...
