Art Giveaway Reminder!

October is upon us, which means registration for my
Art Giveaway Begins Tomorrow and Lasts All Month!

You can win this Giclee Print on Canvas just by posting a comment on my Blog.

Learn all about the art Giveaway and the Rules at www.MiliGirl.com/media.

* Remember . . . Only post a comment on a 'New Post', because if you post a comment on an a post that is older than one day I might miss your post.

Good Luck and Happy Commenting!
Peace & Love, Melanie

Psssst.... My Boxed Note Card Gift Sets are on sale this month for 20% Off!!!!


* Click Here for Instructions on how to post a comment on my blog without a Google Account. It's easy!

Art Giveaway Reminder!

How to Post a Comment

How to Post a Comment without a
Google Account or a Blog

I’ve come across a number of people now who have tried to leave a comment on my blog, but didn’t when they were under the impression that they had to have a Google Account or a Blog.

So I decided to post some instructions here.

First of all you can find the 'COMMENT' link to open the comment form at the very bottom of each post that looks like this:

POSTED BY MELANIE BANAYAT AT 10:19 AM 2 COMMENTS
LABELS ART BUSINESS, HOW TO POST A COMMENT WITHOUT A GOOGLE ACCOUNT, MELANIE BANAYAT, MILIGIRL COLLECTION, POSTING A COMMENT ON BLOGGER

Just click on the word 'COMMENTS' to open the comment form.

A pop up window (comment form) will appear that looks like the form below :

Instructions:

How to Post a Comment

Western Yoga

New. Western Yoga 36" x 36" Original Oil Painting 2008
by Melanie Banayat

WESTERN YOGA

"Western Yoga" is obviously a bit of a gentle satire; a light parody if you will.

The painting is highly textured, which is hard to tell on the internet. This painting along with other new works will be on exhibit in my booth (#718) at the Sedona Arts Festival next weekend - Saturday & Sunday October 4 & 5th. These paintings are so new that they're still wet!

Along with my original oil paintings I will have Giclee Prints, Art Prints, and my MiliGirl Collection Note Cards.

The Sedona Arts Festival is Sedona's most popular fall showcase of fine art and craft featuring over 100 of the country's finest visual artists and craft persons, entertainment, and food vendors. No pets are allowed at this event. For more information please visit the Sedonal Arts Festival Official website at www.sedonaartsfestival.org.

Hope you can make it to the festival!


MiliGirl Note Cards make unique gifts for women. Find and send the perfect "Just Because" greeting card at the MiliGirl Collection online store.

Please share this post with others - Thanks! Melanie Banayat

Western Yoga

Trusting Your Instincts

Click on 'Letting Go' note card

“Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts.
And never hope more than you work.”

- Rita Mae Brown

Over the course of this past year, ever since I created my MiliGirl Collection note cards, the following three questions have been coming at me quite a bit . . .

“Melanie, why did you decide to create a line a note cards using your artwork?” Why not just print ‘Art Cards’ with no written messages on them, because your art is so beautiful in and of itself that it doesn’t need words?” Aren’t you afraid of competing with yourself against your ‘Fine Art?”

Click on 'When A Woman Flies' note card

For years I have gone against my instincts when I took heed to the logic, reasoning, and fears of others who tried to influence my life in the direction they felt my life should go. Ultimately it was always my own decision to deny my personal instincts by allowing myself to be influenced to go in a different direction. In doing so I found myself involved in many things that were un-natural for me, stressful (in a bad way), and my spirit was in pain – I often found myself saying, “I feel like I’m drowning”. Though I am truly grateful for those experiences because I learned more about myself - these days I am trying to do better at paying closer attention to my 'personal ' natural instincts.

The decision to create the note cards came after I returned from my hiatus in Mexico when I transitioned my life after my divorce. First, I felt a need to try to make some important, though simple, needed changes in my everyday life in order to improve the quality of my life and my kid’s lives. Simple things like doing things that I love – things that I feel instinctually drawn to. For instance, I love dancing, because it is a natural expression of who I am and it brings me great joy. Yet, for almost 20 years I didn’t dance because neither my first husband nor my second husband danced. It was like a huge void in my life. Now I get it - when you trust your instincts, you're trusting your heart. It’s a way of celebrating who you are.

Click on 'Latina Baila' note card

The desire and the need to address female issues in my note cards, regarding self-esteem and trusting your instincts, is something that grew from my own personal experiences in life. These note cards offer a way for me to awaken dreamers, who are stuck in the dream stage, so they may move forth in following their true path and radiate light from their very core.

Click on 'Holding On' note card

Through my note cards it’s a simple way to reach many people in quiet, yet affective ways. Not shouting, “Change! Improve! Fix!”, instead, softly sending a message into a soul, “You are an amazing being…let love into your heart, and into your mind; let yourself trust and love who you are -- that is where peace & joy in the world begins.”

I also find that note cards are a great tool to rouse communication and conversation, so that we can come to understand the common threads between us, and become active toward bringing forth thought and reaching out to others one person at a time. We may never know how far our small efforts reach in exponential factors - we just have to trust that the process works.

Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's. ~Billy Wilder

Trust your hunches. They're usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level. ~Joyce Brothers

Intuition is a spiritual faculty and does not explain, but simply points the way.
~Florence Scovel Shinn

(I especially liked this quote! LOL!)
An artist's instinct is more refined than the typical mortal's.
~Holden Rinehart

Now - here is a little 'ad' about my MiliGirl Collection Product line:
These 'anytime' cards are prefect to send to any woman in your life! Friend, Girl Friend, Mother, Daughter, Wife, Co-worker, or the Woman you just met who could use some encouragement. The cards are sold individually and in gift sets.

The MiliGirl Collection is growing. Soon (very soon!) there will be an entire line of MiliGirl Collection eco-friendly, organic gift products that compliment the MiliGirl note cards. All of the products are based around lifting the spirit and relaxing the soul. The Products include: All natural soy based candles, natural handmade olive oil soap bars, organic handcrafted candy drops, and MiliGirl ‘Eco-Chic’ re-usable canvas tote bags.

I like the way things are shaping up around here!

Trusting Your Instincts

ACE Art Group

The ACE Art Group has just launched their new website!

The ACE Art Group
Artists Creating Excellence

An Association of Professional Artists
bringing art connoisseurs and fine art together
in ever changing intimate venues

The ACE Art Group (Artists Creating Excellence) was formed by a group of professional artists in the Prescott, Arizona area who are devoted to their mediums and determined to advance their careers. The group -- a unique combination of artists -- focuses on the business of art, networking, organizing shows and expanding their list of collectors. Each artist contributes his or her experience and talents to benefit the group, sharing knowledge, information, opportunities, challenges and successes. The members of the ACE Art Group are all accomplished artists who exhibit a wide range of talents in various mediums. Melanie Banayat - contemporary figurative oil painter – creates bold & colorful images of women in peaceful, sensual, and whimsical poses reminiscent of the Fauvism movement, Pia Davis – fine art photographer - focuses on the incredible and mysterious world of ‘macro’ found in blown glass, Emelina Figueroa – Urban Organic Mixed Media Painter – utilizes natural elements such as marble powder, wood, volcanic lava, seed, coffee fibers and grains in each of her renderings, and Bill Cramer – Plein Air Oil Painter – captures the desert landscape of Arizona on location and completes his impressionistic paintings in one sitting. The ACE Art Group chooses to remain a small group (maximum 12 members) in order maintain their unique purpose and mission with integrity. Their mission is to bring art connoisseurs and fine art together in ever changing intimate venues by partnering with businesses and art collectors. They create a different art exhibition theme for every new venue making each event a ‘Unique and Intriguing Art Experience’.

Join our Mailing List
We invite you to join our mailing list
Come Enjoy the Art Experiences of the ACE Art Group.

www.aceartgroup.com

artists@aceartgroup.com

ACE Art Group

SNAP OUT OF IT!

It’s Crunch Time . . .

I spent the summer hangin’ out ‘a lot’ with the kids -- Lazy Sunday afternoons canoeing and swimming in the lake, camping, and letting my daughter, Mikhaila, drive me everywhere so she could get lots of practice driving. I didn’t want it to end. But now that school is back in session and a few art festivals are right around the corner I’ve got to snap out of it. Go ahead and say it . . . MELANIE, SNAP OUT OF IT!

I’m finally shifting gears. The countdown for the Sedona Art Festival is on, I have wet paintings all over the studio, and a few others on the kitchen counter in repair, just discovered a flat tire on the trailer, got ten other irons in the fire, and no time in my schedule to color the gray hair that is taking over the not so easy to hide areas around my forehead near my temples! What is this? I’m starting to look like Lily Munster. AAAAAH! What to do, what to do?

Actually, I’m having a ball! It’s all so fun and exciting to me. Well, maybe not the flat-tire part.

Check out my schedule of events at Banayat Fine Art. Plus, Don't forget about my upcoming Art Giveaway! at my MiliGirl Collection online store. Please spread the word!

SNAP OUT OF IT!

What is RSS?

Soooo.....What the heck is RSS FEED anyway?

In the shortest and simplest layman terms that I can come up with to describe RSS it’s like creating your own customized daily newspaper that contains only the content you want to read, and it all gets delivered directly to your computer for free.

I found two different links that show you how it all works – in terms that common everyday folks can understand.

RSS explained the Oprah way
RSS in geek & techie terms = "Really Simple Synidcation"
RSS in Oprah terms = "Ready for Some Stories"

Watch the YouTube Video on RSS

* If you would like to subscribe to my RSS Feed -- Just look for the subscription button in the side bar.

What is RSS?

Fortune of the Day

Fortune of the Day:
"How fortunate: "You are free to invent your life."

When looking for simple things in life that bring us joy I think of things like a smile, a hug, or receiving a card in the mail. I love that kind of stuff! Call me corny, I don’t mind; I’ve been called worse things.

I’m the type of person that looks forward to opening those little pieces of paper that come out of the funny shaped cookies that we get at Chinese restaurants at the end of a meal, that we know are not true, and yet, in a lot of cases, we wish that they were!

After eating the cookie we sometimes save our favorite ones. We put them in our wallets, pin them to our bulletin boards, tape them to our computers, or hang them on the refrigerator door. They can predict the mundane or the outrageous, and chances are they are funny as all get out (especially if you add the words ‘in bed’ to the end of the phrase).

Definition of Fortune: often a hypothetical, personified force or power that favorably or unfavorably governs the events of one's life:
a. fortunes: The turns of luck in the course of one's life.
b. Success, especially when at least partially resulting from luck:
c. A person's condition or standing in life determined by material possessions or financial wealth:
d. Extensive amounts of material possessions or money; wealth.
e. A large sum of money:
f. Fate; destiny
g. A foretelling of one's destiny.


Here are a few fortunes that I’ve saved…



Do you have a favorite fortune that you've saved?

Fortune of the Day

Finding the Right Words

"Sometimes finding the right words can be like finding the key that opens the prison door."

Words are Powerful - Very Powerful!

Some people are never short of words. Some people seem to have a plethora of interesting and intellectual words that spill from their mouth as easily as stating their name. I’m amazed and dumbfounded by the natural gift that some people posses. Some have a gift with words in profound and poetic ways, while others have a gift of slighting and damaging souls with just a few choice phrases.

I am not so gifted. Yet, I am determined. I have been searching and searching for years (YEARS!) for the right words to describe certain experiences and events that happened to me in my past, yet time and time again my pages have been left with gargantuan blank spaces. I simply could not conjure the elusive words.

While doing some research for a book that I’m writing I came across an abundance of helpful information. Words! I found magical, wonderful, fruitful words that have brought about answers to my half drowned soul.

Isn’t it incredible when you put the energy out to do something and you receive a response? I’m on cloud nine! The prison door has been opened. It’s true that the right words can set your soul free.

Finding the Right Words