Meet Melia Newman

Hi everyone! to kick off our new video series we have an interview from the lovely Melia Newman! Here's the interview I did with her. You'll find the video of a card I made using a stamp set by Melia at the end of the interview. I hope you enjoy! Please stop by Melia's Facebook page and like it.

-What is your favorite medium?  Currently watercolor and pen and ink, and I have recently become obsessed with face painting and learning digital art. What style do you consider your work to be?  Cute fantasy

-What made you start doing art and when did you begin your career in art?  I have been making art all my life.  My grandmother was a landscape artist and to keep me out of her hair so she could paint I was given art supplies.  The beginning of my career was a bit of a winding path.  I actually got my degree in art, but was so burned out by the time I graduated that I had no interest in painting.  I took art quilting and was selling those on ebay about 9 months after graduation.  Then found myself spending more time designing my embroidery patterns than quilting and figured out I needed to go back to more traditional art mediums.  I started a pop cubist style that was heavily influenced by my time quilting.  Most I was doing belly dancers, since I was dancing at the time.  Then the cats started taking over and the cubist style didn't work for them, so my style evolved to more cute and whimsical.  Then I got bored and started adding butterfly wings.  Before I knew it I was doing fantasy work, which suddenly made me feel free to do whatever I wanted, so the dragons I drew in my youth began making an appearance again.

-What/ Who most inspires you?  The kids, both the human ones and the furry ones.  My dragons often are inspred by our German Shepherd Wolfie and my son.  The fairy cats have a bit of my daughter's and our 3 cats in them.

-What is your favorite subject matter and why?  That changes so often.  I will obsesses over mercats for months and then suddenly I have to draw dragons, and after a few weeks I can't stop drawing art nouveau inspired pin up fairies.

-What are your favorite colors to use in your artwork? Purple  Do you tend to stick to a certain palette?  No, I love color and will look for excuses to buy new paints, so I color with just about all the colors.  I might stick to a particular set of colors for a month or two then move on.

-If you could meet any artist living or dead who would it be and why?  Such a long list for that.  Mucha, Manet, Romero Britto, Laurel Burch, Shag, Suess, Frazetta, those Scottish sitters that were involved in the Art Nouveau movement I can't remember their names..

You can find melia's website at: http://www.bemusedart.com

and her Fan Page at: http://www.facebook.com/BeMuses

This is the card that I made with Melia's stamp set called Whip Dip

This is the video I made using some fun techniques to make the card above. I show you how to use Liquid Applique, Odorless Mineral Spirits to color and Random Stamping for Backgrounds. Please be patient with my video. It's a new camera. My old one konked out on me and I'm still learning the boundries for this new one. :)