Tuesday 31 August 2010

A Banner & A Pillow

Resurrection Fern blog banner
I designed a banner for my dear friend Margie's blog
from some of these elements that I painted inspired by her gorgeous photographs.
You can go check out how the banner looks at her lovely blog by clicking here.
Envelop pillow design
I finally got around to designing a product at Envelop. I plan to design many more.
In the mean time this bird pillow is now available for purchase!

Monday 30 August 2010

Unconventional Canvas

Unconventional Canvas
I plan to paint several birds on the walls scattered around the house.
I thought would be fun for my guests to find all of them...like a treasure hunt :)
On the Wall
This is the first one. I'll show you the process...

Sunday 29 August 2010

Perfect!

Old Wooden Mexican Sugar Cone Mold
Old wooden Mexican sugar cone mold. Perfect vessel for my watercolor brushes!
Found it at Janet & Stu's amazing Three Potato Four shop

Saturday 28 August 2010

GEORGE BRIDGMAN'S ART CLASS



These are original student drawings from the 1911 class of the famous art teacher, George Bridgman.



Bridgman, constantly inebriated and chewing on a large black cigar, would rail at his students about the importance of mastering anatomy: "Don't think color's going to do you any good. Or lovely compositions. You can't paint a house until it's built." His students adored him and vied for his approval.



Some of the students in this class would grow up to be stars, such as Norman Rockwell, Mclelland Barclay or E.F. Ward. But in 1911 they were still ambitious teenagers dreaming of the future and striving to develop the kind of academic drawing skill that many illustrators today consider irrelevant.

The crowded classroom was warmed by the stench of tobacco, charcoal, perspiration and turpentine.













Many of the models were girls who had come to the city to work in department stores during a peak season and found themselves laid off. Desperate for money, they would apply for modeling work but once in the classroom some couldn't bring themselves to pose with their clothes off. Sometimes a young woman would attempt to pose in her slip and stockings, but she would be gently dismissed. Recalled one of Bridgman's students, "she'd begin to cry and say she needed the money and what was she going to do."









These girls and their terrible anguish are now long gone. All that remains are their ghosts on crumbling paper.



Bridgman was a highly critical taskmaster, teaching as he did before our era of false praise. At the end of each class, he would designate one student's work as number 1. (You can still see Bridgman's notation, "1st" on E.F. Ward's drawing of the man's back, above.) But Norman Rockwell recalled a story that Bridgman would tell the class whenever he sensed that students were getting cocky about their grades:
Boys, a queer thing happened to me after I left the class last Tuesday. There was a coal wagon backed up onto the sidewalk on 48th street shooting coal into a cellar. As I passed by a fellow stuck his head, all begrimed with coal, out of the cellar and said "hello Mr. Bridgman." I said, "why hello there who are you?" Oh, the fellow said, don't you remember me? I was number one in your class last year.... The story varied; sometimes it was an iceman or a voice from a manhole.

SHELL-O-LICIOUS DESTINATIONS: Seashell Temple in Taipei, Taiwan




This amazing Seashell encrusted temple can be found in Sanzhi township (Northern) Taipei County in Taiwan. Not much information is available (at least in English) in regards to the actual history of this elaborate structure. I have also discovered quite a bit of inaccurate information floating around in cyberspace about the Seashell temple. If anyone has any accurate information to add, feel free to post. Below are some very beautiful still photos of the temple, most taken by Miakey Chen. The last photo in this series of photos was taken by an unidentified tourist:










Below is another great video of the Seashell Temple featuring International TV personality and linguist master, Stuart Jay Raj. Only thing - the video is not in English and has no English subtitles.



Post Sources, links and additional info about the Seashell Temple that appear to be accurate:


Video in English about the Seashell temple: http://www.spike.com/video/seashell-temple/2834656



If you speak Chinese, visit the Sanchih local site for more info about the Seashell Temple: http://www.sanchih.tpc.gov.tw/tourism/religion.html#v13

Two Windows

Dragonflies
"Dragonflies" Watercolor on paper & digital collage.
Two Windows
The small hallway that connects the studio from the living/dining area
has facing windows with beautiful view on both sides.
I took this photo from the little patio just outside the dining room.

Thursday 26 August 2010

From the Studio

Studio
Another peek at what the studio is starting to look like.
I'm shutting myself in there all day tomorrow to paint! Finally! :)
Inspiration Board
My little corner of my inspiration board with my newest birdie by Diana Brennan.
Tiel's cactus painting with my bird
My friend Tiel's beautiful cactus painting with my fabric birdie.
He's taking a little vacation from the cage.
Sleeping beauty
And finally a photo of my sweet sleeping beauty taking a little power nap.

Wednesday 25 August 2010

Flowtown combines Email marketing and social media

If you’ve never heard of Flowtown, it’s a service that lets you import an email list, then they cross-reference that data with public social profiles and the system reports back where and how that address is connected on the social Web.The information that can be retrieved like this includes the person’s occupation and location along his/her full name, age and gender.

Flowtown will empower Email-marketers to conduct more effective and targetted campaigns. Having information about the target audience such as the predominant gender or demographic is invaluable, and it will allow anybody not to waste even a single penny on a public that is unreceptive.

Flowtown is the first tool(business social marketing ) we’ve come across with that makes a sound effort and help you to connect to your contact databases with the social media activity of your members and supporters.


Flowtown.com in their own words -
When all you have are email addresses, Flowtown can show you all the different social networks your customers are on including: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Myspace and more!

This service is provided at a cost that is specified online, but you can always sign up for free and give it a good try beforehand. I don’t think signing up is warranted if you are just an individual user, but if you work as a marketer it will be a different story altogether.

Studio Sneak Peek

Studio sneak peek
I'm almost done painting the walls and still playing around to find
the best furniture distribution. Making progress slowly but surely :)
The color is called "Raining Sky".

Monday 23 August 2010

ONE LOVELY DRAWING, part 32

I love Thomas Fluharty's working drawing of Hugh Hefner:



The purpose of this drawing was to capture the information Fluharty needed for an oil portrait. This could never be achieved merely by tracing liver spots. Look at the vigor and character of his line:



Robert Fawcett once wrote, "A design started tentatively rarely gains in vigor later on. In anticipation of the dilution... the first rough draft [is often] put down with an almost savage intensity...." The personality that Fluharty squeezed into this drawing will survive conversion to painted shapes followed by several phases of refinement and blending.

Despite the obvious energy and speed of his drawing, he has not sacrificed acuity. Note how sharply he records the eyes, never resting with an easy symmetry:



Best of all, as he digests information Fluharty infuses it with strong opinions. Here Fluharty takes liberties with Hefner's ear, treating it like the gnarly horn of a grizzled old satyr:



















One of the things I love most about good drawing is the way opinions and judgments emerge in the evaluation process.

Fluharty teaches a superb course on oil painting in the tradition of the Dutch and Flemish masters.



Sunday 22 August 2010

Divine blogger template

Divine Sunset is dark minimalistic Blogger template. It only has 1 image. This template has a nice simple design. This template would be suitable for personal bloggers and photoblogs.

Demo || Download

Thursday 19 August 2010

LOHAS Magazine

Lohas Magazine feature
Lohas Magazine feature
Lohas Magazine feature
Lohas Magazine feature
Lohas Magazine feature
My work was featured in a really beautiful Chinese magazine called LOHAS.
I really loved how they designed the layout and the photos they chose to show.
Now if I could only read Chinese!
If YOU can, read more here and tell me about it!
The exquisite porcelain "shells" on our table
were made by the very talented Paula Valentim of Otchipotchi.

Template pet for dog lovers orange color

This is a layout theme, for those who enjoy pets.Template Pet has a column on the right, three blocks at the bottom and a space to insert images in accordance with the subject of the blog.Fonts and colors 100% customizable.

Template Pet - orange red color

 FEATURES 
  • Customizable colors and fonts
  • Compatible with any browser that is properly updated.
  • Template theme 
  • One column to the right 
  • Three blocks in the footer 
  • Name your blog's footer (self) 
  • Optimized CSS 
  • Several hacks installed 
Hacks Installed :
  • Related Posts 
  • Withdrawal of Navbar
  • Jump break and hack read more 
  • Customizing the navigation icons 
  • FaviconAvatar in the comments 
  • Block quotations 
  • CustomButton for social networks 

Wednesday 18 August 2010

The Culprit!

The Culprit!
This my friends, is the reason no art has been made in the past few weeks!
This is the state of my beautiful studio at the moment.
But things will change in the next couple of days & I can't wait to show you
what it will look like when I'm done sorting through all this mess :)