LIFE IS LIKE ART!

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

New Martini Art, Fun Twitter Tees & Gifts & Other Pop Art Goodies

Instead of posting here the last few month of Sundays I've been doing other arty things like painting coffee tables, arranging my art collection and decorating my new home - but I have been getting things done graphics/art wise.

I did another illustrated martini diva nano story - recognize my favorite actor anywhere in here:
And I've been posting my Martini Recipe Cards - some classic cocktails, some martini smoothies and some fun herb infused martinis:

From The MARTINI DIVA

AND I've been in the process of reformatting (yet again) all my art for my new Zazzle stores because I'm moving them over from CafePress (who just changed their commission pay policies and cut a large chunk of my profit off!).
I just finished four designs for my new Zazzle store: TweetleBirdie - Fun Stuff for Twitter Fans and Other Social Media Lovers. I also have two other stores The PopArtDiva Gift Gallery and The Martini Diva Boutique - both of which I am currently adding designs to as I get them reformatted. Below is a my little "window display" for the store and you can shop right here for my tees, posters (in lots of sizes and framing available!), caps, aprons, great cup choices and even business cards!
TweetleBirdie

My little window display allows you to stop motion, zoom in on any product, make a comment about the product, rate my products and click to buy right here!

So, I just wanted to let you know I have not been idle even if my blog posts here have been!

VISUALIZE VISUALIZE: I've been visualizing new clients and new accounts. Several of my old accounts have fizzled out - either due to their own lack of business sense or the economy so I've drummed up new business to take up the slack. I also visualized finally getting my art collection and family heirlooms out of storage and back into my life and here they all sit - gloriously adorning my new home and bringing back many memories of my family and friends from years ago. I am also visualizing prosperity for this country! So many people I know are suffering and I want to see them and all of us get back on our feet and get back our feeling of security of hearth and home (please join me in this visualization - see your friends happy and smiling as they go off to new jobs, drive up to new homes and enjoy their families in a haven of safety and financial prosperity - and don't forget to see that for yourself too!)

IT'S ALL IN HOW YOU LOOK AT IT: I am making valiant efforts to maintain seeing the current financial struggles of today's world as a challenge in how to be creative in finding new work, new sources of income and creatively adjust my spending habits. One thing I noticed was that I could eat dinner for a buck if I was willing to eat junk food every night - but as much as I love Jack in the Box tacos I think I'd end up spending more money to buy a bigger car to fit my bigger butt in, lol. But I can buy on sale and I love pasta and potatoes so it harms me not to use less meat. Plus I planted my own herb garden - cheaper than buying them fresh at the store!

ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE: I continue to be grateful for my friends who helped me get my things out of storage and down here to my new home, who brought the rest of my things and even a huge TV out from Arizona, who continue to share my troubles and my joys as I share theirs. I am grateful to have my family photos again - to see and remember the good times with my Mom, Dad, Sister, Ken and my beloved pets. Though they are gone I am so grateful they were all in my life. I am grateful to still have a room over my head and food to eat. I am grateful for the work I get and I am grateful I still have my little Pixel to cuddle with on days like today when the thundershowers storm all around us.

Til the next time - Peace, Prosperity and Joy to you, may you find it in unexpected places!

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Unless otherwise noted, all images and art on this site are © PopArtDiva.com 2002 - 2009. All Rights Reserved.
Buy Great Art Inspired Products at The LIFE IS LIKE ART Shop!

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LEARN HOW TO DO ART AND CRAFT SHOWS FOR PROFIT AND FUN STEP BY STEP
Click the links below to download my articles for a nominal fee of only $2.50 each:

What Kind of an Artist Will You Be? Define Your Product First.
Creating Your Booth - Making a Portable Gallery That Works
Preparing To Do An Art Show - Getting your art, your booth and yourself together
The Most Important Sales Techniques for Selling and Marketing Your Art

Sunday, April 19, 2009

HOW CREATIVITY AND ART OVERCOME ECONOMIC BLUES

I don't know about you, but all the negativity in the media regarding the economy almost brought me to a screeching halt - creatively and emotionally. It's very hard to keep a positive outlook while all around you are Wild Peeps screaming that the sky is falling!

Pop Art Wild Peeps done for my Wild Peep War Campaign

Though I rarely intentionally listen to the news because it is always so sensationalized and negative, I found myself being exposed to it without choice. Short teasers on TV before I could hit the mute button, headlines glaring at me from newsstands and internet pages, snips of conversations that drifted my way, ad naseum. It was seeping right into my unconscious and infecting me without me even being aware and hitting me right in my most vulnerable spot - my financial security!

Suddenly I found myself waking in the middle of the night worrying about it. I became aware of negative thoughts flitting through my mind and overtaking my creative energy. I was waking up tired and lacking my usual excitement of getting to work on my art and my writing. I wanted to sleep more and numb my brain with the boob tube. My usual sense of humor had dulled too, and my humor is one of my biggest defenses against the Negativity Monster! Yes, I was still working but my heart wasn't in it - how sad is that? This crap had to stop!

Illustrated Martini Nano Story done for Martini Diva post and as spot illustration for my martini book

I am, like everyone else, struggling with this economy, but I cannot let the negativity seep into my psyche and corrupt me - it is like an acid that can corrode creativity and industry. If you wallow in all the bad thoughts all your creative and emotional cogs get so damaged that your entire life mechanism freezes up! I had to put a stop to the downward spiral - for me that means doing something creative - even if it's just designing and building a little mini martini bar for my new home. So that's how I kick started my positivity again after a few weeks of passion deprivation. Sometimes just doodling or doing a little crafty project can stimulate your creative juices.

Working on something creative always keeps my mind focused on the positive and, at the end of the day, I've accomplished something which is always uplifting. Additionally, I tend to be whimsical and humorous in my creative endeavors and humor is always good for the soul. Even if you're the only one who thinks it's funny and you are cackling like a madman to yourself, the laughter is sparking all those good receptors in your brain and adding speed to your descent out of the black hole of negativity! So what if no one else gets the joke???

This doodle of a seventies platform boot inspired this Illustrated Nano Story for The PopArtDiva Blog and it made me giggle.

Then I was just in a good enough humor to get an idea for having some fun with Easter Marshmallow Peeps and started a whole fictional Wild Peep War! You can read the entire "campaign" at last Wild Peep update at The Brat in The Hat. Then, of course, I had to do a Wild Peep Nano story for the Martini Blog and a Wild Peep Martini for Easter!

I also uploaded some new Martini Art to The PopArtDiva Boutique. I try to get several designs done ahead of time and release one each week.

And, of course, new martini recipe cards for The Martini Diva:

So now I'm fully back in the "flow" and feeling my spirits and positivity lift on a daily basis - though I have to watch for those sneaky little Negativity Monsters, they like to creep up behind you and get you when you're not looking! Oh, and I'm faster with the mute button and I have imaginary blinders on to screen out the headlines!

VISUALIZE, VISUALIZE: I am using a new technique a friend taught me for visualization. I'm supposed to remember times when I was doing my best financially and bring that emotion into my visualizations for the present. It's like rewriting - you take a good memory and tweak it with current events but keep the positive emotions from the actual memory! Interesting that as a visual artist I find it easier to do this by writing the "story" instead of making a "movie" in my head.

IT'S ALL IN HOW YOU LOOK AT IT: First, you have to be aware, you have to be vigilant about your thoughts and where they are going! It's easy to slide back into old habits of negativity without knowing you're doing it. My first clue was my lack of energy and passion for my work. I had to stop, pay attention to how I was looking at my life and put the brakes on the old baggage of "what if" thinking. I had to look back and see that somehow I always found a way to keep afloat - even during the worst economic downturns! I had to see myself as a person able to use my creativity to create more work, more income and more good things! I had to get mad first, I don't like feeling down and for me getting mad always gets me fired up and energized. Then I had to do something about it - like seeing all the negativity as a challenge.

ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE: I'm grateful for my passion for my art and writing, it's my anti-depressant of choice! I'm grateful for friends who listen when you're down and point out things you cannot see. I'm grateful that the Spring weather is sunny and the jasmine is blooming and making the air smell wonderful outside. I'm grateful for waking up to birds singing and Pixel's tail wagging and morning kisses.

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Unless otherwise noted, all images and art on this site are © PopArtDiva.com 2002 - 2009. All Rights Reserved.
Buy Great Art Inspired Products at The LIFE IS LIKE ART Shop!

Sunday, April 5, 2009

DO YOU VALUE YOURSELF AS AN ARTIST AND A PERSON?

Though I was redecorating these last few weeks, I actually did get eight new Martini Art pieces done - below are two of my newest Illustrated Martini Nano stories done for The Martini Diva (and as spot illustrations for the martini book) and two new recipe cards that use some of my newest martini art designs. I haven't uploaded the newest designs to my website or store yet so I'll post them here when I do!

Other than that I am doing some adjustments to one client's websites and starting to build another - yes, I know I don't like doing websites but these are favors (although paid favors!)

That statement brings me to my focus for today's post - growing to believe in your own value as a person both professionally and personally. I spent too many years thinking it was egotistical to say "I'm good at what I do and I deserve to be paid accordingly". The problem with that belief is this - it's misplaced humility and it damages your view of yourself and how others will see you, not to mention how it can damage your income!

It took me a few years, but one day I realized how good I am at what I do and I learned that it's okay to admit it, be proud of it and state the facts! A lot of that belief came from learning to love myself, be grateful for what I have and see what others have to offer. My efforts to be a better person, be happier and be positive also allowed me to finally see my value and my talents and accept and embrace them!

I believe wholeheartedly that my work and my time are highly valuable and I have no trouble pointing that out. Education, experience and talent are commodities that not everyone has and those who do deserve to be compensated for them. The concept of "perceived value" is something all professionals should keep in mind - because the still prevailing mindset of the monetary world is "you get what you pay for" - if people don't pay you they think your work/time has no value and treat you accordingly! You have value and so does your time!

I do not do any graphics work or consultations for free FOR ANYONE! I found out many years (make that decades!) ago that anything done for free is rarely appreciated and "pro bono" work is usually the biggest pain of all. I always charge a fee, if only a nominal one.

I believe that we must value ourselves if we want to be valued by others. That's not to say I don't believe in giving, I do and I have often donated pieces of my art to worthy causes. I also believe in giving my time - but I give my time in ways unrelated to my profession. Why? Because, first it keeps my personal time separate from my work time and second, it brings me into places and around people outside my normal work world allowing me to expand my horizons a bit.

I guess what I'm trying to say is you don't have to be a doormat in order to be a good person. To be a contributing member of society you have to have something to contribute and you have to believe in yourself and your abilities. If you don't believe in yourself it is a very hard road to help others! A little backbone is a good thing to have - it means you value yourself. If you value yourself then you value others! Then you're in a good position to help others.

VISUALIZE, VISUALIZE: I have seen my dream homes in my head many times over my lifetime. This image has changed as my life changed but the main dream was always for a space that suited my lifestyle and fit my personality. My current home is starting to come together in a way that has surprised me. Things I've had for years, collected or created are fitting into my home perfectly - almost like this was where they were intended for from the beginning. This has surprised me but it shouldn't - the thoughts behind all the "visuals" was always a place that suited me and, for the time, this home suits me quite well as well as imparts my personality!

IT'S ALL IN HOW YOU LOOK AT IT: I'm happier now that I have gained the honesty and courage to say I'm good at what I do! False humility is a path to resentment and to unhappiness with your work and life. What a big waste of time!

ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE: I'm grateful for my house shaping up into a great place. I'm grateful for the great Spring weather that makes me want to get out and enjoy the outdoors. I'm grateful for the people who have helped me the last few months. I'm grateful it's Sunday and now I get to go out and enjoy the day! Later!

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Unless otherwise noted, all images and art on this site are © PopArtDiva.com 2002 - 2009. All Rights Reserved.
Buy Great Art Inspired Products at The LIFE IS LIKE ART Shop!

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Illustrated Lemons, Raspberries, Easter Bunnies and Nano Fiction

I'm into Spring colors this month thanks to the beautiful weather announcing the advent of budding flowers, fresh veggies and fruits from the garden and Easter coming up. These colors are working nicely with my new hand drawn style illustrations for my own product line of fine art giclees and products for my online store. (You can click either image above to buy that Martini Art on things like tees, aprons, coasters, cups and other fun products.)

This new sketchy, cartoon style illustration work also sparked another idea - illustrated fiction for my upcoming Martini book. I've been working on this idea for a while and somehow these new doodles brought it all together. I have several little micro stories I've written with a martini theme for the book and they were just waiting for these illustrations to happen. I did a quick black and white one for The Martini Diva but it's really more of a nano story - only 2 short sentences tell the tale. I'll keep the one page stories for the book but I like the idea of these nano stories for the martini website/blog. They'll also make great little spot illustrations for the book.

And, finally getting smart, I am now doing my martini recipe cards at the same time as I do the original art for my website and boutique. I wanted to come up with a new look for my recipe cards that worked in with the new sketchy style hand drawn art and thought why not use the same design? Duh, took me long enough to figure that out. So here's the new martini recipes for the last week. You can click each recipe card for that martini recipe and the full sized, free martini recipe card:

And with Easter coming up I had to do this kinda snarky humorous Easter design called Easter Schmeaster - it includes a recipe for rabbit stew! Yes, my humor does get a little dark at times, especially when I'm bombarded with so much fluffy cute like I am at Easter! If you're kinda snarky about Easter too - or just like a nice chardonnay with your rabbit - click the design to order some of my apparel, home decor or gifts.

I also finished and uploaded a website for a client and started work on another. I am not a web designer, I don't like it doing it - except when I'm doing my own sites and even that is more hard work than fun. But I do it if a client insists - I am good at optimizing for search engines and helping them get their content SEO friendly. I do like doing the graphics for websites - the logos, mastheads and images they need to use. That's more of a branding/image approach and that I enjoy. But the coding for web design and all the glitchy crap that happens trying to design for multiple platforms, screen sizes and resolutions and internet speeds drives me nuts. It's like math, ugh. It's too hard to really make any website aesthetically pleasing.

So, it's been a week of Spring and renewal for me - I'm redecorating my home too! This all has brought my mood up and away from all the fear that is floating around about the economy. I had to turn off the television and get that negative crap out of my head and this new line of spring-ish sketching and art has been a great way to do that. Plus it seems to have tied up several loose strings in my business plan goals! The martini book now has a very clear graphic direction, I'm designing one image that works for several design requirements and I'm hearing the birds starting to sing outside in the mornings. Spring has sprung for PopArtDiva, the Normal Challenged Artist!

VISUALIZE, VISUALIZE: Since I'm redecorating my main focus has been on seeing some cool, retro furniture and great textures and colors in my home. No surprise, I'm going with accents of turquoise and lavender with a bit of light magentas and a teeny dash of lime (spring colors - Break Out the Martinis will give you an idea of my color palette!).

IT'S ALL IN HOW YOU LOOK AT IT: I have been allowing the generalized fear about the economy to get me down. Last week I just got over it, I decided not to let that in and to focus my energies where I am happiest - on my art, writing and creative endeavors. Funny how the minute I did that my emotional level went up, huh? I am always at my best when I'm creating.

ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE: I am grateful I got out that anger, fear and frustration that had seeped in (I use my Brat in the Hat blog to vent - it's my personal therapist!) and got my "good" back. I'm grateful for my sense of humor which somehow always restores my sense of balance as it did about all that banking/economy stuff. I'm grateful it's warm enough that I can have Pixel groomed for Spring. I'm grateful for coffee because without it I wouldn't have enough sense to be writing this blog at 6 a.m. on a Sunday!

Unless otherwise noted, all images and art on this site are © PopArtDiva.com 2002 - 2009. All Rights Reserved.
Buy Great Art Inspired Products at The LIFE IS LIKE ART Shop!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

ROBOTS,TWEETS, PLATITUDES, YOKO or HOOTENANNYS - It's All Art To Me!

I spent this last week working to get ahead of the game. I'm going to be setting up a new internet connection on the first and just in case getting internet cable is like getting television cable, where you never know when they're going to show up, I wanted to have several posts queued up for automatic uploading.

Plus I've kept up my sketching, here's a beatnik cartoon below for my retro boomer blog's "Folk Music Retrospective HOOTENANNY."

I've also done some stream of consciousness doodling, like this one below "dam, another Broken Robot?". It started out as a doodle of a square box and ended up this way - and PLEASE don't ask me where this came from - I have no bloody idea, lol. I posted it on my Twit Wall - it seemed appropriate. I actually kind of like it - it's just silly enough to make me laugh.

I'm continuing my work on a series of new pieces for my Martini Art series. I also format these for products for my Martini Art Department at my online store, but I've also decided to use them for a new look for my free recipe cards at The Martini Diva. Below are two I've finished and uploaded to the store already:

THREE MARTINIS - Apparel, Home Decor & Gifts

LEMON AID - LEMON DROP MARTINI - Apparel, Home Decor & Gifts

I also did up a quick couple of photo montages for my Saturday Soapbox post on micro-blogging sites like Twitter - this one's Yoko but I also did one for Ringo - both of who are Twittering with the rest of us!

I'm really enjoying the new style of Martini Art I'm doing - it's utilizing my sketching as well as allowing me to doodle in one of my favorite graphics programs - Corel Painter. That is THE BEST painting program - you have use of all sorts of mediums from felt tip pens to crayons, pastels and oils and you can use them on the same canvas! In digital art you don't have the issue of chemical incompatibility that you do in real life art. Plus there's some great filters and layers that allow you to experiment with different approaches - layers are digital art's answer to tissue paper overlays, lol. I love doing abstracts and backgrounds in Corel Painter.

The new series for my Martini Art seems to have sparked a bunch of synchronicity - I decided to use them for my martini recipe cards as well as for my website and store, then I created a Garlic Martini so I could use the Three Martini art as a recipe card (the martini rocked but you have to love garlic and make your own garlic vodka.) Then I was asked to enter it into a contest (wish me luck!).

I noticed a lot of puzzle pieces falling into place this week - things I've been doing without really knowing why (doodling again) have suddenly become part of several different endeavors and projects. This is often the case for me, I'll be like this hive with all these little idea bees buzzing around and then - bzzzzt - all the little bees fly home to deliver the honey!

That's why I never toss out a sketch or an idea, sometimes the Universe knows what you're doing before you do, lol. This is a lesson I am finally learning after 5 decades - "Man plans, God laughs" - to me this means I really don't have any control and going with the flow is a healthier option than swimming upstream! Instead of trying to figure it all out and shove everything into a box, I'm finally getting the hang of "Let Go and Let God" and "it'll all come out in the wash". Think it took me long enough?

VISUALIZE VISUALIZE: I'm visualizing a whole bunch of puzzle pieces floating down to complete a beautiful picture of my life, my home and my work!

IT'S ALL IN HOW YOU LOOK AT IT: What used to drive me nuts before - the "not knowing" and the stubbornness of life to just ignore all your plans - is now something I see as adventure and happy surprises. It's funny how "in the moment" things that seem negative can turn out to be truly some of the best things that happen!

ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE: I'm glad I'm still able to learn new things. I'm glad this dog can be taught new tricks. I'm really grateful someone out there designed Corel Paint, graphite and sketch pads. And I'm grateful to be alive on a Sunday morning.

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Monday, March 9, 2009

ART IS NOT EASY!

For some reason there is the belief out there that being an artist is easy. Sitting at an art show people would often say things like, "oh, it must be nice to make money for sitting and enjoying a nice day" or "what a great job to get paid to just paint"

Gotta tell ya, these statements irritated the hell out of me. Not only had I gotten up in the wee hours of the morning to get to that art show, I had spent up to four hours doing heavy labor setting up my booth and I was stuck there in good or bad weather - they could get in their car and go home. And just where did they think my paintings (the ones I had just painted) had come from? The art fairies?

I worked a minimum 80 hour week earning my living at the art shows. It was hard work but I won't go into the details here, if you're interested in the life of a traveling artist you can read an article I wrote originally for a Scottsdale newspaper "An Open Letter to All Art Show Patrons". After you read it you'll understand why I retired last Spring.

I still work that many hours. Art is not easy - it's work. It's work that I love but it's hard work. It takes not only talent and passion, it takes education and dedication - and lots of time. And every artist is their own worst critic - we strive for perfection and, of course, we fail. Not only do we give our time to our vocation we give our heart so when things don't work out right or we are having a bad day it affects our emotions and our attitudes.

I bring this up because yesterday was not one of my better days at the business of creating art. It started out great - I finished up two really fun new Martini Art sketches which you can check out at The Martini Diva and I really loved them. Then I started on the background for a third and things went south from there. I ended up with a headache and a back attempting to spasm into the screaming mimis thanks to a monitor in a bad position.

I sat there with a heating pad on my back and pondered - yet again - why I became a professional artist and why I remain one after 40 years. And I was sitting there with a sketch pad and pencil in my lap! My feelings towards what I do has not changed since I wrote my Artist's Statement so many years ago. I love being an artist.

But anyone who says art is easy isn't doing it right.

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Friday, March 6, 2009

Doing pencil sketches and doodles - Back to the Basics

Last month I started doodling again. A few months back I had started to do pencil sketch cartoons for a couple of books I'm writing and found a great personal fulfillment in doing hand drawn art again. Then I decided I needed some art just for me - just drawing for drawing's sake - doodles to feed my soul.

I've spent most of my time doing digital art in the last few years (though I was still creating original art for the shows until last May), and most of my work has been produced for some commercial project of mine or a client. These doodles are mine and mine alone. Little zen moments of time with graphite, paper and imagination.

This one entitled "Hand Drawn" happened when I was looking at my own hand resting on the drawing pad while trying to think of what I wanted to doodle!

What do these have to do with positive creativity? They bring me back to what I loved about art in the first place, they are pure, they come from the unconscious and they are an expression of creativity in the most positive way. Don't forget to sketch, doodle and devote some of your art time to just you and your first love - art for art's sake.

VISUALIZE - VISUALIZE: Let the pencil, pen, brush and paper visualize for you. Let your ideas flow from the Universe and not your world centered mind. Visualize the joy of the flow, the excitement of the movement and the surprise at the end result.

IT'S ALL IN HOW YOU LOOK AT IT: What is one man's doodle is another man's great great art. I had to overcome my judgemental, critical mind to really get started on my doodling and enjoy it. Once I let go of the idea it had to be "great art" or "professional" I freed myself up and let the fun in.

ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE: I'm grateful I found my way back to my "roots" so to speak. I'm grateful I am able to share some of my silliness and sketchy thoughts. I'm grateful I'm an artist.
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