Tell All Tuesday ~ Featured Artist: Eden Gasior

Hi guys

It's a VERY special TAT today...

ya know why??

Coz we just turned one!!

Yep this is TAT's first anniversary.

We started with the lovely Courtney Brook one year ago, that's a whole lotta artists!

If ever you are feeling uninspired, a little artistically restless or just fancy a peruse you can find the archive for all the interviews here << book mark it for when in need

So this weeks artist is called Eden and I think you'll agree she can do some pretty amazing things with coloured pencil!

Enjoy...

Tell us a little bit about yourself and what kind of artist you are?
I have always been drawn to creating with my hands. I learned to knit at 5, then sold hand-made beaded bracelets and necklaces at 9, crocheted, cross-stitched, sewed, quilted and painted various objects throughout my life. Since I work outside the home and while raising a family that didn't leave much time for creative expressions. But since the kids are off in college and my time is my own, I've unearthed a drawing desire that I can finally focus on.

My twitter about me statement: "I'm an Avid Doodler, Marker Maniac, Consummate Photographer, Flickr Fanatic who likes to draw."  However, my proudest moments come from capturing a picture sketch (photo-realism). I started colored pencil sketching last year and I think I've finally found my medium. I get to work with color and I get to focus on shape. I am not drawn to painting, probably because I lack the patience to let things dry.

What is the biggest challenge you personally face as an artist and how do you overcome it? 
Being rather high-energy I have to fight boredom. I'm lucky that my nature notices the details but with that comes the unease of wanting my sketch to "be done already"! I just purchased a new graphic pen tablet to try my hand at digital art. It'll be a whole different feel and a bit of a learning curve. Keeping up with technology also helps when the art project starts to stale. I get to switch gears.

What do you find easiest/ hardest in your art? 
The easiest thing for me is color selection, playing with color and working with color. Bright and bold colors really inspire me. My years of quilting have helped me here. I learned this lesson the hard way. After spending well over a hundred dollars on 15 different materials for a quilt. I didn't follow any rules, just picked out what I liked and made sure lots of colors were represented. Each piece of material was just as bright, bold and beautiful as the next. As I started to piece it together, I was getting anxious. The colors were not mixing well with one another. They all wanted to be a star! I have since learned to limit my color pallet in projects and to purposely bring in some neutrals.

The hardest thing about my art is "putting it out there". Being rather private I know that I have to promote myself (to some extent). Especially through my blog I have to let people see what I'm working on, what I think about it, and little tidbits about who I am. When I listen to my introverted tendencies if makes me feel vulnerable....but when I listen to my extroverted side....I realize that it's all ok...it's not that big-of-a-deal. 

Do you ever lose your mojo, and if so, how do you get it back? 

Absolutely!! It usually happens when I've been working on something for a while or just finished a challenging piece. That's when I need to balance out the other sides of my life and spend more time with family/friends or take an excursion (travel if I can). If I just shake-things-up a bit, my ho-hummness usually gives way. Once out about I can always find something that interests me to draw, photograph or write about. Just interacting with people and seeing what others do, can inspire me and will carry over in ways that aren't readily apparent at the time.

Tell us where we can find out more about you and your art? 

Blog, Facebook, Flickr, Etsy 

I really enjoyed your answers Eden, thanks so much for taking part.

I soooooo get the dilemmas with being private and worried about putting yourself/your art out there. In many ways I'm a very open person, but in a whole bunch of other ways I am a very private person and it can be tough to find the balance where I feel comfortable. I get emails all the time asking for some 'secret' to putting yourself out there and this is why I put this answer on my FAQ page:

'Every SINGLE person who posts stuff is scared of the results and reactions, but THEY DO IT ANYWAY.'

It's true, it's not that I'm not not scared, it's just that I do it anyway. That's all a little bit of courage is; it's not the absence of the fear, but the action taken in-spite of the fear.

“It takes courage to push yourself to places you have never been before... to test your limits... to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to stay tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Anaïs Nin

(one of my favourites!)

Do you wanna TAT it??

To be featured email me or click the link to find all the details here =)

Much love