This weeks artist is a gal with not only incredibly talent - but a huge heart! Arlene of Spirit Essence Art has been a huge encouragement to me, and I hope that you love her art work as much as I do! 
1. What type of art work do you do?
Right now, I am a painter using watercolors and oils. I also enjoy creating pages in my art journal, which sometimes in which I use paints, collage techniques, and the use of markers, pens, and a bit of stamping.
2. How did you get started doing art work?
I started doing crafts many years ago, from macramé to pottery, and stained glass. I even had my own brick and mortar stained glass supply and gift shop for several years. It was during this period that I decided to take a drawing class, so I would feel more secure about drawing up my own custom designed stained glass patterns for clients. The class I took was divided into two sections. The first section, that I was in, consisted of people taking the drawing course. The second one had the students that were taking painting.
I learned a lot about drawing, though I was intrigued with what the painting students were doing and I kept walking over to the easels to see what those people were doing. The following semester, I signed up for the class again, but this time signed up for the painting segment! That’s how I learned to paint with oil paints, and I have loved painting ever since. This past year I have been teaching myself the use of watercolors, and am fascinated with how different they are from oils.
3. Do you do any other crafts?
Well, I still have all my stained glass gear and am actually teaching beginning stained glass at the local community college. I also have spent years creating glass treasures by fusing it in glass kilns, including jewelry and other, larger art pieces. I am not doing any new glass creating these days, though I still have a lot of pieces that I created last year, and that are in my Artfire shop.
4. What's your favorite piece in your shop right now?
Of the paintings in my shop, my favorite one is my
Underworld Fantasy Watercolor because it was so free and spontaneous, and I love the colors in it.
5. Where do you sell your work?
6. Do you blog?
Yes I do! I love to blog now, though it was difficult at first for me to post regularly, since I couldn’t conceive in the past that anyone would be interested in what I was doing. Now, I especially like to post in my blog since I am creating so often, to share what I have created as well as any of my “process” – both my internal process and some of how and what I use to create the paintings. I realized that I just love reading others’ blogs with this kind of information, so I want to share my own so others might also enjoy what I am learning and experiencing. For me it is a way to reach out to others and share myself, something that I am making more of an effort to do lately. For anyone who is interested, my blog is http://www.SpiritEssenceArt.com and I love to have new viewers as well as comments.
7. Are you on any social networks you'd like to share?
Yes I am: I am on Twitter (www.twitter.com/arlenemh), Facebook (www.facebook.com/arlenemh), Plurk (www.plurk.com/spiritessenceart) and a few other smaller networks.
8. Do you watch or listen to anything while you work? If so, what?
Sometimes I listen to music while I work, often some New Age kind of music or motivational music, but more often than not, I love the silence of my studio and enjoy just hearing the birds singing or my own thoughts in my head.
9. Tell us one random fact about your self *wink*
Though I am a US citizen, I lived for 10 years in New Zealand and am a permanent resident there. I went there because I had met and fell in love with my husband at an international spiritual / personal growth retreat in Australia, and he was from there. I went to join him in the South Island of New Zealand where he lived, and we were married there eventually. They were wonderful years and I grew a lot as an individual and loved the natural surroundings and lovely people there.
