Great New Artists

On January 1st 2008 I literally was the only person at my church who openly admitted to making a New Year’s resolution. I know this because when the pastor got up there and asked if anyone did I was the only one who raisedmy hand. Frankly I wasn’t surprised.

So this year I thought I would make some art related resolutions.

1. The past few months have seen me fall way behind a couple of things one of whcih is digital painting–I will definitely get back on this

2. I want to have a perfect year here at this blog. I really hope this is possible because I want to be a blog that people go to when they want quick little art snippets they don’t have to work for.

3. I want to get my Photo Restoration business off the ground (WM Photo Design in case you were wondering)

4. 2009 Will also see more fashion and travel articles from me at Suite 101.com

5. Also I will make some art videos this year for YouTube.

6. Take more photos! In fact the challenge is to take 300 photos a day at least one day this year.

So there you are. I have it on very good authority that some YouTube members are resolving things this year also so I’m in good company.

I have a confession to make; I am a Nerdfighter (if you don’t know what that is then go here). Actually this confession is not so shocking once I tell you what I have to tell you in this post but nevertheless I think it’s something that doesn’t get said enough.

The reason I brough you this news is that the Project for Awesome is coming up once again on Dec. 20 and it was started by, you guessed, John and Hank Green who wanted to further the Nerdfighter’s cause of decreasing world suck by bringing attention to charities that Nerdfighters in the YT community liked.

I will be participating this year for the first time making a video about two charities Free Rice and the Christmas Day Art blog network which raises money to drill wells in Africa. What’s unique about these two charities is that they don’t require supporters to give money they both get all their support from ads (sponsorship for Free Rice and Google AdSense for Christmas Day).

Watch the video and visit the site to learn more about the Project for Awesome. Also visit Christmas Day Art you can also score some free clip art and learn about some other cool stuff.

What happens when two brothers decide to challenge each other to communicate only via video blogs for a whole year? A record company….?

That’s right Hank Green from the vlogbrothers YouTube channel has started a record company. Small and independent is an understatement when describing this label but if you’re into exploring new music and discovering what kind of music has been floating around on YouTube lately then you should definitely check out DFTBA records.

There’s a video about how this label got started here. Their first artist is Hank Green whose first album will be shipped in late December 2008 with Chameleon Circuit coming in January of 2009 and other artists from YouTube to come like hexachordal, songsfromahat, davedays and charlieissocoollike.

So check some of these guys out and in case you wanted my opinion of them never fear I will be reviewing some of them in the coming days.

My main goal for this blog is to focus on more posts about music because there’s some great stuff going on there. Also indie filmmakers will be featured more because I don’t think they got nearly the attention they deserved from me in 2008. I will also be a lot more dilligent with my posts (I promise!).

Starting tomorrow posts will be posted on a regular schedule throughout 2009 becasue there are two things I don’t want this blog to be: a copy of coolhunting.com and a flash in the pan, throwaway blog (’cause that would be sad ;( ).

I’m planning some exciting things which I will also keep you guys updated on mostly to do with YouTube and you should expect to see some more YouTube related posts as it has become quite the thing to do with me.

BTW: I designed the above new graphic for the blog, how do you like it?

So obviously the 31 posts in the month of December starting on the 1st didn’t exactly start as planned but that doesn’t mean I’m not doing anything special for this month here. I’ve been writing some things and finishing up school which will continue next week I will resume updates here sometime soon hopefully this weekend.

 I have some pretty exciting things coming up including blog updates about photo restoration and the benefits of being a NAPP member as well as our usual Great New Artists features. Plus hopefully a redesign is coming soon (but don’t hold me to that).