Brillante Weblog Award

I just found out that Dee Overly has presented my blog with the “Brillante Weblog” award! This award is a way to identify favorite blogs, similar to the Arte y Pico award, which I wrote about here. Since I recently identified some of my favorite blogs with the Arte y Pico, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dee, and also to recommend reading Dee’s Art Journal and viewing her amazing colored pencil gallery (be sure to check out Raindrops – it’s one my favorites!)

American Artist Self Portrait Competition

I am so honored to announce that "Winter Blues" was selected as a Finalist in the American Artist Self Portrait Competition. In addition to being published in the October issue of American Artist, the award winners and finalists are displayed online: http://www.myamericanartist.com/2008/08/american-arti-1.html.

Art Kudos Finalist

I am very happy to announce that my piece "Pensive", shown above, was selected as a finalist in the Art Kudos International Juried Art Competition and Exhibition. The online exhibition of all award winners and finalists begins today (my piece is can be seen here).

Armenian Library and Museum of America

I recently finished working on this portrait of Susan and Gary Lind-Sinanian, who are curators at the Armenian Library and Museum of America (ALMA). The museum is located at 65 Main Street in Watertown, MA. This portrait will be available for viewing at the museum after August 19th. For museum hours and more information about ALMA, go to http://www.almainc.org.

Arte y Pico Award

I was so flattered to find out today that Marsha Robinett has announced on her blog, The Extraordinary Pencil that she has selected my blog as one of five to receive the Arte y Pico Award. A description of this award is below:

Arte y Pico Award Origin
The designer of the award puts it like this..."The Arte y Pico Award has arisen from the daily visits that I make to many blogs which nourish and enrich me with creativity. In them, I see dedication, creativity, care, comradeship, but mainly, ART, much art. I want to share this prize with all those bloggers that entertain and enrich me day to day. Doubtlessly, there are many and it will be hard to pick just a few.”

The Rules:
1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award through creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogger community, no matter of language.
2. Each award should have the name of the author with a link to their blog.
3. Award winners have to post the award with the name and link to the blog of the person who gave them the award.
4. Show these rules and the paragraph (above) explaining the awards origination.

My Selections
My Google Reader is full of blogs that I regularly read, so this is a tough one for me as well. However, I did narrow it down to the following for their insight into the creative process and quality of art:
Cindy Haase’s Color On!
Debbi Friedman’s Blog
Karin Wells Studio
Kendra Ferreira’s kjfdesign
Steve Atkinson Painting Blog

Thanks for reading, and thank you again, Marsha!