Spike The Chihuahua

Last week before I left on my trip I was fortunate to meet Spike the Chihuahua and his human. Being an internet based studio we do not get to meet a lot of our 4-legged subjects so it is always a treat when local clients swing by with their pups. This little guy was a perfect gentleman and a real charmer.

Back From Travels

I am settling back in to my work routine after a few days off. Stay tuned to the homepage for new art proofs and updates soon. We are starting to get very busy now and holiday orders are starting to come in. If you have time be sure and checkout our giftshop for fun dog & cat art gifts, we even have a huge section of Christmas cards. Allison has been working hard all year adding new items to our shop. If you are an existing client and would like us to create a giftshop page of goodies using your artwork just give us a call toll-free and we can make that happen (888-225-4278).

Texas Olive Oil Company

I am still traveling. Yesterday my Dad and I visited an olive orchard and experienced an "olive oil tasting". The hill country here in Texas is sprinkled with several wineries and tasting rooms, however it boasts only one olive orchard. Jack Dougherty owns The First Texas Olive Oil Company and you can find out more about this wonderful little business at his website.

Today it is raining, and we ventured out earlier for a little shopping in Fredericksburg. This little tourist town is abundant with little antique shops and sweet stuff for the ladies. Most of the offerings are not my style, but I did discover a way-cool doggy boutique called Dogology. They have tons of groovy stuff for dogs & their humans. The decor was totally urban modern and it was wonderfully out of place in this quaint little country town, where western shirts and cowboy motifs dominate.

Olive Tree

Texas shaped pool at Holiday Inn

Kerrville Texas

Well I finally was able to break away. I am in Kerrville Texas with my Dad on a quick road trip. We are staying in a nice Holiday Inn that has an absurd Texas shaped pool .... pretty silly and wonderful. I will have to come back when it is warm enough to swim. Dan is holding down the fort at home and helping Allison with Art Paw.

Today I think we are going to go visit an olive oil company that grows their own olives ( yea here in Texas), should be fun. I just did a quick sketch of Ajax from an old favorite picture I had on this laptop. Oh, and Dan hooked me up with a verizon pc card so Yay I am connected while away. This is the first time I have traveled with the internet and boy is it sweet. I answered a couple of client questions from the car yesterday on the way down here. I sort of wish I could take off for 3 months in a silverstream travel trailer and blog and sketch across America with the Scotties in tow. That would be the life. I'll post some travel pics soon.

Mystics, Mutts & Moon Pies

"Duxha"

Join us Saturday 10/14/06 at White Rock lake for a fun event benefiting Weimaraner Rescue of North Texas. There will a pet psychic on hand and all types of groovy vendors.
We will be there selling prints and showing off our portraits from 12:00-5:00.

Details:
October 14th (Noon - 5PM) Mystics, Mutts and Moonpies Festival
Stone Tables at White Rock Lake, Dallas Texas

Ever been Joe-Jobbed?

Any of you guys out there running websites ever been joe-jobbed? That is the practice of sending tons of spam out that appears to come from a legitimate web site ( like artpaw) that has been high jacked and often times for malicious reasons by a competitor. I will be looking into what the best course of action is to make this stop and in the mean time I do apologize if it appears that you may have gotten spam from us, rest assured that Art Paw does not send out Spam.

In the mean time ... people should really think twice before trying to hurt someone this way, it is illegal ya know:
"Will Spammer's Jail sentence Stop Spam?"

Spammer gets 9 year Jail Sentence

My Pal Sheila has published a book!

A good friend of mine, Sheila Finkelstein, just published a book through Lulu.com. I am so proud of this lady. When I first met Sheila 6 or 7 years ago she contacted me to help her get her art portfolio on-line. She knew very little about the web and at the age that most women are content to just sit back and watch their grandbabies grow up this gal was ready to jump in head first to the world of web marketing. We have since become good friends and she never ceases to amaze me in her ability to grab on to new tools via the web and learn what she needs to learn to do the things she wants to do. Sheila publishes a daily E-zine and her new book has sprung from her writings for her e-zine. Check out her Launch Celebration and buy a copy of her book. Her writing is very inspirational for anyone with a creative soul, and that is pretty much all of us when you get right down to it. Sprinkled in with her self reflecting queries are her stunning photographs and some areas of blank page to do some journaling of your own. I introduced Sheila to dreamweaver and web-page building years ago and yet she is always teaching me new stuff and is always two steps ahead of me with new web-tools and resources . She keeps her eyes wide open and one hand on the mouse at all times ... she is a power girl for sure.

Red Tailed Hawk

Sketch of hawk from stock photo. I like the patterned ground that reminds me of wallpaper behind such a wild bird. It does not seem to belong .... I like that. Detail of eye below shows the line quality.

How Now Blue Cow?

This is a recent wacom sketch of a lovely blue cow. It is from a photo I took at my Dad's ranch. I really like the strong black line that I used to define her back.
Things are back to normal around here today. The "internets" are all working well again and life is good. None of the scotties drug in any new prey so it was a day with very little drama.

In the studio/
Allison has started designing a new site for me and she is doing a fantastic job. I will be posting more info on that new domain soon. I had 3 new painterly orders come in this week and I have already started on these. Next week Dan will be here running things while I escape on a mini vacation with my Dad. It will be great to clear my head before the holiday rush really gets going. When I return I will probably be working every day until 07. I don't mind, this is my favorite time of year.

Bad modem, Dead squirrel, And more

Ok so this is my art-business blog , and I rarely use it for personal crabbing. With that said .... oh what a day. For the past 36 hours we have been having spotty internet connections and after 3 tech support calls we decide to try a new modem. Well that took 3 visits to 3 different stores and we are now connected again ... man, I had no idea how helpless I feel without the internet. We had a few other tech related issues that sprang from the original problem, but I am back to full work mode finally.

So while Dan was re-configuring the large format printer this afternoon and I was chit chatting with a friend in the front room Ajax comes pacing through the house with one of his fluffy toys hanging out of his mouth. On closer inspection I realized it was not a toy after all but a dead squirrel. I scream to the top of my lungs "Dan it is your turn", (I had dealt with one of Pixel's victims last week). So yea, it has been quite a day.

"Waiting for their Da"

This is a series of Wacom sketches I just did from a favorite photo of my Scotties waiting for Dan to come home from work. They are just too cute sometimes. I started with a plain black line sketch, then added some grey wash to the pups then I painted in some color. The final full color sketch was created by making use of a photo layer with a "cut-out" filter applied and then layer effects were played with and opacity to get things just right. Then one final additional sketch layer on top

Working Smarter

If you spend a lot of time in photoshop or any software program for that matter you have probably learned a few keyboard shortcuts. Here is a great little quickie tutorial by Dave Cross on setting up your very own shortcuts in photoshop. I spent some time this morning on Planet Photoshop browsing through their terrific photoshop tutorials. This is a terrific site.

I must admit that I have only scratched the surface when it comes to using Photoshop's ease of production tools such as actions, and customizing my keyboard shortcuts. I would like 07 to be all about working smarter and not necessarily harder so I guess I need to set up a few of my own personal keyboard shortcuts today.

Why I Visit On-line Tutorials so much:
As a commercial artist I find it is easy to get into routines in my work and rely on the same techniques or the same habits of doing things that I have always done. I find the challenge in my work at this point is looking at things upside down so to speak or from a new angle to discover new ways of achieving my goals. This is never more true than with Photoshop. There are a gabillion ways of doing one thing in this software program. Those that are not familiar with Photoshop may think that all digital artists have one big "easy button" that we all use to colorize an image in the exact same way. The reality is there are dozens of ways to colorize an image, and different approaches will yield different results. By browsing tutorials you can find new solutions to issues you have been addressing that approach your challenges in different ways. If a new technique saves you even one step then that might be a few extra minutes you can spend at the park with your dog. Yea, my new mantra needs to be work smarter....work smarter ....work smarter.

Dan is Painting

My husband has started painting again and his first piece was a painting of our Scottie boy Tommy. I really love how he captured Big Tommy's crooked tail. This work is thick with paint and this low resolution web image does not really do it justice. Dan paints in oils and usually works pretty large. His new piece is a modest 5 feet by 3.5 feet in size. Dan still works full time in the printing industry so he does not have the time to play that I do here at Art Paw. I am very excited to see him making the time to paint again. He says this new piece is just a sketch to loosen up a bit. I can't wait to see his next painting. My own portrait work is all digital so it is really fun to get to see some old fashion oil painting happening around here. When walking into his paint studio our friends and visitors are immediately hit with the wonderful smell of oils and paint thinner. Dan and I met in college back in the 80's. We did not meet up again until the late 90's. When I was younger I never imagined that I would marry an artist and I feel very blessed to be with someone that approaches all aspects of his life with creativity and an unusual perspective.

Emma The Cape Parrot

Dianne and I worked on Emma the cape parrot today. She looks pretty cool hangin with Mona. She gives Mona a real tropical flair. I sort of want to give Mona an eye patch but I'm sure Emma's human probably gets tired of pirate jokes.

This week I am trying to finalize all of September's projects. Now is the time to start thinking about Christmas orders people. You guys will not be able to procrastinate and order custom artwork 3 days before Christmas and receive it on time so start gathering up those photos now and sending them in. Get your orders placed on the project board now. The holidays are much closer than you think.

Design Mags and Eye Candy

When I was in my early 30's and designing greeting cards for a living my best friend and I use to go to Borders Books once a month to purchase and paw through their stunning design rags and design books for inspiration. While I still love to get my hands on a yummy well designed mag or book printed on quality paper I no longer crave those excursions like I once did. The web is overflowing with inspiration and info for artists and designers so there is really no reason to leave the house any longer just to get an eyeful. I do miss the tactile sensual experience of paper & ink and yea I do still indulge myself at Borders on occasion, however today regardless of my budget or schedule, inspiration is always just a click away.

Today I post just a few favorites from my rather long list of bookmarked sites.
Mags:
How Design ( I also subscribe)
Design Graphics
Applied Arts
Colors Magazine

Inspiration:
Netdiver
http://www.5oup.net/
Digital Thread
blogarians
Illustrationclass.com

Animal Art in the News

Charging Bull ... watch out Wal-Mart!
Wal-Mart has found itself in trouble over copyright issues involving a Bull. Artist Arturo Di Modica is the sculptor responsible for the famous charging bull statue near Wall Street. Evidently knock off copies of the art are being sold for profit by Wal-Mart Check out the full story at Bloomberg.com.

Australian Petroglyphs in Danger
The world's largest collection of ancient rock art is being threatened by a new gas project. Kangaroos, goannas, porcupines, and emus, are just a few of the animal rock art subjects facing damage by acid rain from petrochemical plants in Dampier Archipelago Australia. The animal art carvings are 6,000 to 30,000 years old and chronicle the cultural heritage of ancient Aboriginal societies.
Read more at cbc.ca

Rotting Shark and longevity issues around conceptual art
Ok this story from June seems like a good follow up to the last. Artist Damien Hirst is negotiating with his clients to replace the shark in his iconic work, The physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living, 1991. The artwork consists of a large dead shark suspended in a huge tank filled with formaldehyde. The shark is "starting to change" shall we say, and the artist is agreeable to changing out the specimen as needed. I don't know, seems as though a rotting shark might be it's own statement, and even more interesting than the original. I also agree with those that posted to complain about killing animals and calling it Art. How many sharks will he have to kill to maintain his conceptual artwork over the course of a lifteime?
Read more at theartistnewspaper.com

A Fine Fall Morning

It is really starting to feel like fall here in Dallas. After a triple digit summer the cooler weather has everyone around here feeling young and feisty. The pups have an extra bounce in their steps, and I feel like a kid anxious for Halloween.

With the weather so flawless I decided I could not sit at my desk this morning so Allison & I packed up the laptops today and went to the Dallas arboretum to work outside this morning. She is finalizing 3 Warhols today and I am working on a few painterly projects. I just finished my 2nd Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen. This girl is named Momma Rose, I love that name. She was fun and a bit of a challenge as her eyes were not showing up at all in the original photograph. I am very happy with her final artwork. Now I have to get back to Ding-a-ling the dolphin. I may have her proof ready by late tonight.

Growing Packs & Prides

In the past few months we have been working with a few different repeat clients that are growing their packs or prides as the case may be. Last week we shipped a rather long custom portrait that was 20 x 40 inches. Max & Cooper have a new kitty sister Josie. So what was originally a 4-panel artwork created last year has now become a new 6-panel print to include sister Josie. We worked with our client to come up with a custom size that would work out well above an entertainment center. The new print has even more fun color. Yea, I do sort of love my job.

Swimming with the dolphins

This week I get to swim with the dolphins, at any rate I find myself in the deep end of the pool. I am very excited to be working on a non-furry client. I am posting this piece in progress as I have a feeling this one may take a few days. So far I have just played with colors and filters. I still need to go in and add lots of paint strokes and texture. I love the opportunity to play with unusual subjects and this will be my very first dolphin.

People often ask me what my most unusual request has been. It is hard to say, we have done lizards, frogs, hamsters, horses, all kinds of birds, monkeys, even a gold fish. I can not wait to see how this dolphin evolves. It is always refreshing to break away from my 4-legged subject matter and tackle something new. I'll try and post again soon on this guy.


I started this piece without enough info and I just got an update from this cool dolphin's human. Here is the personal scoop on this clever girl: "The dolphins name that you are working on is "Ding-a-ling." She is the alpha female in charge of a family of 14 Atlantic bottlenose dolphins. She is around 30 yrs. old and drop dead georgous!"
Thanks to Sarah for the background info. Now I am really personally attached ... ya just gotta love those old Alpha girls! Wish I could swim with her.

Andy Warhol Silent Spring

On Exhibit now at the National Museum of Wildlife Art is the show Silent Spring: Andy Warhol's Endangered Species and Vanishing Animals. Included in the show are 16 original prints of animals that are facing extinction. The exhibition is organized by The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
Check it out at wildlifeart.org

Pet Portrait Marketing Guide

A lot of artists have been writing to me just this past month about how to get your work seen. Just today a very nice lady wrote to ask how to get her Mom's custom portraits seen. Art Paw has a pretty strong web presence and many artists may think we are "lucky" or that maybe we know some easy secret to marketing that gives us an edge. The reality is there is no "easy" secret when it comes to marketing artwork. I would be happy to share a few tips that are working for us.

#1 Advertise off-line to drive traffic on-line.
We spend a few thousand dollars a year advertising in a variety of pet oriented national magazines. The cost for print ads can run as low as $200 and can go up into the thousands depending on your budget. We do small marketplace ads and try to keep our costs as low as possible.

#2 Show up at local pet events
National coverage is great, but do not forget to work your local market by showing up at dog and pet related events put on by local charity groups. Be sure and give to those local charities as well. Many rescue groups have yearly auctions and would love to have one of your portraits to auction off for their cause. They will often place your business cards and marketing brochures by your auction item.

#3 Search Engine Optimization
If you have a website make sure the engines can find you. I am always trying to read up on the latest news about optimizing for various web engines. I am not going to go into detail here and give you a step by step guide on how to do this because there are a gazillion web-sites out there that will teach you how. In addition to free information there are companies that will optimize your website for you for a small fee. If someone tries to sell you services for web optimization be sure and check to see how their web site ranks. You do not want to hire the company that is ranking on page 10 for SEO services.

#4 Printed Marketing Materials
The web is great and a well designed on-line portfolio is a good place to start but do not forget about old fashion marketing materials such as full color business cards, flyers, postcards and more. Leave these at your local vets, groomers and doggy daycare places. Slap a bumper sticker on your car with your domain on it ....get aggressive locally in getting your name out there.

#5 Spend almost as much time marketing your artwork as making it.
Yep, it sad but true, you should develop a real joy for selling because your first 5 years in business should be spent with at least 50% of your energies being put into marketing. If you are doing art fulltime and can afford to spend twice as much time selling your artwork as making it then you will succeed twice as fast.

#6 Network with other Artists
There are tons of successful artists on-line and while not everyone that you e-mail is going to feel compelled to give you any help it never hurts to ask. A word of advice in approaching other artists by e-mail, try and include your full name, web address and phone number. Do not try and be sneaky or pretend to be someone else. I have had a handful of portrait artists e-mail with their hotmail accounts to ask how my ad in a specific magazine is doing for me without even identifying themselves. Be totally above board and honest with people and they will usually be glad to help you. If you try to be anonymous it will usually backfire on you. Be willing to share a little of yourself when approaching other artists.

#7 Spend Some Time and Spend Some Money
I have never been shy about spending money on my business. It takes money to make money. I happen to love marketing and see it as a creative art form in itself. I am not afraid to invest time and money into selling because I know my work is good and that it will pay off if I invest in myself.

So if you are an artist get out there and start selling. Artists should also feel free to leave a comment here and share your own marketing tips. If you are a pet lover please order an Art Paw original today so I can figure out how to pay for my next print ad.

100 posts

Wow today is a milestone for me with the blog. This is my 100th post. I started my Art Dog Blog back in February of 05. Over a year later I have finally reached 100 posts. I feel like I should have something monumental to talk about today, but I'm afraid this may just be another regular old post. As I mentioned before this September also marks our 8th birthday here at Art Paw. I guess more than anything today I am very aware of my human trait of marking time, and the odd yardsticks we use to measure success. So do I have a successful blog, are people even reading it? I really don't know, all I know is I feel good about reaching that triple digit number.

So what is all this in doggy years?
My furkids don't mark time at all, just lamp posts, trees, and the occasional fence post. Our Scotties go on 2 walks a day every single day of the week so they go on around 730 walks a year. I have never once heard them bragging about reaching 200, 300, 400 or so walks. No, but I do hear from them if the walk is late. It is easy to look at our pups and wish we could be more zen about life. The reality is that simple actions like updating a blog on a regular basis can be viewed as a zen like discipline. All I know for sure is that I do enjoy blogging.

My Pixel Chiffon Pie

© Kathy Weller

Portrait artist and illustrator Kathy Weller finished her artwork of my Pixel over the weekend and it looks so great. Our little scottie girl is at that good versus evil, or "id at war with the ego" stage of development. One minute she is an angel and the next she is the devil. Kathy created a fun portrait that captures both sides of her personality. Check out her "What's Cookin Page" to see more. I love the color scheme and the flames on the devil side. I know this piece of art will always make us smile especially once our little girl grows up and becomes a civilized and mature Scott. I am often surprised by how many people commission custom portraits of their wee puppies, but you know it really does make sense to capture them at this unique stage. We send many thanks, wags & sniffs to Kathy for a great piece of art.

Web Design Tools

So Saturday is usually the day I post a link to some clever photoshop tutorial that I have stumbled upon while browsing the web. Not today. Today I have 2 words to share ... Template Monster. Oh my gosh, this last week I have been digging through this resource site and have found at least a dozen web design templates I want to try out. Template Monster makes me feel like a kid in a candy store.

Art Paw and most of my other sites were designed by me from scratch in Dreamweaver. Back in 1998 we started our very first site and my husband actually built it using raw code. We threw it up ( sounds lovely right), we threw it up on to our free member homepage with earthlink. A year or so later we got our own domain and I started tinkering with site design and taught myself Dreamweaver over time. I still have tons to learn and feel like you never stop learning when it comes to the web since it all changes so fast. The cool thing is today there are so many resources out there to help you along.

This month we are celebrating our 8th Birthday here at Art Paw. A few of our early pages can still be found using the way back machine. We had some cool colors working for us, but I made a lot of design mistakes back then, yea, comic sans to start with. At least we can still laugh at ourselves. We still laugh when we think about how hard Dan worked to figure out how to code some silly little moving text sales blurb that ran across your screen when the site loaded. Like most web-animation it was sort of cool "once" then quickly became irritating. Ah well ... live and learn.


With so much on my plate right now I think the next web project I tackle will be created by modifying a pre-existing template ... heck why not. Template Monster is a great resource for any small business owner that wants to try creating or updating their website on their own. You still have to own some sort of web design software program to make any sort of pre-fab web template work well for your own needs.

Friday so soon?

Wow the days have flown by this week. Today we will stretch around 7 prints and update 3 clients. That leaves only about 4 new projects on my plate for next week. With any luck I may clear my work load completely this month. That would allow me to focus on getting the site ready for Christmas.
Yesterday I worked on Maybelle and Gus. These two handsome Corgis were a blast to play with. I just adore sturdy big headed short legged dogs. Some day I want to have a Corgi of my own.

Habits and Routines

Too often we think of our routines as boring, and habits as things to break. My dogs have taught me to look at routines with a unique perspective I never had when I was younger. Every little daily ritual is celebrated by our Scotties as though it may never come again. They never grow bored with their walks and they never get tired of the same old meal each night.

Lately I have been working on developing habits and routines that feed the soul so to speak. Like half of America I am trying to develop a habit of going to the gym a few times a week. That is going ok and I feel a little healthier. My favorite new routine is to spend one morning a week at our local arboretum garden center. I am taking the laptop and working on one pet portrait in an environment that is overflowing with life and it's own little eco-system. This routine gets me out of my studio and allows me to refresh and work at a slower pace, away from the phone and the constant distractions that seem to characterize any successful business. What type of mini-breaks can you work into your work week that will refresh your spirit and break up your normal routine?

Miss Ruby

This pup sketch is another quick and loose Wacom drawing created on my laptop during a labor day weekend road trip to the hill country. This girl is Ruby and she belongs to my best friend.

Bulldog Sketch

This Bulldog sketch was created in the car on a road trip to the Hill country in Texas. I think he turned out pretty good.

Pet Portrait Swap

Check out the Annual Pet Portrait Swap at EBSQ. I swapped with a few very talented artists this year. The pets I created portraits for are Zelda, Katie, Dori and Bauer
This was my first year to participate and I had a blast. I can't wait to see the works these terrific artists created of my Scottie pack. Check out Ajax (artist Susan Buenger), Pixel ( artist Tiffany Matthews), and Big Tommy & Ajax ( artist Angela Gue).


Katie


Bauer


Zelda


Dori

New Design Project

Well yesterday was my day off and I got 2 clients updated, one large print in the mail and half a dozen e-mails answered. So much for my Sunday - Monday weekend. I should not complain though since I have the best job and the best clients on earth. I am very excited that little Tabasco's 2nd portrait has been finalized and will ship soon. He is the chihuahua shown above.

Today I have been working on a new design project for Team Husar Photography. I am doing a little straight photoshop work for this wildlife photography company. The project is for holiday cards and that reminds me I need to start shooting my pups and planning out my own holiday card soon. If you have time check out Team Husar's site. This husband and wife team belong to Bear the Golden retriever I worked on this last year. They shoot a wide variety of critters.

Photo Hosting Sites

There are tons of terrific photo hosting sites on the web. I recently tried out photobucket.com and Flickr. I really liked both sites. Photobucket offers groovy tools for those of us that are blogging, or playing around with on-line posting communities. In a short 10 minute time span I was able to upload photos of Big Tommy playing with his ball and then turn that into a slideshow with easy copy & paste code for this blog. Of course I have Dreamweaver and Flash and so I probably could have done the same thing with good old fashion design software tools, but it would have taken me a lot longer.

Flickr is all about community and photo tags. Their search engine tag system allows people to search and find any photo subject you can imagine. Check out my own personal photos at Flickr. At Flickr you can also join photo groups with your common interest. I joined the Scottish Terrier group of course.

A couple of other popular photo host sites that I have not tried include:
Shutterfly
Snapfish

Taking good Pet Photos

Almost every portrait artist carving out a space on the web has a page dedicated to taking good pet photos because the better our clients are at capturing their pet the easier it will be for us to translate that into great art. Our own page at Art Paw has some tips that are specific for our needs, but it is over due for a revamp. I decided to scour the web and find out what others are saying about fetching the best shot, or shall we say snapping a fetching shot.

Celebrity photographer Chris Ameruoso says take lots of photos and be bold.

Check out the New York Institute of Photography's tips. They suggest you get inside your pet's brain.

Michael Russell has some good advice and I love his suggestion to exercise your dog before a photo shoot.

Adobe.com has a really great education page for kids on taking digital photos of pets and then playing with them in Photoshop elements to create a collage. I love this satement: " Taking pictures of a favorite pet is more than just an act of love and affection. It gives students the opportunity to study animal behavior, particularly their interaction with humans."

And on that note I am off to study my own canine's animal behavior. In my next post I will discuss photo hosting sites.

Design Showcase Pages

If you have not stumbled upon our new Design showcase pages yet be sure and check them out. We have added our artwork to a varity of settings to give you guys ideas on how Art Paw pet portraits might work well in every room of your house. I have long been a fan of interior design and have recently become addicted to the Home & Garden network. I'll try and post some pics soon of how we have worked dog art and Scottie collectibles into our own little cottage and studio.

Ajax Sketch

Ok one more of the middle child. This is Ajax and this sketch is from a photo taken at Fala Day. Fala Day is a fun event that celebrates Scotties and their people. This is another fast Wacom sketch.

More Wacom Sketches

This morning I did another quick sketch of one of my Scotts. This is Pixel. This artwork was created using a wacom drawing tablet and the paint brush tool only. There are no filters applied to this hand drawn piece. The top image is where I started with a simple black & white sketch. I then went in and painted in some color. Setting my paintbrush tool at a low opacity I was able to achieve sort of a watercolor or liquid marker effect with the applied color. While I did work by looking at a photograph there is no photo image layer on this piece and it is composed of just hand drawn lines. This loose sketch work is currently not the sort of design work I offer on my commercial site, however it does keep my portrait work fresh and it keeps my hand skills strong, which helps with my painterly style portrait work. I have a real love for line and I think that is what many people are responding to when they choose my painterly style artwork for their pets.




Tutorial Tips:
Well I tried to find a groovy wacom specific tip to share and I sort of struck out. The Wacom.com site does have a tips section, however I was disappointed that the tutorials were not quick-time movies ...ah well those that want to learn will read. Click here for Wacom's Tips Section.

I"m still here

Yes I am still here guys. I know I fell off of the blog for a week. What can I say, I have been really busy with orders. We printed 6 portraits this week, and I proofed Bella, Roxy, Charley, Trixie, Brooks and 4 hounds. We are working on updates for Tabasco, Charley and Trixie. Yesterday I took a break after I had been running errands and worked on a quick sketch to amuse myself. I have to do that every once in awhile. I am posting that doggy here. This is my own Big Tommy. I have been feeling bad that I have not been keeping my sketch journal lately. I decided to do a fast sketch with the wacom and it was quite fun. After I did the initial black & white line drawing I went in and played with color.

Yes ... Another Pug!

This cute pug is Daisy and she has lucky charms in her food bowl.This project is for Kathy Weller. She is a very talented pet portrait artist that is currently working on a portrait for me of my own Pixel. We are swapping our talents. I can't wait to see my finished piece. You can see her ground work sketches of Pixel by clicking here.

Sofa Art

When I was a young artist in my 20's working towards my degree I was in a wonderful world surrounded by really talented artists and amazing instructors. It was a serious world though where we were all striving to be something special and we hungered to create something oh so profound and new. At that time and place the popular attitude was that great art does not match the sofa, and probably should not even be hung anywhere near the sofa. To quote Bob Dylan "I'm younger than that now".

As a commercial artist and as someone that has woven art throughout my home and heart I realize that the snotty elitists that make up rules about what "good" art is just don't get it. Good art is something that makes you feel, and if a print of your pooch that matches your sofa makes you feel good then that is good art. And hey, if you decide to purchase a pink suede sofa to match your dog art, well that is just good design, which some might debate is even more uncommon than good art.

So what is with this interior Pink Pug image you may ask? Well I don't often get to see my finished work in their actual environments since we ship all over the globe. A couple of months ago I started playing around with some stock interior design shots, placing my art in different rooms. The result of that is 4 new pages on the site of design ideas and decorating with dog art tips ( and cat art). So check out Art Paw's new Design Showcase to get ideas for your next portrait, after all one portrait is just not enough since you have so many walls in your home. Keep in mind that our designer rooms are design comps and not necessarily client homes.

Tips From Photoshop Pros

It is tutorial Saturday and this is the day of the week that I have set aside to share my favorite on-line photoshop tips & tricks. I don't know what happened to me last Saturday. I was probably working, hmmm or maybe I was playing with the dogs. Yea I was swimming in the lake with the dogs, yea I think I was skinny dipping at the lake with my dogs, no wait we were all four mountain climbing ... ok I was working at my desk all day.

Burn & Dodge
I just found a really nifty tutorial on dodging and burning (without using the dodge & burn tools) from Russell Brown. Those of you that have never seen a Brown tutorial are in for a treat. This guy has a really goofy and animated way of speaking that keeps ya awake.
Quick Time Tutorial: Click Here

If you are an artist or designer that wants to learn a specific software application or a variety of different programs then you need to check out Lynda.com. She offers tons of free training movies on a wide variety of graphic design applications. For more serious students she also offers a subscription service with even more knowledge just waiting for your hungry mind.

Ok that is all I have today on tutorials and resources. Feel free to leave a comment and share your favorite tips and design resources.

Don't be Cruel

Or shall we say "Dobie" Cruel. Just heard this story on the radio. Doberman mauls Elvis Presley's Teddy Bear! I love the King, but this story is just too funny.
Check it Out:
Hound dog mauls Elvis's teddy bear

New Haiku

Dan has returned to his Haiku blog and is writing again. Pixel now has her first poem.

A Slow Walk to Love

What hath heaven wrought?
Not Pixel, Not my Pixel
Walking, toes are bit

Check out his poetry blog when you have time:
Haiku Dog

Washington Post Express

Thanks to all the folks at the Washington Post Express for featuring Art Paw back in July. And a special thanks to Jennifer for e-mailing us a pdf of the article today. Yay Jennifer! We are thrilled that they chose to use Sirloin the Pug's portrait in this terrific feature on custom artwork. They refer to "punch hued canvas from Art Paw". I love that ... it makes me think of the phrase "punch drunk", along with bright party colors. Hmmm ... punch hued, yes I love it. It has been a long hard week so this is indeed the pat on the back that I needed today.

A Long Day

Today was very productive and long. Almost midnight and I just finished a proof page for sweet Grizzly. I also created another portrait for Ozzie today and revised 4 portraits that needed tweaking. I buckled down this morning determined to get caught up. The real secret to my success today was leaving a message on the phone that told the world that I would be away from the phone until Friday. Yes I am taking a phone break. It is really great to shut out the world for 48 hours.

Back To School Posters

Wow, August so soon! It is back to school time and we are grouping some groovy dorm room posters together for you to collect. Check out our wild life section in our gift shop for some original art that you just can't find at the Mall. Sure you can get some of your favorite doggy breeds, however we also have birds, primates, insects, big cats and more.