Medallion Man

I was delighted to read on Casey Klahn's blog, The Colorist, that he'd awarded me a medal for one of my posts. Casey has been a firm supporter of my attempts to find a way through what for me was a colour minefield and has applauded my efforts just at the time when I needed encouragement most.

His own work is outstanding and his blog a delight to read. I urge you to follow up his other recommendations and take some time to look over his blog.

Someone Cares

Although I'm generally reluctant to get into the award meme thing, it is nice to be recognised by my fellow bloggers. This award was created by James Parker to show his appreciation of fellow bloggers and Trevor Lingard has kindly awarded it to me. I'm grateful to him for it and I'll be displaying it in the sidebar, but I hope no one will be offended if I don't now follow the rules and award it to someone else.

"...and especially my support team ...."

I've been given an award by Spot, and the words of his award speech are truly humbling. I've been blogging now for something like four and a half years and have often wondered if I was making any kind of ripple in the blogosphere. Here's evidence that nothing goes unnoticed. Thanks, Spot.

Now the difficult bit. I decided a while ago to make the award buck stop here. I find it really awkward to come up with names of blogs to pass on the award to, so I'm no longer going to do so. I'll show Spot's award, and any others that might come my way (like the Arte y Pico Award already presented) with pride and gratitude, but I don't intend to get into the chain letter business . If the originators of the awards feel that what I'm doing runs counter to the principle of their award and ask me to take it down, I'll do so.

Arte y Pico

It's always encouraging to get some recognition, so I'm delighted that that nice Kasey Klahn at The Colorist has bestowed the "Arte y Pico" virtual award on me. The award is given for blogs that show "creativity, design, interesting material and also that contribute to the blogging community no matter what language."

I now have to pick 5 blogs who deserve this award for those same reasons. In the hope that I don't end up creating an incestuous Arte y Pico community, these are my choices:

• Tom Wood - tomwoodhongkongartistnowintheuk
• Tina Mammoser - The Cycling Artist
• Marja-Leena Rathje - Marja-Leena Rathje
• Vivien Blackburn - paintings prints and stuff
• David Rourke - All the Strange Hours

Read the rules and follow the meme, bloggers. Or not, if that's what takes you. I'm no bully.