Friday, May 13, 2011

FRIDAY FEATURE WELCOMES DIGITAL ARTIST CATHERINE SUTHARD

Catherine Suthard, and her lady black lab MaKai, have lived in the beautiful Pacific Northwest of America close to the Olympic Rain Forest for the last 12 years and if Catherine has her way she will never go back to the city. Although born and raised in cities, Catherine is a country girl at heart. Her favorite childhood memories are of the summers she spent on her Uncle’s ranch, in eastern Washington, riding horses, going to rodeos and eating BBQ outdoors almost every night.


When not working on her art and design, Catherine can spend hours exploring the beaches, forest trails and streams near her home. She also enjoys wild life observation and around her home she can find eagles, deer, coyote, bobcat, rabbit, geese, swans, ducks and all manner of other wetland creatures.


Catherine has loved to draw ever since she was a very young child and she began painting in Junior High. She remembers drawing detailed pencil and charcoal reproductions of animals from the photographs in National Geographic magazines. In recent years Catherine discovered the internet, digital graphics programs and vector art. She started her digital drawing with a mouse and MicroGraphx Windows Draw6 over 10 years ago. Then she fell in love with a Wacom Tablet and began using other software products to create her art and design as well.


Layout and composition is where Catherine feels her strength lies. She creates beautiful derivative works from elements she has purchased or commissioned from artisans, who work in highly specialized 3D modeling software. Catherine uses her skills with digital painting, effects, layering, blending components and composition to create amazing finished pieces of digital art.


Inspiration comes to Catherine from a variety of sources and she describes her style as a potpourri. Some sources of inspiration are Catherine’s country roots including ranch life and her beloved horses; her Irish heritage; the beautiful nature that surrounds her where she lives and celebrating her Faith and the blessings in life.


Catherine is a member of "The Indie Exhibit", a wonderfully talented and supportive group of artists worldwide, who contribute their art to fill gift bags that are provided to celebrities and the press at the major Awards shows like The Golden Globes, The Kids Choice Awards and The Sundance Film Festival just to name a few. She is also a member of a Zazzle colleague group. The members of this group support and assist each other to learn progress and succeed as designers and as Zazzle shop keepers. Catherine doesn’t teach at all, but she says she does try to inspire others where she can and pass on what she knows if someone needs help.


These days Catherine is learning more about using Zazzle store keeper features to efficiently increase the availability of her art to her customers on Zazzle. She is also expanding her services to business clients, offering a full spectrum of design services. Recently Catherine also began publishing a monthly newsletter, which is available via email to subscribers. It features an interesting article, Zazzle specials and coupon access, links to new products in her stores, a few graphics freebies, a favorite recipe and links to her favorite websites. Occasionally it will also feature an interview with another Zazzle shop keeper.


Plans are in the works for Catherine to open a Wedding Shop later this year and she is working on designs for that. She is also considering creating a resource site for designers to access tips, tricks and tools to use in their creative work.


Catherine sells her art and designs on Zazzle. She offers her images on all of Zazzle’s products and they are all customizable. She does take custom orders. Recently she worked with Miss Rodeo Kansas 2011 to create special Coronation Dinner Invitations and business cards. Catherine currently has three stores on Zazzle. RANCH LADY has a central theme of County Western and Christian Country designs. THE GOLDEN SHAMROCK features St. Patrick’s Day designs as well as Celtic and traditionally Irish designs. KEDS KRAZY offers a huge selection of Keds shoes. Catherine was so excited about offering shoes that she did nothing but design shoes for about a month.


The next year holds lots of plans, work and challenges for Catherine. She will continue to learn and grow as a designer; she plans to become a full time Zazzle contributor and to grow her business client base. She also plans to work towards some personal goals including doing volunteer work and writing.


Visit Catherine's Blog Western Spirit Designs

Visit Catherine's Zazzle shops:
RANCH LADY
THE GOLDEN SHAMROCK
KEDS KRAZY

Join Catherine's Western Spirit Designs on Facebook

Follow Catherine ZRanchLady on Twitter

Connect with Catherine on LinkedIn




All Images Copyright Catherine Suthard, All Rights Reserved


Written by Ruth J Jamieson, Copyright Ruth J Jamieson, All Rights Reserved

Friday, April 29, 2011

WELCOME DELIGHTFUL PAINTER TORRIE SMILEY

Torrie’s full name is Mary Victoria Smiley. She has been ‘Torrie’ all her life and she now signs and certifies her artwork by that single name. Home for Torrie is Charlotte, North Carolina. She has two beautiful grown daughters and one granddaughter Audrey Grace. Torrie works full time at a local hospital and paints in her off time. Her children often tell her that her little ‘hobby’ has gotten totally out of control, but she is having the time of her life. Torrie’s partner Kevin is very supportive of her painting, offering generous praise and his critiques are always right which enables Torrie to produce even better work.

ROBIN'S THREE EGGS III

Torrie’s one true love is painting. When she is not painting, she is sewing, quilting or crocheting little things for her granddaughter. She also loves trying to grow flowers. Though she says she has left many dead plants in her wake, she has not given up. Torrie also likes to visit galleries and admire other artists work. She likes to see the brush strokes close up, something you can’t do when admiring work on the computer.

LEMON

Torrie has always wanted to be an artist, but was not able to pursue that path. In 2002, at 43 years of age and her children grown, she decided to follow her dream. Torrie checked out every book in the library she could to learn how to use painting supplies and started painting what was in her head. As she was a single mother on a tight budget, she began selling her paintings on eBay in November 2005 in order to support her “addiction to painting”. Torrie has since sold over 500 paintings and the painting obsession continues.

THE OLD RED BOAT 2011

Torrie’s paintings are usually simple in composition and her goal is to create something pleasing to the eye that may make you smile. She says she is not into the deep, thought-provoking, controversial subjects. Torrie says she is not ashamed to say that she creates wall art to compliment your home.

THE SWAN IV

The material that Torrie started with and still uses most of the time is acrylic paint. She chose acrylic for it’s fast drying time and she felt that would not give her children the chance to mess with it. When she began using oil paint, she found that she tended to be covered in the project before she was finished, so she came to the conclusion that perhaps it was she who was messy. The oil paints she uses are water based to reduce the fumes from the chemicals in regular oil paint. Torrie also dabbles in watercolors and pastels. Pastels are used mainly for portraits of her family and friends. She likes all these mediums but in the end she uses the one that best suits the idea floating in her head.

FLOW BLUE POMEGRANATE

Torrie says her style is what she ends up with when she is trying to do something else. She has a lot of happy accidents. Because she is not formally trained, she pretty much dives in head first not knowing whether or not it will work. She thinks you could call her work Impressionism, or Realism that is just a bit too colorful and sometimes slanted in the wrong direction.

THE GREEN BOAT AT GIVERNY

Everything inspires Torrie. She is always pointing things out to Kevin and exclaiming at the wonderful colors, though he doesn’t seem to see them as richly colored as she does. She is also very much inspired by light and it’s effects on even the simplest objects. She says she still has not mastered getting the light she sees onto canvas, but that trying to get it right is so much fun.

THE GLASS BIRDS

Torrie is primarily a self-taught artist. Her formal art education consists of a couple of workshops she took to see if she was using the materials correctly. Although she would love to take formal classes, there is currently no time to do so. She does plan to do this in the future. Torrie watches videos by different artists to see how they have developed their craft. She says the artists who share their technique on YouTube are her heros and she has learned so much by watching them.

THREE PERSIMMONS

Group blogs that Torrie is a member of include: Artists International Gallery; Daily Painters International Gallery; and Daily Painters Market Place. She is also a member of EBSQ Art and Worldwide Women Artists Online.

Torrie’s work is currently shown at Sand Castle Winery and Gallery in Pennsylvania. She has also shown work at Flourish Boutique and Gallery in Indiana and Star Art Gallery in Star, North Carolina. In addition, Torrie has been a member of the Cleveland County Working Artists Guild and participated in shows at the Cleveland County Arts Council.

International shows with EBSQ Art, Artists Emerge and International Artist’s Magazine have featured Torrie’s artwork.

Though she doesn’t teach painting, and doesn’t think she will ever feel qualified to teach, Torrie does love sharing what she does given the opportunity. Mainly she has helped other artists with blogging, social networking and website setups.

THE PEAR CHRONICLES 009

Currently Torrie is getting ready to show her work at WSOC-TV studio in Charlotte, North Carolina, the local ABC affiliate station. She will be hanging large pieces, which is something she doesn’t normally do. The paintings for the show range from 8inches x 10inches to 30inches x 40inches. She says it has been a challenge working in the larger scale since she normally paints ‘alla prima’. (in one session without time for the paint to dry) Taking several days or weeks to finish a painting is quite unusual for Torrie.

HARVEST MOON

Once that show is over, some of the paintings from the show will be available for purchase in Torrie’s online stores. Recently Torrie has started working on her landscape painting skills. So a variety of small landscape paintings will be posted online in the coming weeks. Pears will continue to be a theme in Torrie’s work as they are her favorite things to paint. As well, Torry has a list of wonderful customers who are patiently waiting for her to complete her exhibition, and then get back to work on their individual requests.

THE BIG RED PEAR

Torrie joined EBSQ Art in November 2005. She also began selling her paintings on eBay at that time. Currently she sells her paintings internationally at several websites including her Website Gallery and her ETSY store. Her work is also available for purchase on a number of other sites and blogs as well. Torrie’s work is collected throughout the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia.

STRAWBERRY MARTINI

TORRIE SMILEY’S WEBSITE

TORRIE SMILEY ON ETSY

PURCHASE PRINTS OF TORRIES PAINTINGS AT FINE ART AMERICA

TORRIE SMILEY ON EBSQ


Visit Torrie at her personal blog.

Visit Torrie on Facebook

LIKE Torrie on Facebook

Follow Torrie on Twitter


Artists International Gallery

Daily Painters International Art Gallery

Daily Painters Marketplace



CHALLENGE BLOGS WHICH TORRIE PARTICIPATES IN

ROOKIE PAINTER

DAILY PAINT WORKS

All Images Copyright Torrie Smiley, All Rights Reserved.

Edited by Ruth J Jamieson, Copyright Ruth J Jamieson, All Rights Reserved.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Friday, April 8, 2011

TODAY'S FEATURE - WONDERFUL PHOTOGRAPHER EMELE

Emele is Emily Goodwin. Emily uses the name Emele, a combination of her first and middle names, on her ‘online venues’. Emily was born in Cambridgeshire in the UK. She moved, with her family, to Crete, Greece for 7 years when she was 18. Now she splits her time between the UK to be with her partner with extended vacations to Greece!

EMILY GOODWIN

Emily is a cat lover, bookworm, Sunday afternoon baker, lover of art, design and crafts, and an avid bargain hunter. She loves to learn new things, one of which is knitting. She says she isn’t very good at it yet, but she works away at it. She also works on a cross stitch project that she has been working on for 10 years.

CAT LOVE

Emily is arty, crafty, and creative and she makes her living online. She says a 9 to 5 job is just not for her! Emily blogs, writes articles, designs and creates physical art through her photography. She started her online creative ventures with handmade cards and gifts. When she bought a digital camera so she could photograph the items she had made, in order to upload them for sale on her website, she discovered the joys of photography and realized that she could make money from it, she's never looked back!

YELLOW FLORAL PRINT

The next adventure for Emily is to venture into the world of paintings. She has gathered all the materials and supplies and is waiting for her muse to inspire her to put brush to canvas! (It never happened, the materials are still unused!!!)

BLACK AND WHITE FLOWER

Subject matter for Emily’s photography can be pretty much anything! Emily is self-taught and enjoys taking photos of flowers, especially macro shots; cats and other animals; scenic views and anything else that catches her eye. Her photos often end up as prints or featured on home décor/gift items in her online Print on Demand sites. Emily also shoots photos of tiled floors, rusty padlocks, and other similar types of photos and sells these as micro stock online.

HOTTENTOT FIG MACRO

Emily is a self-taught photographer. She tends to shy away from the technical side of things and tinker on her own. Gradually, using books, websites and tutorials, Emily is learning the ins and outs of her camera, what it can do, and more about photographic techniques and possibilities in general.

SNAIL PRINT

Some business goals Emily has are to place her prints in brick and mortar shops for sale and also to license her photography. As well she plans to introduce cards and calendars to her ETSY shop.

FORT TOWER ARCHITECTURE

Currently Emily is working on more ‘Nine Square’ photo designs similar to some she now offers in her shops. Eventually she will introduce a new Nine Squares print monthly. She has also developed a line of digital downloads of her floral images which other artists can use in their product designs. Some are currently being offered in her ETSY shop and more will be coming soon!

MORNING GLORY

Emily offers products and designs on several sites. She sells prints through her ETSY shop. In her Cafepress shop, she sells keepsake boxes, clocks, coasters, and journals which feature her photography on them. Her Zazzle store also features products with her photography on them. These products include cards, magnets, mouse pads, prints and more.

CRETE MOUNTAIN VIEW

While working on her various online shops and blogs and marketing on twitter and facebook, Emily meets many, many talented, creative people. Although she wants to collect all of their work, it is not possible, so Emily came up with another way to ‘collect’ their work and support these artists.

PEBBLES PRINT

Since Emily is a web designer and an SEO girl (search engine optimization) she developed a blog where she features the artist’s she supports. She focuses on getting people who are searching online to the blog, and then, hopefully, to purchase some of the artist’s work whether that art be on a poster, print, mug, tshirt or something else!

ARKADI CHURCH

CREATIVE ARTIST’S BLOG is a Blog for Artists, Photographers, Designers as well as Art lovers and Shoppers. Find new artists and artwork, Be inspired, Learn & Support the Creativity!”

WILTSHIRE

Visit Emily Goodwin’s Personal Blog

EMELE, Emily Goodwin on ETSY

EMELE, Emily Goodwin on Cafepress

EMELE, Emily Goodwin on Zazzle

EMELE, Emily Goodwin on Redbubble

FOLLOW EMELE ON TWITTER

LIKE EMELE ON FACEBOOK

All Images Copyright Emily Goodwin, All Rights Reserved

Written by Ruth J Jamieson, All Rights Reserved

Friday, March 25, 2011

THIS WEEK WE FEATURE MULTI MEDIA ARTIST CHERIE BALOWSKI

Cherie Balowski is from a small town in south central Michigan, land of the lakes. Cherie’s family is very musical. Everyone either plays instruments or sings, or both and they have a great time playing and singing together.


Cherie says that she was born an artist. Her passion for art, creating crafts and singing started at a very early age. Cherie started making art with crayons, watercolors, pencils and chalks and moved on to modeling clay and other mediums. She is now a prolific and accomplished artist. Whether working with traditional materials such as colored pencils or paint or with digital software, Cherie creates beautiful artwork in many themes. With a whimsical, and sometimes humorous style, her work is always bright, cheerful and lighthearted.


This small town girl loves good guitar music, classic rock, singing and playing her guitar, riding her motorcycle, visiting her son and two grandsons in Arizona and art, ART, ART!!!


Cherie’s first 'crafty type' projects were sculpting and painting on clay. She also carved rubber stamps, embossed copper plates, learned macramé and made paper mosaics and collages. In high school Cherie started sewing. Then she started painting anything she could get her hands on. Once she discovered the computer, a whole new world of digital art was opened for her and she started designing for various P.O.D. (print on demand) sites such as Zazzle, RedBubble, Greeting Card Universe and more.


Cherie is inspired by the beauty that surrounds her, her love of music and her quirky sense of humor. She also loves Halloween and a little of the spooky side of life.


This versatile artist works with whatever medium she is in the mood for that day! She enjoys creating art in many forms, from digital art collage sheets, digital clip art and digital scrapbook pages to hand painted gourds, baskets, beaded jewellery, paper mache, felting and everything in between.


Cherie especially loves creating ACEO’s...they are Art Cards, Editions & Originals. There are quite a growing number of artists and art collectors who see that these wonderful 'small format' works of art are fabulous collectibles! They are in the standard trading card size of 2.5" x 3.5" (just like baseball cards) and can be purchased in as many art forms as you can imagine. Altered, sketched, 3-D, photographs, digital art, fabric, mechanical, beaded, pencil, ink, acrylic, oil...the list is endless. As long as they are the standard size, they are considered ACEO’s.


You will find many art styles and themes in Cherie’s Zazzle shop as well as photography. Cherie’s sense of humor is apparent in many of her designs as well.



Cherie enjoys meeting fun 'creatives' online at Twitter and FaceBook. You can join her at many of the online art groups that she is proud to be a member of like Mixed Media Workshops and Magical Holiday Artists.


Cherie’s Arts ‘N Crafts on ETSY

Cheries Arts ‘N Crafts on Soopsee

Cherie’s Art on Bonanza

Cheries Art on Artfire

Cheries Art Card Store

Cheries Art on Printfection

Cheries Art on Zazzle

Cheries Art on Picture Trail

Cheries Art on YouTube

Cheries Art on Ebay

Art by Cherie on Skreened

Cheries Art at Redbubble

Cheries Arts ‘N Crafts Blog

Cherie’s Art on Facebook

Cherie’s Art on Twitter

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT CHERIE BALOWSKI, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Written by Ruth J Jamieson, Copyright Ruth J Jamieson, All Rights Reserved