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.

JUST CURIOUS (Kitty Kat) by Cheries_Art

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.

I REALLY LIKE YOU by Cheries_Art

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!!!

BONGO DOG by Cheries_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.

Happy Birthday Boids! by Cheries_Art

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.

Funky Hatted Witch IV by Cheries_Art

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.

Happy Birthday Greeting Card by Cheries_Art

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.

ACEO CAT by Cheries_Art

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.

TERN STYLES by Cheries_Art

'TERN STYLES' Mug by Cheries_Art

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.

GIVING THANKS by Cheries_Art

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

TODAY WE FEATURE PAINTER, PHOTOGRAPHER AND MIXED MEDIA ARTIST WINDI ROSSON

Windi Rosson creates art with paint, mixed media and photography. She grew up in California and has lived in New York, Arkansas and Tennessee. Now Windi is waiting for spring. She is waiting to smell the wild honeysuckle, to see the day lilies bloom, and to pick tons of fresh gardenias from the garden on the 5 acres in Georgia where she and her family live. There in the midst of the woods Windi finds peace, quiet, and inspiration for her richly colored, beautiful artwork.

BEACH GRASS

Windi is a self taught artist. She paints in acrylics and oils, and works with mixed media and photography. The images Windi paints are pulled from her imagination, she believes that when she does this, the painting takes on a life of its own. She says that a painting can start out as one thing, such as a landscape, and then become something entirely different, such as a figurative abstract. Windi’s inspiration comes from many sources and she likes to say that she paints whatever her muse fancies that day.

DRAGONFLY #6

Right now Windi is painting some smaller paintings for a brick and mortar venue. She is also experimenting with some mixed media works. Once the warmer weather returns, Windi will be getting back to doing some paintings in oils.

2 PAIRS AND AN APPLE ... WALK INTO A BAR

Windi is quite excited about securing a new venue in her home town. For the past few weeks she has been busy preparing work for that. As well she shipped art work out recently for a ‘vinyl’ Art Show in Tempe, which takes place later this month. In addition, Windi is currently awaiting results of some juried art shows she entered work into.

MODERN BUDDHA

Windi signed up very early to be a part of Etsy on the suggestion of another EBSQ artist. Life and other things got in the way and she did not start really utilizing the site until a few years ago. Once she saw that it was going to be a viable venue, she began to use the site. It is one of the easiest sites to use and navigate for both buyers and sellers.

TREE WITH ORANGE CLOUDS

Original offerings in Windi’s Etsy shop were mixed media pieces and original paintings. Now she offers original paintings, prints, jewelry and in the future she will be offering art supplies. Recently Windi started offering gift certificates in her Etsy store and she is planning on some special promotions via her Facebook fan page in the very near future.

BLOOM ELEMENTS

Windi says Etsy has allowed her to broaden her customer base and come into contact with people like minded about selling/buying original art. Her clientele varies from people just starting out collection art, to other artists and non-artists. Recently, she has seen a rise in interest from interior decorators and designers contacting her about her work.

WATER GODDESS

Advice Windi offers for new Etsy sellers is to make sure to update your stock frequently and take advantage of showcases if possible. Windi says she loves how Etsy has grown and that it has kept its handmade roots. She says this clearly distinguishes Etsy from other eCommerce sites.

LITTLE RED BOAT

In addition to Etsy, Windi markets her artwork on her website, Live Journal, Facebook, Twitter and wherever else she can find a venue. She offers a lot of original paintings and some prints and tries to keep a diverse price range with the originals. Most of Windi’s original paintings are offered in her Etsy store, however they are also available through her website. Anyone can contact her directly for purchase.

GLACIER COLLECTION

Windi also has a second Etsy store, ART SKRAP, which is where she markets her jewelry products.

Reproductions of her art work on consumer products are available in her Zazzle shop.

Fine Art America offers high quality prints of Windi’s artwork.

Many of Windi’s small original paintings are offered through Art-O-Mat machines around the country.

Visit Windi Rosson at WINJIMIR STUDIOS

WINJIMIR on Etsy

ART SKRAP on Etsy

WINJIMIR on Zazzle

WINDI ROSSON on Fine Art America

Join Windi on Facebook

Follow Windi on Twitter

Connect with Windi on LiveJournal

WELCOME NEW YORK PHOTOGRAPHER LIZA DEY

Photographer Liza Dey was born and raised in the East Village area of New York City. She is a self-employed freelance photographer and a former dancer. Her memories of the East Village neighborhood include anti-war demonstrations and hippies in the 60’s; the tough neighborhood and urban decay of the 70’s and 80’s; and the gentrification of the area starting in the late 90’s into a hip, trendy area. She says, “growing up in a neighborhood like that and having always lived in what would be called ‘cusp’ neighborhoods – always caught in transition from an old, rundown historical area to a new, trendy area with lots of galleries and cute shops – has shaped who she is and influenced what she is interested in shooting and her view of New York City, old and new; good, bad and in between; but always real”.

'SoHo Fire Escapes' iPad Case by lizadeyphoto

Liza enjoys reading and is very interested in history, especially the history of New York City. She likes to hike and explore, and Fire Island – a barrier island off of central Long Island – is one of her favorite places in the world for vacationing and for photography. She enjoys watching figure skating on television when it is on and likes to work around the house and do crafts.

'Fire Island Lighthouse at Sunset' Poster by lizadeyphoto

Growing up, Liza was surrounded by artistic expression of all kinds and all her extra-curricular activities involved the arts. She dreamed of being a tight-rope walker in the circus or a ballerina and an author. After seeing A CHORUS LINE on Broadway the summer she turned 12 she became obsessed with dance and music. She studied jazz, ballet and tap and started a career in theater in her early twenties. Over the years injuries and burnout took their toll and she built a new career by taking her photography hobby to a profession.

'Patience the Library Lion', Main Branch New York Public Library (Fifth Avenue)

A fan of figure skating from the 1970’s on, Liza began to attend live skating events with her mother in the late 1980’s when figure skating was entering a boom period. She took her camera with her to the first couple of events she attended. Having little experience with that kind of photography the results were less than stellar. Liza got a super zoom lens, worked on her techniques and soon started getting much better photographs. Early on Liza met the publisher of one of the top skating publications and got his card. She submitted her photographs to him and they were published. She then submitted photo’s to other skating publications, books and programs for publication and began selling prints to skating fans through classifieds in the skating magazines. This all coincided with Liza’s exit from working in theater and dance and she made the transition to working as a professional photographer.

Ekaterina Gordeeva, 'Bach's Air in G', 1997 Stars on Ice Tour

For over a decade Liza worked primarily in the world of figure skating. She viewed herself as a theatrical photographer who happened to be shooting skating, rather than a sport photographer, as she views skating as an extension of dance. She shot at events, tours, shows, pro competitions and amateur competitions throughout the eastern U.S. and Canada and sold her work to skating publications, skating shows and books. She also sold prints of her work to collectors worldwide. Skating is not as popular now and the last event Liza attended was in 2006. Liza’s creative focus now is city scapes, landscapes, still lives, floral and wildlife photography.

Siberian Tiger, Sensitive Portrait (Bronx Zoo)

Liza discusses her inspiration:

“I think I've really always been very visual; most of my earliest memories are images, mental snapshots of moments or places, and I think I just want to record and share those things that attract me; that I find beautiful, or that speak to me in some way. I've also always been fascinated by old photos. I'm really lucky that both sides of my family have, what I've come to realize is, an unusually large collection of old family photos, some going back to the 1800s. I've recently worked on restoring some of these digitally, and I love to crawl inside of them mentally, to live in them and that long ago world, to see the details of the moment and feel the reality of them. Even old photos of people or scenes not connected to me personally have always fascinated me.

Beacon Falls and Fishkill Creek (Beacon, NY)

My skating photography has definitely been influenced by the work of the many great theatrical photographers, whose work I saw when growing up attending Broadway shows. Most notably of these is Martha Swope, who was the preeminent Broadway photographer throughout the 70s and 80s. I love how she captured the excitement of Broadway during those golden years, and especially how she captured the color and lighting of musicals. I'm also a huge fan of almost any photo I've ever seen of the Alvin Ailey dance company. I find their work particularly dramatic and photogenic. My own dance background definitely influenced my work, as did the experience I had in school working with theatrical lighting. I definitely preferred theatrically lit skating events, and enjoyed highlighting the connection between dance and skating.

'Golden Dunes with Stairs at Dawn' (Fire Island, NY)

My scenic and landscape work has been influenced by my love of the Impressionist painters. I'd love to visit the Provence region of France someday to photograph where Van Gogh and the other Impressionists once painted. I really like to have a sense of texture to my photos that echoes the texture you might see in paintings. My New York City photos are definitely influenced by my love of New York history, as well as the wonderful, stark black and white photos of New York in the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s; the work of photographers like Bernice Abbott and Lewis Hine, as well as by lots of the great paintings from this period. One of my earliest New York City photographic influences was the work of Jacob Riis and his famous book 'How the Other Half Lives'. I first read that book when I was about 13, and his images of the old, rundown, poor immigrant Lower East Side of the turn of the century are never far from my mind, whether I’m behind the lens or not.”

'Tenth Avenue Tenement' Postcard by lizadeyphoto

Liza tells us a little about how she works:

“I work mostly straight realistic photography, perhaps with a sort of impressionistic bent. I do like it when my images have a painterly quality to them (the frustrated painter in me, I guess!), and I'm really drawn to shadows, reflections, silhouettes and strong contrast, particularly in Black and Whites. Until recently I've still shot primarily with film, partly as some long-held photographic socio-political old-fashioned stance, I think. Now I continue to use my film backs for real zoom work, like wildlife, but I'm using a 10MP 3x zoom fixed lens digital much of the time for more wide-angle work, and I have to say, I love it! Not having to worry about ‘spending’ film has really freed me up to be way more creative and experimental. I'm currently saving and looking around for a really good digital camera with more megapixels and a greater zoom or detachable lenses.”

'Late Summer Sunset Over the City'

Liza started studying photography as a high school senior when she took a photography elective course. She started out using an SLR she rented from the school. Her enthusiasm prompted her parents to give her a camera of her own as a graduation present. It was a completely manual film back Yaschica with 55mm and a 28mm lenses. Liza uses that camera to this day as a back up, and until she started shooting primarily with a digital camera, she regularly used the 28mm lens and the Yaschica in much of her shooting.

In college Liza minored in Photography and majored in Theatre. Beyond the photography techniques she learned in college, she is self-taught.

Trump Taj Mahal from The Boardwalk (Atlantic City, NJ)

During her years of photographing figure skating Liza had several of her photographs included in two group shows at the Times Square Lobby Gallery in New York City. One of those shows had a focus on images of the performing arts which pleased Liza as she views figure skating as a performing art as an extension of dance.

Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs (Surf Avenue; Coney Island, Brooklyn)

Creatively Liza has been experimenting with some new techniques and styles recently. She is applying digital technology to her photographs to achieve some exciting results. This involves working in image editing software and experimenting with manipulating contrast, saturation and other variables to edit her photos. She says she is creating hyper reality. Some effect combinations create digital paintings that are intended to echo the look and feel of artists such as Hopper and Cezanne. Others create effects reminiscent of psychedelic rock concert posters of the 60’s and 70’s or give an image the look and feel of authentic vintage photos. In addition, Liza has been expanding her product offerings in her online shop on Zazzle. She has added a line of iPad cases and will also be adding iPhone cases to her CREATIVE CASES product category in the shop.

Parachute Jump Psychedelic Poster by lizadeyphoto

Over the next few months, in addition to adding more images and products to her Zazzle shop, Liza will be making fine art prints of her photography available on Fine Art America, Imagekind and Redbubble. As well, original prints will be made available through Etsy at some point. Liza would also love to have products featuring her photographs available in some of the many little gift and clothing stores on Fire Island in New York. Liza is also in the planning stages of a couple of exciting joint commercial projects, for which she will be doing the photography.

'The Rowboat' iPad Case by lizadeyphoto

Liza markets her work under the names Liza Dey and Liza Dey Photography. She currently sells her work through her shop on Zazzle THE FLYING PIG GALLERY. Within that shop she has several product lines that include paper products, listed under The Flying Pig Press; Coney Island products, listed under Dreamland Gifts; and Apple iPad and iPhone cases, listed under Creative Cases. There are many other product categories to browse. Liza also has a Painet stock photo shop.

Liza Dey Photography Website

The Flying Pig Gallery on Zazzle

Liza Dey Photography on Painet

Liza Dey on Absolute Arts

Liza Dey on ArtWanted

Liza Dey on Artist Rising

The Flying Pig Christmas Shoppe on Squidoo

Dreamland Gifts on Squidoo

Join Liza Dey Photography on Facebook

Join The Flying Pig Gallery on Facebook

Follow Liza Dey Photo on Twitter

Liza Dey Photography on Myspace

The Flying Pig Gallery on Myspace


All images Copyright Liza Dey, All Rights Reserved

Written and edited by Ruth J Jamieson, All Rights Reserved

GETTING TO KNOW DIGITAL ARTIST CAROLYN SCHIFFHOUER

MEET FRACTAL ARTIST AND PAINTER CHRISTINE SCHWARTZKOPF

Christine, who has always been called Christi, lives in Portland, Indiana with her daughter, two grandchildren, eight Chihuahua’s, one cat, one lovebird and a couple of tanks of fish. She says she has had pretty much all kinds of pets over the years and she loves animals with a passion.

WILD FLOWERS

As a child Christi watched her mother do all types of crafts and sewing and when Christi was quite young, her mother taught her to do lace tatting and doilies. Christi’s older sister is an artist who paints in oils, and when Christi was about 12 years old she painted her first oil painting with lessons from her sister. At school, Christi frequently got caught drawing in class when she should have been doing school work.

SNOW DROPS

As a young woman, Christi’s life was busy with work and family. Artistic endeavors shifted to the back burner as she raised her young family. In the mid 80’s she took some lessons in acrylic painting and developed painting abstracts into a hobby.

MY DREAM

In 1996 Christi made some changes in her life and creating art became her focus again. She did a lot of cartoon artwork for her children, and began painting again too. Ebay gave Christi an outlet to market her paintings and she also discovered the EBSQ community.

SINGLE SNOW DROP

Christi’s art has a very strong presence of nature. Florals, landscapes, creatures both wild and domestic and people are strongly represented in her paintings. She has also created a large body of strong and dynamic abstract works. Many of Christi’s pieces can be seen in her portfolio on EBSQ.

CHIPPY IN HAMSTER BALL

Through EBSQ connections Christi has sold more of her artwork and also learned how to work in other mediums. She tried watercolor and decided that was not the medium for her. Prism color pencils were another medium Christi learned to use, and she likes to work with these. A number of these pieces have been sold on Ebay and Etsy.

BENTLEY

In 2010, EBSQ initiated monthly fractal shows. Intrigued, Christi downloaded Apophysis, gave fractal creation a try and fell in love. She has been hooked on fractals ever since, sometimes staying up all night to finish one. She finds them absolutely amazing. Christi says she gets the itch to paint periodically and does, but for the most part she spends her working time creating and working with fractals.

THEY WATCH

Currently Christi is creating more fractals and getting up to speed in CS5 to improve post process work and editing of her fractal art. Coming up in the next six months and beyond, Christi will be marketing prints of her fractals and continuing to build her Zazzle shop.

ANGER

Christi markets her artwork online at several sites. These include an Artists profile at EBSQ Self Representing Artists, sale of originals in shops on ETSY, Bonanza and Deviant Art, and print on demand products featuring her art on Imagekind and Zazzle. She is currently adding a new shop with originals and prints available for sale, on Artfire.

Christi Schwartzkopf on ARTFIRE

Christi Schwartzkopf on BONANZA

Christi Schwartzkopf on DEVIANT ART

Christi Schwartzkopf on ETSY

Christi Schwartzkopf on IMAGEKIND

Christi Schwartzkopf on ZAZZLE



Visit Christi on EBSQ

Friend Christi on Facebook

Follow Christi on Twitter

All images Copyright Christine Schwartzkopf, All Rights Reserved

Written by Ruth J Jamieson, Copyright Ruth J Jamieson

TODAY WE GET TO KNOW IMAGINATIVE ARTIST REBECCA BOWKER CZOSNEK

INTRODUCING WATERCOLORIST HEATHER LEE

WELCOME TO ECLECTIC ITALIAN ARTIST ELENA INDOLFI

REPRESENTATIONAL ARTIST LYNNE REICHHART JOINS US TODAY

WELCOME TO WILDLIFE & LANDSCAPE ARTIST BRENDA THOUR