Kanna Inspire: The New Name

Congratulations, Amy Cavaness for suggesting the name that led me to choosing Kanna Inspire! Amy suggested Kanna Be Inspired, which I mulled over and shortened to Kanna Inspire. I like it from multiple angles. Amy, thank you so much for your ideas!

Also, I compiled a list of all of the suggestions. Blue Lapis and Gaga4Graphix suggested the 31st and 24th ideas. Your prizes are as follows:

• A print copy of Inspiration Adventures
• The e-book version of Brandi Hussey's new color e-book, Understanding Color: Color Theory Made Easy
• The e-book version of Beverly Ash Gilbert's new e-book, Artful Color for Creative Projects

Please email me to claim your prizes!

Kanna Inspire: The new name for the e-zine will be announced

I had a little bit of a delay in announcing the new name of the magazine. I traveled for work this week and I forgot how draining work travel can be, even if it's relatively local and not across the world.

Most of the time I work from home (really, I'm appreciative of this opportunity), and most of the time these two creatures are my "co-workers." They are super cute in their work drawers.

I'm compiling the drawing for the winner and will post on Monday. Thanks so much for checking in!

Kanna Inspire: What's the big deal about inspiration?

As I was thinking about what people might be googling that could cause them to stumble across this e-zine, these are the key questions that really got me thinking:

• How do I define and/or create my art style?
• How do I improve my style?
• How do I transition my style?
• How do I improve my art?

When I googled these ideas, I cam across a wealth of blog posts with standard ideas like practice, practice, practice. There were great blog posts and I will share the best posts in a future article. 

But that led me to thinking about why I think inspiration challenges are an important part of our journey to defining and improving our art. 

My Story

I started my creative journey in 2007. A quick scan through my year 2008 posts will show you the key points of my journey in glass and experimentation in a number of different jewelry techniques such as stringing, wire-wrapping, and chain maille. My initial style was quite colorful and crazy (and got lots of feedback). My emerging style started settling down.

In 2009 when I was able to focus on my jewelry business, I started creating themes for each monthly newsletter and designing my jewelry to go with the theme. I ended up being very surprised with the result of fencing in my creativity and designing around a theme. In stead of confining and restraining my creativity, I actually focused and thereby stretched, refined, and honed my skills and artistic style. I came out of these themes with a defined artistic style and jewelry collections.

Your turn: what about you? What was your journey to defining your artistic style?

Kanna Inspire: A Naming Contest

I have a little wrinkle in the launch of my new e-zine. I originally started this process last November / December. I think I googled the name Inspiration Adventures and had not found anyone that had staked a claim to the name. During the delay in launching the first issue, the domain name was obtained up by a photographer who just launched a blog this June. 

I decided to look at this as a great opportunity to come up with a smashing new name for the zine. So I am holding a naming contest. 

The Prizes

I am currently working on a prize. Part of it will be a print copy of the first issue of Inspiration Adventures  (soon to be re-named). I am working out the details of the other parts of the prize and will update the post when I know more. 

Updated prize package:

• A print copy of Inspiration Adventures
• The e-book version of Brandi Hussey's new color e-book, Understanding Color: Color Theory Made Easy
• The e-book version of Beverly Ash Gilbert's new e-book, Artful Color for Creative Projects

Oh, yes! These are definitely books you want in your art library!

Two Winners

There will be two winners

• Everyone who suggests a name will be put into a drawing for a prize package for each name suggested
• The person who suggests the winning name will also receive a prize package

If I have a hard time choosing the name, I will put my final choices out for a vote. 

My brainstorms so far

I have been brainstorming on my own, but none of what I am starting with has been resonating with me. I'll throw out some of the ideas I have below to hopefully spark some fab names from you. I have been learning Mandarin Chinese for 10 years. My studio name, Kanna, is from the term Look! 

• "Jili" is one I am playing with. It's not quite the definition of inspire that I wanted - this one means encourage and motivate. The other word "guwu" didn't look as comfortable in English. The other issue with Jili is that if you say it with the wrong tone, you could mean something very different.
• I ran a newsletter for a few months called The Kanna Spark
• I've been playing around with Art Inspiration or Art Inspired
• My brain works like fireworks when I have ideas going on

So, can you help me out? Thank you so much in advance!

Studio News: The Winner

The winner of the latest giveaway is Linda Barutha!