What My Blog Readers Are Reading

Above: two more faces and some more collaged text fun from my current journal. Pentel Pocket Brush Pen sketches with Holbein gouache (whatever happened to be out on the plate, hence the "odd" choices?) on Magnani Annigoni Designo paper in a book handbound by me. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

On July 12 I posted the winners of the 9-months of Daily Posting What Other Blogs Do You Read Contest.But the response was so good that I haven't been able to post all the suggestions that people sent in. It has been one of the "unfinished business" pieces I meant to address in the first few weeks of year two of the blog and if I don't get to it right now the lists are going to be buried even deeper in the growing pile of "give me attention" papers!

Ideas on how to organize these blog recommendations from my readers has really stumped me. There doesn't really seem, even after months of looking at it every so often, a clear way to do it even now. So in the interest of getting you something to look at over the weekend (should I decide not to post—it could happen—it will happen) I've gone for the straightforward "lumping" approach.

Oh, but first I have to note several entrants to the contest supplied additional recommendations beyond the 5 requested. Some gave political and religious links which round out their reading. Others listed professional lists and technical blogs they read to keep current. These lists gave me an interesting overview of what an individual was reading but sometimes they puzzled me as well. For some respondents it was important that the blog have a Christian bias and they stated this.

I wonder how my blog slipped in there under that criteria? Ditto several conservative political blogs with which I have little in common with ideologically. Overall, however, the end result made me hopeful. Maybe even if we disagree on a lot of issues we can still agree on art—our search for information about materials, our enjoyment of a variety of styles and approaches.

So without further ado, here are the most frequently mentioned, or in other ways applicable, blogs, readers wrote in about. I have listed them in no particular order. I want to thank again, everyone who participated.

• Most respondents said they regularly read the blogs listed in my blog roll so that is a good place for you to start! People particularly liked the great and detailed information they find over on Making A Mark, and the always inspiring work they find at Urban Sketchers. At least several readers wrote in to add Andrea Joseph's blog of exquisitely detailed drawings to their favorites list. Since all the items on the blog roll received votes of readership I'll leave you to check them out there rather than repeat the links here.

OK, after typing all this up I realize I have to try and break things down a bit into categories, even if the edges are fuzzy, so…

Illustration and Art Related (some technical, some lifestyle as well as art)

• Lines and Colors—lavishly illustrated blog that looks at drawings of all sorts!

• Gurney Journey—a wonderful blog for illustrators by the immensely talented author of the Dinotopia books.

• Julie Oakley—lovely vibrant sketches in a range of media. Definitely will encourage you to get out your brush pen.

• Stan Fellows—one reader reminded me I recommended this artist. (I'd purchased and reviewed one of his children's books.)  It's nice to go back and see his work again!

• Architect Painter Joshi—lovely paintings and journal sketches.

• Conkbunny—a web comic that I haven't spent enough time with to know the gist of, but the illustrations are beyond yummy! Sadly the artist is on temporary leave of absense. We can look at the archives.

• Artsyville—The artist has a quirky visual style that is very upbeat. I'm glad someone wrote in about this site.  Aimee has a wonderful eye and her photos of things she finds on her walks are also great fun.

• Crack Skull Bob—wonderful sketches and cartoons by the artist, in a variety of styles. So many pieces to check out!

• Cul De Sac—a comic strip blog, and it also looks like he illustrates children's books. The recent post was Fan art and I can't quite see what is going on here with a brief look.

• An Illustrator's Life for Me—blog of children's book illustrator Lynne Chapman.

• Grow Wings—the blog of artist and author Laini Taylor.  She is a writer of young adult novels. 

• Sketching in Nature—a group blog featuring nature sketching in the same way Urban Sketchers does urban.

• Dispatch from LA—journal pages and art from a creative grade school teacher, Mary Ann Moss, who makes amazing layered and stenciled journal pages (I profiled her a few months back).

• Jana’s Journal & Sketchblog: The blog of Jana Bouc. Her blog shows her paintings and journal work as well as descriptions of what she's up to.
 
•Terry’s Ink & Watercolor: The blog of Terry Banderas. A look into his sketchbook. The referral came from someone who loved his style of sketching.

• Dale Copeland —Blog of an assemblage artist.

• Art brut and outsider art—The blog title captures the appeal of this blog.

• Tommy Kane— I've been meaning to add him to the blog roll for months. I love his ability to render detailed scenes with crisp pen and ink with watercolor. I'm glad someone reminded me to get him up on the list.

• Prashart—lovely loose drawings many of which seem to have been made on visits to India (he is listed as currently living in Canada).

• Kathrin Jebsen-Marwedel's Photostream—illustration and collage in a wonderful mixed style.

• Paris Breakfasts—This NY artist (Carol Gillot) posts watercolors of highlights of her numerous trips to Paris and shows photos.

• African Tapestry—Loose watercolor and ink sketches plus peeks into life in the Loire Valley by a woman (Ronelle) who grew up in South Africa.

• Casey Toussaint—She lives in the Loire Valley also and is a friend of Ronelle of "African Tapestry."  Watercolor and ink sketches.

• Elizabeth Perry: Woolgathering—journal entries. In the examples I viewed she is really playing with negative space. Calm pages in a world of layered looks (I'm saying that, not the person who recommended it.)

• Jennifer Woodburn—her painting blog showing her acrylic paintings.

• Michael Nobbs—blog/site of the artist. Looks very interesting, with podcasts and such. I'll have to go back when I'm not so tired from typing (these are not in the order typed!)

• Photo Stream of Ricky Holtman—watercolor paintings and sketches.

• An Open Sketch Book—journal sketches, other sketches, photos, from an artist's viewpoint.

• The Red Shoes—blog of a watercolor artist. 

• In and Out of the Studio—the painting and journaling blog of a watercolor teacher located in Michigan.

• Janeville—the blog which follows the creative pursuits of Jane LaFazio.

• Gritty Arts Studio—looks like some interesting encaustic art to check out.

• Karen Blados—peeks into her visual journal.

Specifically Journaling

• Moleskinerie—a site for addicts of you know what.

• Journal Fodder Junkies: The blog of Eric Scott and David Modler. They discuss and provide examples from their visual journals.
 

Art Materials Related—More Technical or Review Focused

• The Spiritual Evolution of the Bean—tests on and reviews of inks and notebooks and other art materials.

• Pencil Talk—photos of specialty pencils from all over the world. Through this site the reader making the recommendation found his favorite pencil (the best in the world in his mind): the Mitsubishi Hi-Uni.

• Dave's Mechanical Pencils—Dave covering this subject with in-depth reviews and often summarizing their best points, not so good points, and price range which helps in making buying decisions.

• Comic Tool—Tutorials and reviews of materials typically used in making comics.

• I Like Markers—Marianne Walker posts tutorials and product news on Copic markers and related products.

Lifestyle Blogs (some of which contain art and craft related writing)

• Posey Gets Cozy—a lifestyle blog which I hope to go check out more because how can you not love a blog with photos of dogs and cats sleeping next to huge balls of yarn!

• Actually Laura—a personal blog referring to crafty things and life. (Her sister sent in the link and I agree, Laura has a cozy, personal way of blogging. And I would add a very interesting visual sense.)

• Casey's Elegant Musings—vintage style, lots of crisp photos.

• Genine's Art Blog—the art musings of a stay-at-home-mom.

• Accidental Mysteries—An ecclectic collection of items are looked at. Lots of eye-candy.

• Daily Coyote—Photos and lifestyle posts on life in Wyoming by Shreve Stockton, a photographer and writer.

• Venice Daily Photo—Shots of a magical city.

• Noble Pig—food and lifestyle blog.

• Happy Life—a little bit of a lot of different things with vintage thrown in.

• Into the Hermitage—a family traveling in a converted truck. I haven't been able to spend time looking through this yet, but the reader recommending it found it "great fantasy for stressful times."

• Cabinet of Wonders—not really a lifestyle blog, but a writer writing about all her interests.

• Tales from the Microbial Laboratory—Gardening, science, poetry, life (tagline). One of my readers said she enjoyed the varied stories and subject matter here.

• Three Beautiful Things—This is the blog of Clare Grant.  She blogs three beautiful things about her life each day. The reader recommending this blog said it reminded her to look "at life and the things/people around me, and try to truly SEE them."

Daily Painting Blogs

• Daily Paintings: Michael Naples—lovely oil paintings by a Chicago-based artist in the "daily painting" mode.

• Aaron Lifferth's Painting A Day—oil paintings on a daily basis, also for sale. Wonderful use of color.

• Carol Marine's Painting A Day—another oil painter making interesting visual choices.

Fiber Arts

• Mason-Dixon Knitting—the reader recommending this blog does knit, but she also recommended it for its writing.

• Spirit Cloth—Jude Hill's fabric art.

• Yarn Harlot—a knitter's blog praised for the author's sense of humor.

• India Flint—a blog of fibers and dyeing.

• Middle of Nowhere—blog of a needle felter living in the Cotswolds.

• ZQuilts—quilting and fiber arts from a Washington State-based artist.

Other Interests

• Book Slut—a good site for book junkies. 

• Digging— a blog about gardening.

• I Can Has Cheeze Burger—listed as a guilty pleasure!

• Cartoon Index—Didn't know quite where to put this one.

Karen's Picks

As a final section I have my friend Karen Engelbretson's selections, with her commentary—her top five in no particular order (meaning they are in her toolbar). Karen is a well-read friend with wide and varied interests. She keeps me abreast of news and graphic design happenings and odd things which she knows I'm interested in or thinks I might become interested in. And she does this while working long hours making a living as a graphic designer, creating her own art, and working hard to preserves water quality. I'm grateful she can do it all.

Outposts—by Timothy Egan, National Book Award winner for his history of people who lived through the Dust Bowl, "The Worst Hard Time."  About wild places and people who go there and what's happening.

The Wild Side—by Olivia Judson, evolutionary biologist and author of "Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex." Always well-written, always something totally new and interesting.

Happy Days:The Pursuit of What Matters in Troubled Times—Happy Days is a discussion about the search for contentment in its many forms—economic, emotional, physical, spiritual—and the stories of those striving to come to terms with the lives they lead. Because I'm trying to come to terms with mine.

By The Numbers—Charles M. Blow, The Times's visual Op-Ed columnist, conducts a discussion about all things statistical—from the environment to entertainment—and their visual expressions because I'm interested in the design of data.

ArtPlantae Today—Connecting artists, naturalists, and educators.

To Wrap Up

I hope this variety of suggestions from other readers will give you ample reading and viewing. I hope you'll find some new favorites to enjoy.

If you sent in recommendations and they aren't on the list I couldn't get the link to work, you didn't provide a link and my searches were fruitless, there was some other problem with the site, or the suggestion you made already appears in my blog roll.

If you find broken links please let me know and I'll try to fix them. And on looking at the preview it looks like some of the links in this post are the regular color and some are my red color. No idea how this happened. Perhaps when importing links from someone's post something happened? But I know you'll forgive me for not going back and making them all "uniform," as this is the longest I've ever spent on a post. Who's idea was it to do this contest anyway?

Now that's one item off my unfinished business list!

Comments

[Sandi Hester]

I CAN'T WAIT to look through all these! Thanks for sharing!

[Roz]

Sandi there ended up being so many that I hope it will provide interesting free time computer excursions for people for days and days and days!

[Cheryl]

All the links appear red to me - maybe it has something to do with whether you've clicked it recently yourself? Anyway, thanks for spending all the time to prepare this list - it looks like it will keep me busy for quite awhile. I'm looking forward to checking them out as I have time.

[anna maria]

Love these two drawings/paintings.

[Roz]

Cheryl, it's probably something like that, but they should all be a light blue. Sigh. But I'm glad it doesn't bother you. Hope you find some fun stuff there!

[Roz]

Thanks anna maria, glad you enjoyed the sketches! That's for checking in. Hope you find some fun links to read too.

[anna maria]

Now that I've had time to check out all the links (not at work anymore) I am surprised that there are only 3 I know well - Dispatch, Posie, Microbial Lab and Digging - but at the same time, given how many gazillions of blogs there are (I wonder if anyone actually knows how many), I am surprised of the opposite: that I know any on this list at all!
Thanks for doing all this work.

[ronell]

Thank you for the nod Roz...what great links you have here!
And last but not least, I LOVE these two faces from your journal!
Ronelle

[Roz]

anna maria, it is funny how with a vast land of blogs out there so many readers have mentioned the same thing (beyond the ones I recommended which we could reasonably expect they might be looking at since they bothered to read my blog). I'm surprised at the overlaps and wonder if a larger readership sample had responded if there would have been more matches or fewer? Only about 6 percent of readers responded so there imagine all the other blogs that are out there that people read—I won't be putting the links in a post!

Then again, since I'm sure many of my readers have come over from the Every Day Matters List, or Danny Gregory's blog, and Ricë's blog the overlaps start to make sense.

[Deborah A. Dugan]

Thanks so much for this, Roz! I'm working my way through in increments and it's such fun to see what other people are doing and looking at. I did notice when I clicked on the link for Julie Oakley, I went to michaelnaples.blogspot.com. (very nice oil paintings). Just wanted to pass this along in case you didn't know :-) Thanks again for putting all this together.

[Roz]

Deborah, thanks for pointing this out. I will go and insert the proper link! let me know if you turn up more!

[Jana Bouc]

Since yours is the blog I read every morning upon awakening as way to start the day with something bright and shiny and good, it's a treat to see my blog in your list. Thanks!
Jana

[Roz]

Jana, your blog got several mentions in the polls so there are definitely shared readers! I hope more will go and find your lovely paintings and art.

[Katherine]

Oh wow - I'm so embarassed - I'd no idea you'd written this post. Thank you so much for the mention.

I'm going to blame it all on my post holiday hangover of 'things to do' for not reading as many blogs round about when you posted.

[Roz]

Yes, Katherine, I'm pleased to say readers here recognize the wonderful job you're doing with your informative blog! Keep up the great job.