Apologies for an overdue post! It’s been a hot, busy week. Plus, I had no internet Wednesday. Now, on to the performance.

After I watched the first tribal performance, I had to look for more. On Youtube, Rachel Brice is at the top of the search list for “tribal fusion” so she was definitely the one that fueled my interest in fusion belly dance. If you watch this performance, you’ll see that she IS a snake. Her back bends are just flawless! She’s another lady with precise locks and ticking. Watch out, I’ll be posting more Rachel Brice performances in the future.

I enjoy art quite a lot. I enjoy looking at art, learning about art and creating art. The creating part is what I’m having difficulties in. I have a lot of different interests in art. I love watercolor, oil and acrylic painting but I have more to learn about using each medium. I have a good amount of practice with graphite drawing but I’m sure I need improvement. I especially love drawing the figure. I’d really like to produce digital illustrations using Photoshop and Illustrator. Pixel art is just so awesome I want to create my own but it’s time consuming and I think I need a better grasp of art concepts to come up with anything decent. I think, because I have so many interests in art, I have a hard time improving in any of it.

I think the best way to improve each skill, I need to dedicate a week for each. One week I’ll concentrate on graphite drawings and then I’ll dedicate a week to watercolor painting. You get the idea. I’ve found a way to improve my figure drawing skills by doing 30 second gestures of poses at Posemaniacs everyday. I’ve done plenty but I think I still need improvement. However, I started strong and drew everyday, now I draw when I remember to or have nothing else to do.

I’d like to say I’m passionate about art but if I don’t bother finding time for it (there’s never NOT enough time) then I’m not really passionate am I? I’m not exactly a driven person so I definitely need to find the motivation.

Are you interested in creating different types of art? How do you find time for each? Is dedicating a week good enough? Please share your tips and experiences.

This performance, by Amalia Maya, introduced me to the wonderful belly dance style, tribal fusion. I was so entranced with this performance I had to know more about this style and watch more performances like this. Look out, tribal fusion performances will be the focus in the coming weeks!

I love this particular performance because of her snake like moves. Her pops and locks are precise but she’s also very fluid with her undulations. I guess the reason I like tribal fusion so much is because it was so different from the Egyptian or Turkish style that I was familiar with. It may be a common style among belly dance circles but it was definitely new to a novice like me.

Here’s another video I found when I started searching for belly dance videos. It’s the first performance I saw with swords! The performers are from Suhaila Salimpour’s belly dance group. They make balancing a sword on their heads so easy. However, I do know it takes a lot of control to make sure the sword doesn’t fall off. On top of that, they’re doing floor work which is also difficult to do without plenty of practice & conditioning. I hope to dance with a sword some day! For now, I’ll just watch and be inspired. I hope you are too. Enjoy!

Today’s performance is a drum solo by Sadie. This was one of the videos I ran across when I first started searching for belly dance videos. Let me tell you, this performance really inspired me. Just watch how well her movements correspond with the beat. Muscle control like that requires a lot of work. Keep watching after the performance because there’s an interview with Sadie. Enjoy!

First performance is from the Belly Twins Neena & Veena. Their workout video, Bellydance Fitness for Beginners, is what got me interested in belly dance.This particular performance is from their Beyond Basic Dance instructional video. They’re movements are so delicate, graceful and not big or showy. Enjoy!

Below is the first result. As you can see, I didn’t put enough paint on the block. Plus, the paper I used is for watercolors. Unfortunately, I don’t have any decent printmaking paper. Anyway, I quite like the resulting texture. Delicious.

Next, I decided to try this thick, handmade paper and it didn’t take the paint very well.

Even though neither of these came out the way I wanted them to, I still like the result — mostly because of the textures.

Have you been experimenting with art, writing, or something else? Are you enjoying it?

A couple years ago I bought a 4×6 Speedball linoleum block to play with but totally forgot about it. Well, just a couple days ago I found it and decided to take a stab at it. Two (not very serious) injuries later, here’s the result:

See it at my Deviant Art gallery.

My carving was kind of sloppy and I slipped a couple times, which resulted in two tiny stab wounds on my right thumb. I may have carved too hard — I don’t know. Here’s a shot of the block:

Despite hurting myself and having difficulties with carving, I’m doing this again. For now, I’ll experiment with this block using different colors and possibly adding new textures. Fun!

A Question For You

What have you recently started doing that you haven’t in a long time? Did you feel a little rusty?

For day 73, I continued working on the logo for my husband’s ceramic business. He sat down with me whilst I worked on this so I had a lot of input from him. I may tweak it some more but he asks not to make any major changes. If you’re interested, you can see the sketch and grayscale version.


I recently watched Lost in Austen and I loved Mr. Bingley. So, I decided to paint him for practice. Below is from days 95 and 96.

Tweaked the previous Shizucor logo. I tried to see what it looked like with no gradients and without overlapping letters.

On day 100 of the daily365 challenge, I thought I’d continue painting Mr. Bingley. I will finish this someday!

I had sketched out the alphabet based on the square. For day 101, I started drawing them in Illustrator. I’ve only gotten as far as “K” but I will continue working on this just for fun.

Throughout this week, I’ve been focusing on pixel art by creating a mushroom house. I’ll post my pixel progression this Monday.

If you’re taking part in the daily365 challenge or just create art on a regular basis, share a link to your favorite piece(s)! I’d love to see them. :)