EBSQ Blogger of the Week: Melia Newman

This week’s EBSQ Blogger of the Week has been creating art in one form or another since she was young child. From steampunk to the simply whimsical, her art speaks to all ages.

Who and where are you?

The where is the easy question – Texas just East of Dallas.  The who? Gosh, that depends on the day, time and who is asking most of the time.  Artist, Illustrator, serious fantasy literature fan, wife, mom to 2 kids, a cat, a dog and a brand new barely weaned kitten foundling.  Irritating in my amusement with word play. And someone who is maybe a little too obsessed with fabric and scrapbooking paper since I use neither for any sort of regular crafting.  But the patterns and colors are so cool! You can just call me Melia (Muh-lee-uh).

How did you get started art blogging?

I found this wonderful magazine at the book store called Artful Blogging and fell in love.  My husband had already been encouraging me to blog and even set everything up to make it as easy as possible for me to use my website for that.  But I am not really a digital person.  I do my art with real paint and brush (or pen and ink), so using the computer to share my thoughts wasn’t what I thought of first. It seems silly to me now since I love EBSQ to show my work and started selling on eBay long before I started with art festivals and other more traditional venues, and then Etsy is just a heavenly way to put my work out there.  But it took having something on paper that I could hold in my hand to introduce me to the wonderful world of blogging and the amazing work so many other artists were putting out through their blogs.

Any tips for other EBSQ art bloggers?

To coin a popular advertising slogan – Just do it.  It doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to be particularly witty, or brilliant. My blog certainly isn’t any of that. Folks just want to see the art and maybe learn a bit of what is going on behind the scenes.  I know that is why I read other artists’ blogs.

What’s your musical inspiration of choice when you’re working in your studio? Or if you don’t listen to music, do you have any rituals associated with your creative time?

Much to my husband’s chagrin, music isn’t a big part of my life.  He thinks that I am either very weird or tone deaf. My only real ritual is that I carry my art supplies everywhere.  Sometimes it is just my sketchbook and a pencil, but most often it is a huge tote with drawing and watercolor supplies and I work in every spare moment I can.  I sketch while waiting on my daughter to get out of school, in restaurants, at family gatherings, waiting for movies to start, at gatherings of friends.  I never know what is going to spark an idea or where I will be when it happens.  I swear my muse is a magpie and finds the smallest bit of shiny to set it off at the oddest moments.

But when I want to do something on canvas or too large to be done on the go, that is done late at night after everyone is in bed.  Maybe an episode of Dr. Who playing to keep me company at 2am.

What’s coming next from your easel?

I have no clue.  I have several things in my sketchbook begging to become something more, but something else might come up before I can get to it.  Fairy cats and whimsical baby dragons seem to be what is emerging in my sketchbook the most these days. Whatever it is, it will be something that makes me smile, or maybe even giggle.  I have to keep that magpie muse amused.

http://www.bemusedart.com/blog/