Holiday Prep!

Now that Halloween is over, the holidays are coming at us like that round bolder in Raiders of the Lost Ark! I have been making cards and gifts for Christmas since late summer, but I feel constantly behind. I finished the painting I told you about last time and am pleased with how it came out. It was originally supposed to have fog, but you can't have everything. I made it into a card, and maybe I'll make a second one out of it. I sold a print of St. Hildegard (Thank you!) so now I'm offering more prints of my paintings.

I am also offering t-shirts with my block prints on them. I'm really happy with how they look, and hope that people will get them as gifts. The images I make are meant to be iconic so they really work well on shirts. I have tried to solve the problem I would have with overhead and storage by making shirts to model but stating that they can be any size and will be made to order. I would like to offer long sleeved shirts and sweatshirts, but I also have to spend $ on presents so I can't just buy a bunch of sweatshirts hoping someone will buy something. I know Ihave to spend money to make money, but I have to be realistic also.

That doesn't mean I can't still make more stuff for Christmas. Going with the icon theme I've been trying to come up with an iconic Christmas image for a block print. I've already done a Christmas tree which came out great, but I'm looking for something that will have more of an impact; is bolder or more "dramatic". My girlfriend suggested Santa, which I initially rejected as too cliche to register with viewers but I like the idea that icons originally were saints portraits and Santa Clause is just how little kids pronounce Saint Nicholas. This probably won't go on a shirt, but I'm just thinking about Christmas cards. It makes sense that in order to catch anyone's attention whether it's cards shirts or anything else, my job as an illustrator is to create an image that is bold, iconic, arresting, and all the other synonyms for "eye catching" I've used so far.

Religious Icons generally hold something in their hands to make it easy for viewers to recognize them. I'm haveing a hard time figuring out what to have Santa hold. First it was his list of naughty and nice, but I thought people might not know that's what the scroll was meant to be. I thought maybe coal in one hand and a toy in the other, but I really think Im going to stick to red and white for colors, so that wont work. let me know if you have any ideas!

Oh! Maybe a thumbs up with one hand and thumbs down with the other!

All Hallows Eve

As we come to another Samhain (pronounced Sowen {more or less}) also known as All Hallows Eve (the evening before All Hallows or All Saints day), more commonly: Halloween, my mind is drawn to the Silver Branch: the gateway to the nether world which legend tells us is open on this night to let the spirits wander into our world and where we can wander knowingly or not into theirs, and become lost... forever.
Currently, I am working on a painting of a lonely winter night, lit by streetlamps, as the snow and elements attempt to obscure what little illumination they offer. As I paint, I'm listening to Wicca radio on itunes. I have always loved Halloween, but not everyone shares this fondness for a night of ghoulish corpses, haunted graveyards and magic spells. I have dragged people into the depths of parties, haunts and demonic debauchery over the years hoping they would catch the spell cast upon me in my youth. All too often however, the night turns into a curse for all involved. You cant force someone to enjoy Halloween.
As a child, I would have Halloween parties thrown for me for my birthday which is about a week before Halloween. Then of course, on the big night came the trick or treating! Going door to door and having strangers give me candy was thrilling! In retrospect, it was more the idea that these strangers were friendly enough to give me something rather than the candy itself which would often last until Thanksgiving when it would get thrown out. Dressing up was definitely a big part of the magic and the only remnant left to me as an adult. I remember having one of those really shiny costumes with the plastic mask secured by a rubber band as a child; I think it was Superman. I had to go while it was still light out because I was so young, which I hated, but I think I went by myself, which I loved.
One year my next door neighbor put a stuff scare crow in a chair on her porch and whether she jumped out at me or what I don't remember, but I do remember that she scarred the crap out of me.
Then there was the time I went trick or treating and somehow came to the door of the first girl I had a crush on. Her name was Melinda Waller. We moved to a neighboring school district soon after that and I tried in vein to remember where that house was, hoping to screw up the courage to knock on the door and ask her out. I thought it might be across the street from a certain park, so I spent a lot of time at that park, drawing and wondering which house might be hers. (I guess I was the worlds worst stalker!) I was in the 6th grade.
Once, in my youth, I took some friends trick or treating. The people at the houses were less than friendly as they told us we were too old to be doing this. (I was a fifteen year old gangster {a la The Godfather}, my friends, both on the JV football team, had no costumes). The previous year or too before that, I was dressed as Radar from M*A*S*H, and met a girl. we liked each other but my friends didn't approve so I didn't pursue that relationship (what an idiot I was!)
When I became old enough to go to bars I would go dressed up on Halloween, and I was home! Here were a bunch of other grown ups that were dressed up, drinking and having a good time.
In college, I made the mistake of dressing up like a girl. I had long hair in those days (the 80s!) and had decided I liked the idea of wearing a costume that didn't look like a costume. When people actually mistook me for a girl, I could say in a low voice that it was Halloween and I wasn't really a girl. It had worked in the past. This time; however, the girl I was with thought that dressing up like a girl meant I was gay, and wanted to go hang out in West Hollywood. Man, that was a miscommunication!
Then there are too many drunken catastrophes to go into, both on other people's part & my own. Well there was the time I dressed up as Jesus; I went around blessing people and using bible quotes humorously. With my long hair and goatee it was great until we found we had locked the keys in the car and had to wait until dawn for a locksmith to show up. There is a lesson in there, I guess.

Once I got sober, I found there were always sober Halloween parties to go to and these were great, because sober alcoholics at Halloween parties really love Halloween, but I would often drive far, late at night to somewhere cold and would just sit outside, smoke and not talk to anybody. I guess I have some unexorcised Halloween demons left! haha!
Now I can make Halloween cards and sell them on Etsy

Mask problems

"I'll bet that after chasing around the Riddler in the hot sun all day, Batman wishes he were right here at this cocktail party having a drink!"

The Relation Ship

At The Protest Deli

Razzle Dazzle!

It has been a while since I posted here. I have posted more recently here. Also here. (for those of you wondering, the first link is for fiction I write, and the second is for political cartoons and the like.While this blog is for autobiographical "essays" primarily about my life as an artist and more primarily as a greeting card designer.) Be that as it may, I have been pretty busy in the greeting card business. (using terms like that always reminds me of Chandler asking Joey how long he's been in the "out-of-work-actor" business.) I primarily post on Etsy now. I am also beginning to post on Zazzle, and more on Cafepress in addition to the tee shirts you could always get here.
When last we met, I was just going into the brick & mortar card business. That is an awesome experience, but alas, my dreams of selling directly to a store being my saving grace have proved fraught with obstacles. I thought that I would have a bigger chunk of the profits, which I do. But ink is very expensive and I think I'm actually losing money. I tried raising the price (I tried to be tricky about it by delivering an invoice with the price increase already on it. This didn't work. It was noticed and not appreciated by the proprietor, who was nice enough to commission me to make the cards in the first place. The initial negotiations at the beginning of the venture were informal, so I mistakenly thought it wouldn't be a big deal. Plus corporations always have that clause; "prices subject to change without notice"... well I'm not a corporation.) Anyway, it was suggested that I reduce ink costs by making the cards slightly smaller. I will also design them to have more white space or something. form follows function, I guess. Smaller cards means more work because now I will have to trim the cards because the card stock isn't sold at the size the owner wants them. Ah well, that's life in the big city.
Meanwhile, as soon as I joined Etsy, I made a HUGE sale! Really! I got an email from a client that said she wanted to buy a painting, and she would send me a certified check and after I received the check, I could courier her the painting. Oh, you've heard this one. Yeah. So the check arrives, and it's like for $1,000 more than the cost of the painting. (like I could cash a check like that.) Well, that was a tip off. (that and the fact that my girlfriend and my mom both knew it was a scam before I did). Anyway, suffice to say, now I only accept sales actually through Etsy. (don't worry, I never sent the painting, so the only damage was to my ego)
Since Joining Etsy, I've taken to making linocuts because most things on Etsy are handmade and I feel like computer prints are outside the norm. Most of my sales have been computer printed cards, though. I'm in several circles and treasuries, which means when someone is looking to see what other people like my stuff will pop up here and there. I'm on a few teams which means like minded people selling like minded stuff (like Friends of Bill on Etsy)

I've decided that if my focus was on in store merchandise, I'd want to be in as many stores as possible; so likewise as an online seller, I want to have my products on as many sites as possible. this is why I've joined. Zazzle and expanded on cafe press. Both stores offter better terms than GreetingcardUniverse, which requires approval of designs and only offers $.50 a card. (I have yet to get a check from them as the minimum amount they will send out is $25, which is 50 cards. On Etsy, I get paid every time someone buys something.) Cafe press and Zazzle also only pay over $25 worth of earnings, but it is much easier to reach these numbers as you control how much you make per sale. Plus, your designs don't have to be approved like some grade schooler.

UNION THUGS



Aunt Christie: Teacher, Union Thug



My aunt Christie is a teacher. She is a very good teacher, she wins awards, her students love her, they even started a fan page of her on facebook. If you are reading this, it's thanks to a teacher. If you can do basic math, it's thanks to a teacher.

If your house got robbed, and then caught on fire, would it be alright with you if you were asked to forgo the services of the police and the fire department, because after all, we are in a recession and everyone has to tighten their belts. We just can't afford to send the police and fire department out to just anyone.

All this talk of union busting in Wisconsin has really got my goat. The idea that further sacrifices need to be made by the most important people in the community; teachers, fire fighters, police, sanitation workers... people who don't make a great deal of money to begin with, is insane. That's not hyperbole. it's a statement of fact. It is utterly ridiculous to look to public employees, people who have chosen as their careers often dangerous, sometimes thankless jobs because they recognise the good these jobs can do for the community, as a place where austerity can be further demanded to pay for tax cuts for the rich, and to dig us out of deficits caused by greedy bankers, which they were able to do due to deregulation. It is beyond delusional: it is crazy. Actual "you need your head examined, stay away from me," crazy.
On top of this add the clearly disingenuous notion that taking away their collective bargaining rights will help balance the budget. They exposed the deceit of this logic when they removed it from a budgetary bill so that they could pass it without a quorum.
Since these are public employees, the bargaining rights were taken away as a bill passed by the state's legislator, and signed by the Governor. I'm no expert, but I believe that collective bargaining is freedom of speech & striking is peaceful assembly. These are constitutional rights that the government can't take away.
I'm telling you, if I were a public employee in Wisconsin, I would go on strike immediately.