~Ailidh

Well, I had a lovely birthday. It began with a bad hairdo but I had great support from friends and family, so it turned out well.

Despite my life, I'd like everyone to know what it is like to feature artists in my journal. It's not simply the joy of being able to attract so much love for these artists; but as a featuring artist, you lose the privledge of using your journal for updating things of your own. I realised this later. It is difficult at times, so I will be trying to feature more artists who feature other artists in their journals.

---Projects---

I'm working on 2 projects, currently. One is a sci-fi drawing named "Andromeda", though I have no idea if I'll be finishing it or releasing it. Second is a book cover for a great friend with my very own character on the front. Yes, I have a character of my own in the book! I'll be releasing that one for sure when I finish stage one.

I wanted to let everyone know that if I do decide to release WIPs, they will be in the Scraps section of my gallery as well.

I've also began working on my tutorial series. I'm not sure what format they'll be in yet (I can't do images-- too much content), as in on my website or PDFs, but I'll figure that out later. For anyone interested in knowing some of the rough information I'll be covering, check out my forums. Drop any questions you might have in there about digital painting, drawing how-to, painter, or opencanvas. I'll be writing in-depth 'tutorials' (if you can call them that) for ALOT of information. This will be a huge undertaking. I have already filled a whole page in my sketchbook with ideas and plans. Mostly, my direction with these is to help people who have had a desire to begin digital painting and don't know how. I've been helping people I know in person more and more and decided to help those who comment, favourite, and watch me.

---Quote of the Week---

I know this is supremely dorky, but I love quotes, and I figured I'd share the ones I find that inspire me with others. And this is one I stumbled across while looking up 'Courage' quotes this week:

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." -Theodore Roosevelt

---Feature News---

All I have to say is wow. Well, I made a thread in the thumbshare forum. And the turnout... amazing. I have had well over 100 galleries to look through and decide who is in and who isn't. And because I don't want to have more than maybe five artists per category (otherwise this gets even more lengthy than my rambling in my news). And considering I had mostly photography... Good Lord. So if you submitted photography to me and it's not here, it's because I had about 50 photography galleries to go through and each that I looked through had to have more than just one or two striking photographs in the gallery. However, if you're not featured here, I have posted a list of EVERYONE who entered in my June Feature section of my forums. So check that out and comment if you're there! I feedback. It takes hours to go through galleries and pick and choose which artists to feature.

AND GIVE ME A SHOUT IN MY SHOUTBOX!

PS. Sorry for people getting swamped by "Devious Journal Entries". This just comes with me previewing my entries before I post them.