Well, thanks to Michael for all his coding and tweaking… my blog looks even better than I had hoped today. 
Thank you, thank you, thank YOU! I’m happy to finally have something that has a similar look and feel to my main website.
And now that I’m finally happy with my online presence… time to start sending out emails to art directors…
I think I told you about this parcel that arrived on Monday. It looked like it’d been through a war… when it was only coming from one of my clients in Newfoundland. I was kinda amazed by the state of it… I’ve never had something from the post that had to be “bagged” with a notice on it. With the big hole in the side I wondered if some of it had fallen out, but I don’t think so. Surprisingly, everything looked intact.
I’ve had the wonderful experience of watching my Amaryllis plant flower this week. These plants are such giants, and kinda remind me of the plant from “Little Shop of Horrors” when they’re still in the bud stage. Then they produce these big gorgeous flowers, kinda similar to lilies.
I’ve been taking pictures of it as it opened up over the week. Appreciating its beauty. I just took some of the pictures off the camera to show. I had to include the one with my dog’s nose in the picture. It’s just like him to be in the middle of things….
Yesterday, I took it up to my studio and drew/painted a watercolour of it.
Uploaded the changes to my site today, so that you can see some new art. If you have any suggestions to improve, I welcome it… just send me an e-mail. I’m still working at designing this blog to match/compliment the site so please hold off critiquing it’s design until then.
I missed writing last night because I was teaching my first “Children’s Picture Book Illustration” class at the local Art Centre. I’m really excited about teaching again. I think it’s been about 3 yrs since I last taught. I have a feeling that it’s gonna be a lot of fun. I love sharing what I’ve learned with other people, especially when they’re as excited to learn as I am to share. I was kinda shocked, but happy to have two men in my class. In my previous classes, there were only women. This group seems to want to learn more about the “illustration” side of things, which is exciting. They want to explore the techniques of art making which should be alot of fun.
Also yesterday, I picked up a parcel at the post office. I took pictures that I’ll post of it. I’ve never seen a parcel in that bad of shape… it looked like it’d been through a war zone… but it was only coming from Newfoundland. Though it looked in pretty bad shape, the contents weren’t damaged. It was Valentine product of mine which has been printed, and is currently selling at “A Buck or Two” stores in my area. I went there to take pictures of some of my designs a couple of weeks ago. I will post those shots as well, soon. It’s kinda nice to get to see my work in “print”. Alot of the places that I work for don’t bother to send me samples, and I always forget to ask where I can find their product.
Last night, I went to a local art event for the City of Cambridge. It was supposed to be a “brainstorming” session for art and culture in the community, a way for City Council to find out the needs of its artists, writers, musicians and performers. They had a suggestion box to submit ideas as well as a pad of paper to write down suggestions with the intention for others to add comments and expand upon. I’m not sure how successful it was in that respect, but I had a lovely time and met a few interesting people. It was a good time for all… there was free food, free spirits and a jazz quartet. They even had nice door prizes… lucky me… I won 2 bottles of wine!
One of my thoughts was that they needed a better way of promoting events. They really need something online where you can check out what’s happening in the community. I often miss events because they aren’t promoted well enough. I just happened to read about this one in the newspaper while having my dinner. I hadn’t planned on going & this was the first that I’d even heard of it. One thing that I thought about when I left, was that it would be nice if there was an event once a month or once every so often just for people to meet other artists, musicians, performers in the community and network. That’s kinda why I was there in the first place.
I was a real goof last night and stayed up waaaaaaaaaaay late 2:30 am (I think) working on my website. I have a feeling that I’ll be uploading the changing sometime this week. Though it was probably a crazy thing for me to do… I feel good about getting the tedious part of it done & out of the way. Just minor tweaking left on it. Now that I have an updated portfolio online… my next project will be promoting it. Gonna design a new postcard mailer.
Hey… look here. I’ve got a “sexy job” according to a recent survey. On the “Top 10 Sexiest Jobs”… “Artist” was listed as #7.
http://www.careerbuilder.com
Who knew? Well… guess, I’d better get back to my sexy job…
Another New Year… and with it comes thoughts about redesigning my website. I haven’t touched it in over a year, when I first started this “work from home freelance designer/illustrator” adventure. As I’m going through my work, choosing the new work to put up, making space to accommodate my first picture book… I’m reflecting on my first year. What a wonderful year 2007 was for me! I am so grateful for all my clients, and all the work that just seemed to fall into my lap. It was really quite amazing. I know that I have learned and grown so much more than what I would have if I was still working in-house at Image Craft. I had obviously learned all that I needed there, and the bankruptcy was my “push” from the Universe. It’s all been very exciting. I’m looking forward to seeing what unfolds in Two-Thousand-GREAT.
So, I’m still working on the website redesign… between other projects given to me by my clients. I’d have had it done by now, but I’ve hit a few html/coding snags… working with tables. I’m so grateful that I have Michael to help me with it. I’d be bald from pulling out my hair. The fun thing is, it was me who TAUGHT Michael how to code HTML waaaaaaay back when I graduated in 1998. And now he’s teaching me. “When the student surpasses the teacher we know the teacher teaches well”. Of course, all his reading and experience coding probably helped too! I’m hoping to have the redesigned site up by the end of January but we’ll see. I can never really predict how busy I’m gonna be from day to day. One thing I’ve learned is that life is always an adventure when you’re working on your own.