tortagialla

Mary Swenson’s Beautiful Photography

linda — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 08:55:06 +0000

Have you heard of It’s Pretty Good? It’s a beautiful photo blog by Mary Swenson filled with images celebrating the small details and beauty around us in everyday life. I am certain you will swoon for the photos, just as I do every time I see a new post. Subscribe to her blog and I’m sure you’ll be delighted…it’s such a pick me up kind of inspiration!

All images property of Mary Swenson and itsprettygood.com

Aren’t they beautiful photos? I always love the little notes in white, giving us her perspective and view on things…so cute…now that’s inspiration for a Monday, right? If you want to learn more definitely check out her website where you can link to her other places online – http://www.mary-swenson.com Happy Monday to everyone!

TGIF thoughts…Get to it!

linda — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:54:55 +0000

After this week of a filled work schedule and trying to organize, create and soak up inspiration at the same time I’ve come to a simple realization. You make time for the things that are important to you. It’s difficult if you have to juggle many different responsibilities and passions, but that’s just how it is and there is finite time to spread around. So although I love that my blog readers stop by to get a dose of inspiration and share some of their precious time with me, I say let’s get off the internet and get to it! Enough with checking email, surfing the web and all that jazz – you have to limit that online time. I certainly know the joys of connecting with folks digitally because I live in a remote area, but we have to tell ourselves to go hands on and just create – do it! Start that art project or finish that half-started project. I’m off to paint now…laters and happy friday to you!

Creative Cleaning and Working Space

linda — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:08:57 +0000

Happy Thursday to everyone! This week I’ve been busy with a lot of on-the-computer work, so really took the opportunity to get hands on today. Of course, my Spring cleaning attempts are still midway…this is part of my desk where I can’t find anything. Yup, my creative space is totally messy, but you can see more lovely creative spaces via kootoyoo.

Although I want to dive in and clean madly, I know it usually results in spreading everything around the room and not finishing! So I’m trying to do it one drawer at a time…one thing at a time, like paper! I confess that I am a paper hoarder, always thinking I’m going to do something cool with this particular special paper, but end up hoarding it forever because I can’t bare to cut it. Tsk tsk. I’m collecting up all my paper stacks and rolls and looking for a place that is in view, so I will be more drawn to making the cut! Along the way I’ve been finding a lot of paper scraps for the recycling bin. Some of the papers are nice and thick, even if not blank – so inspiration struck and I decided to make a scrappy journal. I gathered up old magazines, catalogues, packing materials, scrap watercolor paper, test prints and btw the latest issue of Somerset Studio has artists papers in it, too. Anything with a bit of thickness will do nicely for a mixed media art journal because you cover up with paint anyway.

In the end, my recycled scrappy journal actually turned out really cool looking! I’m happy with the results and feeling that using scrap materials provides more inspiration and is less intimidating to dig into. The super long cotton ribbon is there so I can keep changing the binding tightness if things get too thick. Now I can go paint this up and work on a stack of paintings I have in progress. I tend to forget about things because I’m already on to the next thing – eek!

Before I go offline, I also wanted to share my drawing a day on Flickr, little birdies with style! I added a beanie hat one today and hope to keep this up because it’s fun to create little characters that have such different personalities suggested by changing a few lines here or a hat there! Illustration is cool. Our family just got a birdhouse set up, so I’m currently very amused watching the birdies eat our bread crumbs. Okay, now I’m off…

Using Loose Notes to Organize Ideas

linda — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:40:04 +0000

I’m going through a period of Spring Cleaning because frankly, I need it! When there’s stuff all over the place and it actually impedes your process of working…you know you really must clean up. So now I’m trying to balance this tremendous task with everything else in life as well as my runaway ideas that usually derail any schedule I might have set down for cleaning. Who wants to clean when a fanciful idea pops up and you want to go experiment instead!

I decided to help myself by organizing my runaway ideas into loose notes. I made myself a lightbulb sketch above (feel free to download and use for your personal organization) – I printed it out 6 on a page to make little notecards. Of course, you can just use scraps to collect little sketches or words bubbling inside of you. I’ve put mine in a goodie jar to draw from at a later date. I feel that these types of ideas can often get lost in a big journal or lists, that’s why the loose leaf method is nice. I can save all of them in one place, but pick at random when I’m ready. I also have really crazy ideas at times, so it’s not like planning a painting in my journal. They are things to experiment or one day think more about. I just don’t want to lose or forget about the idea completely and I don’t want to dismiss it just because others might think I’m joking…maybe… Happy Spring Cleaning!

It’s Okay To Cry Graphic Art Print

linda — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:59:40 +0000

I think that I’m coming near to the end of this specific graphic art print series, Notes to Myself. Here’s the latest called, It’s Okay To Cry. I think sometimes we have to remind ourselves that. It’s not about weakness or being over emotional. It’s simply another form of expression and I think it is necessary at times – a release for the body. That’s what I wanted to remind myself with this saying, for those low times we all run into. With this design I experimented and played more with layers of texture and excited about the results and the possibilities. Although I have many more notes to myself, I do feel ready to move on to other things.

I have one more note to finish up and that would make ten prints in this series. I do get obsessive compulsive at times with round numbers You can see the prints in my Flickr set as well. So, lately I’ve been in one of those slumps and I suppose that contributes to why I chose to do this particular note to myself. I am feeling disorganized and it’s really impeding my creative flow. Looks like it’s really time for Spring cleaning!

Old school drawing lessons by Jon Gnagy

linda — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:23:43 +0000

Happy Monday! I wanted to share some old school drawing lessons by Jon Gnagy today. It’s such a lovely reminder of old TV programs and the style of presentation back in the day. Here’s one lesson on the drawing of an old oak tree.

You can visit Gnagy’s webpage and check out more broadcasts from the past. Pretty darn cool, the way he talks and presents the lesson. So encouraging and reminds me of Bob Ross and watching shows geared for children as well. They are always so nice and I’m a sucker for the old fashioned anyway. Things can be presented in a simple and charming way – that’s the best. Hope it provides you with a bit of inspiration today.

Plagiarism in the Art and Design World

linda — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 07:55:16 +0000

TGIF. This week has really flown by for me and I’ve been super duper busy with so many projects. However, I wanted to take some time to direct you to Pikaland’s post about plagiarism. The Good to Know zine is created from responses by artists like you and me and I also added my two cents in this issue. Go read about it and let me know what you think. Plagarism is a horrible thing, but there are so many grey areas and it can be such a touchy subject. I always find it troubling and anxiety inducing to discuss, but necessary to understand at the same time. Hope this topic provides a lot of food for thought…let me know. Have a great weekend folks!

Painting Over Creative Workspace

linda — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:47:20 +0000

Happy Thursday to everyone! Today I started painting over my little collage muse paintings from a while back. I sort of messed them up when I tried to glaze over unprotected paper. Things started getting smeared and yucky guey. Sigh… although I’m glad that I can paint over something I don’t like. Build on layers, paint over it…like start over but with some experience already packed in. It’s all good, right? I saved the little hand embroidery heart portions…we’ll see what happens from here.

You can also see some of my Spoonflower printed fabric swatches above as I’m still trying to figure out colors and just ordered a color palette swatch to help out. I realized after ordering that I probably need to order color swatches on all fabric types. Don’t think I can invest in that right now, but we’ll see. Until next time…

Springtime Postcard

linda — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:25:43 +0000

Today was feeling a bit down with the gloomy rainy weather. I’m ready for Springtime, but apparently there’s still a lot of cold weather to come. I decided to make myself a new desktop wallpaper, something cheery. I ended up with this design – sort of calming cheery and I thought I would share it as a graphic postcard. Looks nicer in this smaller size I think. Print a postcard, tack it on your inspiration board or make a bookmark out of it. Feel free to use it for your personal musings…ciao ciao!

Update on Prints

linda — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 08:25:26 +0000

Happy Tuesday to you! Today I am spending time doing some Spring cleaning from a digital standpoint. I tend to always have so much going on, things can get a bit messy on my computer. I am also wondering how I can organize things better and reduce the cost of listing items on Etsy…even though it doesn’t seem much at first, over time it really adds up.

My first experiment was setting up my big cartel shop with the cute kitchen prints you see above. I can only list 5 products with a free account, so I suppose it’s not a long term solution. However, I did want to try it and it is certainly very simple to add products and set up shop. Creating these graphic art prints sort of replaced last weeks notes to myself art print, but I did get to illustrating one this week – Smile!

Again, due to listing costs I won’t be listing these prints into my Etsy shop anymore…will have to figure out a way to share them somewhere. Although it’s nice to be part of the Etsy community, there are so many shops it doesn’t seem like listing there helps you to be seen really…you have to get people there no matter what. In which case, isn’t it better to just list items in your website and have a Paypal button? I wonder…

In other musings, I also created a new digital stamp set of owls and gave them funny names like big mister, chubby and wiseguy… I liked them so much, I had to use them for a repeating pattern. Here’s a little peek of the pattern as I play around, but not done yet. What do you think?