Paint Party Friday: Week 13 Check-In - Honouring The Muse

Welcome to this week's Paint Party Friday! It's wonderful to have you here for PPF, especially as the weather in the north tempts many of us away from our paints and into the long awaited sunshine.

Last week we talked about your creative process and how you start your art.  Paint Party Friday players (PPFers) are a versatile (and talented) group! You have either tried everything or you fly by the seat of your pants - which some might say involves trying ANYthing.

In your comments and posts, the underlying theme of the Muse keeps arising. Otherwise known as - the little spirit (as NatashaMay described), the divine, the voices, my invisible friend as SunshineShelle created or Creation (who Victoria Pettella says owns her) - the Muse seems to hang out with PPFers.

We thought this might be fun to play with this idea and explore it further....   (For the sake of ease, we are using the term "Muse" but please think of this in terms meaningful to you.)   This week we have two polls on that theme. One short one:

One a bit longer:

We look forward to your comments in more detail - in our comments section below or on your own post today or in the near future. (We know that many of you have everything ready to go for the strike of midnight and will only read this after your post is written.)

BTW, if you have ever painted or wanted to paint your Muse, we would love to see what you have painted or will create!

And finally - the check-in! If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 check-ins. Please make sure to use your post URL address versus your blog URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website.

Party On, PPFers!!! (Sorry - a little channelling of our inner Wayne and Garth there...)

Paint Party Friday... Week 12 Check-In - The Creative Process

Welcome to Week 12 of Paint Party Friday! (Can you believe we've been doing this for 3 months?!?) This continues to be one of our favorite places to be... We are so happy to see so many friends returning and we're thrilled to meet new painters each week!

Last week we discussed distractions and creative blocks and asked how you deal with them. There were many different ways we all get through them but it seems most of us try to keep the creativity going no matter what. Hooray for perseverance!

This week we're curious about your creative process. Some of you have talked about your process on your posts and others have shown us photos and videos! It is fascinating to see and experience other artists' work in progress and to discover the way that you create what you create. So we are curious about how you do what you do and especially how you start. Tell us more - in the poll, in the comments and in your posts!

If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 check-ins. Please make sure to use your post URL address versus your blog URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website.

Have a fabulous time at the party!

Paint Party Friday... Week 11 Check-In - Creative Blocks

Welcome to Paint Party Friday where we love to paint, to party and to join our friends (all painters are welcome) to show off our efforts! We're happy to have you join us!

Last week our poll talked about distractions. That topic was partially chosen due to Blogger's problems the week before and this week there are more! Sometimes one can't log-in and other times one can't comment. Yikes!! That will sure put a damper on the party if it is not resolved!  Some people have been commenting as "Anonymous" this week (on our personal blogs) and signing their names to the comment to work around this issue, so make sure your settings allow anonymous comments just in case. We switched from Internet Explorer (IE) to Google Chrome to be able to log in and comment. This works and seems to be the best solution as the problems are IE-associated. Hopefully none of you will have any issues and all will be working perfectly but until then let's use as many creative workarounds as we can think of! (We have a back-up plan we hope never to use.)

Which brings us to this week's poll inspired by some of your comments about distractions. (There are always such awesome comments!) And according to last week's poll, most of us are easily distracted. "All of the above" was the winning answer by a long shot! This week we want to know more about how you deal with distractions and creative blocks...

If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 check-ins. Please make sure to use your post URL address versus your blog URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website.

Have a fun time at the party!!

Paint Party Friday... Week 10 Check-In - Distractions!

Welcome to Week 10 of Paint Party Friday! What a distraction last week was with all the Blogger problems. Thank you for your patience with the late start after our lost post (which still has never shown up) and for turning PPF into an all week-end party. Instead of the party having only a trickle of die-hard partyers, it was a strong and fun party with lots of newcomers - welcome to all of you!

The vast majority of you looked at disasters with a positive attitude and felt that they brought out your creativity, for some in the form of art but mostly creativity in other forms - finding new ways to cope and creating work-arounds. Blogger's problems were a distraction to us all and that is what this week's poll is about - What distractions keep you from painting?

Tell us more in the comments, we always love reading them! (Please be sure to take some time to read the comments - there have been profound revelations, wonderful ideas and great advice given in these comments.)

If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 check-ins. Please make sure to use your post URL address versus your blog URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website.

Have lots of fun at the party!

Paint Party Friday: Week 9 Check-in - The Party After the Storm

Welcome to a very chaotic Week 9 of Paint Party Friday. We had a brilliant and amusing post (haha) scheduled to go up at 12:01am Friday. It, like so many of your posts, is now lost in all the problems Blogger had overnight. This was the equivalent of a tornado or a hundred year flood for those of us with Blogger. An anomaly, a black swan, it was definitely a challenge to many of us. The same thing could likely have happened to Wordpress or TypePad. It might not have affected as many of us but who knows. So think of this party as one where the heat and power have gone out but no lives were lost. We still have food (and wine) and we are going to have a great time!

We'll skip the poll this week and try to recreate what we would have been said this week in next week's check-in. (They say those posts will return. Anyone taking bets on that?) Meanwhile, here's a question for your comments: How do natural (or technological) disasters affect your creativity?

If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 check-ins. Please make sure to use your post URL address versus your blog URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website.

Hope you enjoy the belated party!

Blogger Challenges - PPF Week 9 Post Lost

Hi Everyone,

It's been a perfect storm. The bridge (Blogger) to the party was washed out last night. We hoped everything would be up when it was repaired but the storm also destroyed the check-in post. It will take a little time to rewrite so please join the party when it gets off to a late start!

Road to Paint Party Friday

Thanks!

EVA and Kristin

Paint Party Friday: Week 8 Check-in - Colour My Painting World

Week 8!! Can you believe it?! Welcome back everyone! New players - we are thrilled to have you join us and look forward to seeing all your painting endeavours!

Last week our poll showed that those of you who preferred a size, like to work in the 5 to 24 inch range of canvases. Most of you are flexible and will work on any size canvas. Many of you will work on any recycled material. Annabelle even paints mushrooms! This week's poll was inspired by last Friday's post by Stephanie about choosing a favourite colour. We'd like to know if you have one, what is it and ideally why (in the comments) you love it so?

If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 check-ins. Please make sure to use your post URL address versus your blog URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website.

We'd also like to give a shout-out to the Charity Art Auction at Inspiration Avenue which some of our players are participating in. There are beautiful pieces there for a great cause. We hope you visit and bid high and bid often! It ends May 7th.

Looking forward to seeing your painting this week!

P.S. Kristin says color and EVA says colour but Kristin is so sweet she goes along with the Canadian/British spelling of some words here. We rather like "u" -  and you, too!  ;)