Dew – Curious as a Cathy

Are you looking to join me on the dance floor? Here’s where to find my Monday’s Mewsic Moves Me tunes! After you’re done boogieing come back to check out my thoughts on last month’s blogfest. 😉

This year, I almost did not participate in the April alphabet blogfest. Gasp, right? But, thanks to Lee (aka ArleeBird) and John gentle encouragement I felt a surge of excitement to take part in the event’s 10th-anniversary bash. I also want to say thank you to all the other co-hosts for pulling off another successful year of A to Z.

Don’t procrastinate when you know you’re gonna do it anyhow!

Being late to commit to the challenge, it was the end of February, I had to act fast. The only thing I knew was I wanted to keep with my art sketch series but this time I wanted to focus on a single subject, unlike anything I’ve done in the past two years. Thinking back to last year’s seed planted in my head after drawing a couple of different cartoon characters, I wanted to draw Disney princesses but that didn’t narrow my art theme enough to suit me. That’s when I figured out I’d go with one Disney production sketching characters from the movie. The Little Mermaid was the first film to pop in my mind.

After mentally committing to the challenge and now with a theme firmly in place, I began my research going from A to Z jotting down characters to illustrate. That’s when I discovered the 1989 movie didn’t always have character representative for the alpha-prompt, so I widened my theme to include the sequel and the animated TV series. Even then, I was stuck on some letters in the alphabet which left me to improvise by keeping an ocean-related subject for those difficult letters.

Make your theme about something you love!

I managed to get all but two illustrated, including accompanying posts, completed before the April 1st kick off. I knew this might happened but entered the frenzy with the mindset to enjoy myself, not stress over what I can’t reasonably do. The two I remaining drawings weren’t a big deal to work in after the affair was underway.

The ‘Master List’ of participants this year really didn’t help me a lot. I think after the first day, I didn’t consult it again. The reason being is there were very few bloggers listed in the art category. I wanted to connect with others who dabble in the arts no matter what their level – novice to expert. I just wanted to learn from others!

However, I did manage to drop in for the daily post contribution on the host site to comment and leave my direct link for those interested. It was from the comments section that I most often visited other bloggers playing along, oftentimes visiting the site before me. That worked well to introduce myself while exposing myself to new content.

Be the kind of blogger you want others to be in turn – geninue with commenting and loyality to visiting.

Many of the bloggers’ path I crossed were people I’ve come across in past years but really didn’t get to know very well before now. For instance, Keith’s Ramblings who writes adorable short stories for children which stirred a memory from my childhood or that of my children, so I felt more of kinship to him this time around.

Trudy from Reel Focus is another blogger I knew but not very well until now. She’s a screenplay author who talks a lot about movies in general and for the challenge, she gave us the A2Z to why she loves watching movies. Who doesn’t like movies? We spend a lot of our free time in front of the TV so bonding with her was natural.

Jade from Tao Talk ‘Signs & Symbols’ theme was educational and sometimes a bit weird in a fun way, especially the P post, which left me giggling.

A new blogger I discovered this year…well, I think she’s new. You know how it is sometimes you meet someone on this journey once and you might forget. I blame it all on a condition I got as a once new mother that I labeled ‘Mommy Amnesia’. Anywho back to the new blogger. Kislaya from Dew Pure Gentle Soothing! writes of her pregnancy experience A through Z. My baby is now 25 so to read her thoughts served to restore lost fond memories. I offered encouraging words to the mom-to-be but I don’t think she’ll need it, as she seems like a well anchored young woman with an excellent family/friend base to guide her in her parenthood journey.

The challenge proved to be just that ‘a challenge’ despite having my posts scheduled ahead. Maintaining daily replies, return visits, social media shares, and leaving a message on each site was a plateful of activity. I did my best to keep up but was my best enough? I don’t know and if I missed you please accept my apologies and tell me to get back over to your place to check out your posts. 🙂

Build on what you started in April carrying your A2Z experience throughtout the year with new post contributions or visiting others in the community.

Who would’ve thought two years ago when I entered the A2Z Challenge with the notion of picking up my pencil and sketch pad to rekindle a lost hobby that it would turn into an infectious passion that I can’t seem to stop?

I will continue down this path for as long as it carries me enjoying every step of the way; chances are favorable I’ll sign up next year doing the same thing and I already have an idea in mind for my 2020 art sketch series.

Thank you for hanging with me in April but in between now and next year, I hope you’ll tune in for my spin-off series ‘In Living Color‘ using my A2Z Little Mermaid pencil drawings with the first installment beginning in this week’s not-so-Wordless Wednesday time slot.