One day I’m going to come up with a clever title for these round-ups. But not, apparently, today.

Prize Update

About a million years ago – OK, two months ago – I asked for name suggestions for my coaching service and offered a free consulting session for the winning name.

I got some wonderful ideas but none of them felt quite right to me. I’ve been brooding away on it ever since & have finally hit on the right name. The sales page for ‘Pertinent Questions’ will be up as soon as I’ve finished writing it.

I’m going to award the consulting prize to Amber Dawn for her suggestion ‘Knotty Fixes’. Even though I haven’t used it as the final name, I utterly adored this and I’m going to nab it for my sales copy. Well done, Amber.

Thanks to everyone else for their awesome suggestions: every single one of you helped so much with my tortuously slow thought process and I am deeply grateful. And I’m sorry that it took so long to update you all, I really did need to sit with it for this long.

Customer Love Update

Wonderful stuff has been happening with Customer Love.

David Crandall’s guest post, ‘What Is A Customer?’ was an eye-opener for me. I also enjoyed ‘Who’s Got Time For Customer Love?’by Sandi Faviell Amorim from Deva Coaching.

I found Sue Mitchell’s hour-long interview with Customer Love founder, LaVonne Ellis, deeply inspiring.

People have been loving hard on their peeps. Here are my pick of the offers so far:

Get free help with numbers from my favourite maths tutor, Colin Beveridge. OK, so he’s the ONLY maths tutor I know, but he’s still my favourite.

Melissa Dinwiddie from A Creative Life is offering free Sandbox Sessions throughout November. If you’d like a bit of accountability while you work on Your Wonderful Thing, this will be right up your street. Melissa is a delightful, kind and interesting person and I’m sure she’d be a joy to work with.

My Stuff

Thanks to Helen Birch from the wonderful drawdrawdraw blog for featuring my Diary Project drawings. Turns out that Helen & I have a shared love of drawing on envelopes.

Don’t forget you can still sign up for the Within Limits class that I’m teaching with Tara Swiger on Wednesday 10th November.

Cool stuff from around the web

Pretty by Kate Makkai is 3 minutes of absolutely astounding, powerful, hard-hitting slam poetry that every woman needs to see. ‘Slam poetry?’, I hear you say. Yep. Just trust me on this one and watch it. There is one swear word in it.

This week I also fell head over heels in love with comedian and ace pianist, Tim Minchin. Most of his stuff is entirely NSFW, so again, please don’t click if that bothers you. I should also warn you that this is ridiculously, insanely catchy – I’ve been singing it all week.

Enjoy your weekend, my lovelies…

It’s been ages since I did a purely visual post on here but I couldn’t resist sharing these glorious cloud photos that I took on the flight back from Amsterdam on Saturday.

It was grey and pouring with rain when we left Schiphol Airport but we climbed through the dark clouds to reveal this magical sunlit panorama. It’s odd to think that – unless you climbed to the top of a mountain – humans have only been able to see this sort of thing for a little over a hundred years.

Kirsty Hall: Sunlit clouds, October 2010

Kirsty Hall: Sunlit clouds, October 2010

Kirsty Hall: Sunlit clouds, October 2010

Kirsty Hall: Sunlit clouds, October 2010

Kirsty Hall: Sunlit clouds, October 2010

I couldn’t help wondering what Turner would have made of this? Don’t you think he would have been just crazy about this view – I bet he’d have had his watercolours out on the plane, whatever the flight attendants said!

………………………………………….

In a delightful coincidence, LaVonne Ellis had a lovely guest post on Ittybiz today about how we need to remember the magic of flying in relation to our online endeavours.

Comments?

As always, leave ‘em below.

Hey folks, how are you doing? Normally these newsy updates also include funny internet stuff but this one is all about me because it’s been crazy-busy around here of late and the news was starting to stack up.

The Artist’s Eyeball

In my usual blithe manner, I have yet again launched a brand new product a week before I go on holiday. This is getting to be a habit. I’m starting to think that I went away for a week every 4 months, my productivity would sky-rocket.

Introducing The Artist’s Eyeball…

If you’re ready to take action and improve your website or blog, these written reports are an excellent investment. They’re cheaper than my one-on-one consulting, with a range of options from a single page to an entire website. They’re a great place to start working with me if consulting feels a bit too intimate and scary. Even if you don’t want one, you should check out the sales page because it has zombies, eyeball jokes and the word ‘nefarious’.

I’ll be doing a proper launch party for these once I return from holiday. If you’d like to help me promote this product, please email or leave a comment below. I’m happy to do blog interviews, guest posts and prize giveaways.

Shop update

Earlier this week I added some more drawings to my art store. These little 6×4 inch drawings are worked in gesso & pencil and date from November 2008.

I like these drawings a lot: the pencil is very dense in places and has that fabulous silvery sheen that graphite gets, while the white acrylic gesso gives a range of beautiful grey tones where it has mixed with the pencil. The torn edges are a deliberate and integral part of these drawings.

Kirsty Hall: Pencil + gesso No. 2, Nov 08

Kirsty Hall: Pencil + gesso No. 3, Nov 08

There are currently 11 drawings from this series up in the shop (one has sold already – thank you, Kari!) They’re priced at £55, which I think is a bargain for original, one-off, fine art.

Oh, and if you’ve been hankering after one of my secret art envelopes, now is an excellent time to buy because I’m going to be in Amsterdam next week, so I can fill them with all sorts of wildly exotic Dutch things. OK, that could be misinterpreted – I promise there will be nothing too saucy unless you specifically request it!

The price of the envelopes will be rising to £20 sometime next month because they’re a ton of work for £15 and that’s not feeling very sustainable to me right now. So if you want one, best grab it before the price goes up.

Around the web

Podcast

A few months ago, I recorded a podcast with Sister Diane of Craftypod. Being More Authentic Online is about 20 minutes long and is well worth your time – we cover ethics, boundaries, sex toys and evangelical Christians!

Delightful people said nice things about me

Lindy wrote a beautiful tribute to me and the lovely LaVonne Ellis from The Complete Flake. Thanks so much Lindy, this meant a lot to me.

I inspired Jude from Salt Of The Earth to start blogging and she wrote about me in her first ever post. Thanks for your kind words, Jude and good luck with your blogging adventure.

Lisa from Fit For Paper mentioned me in a post called I Am Your Secret Admirer. I’m honoured to be on a list with such cool internet people. Incidentally, Lisa designed the spiffy new logos for Internet Hand-holding and The Artist’s Eyeball that you can see on the sidebar. Aren’t they wonderful! I love her to death for doing this because graphics make me cry. If you need graphics, Lisa is fantastic to work with: she was quick, inventive and endlessly patient, even with someone as indecisive as me.

I was stunned to discover that I’m one of Alltop’s recommended art bloggers. I was looking down the list, nodding at the people who were included and suddenly saw my own name and blurted out, ‘what the hell am I doing there?’ So thank you for that Alltop peeps, it was a nice surprise and I couldn’t resist the very silly badge that’s now gracing my sidebar.

Other news

I finally got round to joining LinkedIn. I’m not very active there yet but if you’d like to add me as a connection, I’d be delighted.

The very observant of you might notice that there’s been a few changes on the site. My lovely web designer has updated the buttons at the top, so we now have drop-down menus, which I’m loving with an unholy passion. But it does mean that if you link to my free resources page from your site, you’ll need to update your link. Here’s the new address: http://kirstyhall.co.uk/sos/resources/

I’ve also dropped ‘Up All Night Again’ as the blog name. I’d been thinking about doing this for a while as it wasn’t really working. People were listing me in their blog rolls as a variety of things including ‘Kirsty Hall’, ‘Up All Night’ or Up All Night Again’. If you’re obsessively tidy and feel the need to update your blogroll, the official title is now ‘Kirsty Hall’s Art Blog’.

Well, I’m sure there’s more stuff I meant to tell you but honestly, if I don’t go to bed right now, I’m going to pass out from exhaustion. Catch you later, peeps…

Got a comment? Leave it below

I’d love to hear what you think of The Artist’s Eyeball idea or indeed, any other thoughts you have..

I must start doing these round-ups more often because cool stuff keeps happening.

Art Stuff

Sister Diane from Craftypod bought one of my envelopes and wrote a rave review of it.

Diane Gilleland: Red drawing by Kirsty Hall, June 2010

Julie Shackson also bought an envelope recently and she loved it too.

If you lust after an envelope of your very own, click here – they’re a total bargain and who doesn’t enjoy getting fun thing in the mail?

The sequins are coming along just fine: there’s still masses of sewing to do but I’m starting to feel that I’m on the home stretch. I was getting dangerously low but fortunately found a supply of almost identical ones and bought an enormous bag that should be more than enough to finish the apron. If you’re in the UK and need haberdashery stuff, I was hugely impressed by the service I received from JosyRose.

I’ve also been doing a bit of drawing but I’m feeling out of balance lately – far too much internet/business stuff and not enough studio time. Sigh, are we artists ever satisfied? I don’t think so.

Want to win some of my art?

My dear friend Camilla Stacey is currently raising money for her MA. Camilla has been a huge supporter of other artists through her curating work and it would be fantastic if the art community could return that support. I’ve donated two original drawings to her fundraising raffle and there’s also the chance to win work by Alys Paterson, Claire Platt, Peskimo and Elin Thomas.

Camilla says, “I will be mailing out the artwork to prize winners totally free of charge, so for a mere quid you could get something awesome for your wall that would normally set you back ££££££££”

Raffle tickets are only £1 or 10 for £5. There are more details here or you can go straight to Camilla’s paypal (don’t forget to tell her how many tickets you want). Oh, and if you’re in Bristol, pop along to her fundraising sale tomorrow at the Here gallery in Stokes Croft.

Internet Stuff

Honeys, I’ve been a busy little internet bee lately.

I did a long interview about lists, systems and productivity over at Craft Leftovers. It’s a lot more interesting than I’m making it sound!

I also wrote a guest post for Be Awesome Online. It’s called The Power Of Words and it’s all about how the titles we give ourselves have power.

And as usual, I’ve been talking my mouth off over on Twitter.

Business Stuff

Consulting
My Internet Hand-holding consulting will be going up in price on September 1st, so if you’ve been thinking about buying some of my time and expertise, now is an excellent time to do so. Sister Diane bought one and she’s already been seeing great results from her reorganisation.

Newsletter
I finally got round to putting a newsletter sign-up on the sidebar (look to your right and you’ll see it). I need to prettify it but hey, at least it’s there. It’s only taken me three years! I’m still not entirely sure what my newsletter plans are but if you want to sign up, I’m be thrilled. I promise not to do anything evil with the information: let’s face it, I’m just not organised enough to spam you incessantly!

Facebook Fan Page
If you want regular news but don’t want to sign up for my intermittent newsletter or you find I talk too much on Twitter, my Facebook fanpage might suit you better.

Educational Stuff

I’m on a huge education kick at the moment and have been absorbing online classes, e-books and library books like a deranged info-product addict.

If you’ve been thinking about writing an e-book, Sister Diane still has places on her brand new e-book course, which starts on Monday. I’m taking part and it sounds like it’s going to be an amazing group. I’m super excited about it. And yes, this does mean you can expect some e-books from me in the future.

Like many artists, I struggle with pricing my work so naturally I’m taking this class about pricing art. The fact that it’s by two of my favourite internet people – Tara Swiger of Blonde Chicken and Catherine Caine of Be Awesome Online – was also a big incentive. I’ve worked with both of them before and they rock at explaining stuff.

I also joined The Creative Empire, a new subscription community by Tara Gentile from Scoutie Girl and Megan Auman from Crafting an MBA. The forums are very good value, plus there’s exclusive seminars and practical worksheets. I think the initial price of $15 a month only lasts until the end of August, so join now if you need a bit of support for your creative business.

Cool Stuff (In No Particular Order)

Gareth from Fight Mediocrity made a fab flowsheet (PDF link) inspired by my mantra ‘is it useful? Is it fun?’ It has ducks and chickens, people, ducks and chickens!

If you’re in Britain and want to garden but you don’t have space, or you have land but need help, Landshare connects people. I’ve joined as a landowner, I’m hoping to find some local people to garden with.

I’ve fallen in love with Kim Boekbinder’s voice. Listen to her first EP for free here.

Knock Knock have crazy stationary and office products. They’re definitely going on my Christmas list this year.

My new favourite eye candy blog is Things Organized Neatly.

LaVonne Ellis had a funny chat with her writer’s block.

Lovely short video by Tanya Davis & Andrea Dorfman – How To Be Alone

Finally, check out this superb 10 min video from Scott Belsky about bringing creative projects to fruition.

OK, that should ensure you don’t get a lick of work done this fine Friday!

Comment

As usual, comments are hugely welcome.

What’s Been Happening Lately?

So, I sort of opened a shop for my drawings. There’s not much up there yet but if you’ve ever wanted me to send you a hand-drawn envelope containing a secret, you’re in luck! There’s also a couple of my more expensive archival drawings and more will going up next week.

You may remember that back in February I did a 30 minute talk about blogging for the University Of Arts in London – the audio is now online.

On Friday, I visited the American Museum in Bath with the lovely people from Textile Forum South West. We had a guided tour around their current quilting exhibition. Now quilting isn’t my thing but it was a fascinating talk and the level of sewing skill was quite staggering, especially when you consider that most of it was done by hand. I also ate my first ever Snickerdoodle, which is quite possibly the best cookie name ever. It was very tasty. The museum have their own kitchen where they bake deliciously exotic American goodies and frankly it’s worth a trip just for the baked goods but they also have an eclectic collection set in beautiful grounds.

I sewed lots more sequins and listened lots more podcasts. It doesn’t make for very exciting blogging, does it. But I’ve definitely passed the half way point now. Unfortunately, I’ve – gasp – nearly run out of sequins. I’m praying that they’ve got more of the right kind in Fabric Land. I’m going into town to find out tomorrow, if they’ve run out you’ll probably be able to hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth from wherever you are in the world.

I finally made another video. If you fancy a four & half minute tour around my studio, hit play:

Chickens

Last night I was fretting that Colette was ill, she had disappeared into the chicken house for hours and seemed strangely docile. This morning it dawned on me that the silly hen is actually broody. We don’t have a cockerel, so she has no fertile eggs – in fact, she isn’t sitting on any eggs at all but she’s making a fairly determined attempt to hatch out a pile of shredded paper. She’s not the brightest chicken, that one! Still, at least it’s keeping her quiet.

Books
I finished Among The Bohemians by Virginia Nicholson. It’s not flawless, she does rather gloss over Eric Gill’s unforgivable practice of committing incest with his female relatives but I found it a very readable account of this interesting period in art history. If you’ve ever wondered where a lot of our contemporary ideas about artists come from, this book provides many of the answers. Highly recommended.

Other Artists
Two artists inspired by animals this week:

Matt Cummings makes amazing sculptures of animals that manage to capture the essence of the animal without being slavishly realistic.

I’m loving these rabbit prints by Kyoko Imazu, especially the more sinister ones. If I had any money at all, I’d buy one.

Cool Things
Sister Diane’s video 7 Crafting Supplies I’m No Longer Allowed To Buy to buy made me laugh hysterically. Total comedy of recognition.

I’m currently enjoying Marisa’s blog, New Dress A Day, which features daily remaking of thrifted clothing. I don’t always like her finished items but I’m amazed that she looks at some of those hideous dresses and thinks, ‘hell yeah, I can make something with this 1980’s shiny polyester peach number!’ It’s a lesson in creativity, for sure.

If you like things in jars, you’ll like this, if you don’t like dead things, you won’t.

If you’ve not been listening to John T. Unger‘s podcast, Art Heroes Radio, you need to remedy that asap. All the ones I’ve listened to have been interesting but the one on pricing is especially valuable.

I’m in the midst of writing a series of posts about artists getting paid and the economy of the arts but that’s a bit heavy for a Friday, isn’t it! So instead, here’s one of my occasional link posts.

Art
My web designer, Steve, had a moving encounter with some art.

This Andre Jordan cartoon made me laugh with comedy of recognition.

The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies – many of these were intimately familiar to me but perhaps they won’t be to younger artists.

This spoof Damien Hirst blog made me howl with laughter (although some of the ‘works’ are more Martin Creed in style).

If you’re a jeweller then the Cookson’s Forums may be worth checking out. I’ve not tried their forums but I’m a big fan of them as a supplier of materials – they’re always very quick and efficient at despatching stuff.

Artists are buying up cheap houses in Detroit – some interesting discussion in the comments about the familiar artist gentrification cycle.

I’m A Photographer, Not A Terrorist is a UK based campaign objecting to increased police interference in street photography.

Unique and clever matchboxes, which naturally I adore because I have a bit of a thing for matches.

Me, Me, Me!

Lisa Pressman recently interviewed me about my art influences. I like her encaustic work very much, you should check it out.

Thanks also to Kayte from the Love Forever blog, who featured my work last week.

There’s loads of excellent comments on my recent ‘art wank’ post. Apparently the subject resonated with a lot of people. Apparently there’s even an entire blog devoted to examples of art wank!

I had my work accepted to culturehall. I haven’t quite finished uploading works to my profile yet but I’ll let you know if I get any interest or opportunities from it. The site is curated by an artist and frankly, it shows – when I researched it I was very impressed by the high quality of work shown.

I also joined Textile Forum South West. If you’re a British artist interested in textiles, you may want to check this out, you don’t actually have to be based in the South West of England to join.

Podcasts
I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts whilst sewing sequins on my apron. Here are a few of my recent favourites.

Jennifer at Craftsanity interviews the Beerhorst Family and discovers how they live a creative lifestyle with very little money. This interview with X got me all excited about my chickenkeeping plan again (it’s moving slowly onward btw, I’ve just taken out a load of library books on chickens and I’m researching coops).

I discovered The Electric Sheep podcast on Twitter and I’ve happily chewed my way through all 20 of them in the last month. It’s knitting based but she delves into other stuff too. Very British.

Craftcast with Alison Lee is always a good listen but I was particularly fascinated by her exploration of Maggie Taylor’s highly involved creative process.

if you’re struggling with your blogging motivation, this podcast from Sister Diane at Craftypod should get your juices flowing again.

Random

Lexicographer, Erin McKean suggests that if it works like a word, we should just use it.

Because nothing says ‘I love you’ like handknitting someone a periodic table jumper (that’s a sweater if you’re American)

Ever wondered where the dark thread of horror in British comedy originates? Welcome to the wonderful world of British Public Safety films! Includes one of my all-time favourites – the Spirit Of Dark Water but thankfully not the one about children dying horribly on farms that gave me nightmares for months after I was shown it in primary school. Definitely NOT for the faint of heart.

I was VERY flattered to make it into the ‘Best Artists Blog’ section of the 100 Best Scholarly Art Blogs list this week.

Congrats to Katherine from Making A Mark, who also made it into the Best Artists Blog section and to Dion from the Art News Blog, who very deservedly made it into the Art News section. I was also pleased to see the New Curator blog mentioned – I only discovered this blog fairly recently through Twitter but it’s rapidly becoming a favourite.

I haven’t checked out all the other blogs mentioned yet but it looks like there’s plenty of good stuff to get your teeth into.

It’s Friday afternoon – time to slack off at work and browse the net instead! Fortunately I’m here to enable your procrastination.

ARTISTS

Really loving this post on DudeCraft about the work of Jim Denevan who creates incredible largescale freehand drawings in sand.

Stephen J. Shanabrook makes rather strange work, including collages of heroin paraphernalia.

For those of us with gothic sensibilities – I’m loving the crazy Victorian aesthetic of Wilhelm Staehle’s site.

Beautiful drawings from Rachel Mosler.

This project gets points for sheer chutzpah – curator Anna Ricciardi is asking people to send her their gallery rejection letters for inclusion in an exhibition at Islington Arts Factory. So far, so good. But here’s the cheeky bit – she’s also asking for a £7 submission fee! I hope she’s done this deliberately as a comment on the increasing tendency for venues to charge artists to apply for exhibitions. Because if it’s not ironic, it would be too depressing for words.

ARTICLES

I like Joanne Mattera’s blog very much; she writes so eloquently about the realities of being an artist. In this post, she recommends that we define what success means to us (something art coach, Alyson Stanfield also strongly recommends) and suggests considering options beyond the narrows confines of the art world.

Daniel Sroka ponders how to survive as an artist in a struggling economy.

Lori Woodward Simons with some advice about how to negotiate with art galleries. This was published on Clint Watson’s FineArtViews, a blog with masses of articles about every aspect of the art world, including this great one about how to sell your art. Boy, do I need help in that department!

Lisa Call gets things done by setting goals and having a system.

HUMOUR

Step away from the metaphors and no one will get hurt! A piece of quite remarkable prose that, amazingly, was actually published. I wouldn’t drink anything while attempting to read this, if I were you.

Have I mentioned Wrongcards before? As their tagline says: ‘E-cards that are wrong for every occasion.’ Including zombie attacks…

When I lived in Leeds, a friend and I used to delight in that urban harbinger of summer – the sight of goths with thick white make up slowly melting down their faces. So as you can imagine, I was delighted to discover the blog Goths In Hot Weather.

And because it takes one to know one, here’s a delightful visual guide to goths. OK, so I’ve never actually been a full-on goth but I’ve come pretty close over the years and definitely have aspects of at least three of these!

Apologies for the lack of posting – as you may have guessed from my last big post, I’ve not been too well. I also got stuck in a cycle of perfectionism, the sort where I think, “ah, I absolutely must blog about such and such a thing next but oh dear, I can’t until I take some photos or do some more research or until the planets are in the correct alignment!”

Sometimes I just get caught up in these mental loops and stay there until I realise that I’m stuck and do something to free myself – in this case, writing a very different blog post to the one I had planned. So here, to loosen me up and hopefully to inspire you, are two very different but connected videos about the nature of inspiration.

First of all, here’s Susan Boyle performing on the reality TV show, Britain’s Got Talent. Unfortunately, embedding is disabled, so you’ll need to pop over to YouTube to watch it.

Secondly, here’s a longer address by writer, Elizabeth Gilbert on the subject of genius, inspiration and creativity. It’s twenty minutes but it’s well worth your time.

I found this touching in a very different way – much of what she spoke about was deeply familiar to me as a creative person and I just loved the two anecdotes she relates. I’ve never been sure where I stand on the whole muse concept but I’m sure that we’re all familiar with the ‘where the hell did THAT come from’ sensation when we’re making our work.

I found this video on Denise Carkeek’s excellent Melancholie Dreams blog. It’s well worth a visit and do make sure you check out her wistful and haunting ceramics.

Firstly, some of you may have noticed that comments aren’t always appearing straight away. Unfortunately we’ve had to tighten up security after the site was hit by a bot that can crack the anti-spam word feature. So if you’ve not commented on the site before, your comment now won’t appear until I’ve accepted it. I’m checking every day to make sure that comments don’t languish in purgatory for ages. If you’ve commented before, your comment should appear straight away unless you include any URL’s.

Secondly, in celebration of April Fool’s Day, here’s an art-related Absolutely Fabulous clip to brighten up your day.