Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Etsy Sale All Weekend

Black Friday through Sunday Night I am having a sale in my Etsy Shop! I have lowered the prices on all my prints.

8x10's are $15.00 this weekend instead of $20.00

 

I also have my first originals available in the shop. I did a series of foxes on 4x6 Strathmore Mixed Media Paper. Each fox is different and I varied the mediums used as well.

 

This weekend only they are $12 each!

 
They are original paintings ready to be matted and framed. This is my first Christmas with a shop so, I thought I'd kick it off with a very fun opportunity to own or give an original piece of art. I love foxes and these were so fun to create. I truly hope they all find good homes!
 
Happy Holidays!
 
Lynda

 

Etsy Shop Preview for Black Friday

I've got the holiday tunes blaring (Brian Setzer Orchestra Holiday Channel on Pandora) and I'm ready for the holidays to begin.  I decided to have a sale in my Etsy shop starting Friday with specially priced original paintings of foxes.  Here is a sneak peek.  They are 4x6 paintings using various mediums on Strathmore 400 Series Mixed Media Paper and are ready to matted and framed.  These are great for fox fanatics (like me) or a kid's room with a woodland theme.









Other items in my shop will be priced lower this weekend only!  So, check out my shop and see if there are any prints you would like.  These foxes won't be listed until Friday.  I had a great time painting them and I hope they will live happily in someone's home soon.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

P.S. I will be announcing on Instagram, Twitter and my Facebook page when the sale begins.  Check out my links above in my link bar and follow me for updates!

Thursday, November 21, 2013

The Coolest Thing

Since "Make Art That Sells" ended I've been giving Adobe Illustrator (Ai) a go. It is quite the challenging application but it can do so much. It's actually the perfect medium to play in with the little sketches that I do. While playing around I decided to utilize my iPad and use Adobe Ideas. This app is vector based (just like Ai) and you can share your "ideas" to Adobe Cloud and then download them into Ai.

I found this photo from my sketchbook and traced the giraffe and then colored him in all on the app. When I downloaded the image into Ai I was able to correct all my mistakes and I can edit and manipulate it even more!

 

And here is a not so great photo from my mini sketch book.

I traced it and played on my iPad.

And then I played a little in Ai.

I'm still getting the hang of everything and how the two programs work together. This has loads of potential that is super exciting for me. I can use my sketchbook and existing art in a whole new way! Things that I didn't see as having potential for a finished piece may work perfectly in this format. How fun!

Click here to read about the apps Adobe has for the iPad.

And if you don't have Illustrator you can try it here free for 30 days. It is not intuitive so, you would need to check out YouTube or Lynda.com for tutorials. I like Laura Coyle's YouTube channel.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

 

 

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Diary of a "Make Art That Sells" Student: Weeks 3, 4 and 5 of Part B

Sorry I've been absent these past few weeks.  MATS Part B became very challenging for me and I also got sick so that didn't help.  Here are my projects for weeks' 3 through 5.

Week 3 was Scrapbooking week and I thought I was going to have an easy time with this one.  Nope. I found it quite difficult.  I think it was the subject matter, cameras and typewriters.  I don't normally draw objects.  I like characters better so I couldn't envision anything.  I also prefer the papers section of the Scrapbooking department and the focus was more on icons for stickers and embellishments for pages.  I don't go into that section.

I came up with these icons and used Illustrator to make the line drawings look cleaner.

Then I randomly chose 5 colored pencils to come up with a color scheme and played with layers in photoshop.


I think they look kind of cool but I'm not head over heals in love with this design  Below is the final presentation.  I tried to create "patterned paper" like you would find in a packet of paper.  I will likely revisit this and see if I can come up with something more interesting in the future.  


Week 4 was editorial and our mini was about lettering our town's name.  I had a sinking feeling the main assignment was going to be a map and I was right.  I had no clue how to do a map so, I decided to show the places you can take your kids in our area.  Morrisville has several parks and other interesting places to take your kids that you may not normally think of going.  Since the theme was "kid" oriented I took inspiration from Eric Carle and made a collage from painted paper.

My Icons


 My Final


I think its pretty good for a first try.  I love my boat, plane and firetruck.  I may need to use those for something else.

Our last week was Party Paper and the mini was all about Ukrainian or Bavarian Folk art.  Years ago I used to do craft painting and a lot of it was "folk art" style with swirls and flowers.  I was never a huge fan of that style but I went for it anyway.  I liked the Ukrainian better than the Bavarian.  I pulled out the paints and chose my favorite colors.  I even pulled out my special paint brushes that are often used just for "folk art painting".  They help the artist make flowers quickly.

These are my icons.


And this is my final presentation.


I really like how this came out.  It's bright and colorful and fun.  I think these icons can be used on lots of other things too.  I felt really good while I was creating this project (despite the fact that I was also sick with a horrid cough).  

Now the class is over and it's time to get motivated and get to work.  I know I am getting a better grasp of this licensing thing.  It's all about icons, icons, icons.  More importantly though it's about doing what you love.  I love to draw, paint, use bright colors and use characters in my work.  I think if I keep these things in mind when creating I will come up with a good collection.  I also have a really decent grasp of Photoshop.  I spent two days painting icons for my last project and two days on the computer assembling everything.  Who knew photoshop could be so helpful with art!  Stay tuned to see what happens next in my career!  Now, off to work!

Thanks for stopping by!

P.S.  More things will be added to my Etsy shop as well.  If you haven't visited yet, please stop by and check things out.