Daily Deviation on deviantART

I just logged into deviantART to see what was up.  I have not been posting anything new in a while so I was just making a round to check messages.  When I checked the visit stat and saw a spike of some 900 views on Saturday, I thought something was up.  From my past experience, I gathered it was either a journal feature by someone with millions of followers or a Daily Deviation.  I had to check my comments section to figure out what was what, and it became evident that "Reverie" received the honor of Daily Deviation on Oct. 4, 2014.

I'm a little bit sad that I didn't discover this on Saturday.  Let's see... what was I up to on Saturday?  Frantically working on digi files.  Just like I've been doing most of this year, day after day after day.  To think I missed out on the excitement of the Daily Deviation honor!!  Yep, I'm still sad.  ^^;

"Reverie" in ink, watercolor, & acrylic ©Mitzi Sato-Wiuff 2013
Private collection

This is my 6th piece to receive the honor of Daily Deviation (I keep a special folder of pieces chosen for this honor in my deviantART account under aruarian-dancer.).  I still make a big deal out of it simply because it's an undeniable fact that there are probably billions of artwork on that site.  Unless you have a huge following, and you are prolific, it's hard to be noticed.  I've been lucky that fellow deviants have been noticing my work and recommending them for the honor.  It's always especially nice when the piece that  gets the front page honor happens to be one of your personal favorites.  I've had everything from a doodle done on printer paper to a digital piece with over 20 hours spent to a traditional piece like this one chosen for DD so far.  This one was painted about a year ago.  Sat on my shelf for a while, but then found a happy new home of a collector while listed on Etsy.  ^_^

Looking at this piece makes me want to do some traditional art in subdued colors again.  Like I said, I've been frantically producing digital stamps most of this year, but things have been especially hectic since I lost 3 weeks in August and September to being sick.  ^^;  There's something exquisitely lovely about people liking something that I made for pure enjoyment for myself.  People will always like fan art.  Crafters will like line art for coloring.  That's all very nice, but it just doesn't quite come close to the joy of finding an appreciative audience for a piece one paints for pure enjoyment with pretty much no regards to commercial or popularity concerns.

Getting a Daily Deviation for our original work does magic for our motivation, confidence, and belief in ourselves.  Maybe I'm feeling this particularly keenly since I've been away from regular production of this type of art.  Time to actively seek to balance things out, and get back to spending some serious 'me' time!