Calling All Messy Artists, You Need this Apron!

Your apron purchase supports the Food Bank.
Click here to buy now!

I recently closed my CafePress Store. I was donating what I made from the store to the Food Bank. The short back story for closing the store is that when I signed with my agent, part of the agreement was to take down the images they are representing. I was/am totally cool with that! BUT, the images/stuff that was selling was removed from the store. I kept thinking I would create new art for the store but never got around to it.

SO I am advertising through social media these "Art Happens" Aprons in hopes of raising money to donate to the food bank. They are customizable! Different sizes and color are available. Kid sizes too!

I am also asking for your help - Artist are such amazing people! Buy an apron, Tweet, Facebook, Pin, Google+ share on any social media site you like. THANKS so much for the help! I can't do it without all of you.

Artist Spotlight - Sandy Laipply

 

Read a bit about Sandy and check out her work! - Post in the comments what your favorite piece of her art is!

Tell us a bit about yourself: Did you go to school for art? Are you self taught?
I have been creating for as long as I can remember, starting with making new clothes for my paper dolls as a little girl- after I finished all my coloring books. I had 2 years of high school art, and my teacher gave me a wonderful foundation. Other than that I am self taught. I try to take classes whenever I can, in all kinds of mediums.

What inspires you / where do you get inspiration from?
Anything and everything can inspire me, but I think mostly nature. I love flowers, birds, animals, landscapes and seascapes. Sometimes it is the words in a song. Or just not painting for a while. I find that I tend to get very cranky if I spend too much time on the business side of my art and not the creative side. It's often difficult to find the right balance.

Do you work in just one medium? Several?
I work in almost every medium. I spent 15 years working in the craft industry, helping companies show their customers what to do with their new products, and I loved teaching and demonstrating. My friends keep encouraging me to license my work, and when I decided to do that, I knew I needed to focus. So right now I am working in watercolor-my favorite painting medium. Photoshop and Illustrator are so much fun, and allow one to provide clients with files in the format they need, but I still go back to a paintbrush in my hand. Nothing compares to the thrill of putting pigments on paper and watching the colors merge and magic happen!

What are you working on now?
I'm working on a collection of fruits and vegetables in watercolor. I'm on the Board of our local Arts Council, and this summer we were invited to show our work at the local Farmer's Markets. Seeing all that lovely produce each week was very inspiring and I was allowed to take a lot of photos for reference. I see a trend of using a lot of fruits and veggies in home decor, and several clients have asked for them.

Anything else you want to tell everyone?
I love working with manufacturers and learning about their product processes. I got my first licensing deal because I did cold calling on manufacturers at the Atlanta Gift Market, after I had walked the show 6 months earlier and identified companies I wanted to work with. I met a manufacturer who liked my style, but I didn't have what he wanted in my portfolio. We worked together to come up with the look he wanted for his product line, and it has done very well. Click here to see some of the Pretty Tools products with my art:  http://sandylaipply.com/art-licensing/licensed-products

I've since signed with an agent so I can spend more time focusing on my art, cplicensing.com. We're currently in discussions with several companies. Handpainted art is very much in demand now and with a computer I can format my art for almost any surface. I want to be in tabletop, giftware, home decor, greeting cards, party goods, etc. And since I love to sew, I definitely want my own fabric line.

Are you an early riser? or night owl?
Definitely an early riser. I'm often up before 5 am, and I love watching the sunrise. I prefer painting in the morning when my studio is full of light, and then do the business side later in the day.

What is your favorite food?
Chocolate. Or chocolate covered caramels. Or Reese's Cups ( chocolate and peanut butter) . Or chocolate ice cream. Or chocolate cake. Did I mention chocolate???? Maybe I should start painting a collection of chocolate candy......

You can find Sandy: SandyLaipply.com       sandy@sandylaipply.com

Phone-419-562-9825      FB-Sandy Laipply's Art      LinkedIn-Sandy Laipply

If you are interested in being spotlighted - email me: anntroe@cox.net

Thanks doodlebugerz for reading and posting your comments. MAKE MY DAY and follow this blog :-D

More Hand Painted Holiday Ornaments

MORE Fun ideas for painting your own pottery ornaments!

Above are our latest batch of ornament ideas for the Holidays!  Just to revisit (if you didn't read the last post on ornaments), they are three inch round tiles that my daughter and I painted. Before we started, we had the person working at our local paint your own pottery place drill holes so we can hang them with ribbon.

My daughter painted the Starbucks and Kitty ornaments. The Starbucks ornament is for a friend who is a Starbucks fan!

We sketched out our ideas on paper and then colored the back side of the sketch with a number two pencil making our own cheap carbon paper :-) Next, we traced the design on the the ornament. As you may know, number 2 pencil burns off when the piece is fired in the kiln.

You can find the first three ornament designs here:
http://anniesdoodlebugz.blogspot.com/2013/11/cute-hand-painted-ornaments-for-holidays.html

Thanks for stopping by doodlebugerz!

File Formats - Down and Dirty

Do you know about this helpful Photoshop website?

 

Recently I have been asked about if a TIFF file is better than a PSD file. I am sort of an old school graphic designer and we used to send flattened TIFF files to printers because of the great image quality and there were less issues with a TIFF file than sending a PSD file. Now a days Photoshop is compatible with a lot more than the current version and I haven't sent a TIFF file in ages!

I agree with this website PhotoShopEssentials.com that I save my master files as PSD. Of course different people have different ways of working.

Below are snippets from PhotoShopEssentials.com post on different file formats

Photoshop .PSD

Of all the file formats that Photoshop supports, the PSD format is probably the most important. PSD stands for "Photoshop Document", and as the name implies, it’s Photoshop’s native file format.

JPEG

The JPEG (Joint Photographic Expert Group) format has been around for nearly 20 years now and has become the most popular and widely used file format for viewing and sharing digital photos.

GIF

The GIF file format, which stands for Graphics Interchange Format, has been around even longer than JPEG, and it’s the format of choice for web graphics.

PNG

PNG (Portable Network Graphics) was originally meant to replace the GIF format (PNG also stands for “PNG not GIF”). That never happened and GIF files are still in wide use today, yet the PNG format improves upon the GIF format in nearly every way.

TIFF

Like PSD files, TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is one of the few file types that support all of Photoshop’s features and is another great choice for archiving your images, with lossless compression that allows you to save photos with the highest possible image quality. The quality comes at a price though, as TIFF files can be very large, especially when compared with JPEG files.

EPS

EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) is another print industry standard format that’s been around for quite a while, but its use has been in decline over the years. EPS files are not really image files in the traditional sense. Instead, they contain a series of instructions for how a printer should reproduce the image. They can be imported into most page layout programs, but the “encapsulated” part means the files are essentially locked and can no longer be modified unless they’re re-opened in Photoshop. (My note: I still create and get request for a lot of .eps files for logo design).

PDF

Finally, while most people are familiar with PDF files for viewing, sharing and printing electronic documents (hence the name Portable Document Format), PDF is also gaining in popularity as a great choice for saving images destined for print. Like the PSD and TIFF formats, PDF supports and preserves all of Photoshop’s features, including the ability to use spot colors, something the EPS format does not support.

 Hope the link to PhotoShopEssentials.com is helpful as well as this post - thanks for reading and commenting!

Cute Hand Painted Ornaments for the Holidays

Fun ideas for painting your own pottery ornaments!

The ornaments above are "hot of the press"! They are three inch round tiles that my daughter and I painted. Before we started, we had the person working at our local paint your own pottery place drill holes so we can hang them with ribbon.

We sketched out our ideas on paper and then colored the back side of the sketch with a number two pencil making our own cheap carbon paper :-) Next, we traced the design on the the ornament. As you may know, number 2 pencil burns off when the piece is fired in the kiln.

Thanks for stopping by doodlebugerz!
See more ornaments here: http://anniesdoodlebugz.blogspot.com/2013/11/more-hand-painted-holiday-ornaments.html

Artist Spotlight - Cindy Wider

Artist and author started out in Papua New Guinea 

Tell us a bit about yourself: Did you go to school for art? Are you self taught?

I studied art right through high school, then I graduated with a Diploma from 'Art Instruction Schools Inc. USA' (which I studied by correspondence when living in Rural Australia). I was also awarded a government scholarship to study silk screen printmaking to further develop the style I work in. So my background is in commercial art and design but like most artists I am a continual vacuum for learning.

What inspires you / where do you get inspiration from?
Mostly the memories from my childhood growing up on an island just above Australia called 'Papua New Guinea'. The gorgeous flora and fauna, brightly coloured plumages on the birds and long hanging vines all remain with me in my imagination and just call to be expressed. I am also inspired by the works of many other great artists such as the famous French artist Henri Rousseau, and Modern Primitive artist Raul Del Rio to name a few.

Do you work in just one medium? Several?
I paint in acrylic on paper or canvas and often create studies in realism graphite and charcoal. I  mainly create images in Adobe Illustrator for my art licensing projects. I love working in Illustrator because its so versatile and I can act upon the creative decisions really quickly. I work hard to make sure that my digital artworks maintain the softness of a painted image. I like to breathe soul into the image and inject it with personality.

What are you working on now?
At the moment I am working on my 'Castaways' series (above). The first in the series was 'Castaway in Paradise' which was just shown in 'Art Buyer Magazine' http://www.artbuyermag.com.

The second is 'Castaway Home'. In this line I am expressing the fantasy escape to paradise. I love the whole idea of getting back to nature and through these artworks I aim to connect people back to the roots of where all peace and tranquility resides; within nature.

Anything else you want to tell everyone?
I am absolutely besotted by art, it is my life and I love sharing my knowledge about drawing and painting with others. Besides creating art for licensing, I am also an author and I wrote the soft cover books; 'Paint In Your Pyjamas-every woman's guide to finding your life purpose through art' '12 Charcoal Techniques' 'Six Pencil Strokes' and 'Action painting workshop' as well as 37 ebooks that form the 'Complete Drawing and Painting Certificate Course.' My soft cover books are available on Amazon and you can find my course at http://drawpj.com.

Are you an early riser? or night owl?
Night Owl but only if I am working towards a major goal. I like my bed and believe in regular sleep patterns if I can. I limit myself to working no later than 11pm or 11:30 pm maximum and only up to three nights a week or I start turning into a mad woman due to the upset in my body chemicals.

What is your favorite food?
Oh it just has to be oysters, crayfish, prawns, fish and anything seafood yummmo!

You can find Cindy http://www.porterfieldsfineart.com    
Agent: Lance Klass, President, Porterfield's Fine Art Licensing Sarasota, Florida
email: cindy@drawpj.com     (+44) 01274 985 974

You might also like these post: (click) Artist Spotlight - Peggy Wilson  
Artist Spotlight Sarah Hudock
If you are interested in being spotlighted - email me: anntroe@cox.net

Thanks doodlebugerz for reading and posting your comments. MAKE MY DAY and follow this blog :-D