Gail Bartel is a happily married 43 year old mother of three kids aged 11, 9, and 6. These little people are the core of her being, and her first and best test subjects for new kids art projects. Gail’s blog details her gardening, cooking, love of art history, and her miniatures and dioramas. But besides all this good stuff, it has become famous for sharing unique art project recipes for kids. Gail lives in Calgary and teaches art to children.
That Artist Woman is the work of teacher, and a mother. This is a mini instruction manual that reminds parents how much some paper and glue can excite youthful imaginations and engender creativity. “My passion is to create art and to share this process with kids. I find young kids to be so self-confident when it comes to creating art…no limits, no self-doubt, which is so refreshing. When I teach adults or older kids I spend a lot of time working on that confidence level. This in turn has pushed me to be more experimental in my own work and made me more willing to take creative risks.”
Gail Bartel only started blogging July 8th, 2008 and she chose the name “That Artist Lady” because when she set up her blogspot, her real name was already taken. While pondering names she remembered how parents of students would say “oh there goes that artist woman”, or “we need to ask you know…that artist woman”, so this unusual blog handle was familiar to her, and strangely compelling.
Artistic and prolific, fueled by her success, Mrs Bartel has already posted over 100 articles, including more than fifty clear and easy to follow tutorials. How to do Batik with Kids was the first post to get serious attention from other arts and crafts sites, and it continues to be Gail’s all-time most popular post in terms of traffic. “The technique is foolproof and has sparked a lot of creative projects from readers. One Mom made a quilt out of squares she and her kids ‘glue batiked’ one for every month of the year.” This author also recommends Glue Resist Dinosaur and How To Make A city Skyline art recipes.
What’s really fascinating is Gail’s own growth as an artist.
That Artist Woman is currently exploring and developing her own skills and abilities as a watercolour artist that clearly favours landscapes, street scenes and houses. “I love the unpredictability of watercolour as well as its ease. I can paint anywhere”.
Gail recently acquired the complete set of The Family Creative Workshop, a reference book series from the 1970s. “I’m looking forward to a summer of reading and creating projects from this source material.”
When I asked her about contentious posts she remarked that, “I don’t tend to do anything to controversial. [But,] I do work at a Catholic school and I find any posts that have an art project with a religious theme don’t get picked up by the usual ‘high traffic’ blogs. The one thing I don’t do is show any faces of my kids or the students I work with. It just doesn’t feel right to me. I have had parents request that their kid be shown on the blog for different projects but it’s just a line I won’t cross.” And so Gail Bartel’s blog will never be accused of exploiting children to market her goods and services, which she gives away for free anyway.
Because children best understand conservation, Gail provides kid (classroom) tested art and craft projects that are unique, as well as use recycled materials and few if any purchased supplies. Art intimidates a lot of people because anything is possible but yet kids get bored with the usual projects. Gail’s art project tasks children to imagine things they have seen and things they cannot see, but only imagine to exist in the real world.
Like most successful new bloggers Gail is very surprised by how supportive everyone has been, and so far she hasn’t received any negative comments. Quite the opposite, she’s formed amazing friendships with other artists. “I did not expect that I would get picked up from other sites and that the blog would be acknowledged outside my immediate community.” But because she is dispensing rare (and beautiful) data, Gail’s blog has become a hunting ground for a growing number of online arts and craft mavens. 
Gail’s blog is a free resource for teachers and parents at school. Now when people write to her and ask for samples or advice on techniques and projects done throughout the year, she tells them to ‘go to the blog’ where it’s all laid out in a picture tutorials.
On so many levels That Artist Woman’s blog is a big success. This digital portal has become her dynamic resume, but more than that, it’s a functional index of her creative work, a useful portfolio of unique content. If anyone wants to know what this woman can do, they merely have to peruse the archives, or click on her tags to find wicked cool examples of her excellence.
Anthony J Kinik and Michelle Marek really do appreciate their life in Montreal, and they share their passion for their city’s culture and cuisine in an extraordinary ‘food lovers’ blog. Their weekly adventures in the old city are filled with details relating to hidden fruit and vegetable markets, butcher shops, seafood shops and of course restaurants and 
He originated from California where he earned a PhD in film studies; states that he’s always been interested in food, and actually began taking cooking classes when he was just ten years old. I’ve read and discovered that he loves soup and ‘uses pepper in everything’. Kinik is no stranger to print media either. He’s written for Gourmet, and the Montreal Mirror.
The blog began in Nov. 2004 when, AJ relates, “we did the only sensible thing. One dreary day, we headed down to a Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown, and over a good bowl of pho, we came up with a name–” and the name is “…meant to convey a sense of the ideal life.” And he goes on to write that, “…the Internet opened things up quite a bit and provided many new voices. In terms of food writing, it provided a forum… for food cultures that had been marginalized.”
Holy Mackerel
Mary Moore was born and raised in Ottawa and got her start in journalism in high school working on the school newspapers. She was first employed as a journalist in Wetaskiwin Alberta, on a small weekly newspaper where she worked for two years as a reporter covering crime and local politics. Back in Ontario she landed a spot at the daily paper in Cornwall as a crime reporter and there covered a few national murder stories and found it to be “very exciting stuff”. That’s where Mary met Mr Handsome and right around the same time she landed her dream job as the new managing editor for Feliciter, the national magazine of the Canadian Library Association, where she worked for twelve years.
So, after some humming and hawing, I just went for it, and now it’s a big part of my life, to my family’s consternation. As my husband puts it, there’s an umbilical cord connecting me to my laptop.”
Casie Diana Stewart is a restless 26 year old artist, poet and blogger. She documents urban charity events, shopping excursions, and fashion parties. She writes about herself mostly, and describes her adventures cycling in Toronto, surfing (online & on waves), her art and assorted photography projects, sewing & making clothes, funky local stores, and twitter. She’s a pretty girl with a good sense of humour, and a very popular blogspot.
It all started in June 2006. Casie needed something to do while her boss was away. “I posted a bunch of stuff one day, and the rest is history.” Her first posts were 
Oops he did it again
A social butterfly, NetChick has adopted, or rather, inherited an earlier link exchange ritual (from 
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What is Poutine?
Montrealers need Midnight Poutine. It’s a personal ongoing account of the city’s happenings. It’s a delicious high-fat source of rants, raves and musings. It provides the insight you never find in newspapers and the details and tangents that would never fit in a weekly. It possesses cheese-like flexibility. It’s sometimes snarky, often unusual and always informative. Your order has arrived. Dig in.
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Now here’s where this Canada Blog Friends profile gets really interesting. I wrote to Lisa and asked her which of her posts that she thinks is her best. This was her reply,
Phronk writes this about himself, “I’m a guy who lives in London, Ontario, doing various things, such as going to school (I’m a graduate student in psychology), going to work (I teach people and do science) and many other things. I really enjoy doing activities that are fun and eating things that taste good. I have a wonderful family, friends, and a dog. Bees make me nervous. That’s all there is to me.”
Phronk documents lobster flavoured potato chips and good Google daily logos, exceptional movies that went straight to video, or straight to awesome as he puts it, and look at this early masterpiece Halifax 
After a post listing his favourite movies, and another promising to make his new blog the repository for all his best stories, readers are treated to a very unusual 
Billy Mintz, the 
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