Pottery Painting Ideas - Nautical and Initial

Two Cute Ideas for Painting on Bisque
My daughter and I spent a wonderful afternoon painting at our local "paint your own pottery place". She painted the bowl on the left complete with a ship on the inside. The stripes on the rim are made by alternating with a wide square brush and a very thin brush. The waves are white paint squeezed from a small 'writer' bottle.

My small dish on the right has a base coat of speckled paint. I then lightly penciled in the letter "A", (the pencil burns off in the kiln). You can kind of see the pencil line in the before photo on the top right. I then dipped the brush handled into paint and made the larger dots in lots of colors. I didn't put any dots inside the letter A. Next I used a brush with a very small handle and made smaller dots. I put some of the smaller dots inside the large ones :-)

You might also be interested in my Bumble Bee Oval Dish (click bold words).
OR this Lady bug bowl, cereals bowls and mug (click bold words).

Tell me what fun thing you have done lately!

Dec 17th, 2013: I wanted to post a HUGE THANK YOU to all the visits this post has had so far!! I am glad you all are finding these two ideas interesting :-D Follow my blog to stay update with me.

Do You "Logo" Up?

Branding 101

Do you put your logo, (for many artist this may be their signature), on business cards, websites, flyers etc. I assume many of you do. BUT do you have your "logo" on shirts, notebook, cinch sack backpack and phone case? I do.

At Surtex, (art licesning show in NYC), I wore a logo shirt and logo cinch sack backpack. So I had a logo on me "coming and going". (You might also like to see my business card in this past post with a sicker of my agent's booth number on the back - click here.)

The notebook and the cell phone case probably won't deliver much for my branding bucks, BUT you never know! It IS just plain fun to have this stuff :-D

I am thinking of getting a magnet sign for the sides of my car - not sure I want a permanent decal. My windows are tinted - so I think a static cling is out.

The point of this post is to get you to think about how you might do just one thing to brand yourself more - Go Get 'Em!

Breaking the Rules - Do you?

 

When mixing color, I break these two rules - sometimes.

1. Don't use black in a painting.
2. Don't mix more than three colors together at a time.

The above two rules were taught in classes I took way back when. I see them pop up in art books & on blogs. I have done this when I paint with guache AND in the above pear palette knife acrylic unfinished painting.

Black was mixed in to get the darkest green you see above. There, I admit it. If you are new to painting, just use very small amounts of black at a time. It is a strong color and you won't need much when your are mixing. In other paintings, I have made a lovely mud out of several colors.

NOW, I think these rules are great. They help keep me from over mixing paint. Not using black can give a painting more interest and help to limit your palette.

Am I the only black-user-mud-maker out there?

Send just $5 - Seizure dog needed

Share this page and spread the word!

Hey everybody. A friend of mines daughter - Brooke needs a seizure dog. She is a fabulous young lady at 20 years old.

Below is the email/flyer I got from her dad about the fundraiser and two ways to donate.
THANKS! for the help!
__________________________

Bubba Lawlor’s
Ginger Cove Lake Swim for Charity
Sunday, August 25th  730 am-??


John Lawlor ( lake resident #115) and friends will swim the entire circumference of the main lake and skinny river- approximately 2.5 miles- to raise awareness and donations for The Chelsea Hutchinson Foundation(501C3) that helps provide young people with Epilepsy with Seizure Response Service Dogs to help them gain independence and protect them from seizure related injuries. Our daughter, Brooke Lawlor-age 20-has endured epileptic seizures for over 18 years and has applied for one of these remarkable dogs. Please consider donating any amount to help Brooke and other young people like her in this worthwhile cause.
There are two ways to contribute:
If you would like to make a tax deductible contribution to the Chelsea Hutchinson Foundation that helps young people like Brooke with this cause, please go to my charity event website: http://www.gofundme.com/seizure-dogs . You can make a credit card tax deductible donation at this website. For more info on the great work of this Foundation,  please go to their website: http://www.chelseahutchisonfoundation.org/?q=goals
    •     If  you would like to help Brooke Lawlor raise funds for her goal to acquire a Seizure Response Service Dog, you can make a personal non- tax deductible contribution by mail with check payable to: Domesti-Pups for Brooke Lawlor / 115 Ginger Cove Road/ Valley, Ne. 68064. If you would like more info on Domesti-Pups Seizure Response dogs, please go to:  http://www.domesti-pups.com/programs/service.php
For more info: John Lawlor C#402-510-2209   Email: bubslawlor@cox.net. Thank you!!

Flip book Portfolio

Click here to see my portfolio on my website - also you can click the bold words in the post below to visit more links.

FlipSnack, One of the Many Free Aps from SnackTools

In my post last week on palette knife painitng and art licensing, I included a link to my portfolio. This generated questions about how I made my portfolio into a flip book.

I have used some of SnackTools aps and widgets in the past for some of my graphic design clients. I forgot about FlipSnack for creating flip books, until I heard Leslie Saeta talking about it for her flip book portfolio on her radio show "Artists Helping Artists".

FlipSnack is free up to 15 pages and I believe the free version has a small add/watermark on it. I paid $20 (10 points) to get more pages (up to 500) and no ad. There is also a subscription service if you want to make more than three flip books and or change your flipbook frequently. I plan on changing mine just twice a year, so I went with the flat fee.

It was very easy for me to set up. I already have my portfolio in InDesign and just saved it as a low resolution PDF file. NOTE: If you are using Microsoft Word - you may want to test uploading a single PDF file - I am guessing that you will need to use other software to generate the PDF.

If you can save it as a PDF/x file - It will help it run smoother. I read this in the FAQ after I had already uploaded the file :-(

It seems to run decently on my html5 website and pretty good on the iPad.

Hope this helps answer your questions! 

You might also like this post - New flip book with hyper links: http://annietroe.blogspot.com/2013/09/new-flip-book-with-hyperlinks.html

A Peek into Palette Knife Pumpkin Painting

Palette Knife Painting and Art Licensing - A Fun Mix!

I found pictures I took of one of my palette knife pumpkin paintings. They give you a peek into how I painted it. It is acrylic paint on 8x10 cotton canvas panel.

Step 1. Layout!

Step 2. I decided to start with the background.

Step 3. Painted the pumpkins

Step 4. Painted the stem added highlights and finishing touches!

Step X. I painted 3 other pumpkin palette knife paintings, leaves, acorns... below is one of the portfolio pages I set up for this collection.

Let me know if you enjoyed peeking into this style of painting. I find it very fun!
(painting and sharing).

Thanks for reading and commenting!

Toot Your Horn - Pattern Parade

Get Noticed! - New Month Reminder

Hi Everybody. It is a new month. Send a pattern and I will post it here and link it to your blog or website. Be sure to send  the link along with your pattern :-)