Which design do you like the best? (your comment could = free gift)
Picture 34
Looking for some feedback...Please leave a comment with your favorite color combo and I'll randomly choose one winner to receive a Mixed Breeds Notepad in the mail next week! You must comment by midnight central time Tuesday, August 26th.
Ch ch ch changes...
Poster2008
Fourteen years ago I exhibited at my first Art Fair ... it was the Bucktown Arts Fest...I had no tent and sold my hand painted tile magnets and painted mirrors (displaying the mirrors on an upended futon frame)...I managed to dig up the photo below. It was great fun and of course a huge ego boost to be selling my art work! This was also the year that Rich & I bought our house in Bucktown which happened to be a 2 minute stroll from the art fair. Little did I know how that show would change my life. I made so many great friends and started relationships with so many people who have collected my work over the years. Another highlight was in 1999, I did the poster design for the art fair and got as close as I've ever come to selling out my booth.
Now it's 2008 and time for a change, I will miss this very unique show and community event and I'm sure I will be back at some point but it was time to try something new. The art fair pundits say you should mix it up, you can saturate your market and karmic-ly it's probably good to open up a space for a new artist to come in. (Sharon Sears will be in my old spot #33, I should probably supply her with some cards in case anyone comes looking for me!)
So this weekend instead finding me at Bucktown, I hope you will make the trip up to Highland Park where I will be exhibiting at the Port Clinton Art Festival - this is rated as one of the top shows in the nation and I'm very excited to be exhibiting my work for the first time in this community. For those of you who do get to Bucktown, I have many wonderful and talented friends still exhibiting there...among them Laura Nugent who is coming up from Kansas City to do the show for the first time...(and I'm so glad to have her staying with us) I hope she can snag a poster for me - Amy Arnold designed them this year - I just love her work (soft sculpture: peepwool) and was thrilled to see it in 2d on the poster.
Okay...time to get to work...need to make that Port Clinton E-blast announcement! You'll find me in Booth #53!
2bucktown95
1995 - The year we moved to Bucktown & I started selling at Art Fairs.
Annebucktownposter
1999 I was the Bucktown Arts Fest Poster artist...I was 32 and Rich was in fact 33 in 1999. That was back when I wore cut-offs to the art fairs...you know a starving artist had to dress the part!
Teacher Steps Out...
Picture 22
"Teacher Steps Out" © Jeff Condon
...is the title of this great piece by fellow art fair artist,
- he is one of the reasons I was inspired to paint on cardboard, that and whenever kids come to my studio that's what I provide as canvas...they can make nice size pieces of art at no cost and for me it takes the edge off feeling like I have to make something GREAT because I'm using canvas or wood that I paid for. Jeff does beautiful pastels and oil paintings of interiors and rural landscapes which I love but it was a fun treat to find these 'off the wall' pastels of women's legs on corrugated cardboard in his booth at the 57th Street Art Fair earlier this summer. Visit his
to see the rest of the paintings behind these thumbnails of his beautiful work...
Picture 28
"Teacher Steps Out" hangs in my office with my cat painting by artist
and Dot ...the stuffed, hand painted dog that I made...hopefully coming to a store near you one day in the not too distant future!
Picture 21
Helping out the Border Collies...
GLBCR#1
I came up with this t-shirt design for
Great Lakes Border Collie Rescue
today...I hope they like it..I planned to go in a completely different direction but this is what my imagination served up this afternoon... I think it would be great on a shirt. I am so glad to be crossing some of these things off my 'to do' list...Now there are no more excuses for me to not go down and paint tomorrow! The danger of having the painting studio and office separate: I can't just get up and saunter over to the easel to paint on a whim like I used to...of course on the flip side when I'm down there painting it's completely uninterrupted, aside from silly
demanding some play time every now & then...and once in a great while
checking in...my poor old girl is really slowing down.
Catching up with pet portraits...
Picture 10
I'm way behind on my pet portrait and illustration commissions...catching up this week: Preliminary sketches above for Pippin, an Irish Jack Russell pup and Izak, a very sweet shepherd who sadly passed away this past year. I generally start by making drawings from their photos in my sketchbook, then I pick the best one, scan it and digitally clean up the lines, add the name and colors before the first presentation to my client. From their feedback I make any neccessary edits and color changes before actually painting the portrait on canvas. Here is a good link to my process, links to completed Pet Face and Narrative Scene Portraits and more info on how you can Order a Portrait of Your Pet!
Living in the shadows...
Another treasure for my kitchen...
In Minneapolis I received this lovely coffee cup as a thank you gift from my friend, Deb LeAir. She doesn't make these for sale anymore so I feel very lucky to have one. Her pieces are all hand carved, even around the bottom - such amazing detail...check out her website: www.DebLeAir.com to see more of her fabulous work.
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