I am still Wonderfully Distracted by Happiness so this post will not be nearly as polished as I want it to be.

You know I love art and I love artists because they are brave and soulful and they fill my life with beauty – even when the art isn’t “pretty” they still fill my life with beauty.

Since I began blogging and twittering I have connected with some truly talented people and I want to share some of my favorite virtual galleries with you. Just click and browse and breathe in the inspiration. All of the sites will open in another window so you can easily come back here to continue your gallery crawl.

I must begin with Leah Piken Kolidas of Creative Every Day. I’ve written about Leah before focusing on her blog and her Creative Every Day Challenge. This time I would like to recommend that you visit her site for the sheer beauty of it. She features and interviews other artists frequently so her site is also great launching pad for your own gallery browsing trip. I also spent quite awhile browsing her flickr photostream. Pour yourself a nice cup of tea because you won’t want to leave her gallery for awhile. Her gallery is called Blue Tree Art Gallery.

I found Andrea Gutierrez on Twitter. I can’t remember how. I think I saw her avatar on someone else’s Twitter page and I couldn’t not click on it. She’s pomegranates on Twitter and her gallery and other goodies can be found on her site, littlebighead.

Okay, here’s the part where I stop narrating my process and just give you the links:

Susannah Conway has a beautiful photography gallery. She also offers some very interesting eCourses called Unravelling and Unravelling Further. Intriguing stuff.

I love the Swirly Girl, Christine Mason Miller. I still have one of her free desktop backgrounds on my laptop. It says, “Begin Today” and I take a deep breathe every time I see it.

Sandy Dempsey illustrated her post, The Creative Journey, on The Dreaming Cafe. I love her message: start where you are with what you have and take one step.

You can open your mind to the possibilities contained within a 4 x 6 index card when you browse QuinnCreative‘s Raw Art Gallery. My favorite is the one that says, “Don’t believe everything you think.”

Of course there’s the biggest gallery or collection of galleries online: Etsy. I could spend hours there – not to mention the dent I could put on my credit card. (I’ve been browsing rings on Etsy a lot lately.) And here’s one of my favorite recent Etsy discoveries: Kelly Rae Roberts.

Jennifer Lee is in the process of wrecking a journal on her Life Unfolds Blog.

I’m collecting virtual galleries on my My Delicious so I can post more gallery crawls in the future. I know I’ve only scratched the surface.

I do want to share an awesome resource for artists who are interested in building a business platform like a virtual gallery or any online presence.

Alyson B. Stanfield is the Art Biz Coach. She has a site full of resources and offers courses for artists who may be business shy or downright business avoidant. I am thinking of taking some of her courses since I am playing with the idea of offering Virtual Assistant services to artists who want to build their platform. I subscribe to Alyson’s newsletter and and follow her blog, the ArtBizBlog. Her book, I’d Rather Be In the Studio is also available online.

If you have a favorite gallery or your own personal gallery, I would love to visit it. Let me know. Happy Friday! I’m heading back to the land of euphoric distraction.

Tags: Art, Creativity