business cards.

As an artist and a current freelancer, business cards are a very effective way for me to spread my name. SO WHY HAVEN'T I HAD THEM UNTIL NOW!? I guess I have been lazy considering I've been at AAArt now for two full years and most every upperclassman has a card or logo. Although they claim to be ahead of the majority of other artists, I believe there is no such thing as "being ahead," or "being behind." There is just getting out there.

My reasoning is this: you are never too young to start marketing yourself, just as you are never too old. My friends at school laugh at me for having a website and a blog, but I think it's silly not to start putting yourself out there. I would tell ANYONE who is in the business of "selling themselves" to start now and do everything! I'm embarrassed I only just ordered my cards this morning (1:30 am).

This is front of my card


This is the back


I wanted this to be simple and a good representation of my work. I love my monsters and underwater hybrids, so these two pieces are perfect. I love the color against the stark white, and the negative space around both figures. I thank Nick Eby for helping me with the text and figuring out what to add and how to align it.

New Octopus. (In progress)

This one is terrible. It looks like a rainbow, which is really lame.




I think I'm going to stick with this color scheme.

Colored Monster

Colored in the monster I recreated.


Colored Monster



Black and White against Colored Monster

Steppin' It Up

A new section has been added to my website: Before and After.

The premise of this addition is to take a drawing I've done years ago and redraw it. Then post both drawings together to show the improvement. Also posted will be my black and white drawings that I chose to color, for example the seahorse or my Two Birds. I plan on making a good amount of colored piece from the original black and whites. I'm not sure how many redrawn pieces I can do, or have time to fit in, but I think that is the most interesting transformation.

I hope you enjoy!


Before and After: Angler Fish




Before and After: Monster

I See a Seahorse!

I have had the "skeleton" (the black and white version) of the seahorse created now for about 5 months. I recently decided to color it just to separate the subject from the background better. I think it was really beneficial. Also, I've had a lot of great response from it.

If someone wished to buy the colored print, I would create a special color scheme for them that I would not reproduce. So my plan is to sell the black and white colored print for $50 and the colored prints for $100, since they are unique and original color.

Colored Print

This took roughly 2-3 hours to color, whereas the skeleton took around 25 hours to draw. I used micron pens for the black and white, then sharpie and prismacolor markers to fill in the color. Again, this is just one version of color. I would actually like to see it more blue rather than orange.

For my website, I posted the skeleton against the colored drawing.

Black and White against the Colored Print

Basia's Gift

A young girl walking uptown approached me while I was packing away the dog house in my car. She told me she liked the design and asked if I could reproduce it on a smaller scale for her sister. I agreed. So, here is my progress...



It is very different from what I am used to doing. Sure, I LOVE to do crafty stuff! I just don't think I'm very good at it. I tend to be sloppy, believe it or not, and I get frustrated very easily. I ran into a few problems already with this piece. I did not like how it originally looked without the glitter. And then once I glittered it, I hated it even more! The caulk I bought was sticky and everywhere. The glitter not only stuck to the glue I meticulously painted around the beads, but to the black canvas i had yet to paint. So...I had no choice but to just paint right over the rouge glitter.


STEP 1: attach beads




STEP 2: glitter



STEP 3: paint

Price Check!

When I walked into work this morning, I felt great. I had been busy all weekend with commissions, prints, and redesigning my website. So, I confronted my art director, Noel, about how much attention my site had been getting lately. This was quite rewarding considering he informed me how UNoriginal and boring he thought my site was just a week previously.

I also told him of a woman in Alaska who found my site and loved one of my prints.
He exclaimed, "Excellent! How much did you sell it for?"
I told him, "Well, $25. That's the price for a print."
He then burst into laughter.
"How could you sell a print for so little?" he asked.

I informed him how I felt about selling my work as a print. How I'd rather have my art work everywhere because people can afford it, than nowhere because it was too expensive. Though, he wouldn't listen to a word. He told me since I don't mass-produce, every print is like an original. I suppose I can see his point. Thus, I doubled my prices.

So, I ran to him and told him I did so. He laughed again. He thinks I should be selling my work for numbers in the hundreds. HUNDREDS! I couldn't believe it. My work? Well. I disagree that a print would be worth that much unless it's massive and difficult to reproduce. All my work is quite small, the most reaching 11 x 17 inches. So, I feel that the prices I've picked for each piece is reasonable and workable. If someone cannot afford an art work, I can lower the price accordingly. I think it's more important to give out art than hoard it.

So, I have raised my prices (most now are around $50 for a print), and I hope everyone can deal with it.

Randomly Found Work

I have been working on this fish for quite some time. A lot more time than it looks, to be honest. Perhaps 3 weeks? I began it the first week i was out of school, and then i abandoned it for a while. I really disliked the composition of the fish against the pipes. I should have planned it out better. I would not call it an absolute failure, but it's not my best.



This bird was also started three weeks ago. I worked on it one day and never touched it again. I will not be finishing it.

...

I am a little upset with myself. I have not done much since the week I finished school for the summer. Given I produced four pieces in four days, no new work has made its way onto my paper. This must change. For, if I am not creating, I am nothing.

Dog House

So. I am back at Maddock Douglas, and for the past few weeks I have been working on designing and producing a dog house. Yes. A very large - and in charge - dog house.

Here are some quick views of it pre-assembly:

I used mosaic to detail the paw prints I had painted on the sides of the roof. In total, there are seven paw prints including the big one on the "butt" of the house.

On the body of the house, I chose to continue my gridded pattern in a more subtle color scheme. The grid is larger, and I only used three colors: light blue, ultramarine blue, and black (oh! and silver!).


It took a total of 2 weeks, including hours and hours and HOURS spent at home after work nursing the grout and cleaning the stones. It was back-breaking work, but I must say, it was worth it. I've never attempted a project this big, let alone by myself. Though, my dad helped me a lot with varnishing and maintaining care of the glitter. That glitter is everywhere now!!!! It's scattered all over my backyard so when my pooches run through it, it resembles falling snow. I even caught my puppy, Derby, eating a pile I swept up; she had glitter up her nose for a few days...

Now, the house is waiting to be sealed and assembled by ECAF. (Don't ask me what it stands for.....I only know E stands for Elmhurst). It will be pretty shiny once under the sun, and I hope it catches a lot of attention.