Art Paw Pet Portrait on the Today Show!

Check out the Today Show tomorrow March 5th, and look for Susanna Salk's heirloom design feature. We are going to have a portrait featured on this design segment. Susanna contacted us a month ago wanting a Master Paw Style Portrait sample to feature. We asked her if we could do her dog for this and she agreed. We are very excited about this fun PR opportunity.
This adorable classic canine is "Molly".

Oh, and anyone wanting a Master Paw Style Portrait should order in March as they have been slightly reduced in price this month to coincide with this terrific Today Show Segment.

All quiet on the Western front...

Not had much to post recently. I'm still working on the colouring of the title image for "the Family". Here is the pencilled version:

New Tech Toy and New Promo Clip

I went to the Apple store yesterday and bought a new toy! I have been playing around with i-movie this month and have been wanting to try voice-over on my movies. So I found this great plug& play usb Mic called "Snowball". Having this new toy is sort of like facing a blank canvas .... what to say, what to say? I experimented a wee bit yesterday and have posted a new promo clip with a tiny little bit of "BlaBla" voice over at the front. So check it out below and turn up your volume.



About the Movie:
I have been having a blast experimenting with short little clips and the girls have been playing around with it too. In fact I asked Allison to dig in and learn the basics of i-movie last week so I would not have to deal with the learning curve myself. She figured it out in an afternoon and then quickly helped me find my way around. As a digital artist I often see beginner Photoshop artists on the web make unfortunate choices and use filters in a "gimmicky" or trite manner. With that said I know a real video professional would probably roll their eyes at these early slide show attempts. I am sure we are making all of the beginner mistakes and doing all of the same boring gimmicks with our transitions, audio and effects. You have to start somewhere, and I am sure if we continue playing with video we will get better over time. The slide shows are fun and at some point we hope to start playing with real video footage too.
You can Click Here To see more of our video experiments on You Tube. Please post a comment if you like what you see and if you have an eye for video please feel free to give us a tough critique .... we have pretty thick skin and can take advice when it is constructive.

Sleeping Puppy Dog

It is Sunday ... no long thoughtful posts today ... sorry. Next week I am going to talk about marketing art on the Internet, post some new artwork, tell you about some great PR coming our way, talk about a new artist choice special, and whatever else I can think of. Today, I offer up cuteness that is so sweet it will melt your heart, yea I had to make this text big and purple cause this video makes me feel way too girlish. Hope you enjoy this "You Tube Find".

Death by Typography

by gcore

EskoArtwork at Packtech UK

EskoArtwork will showcase its leading, innovative software for the entire packaging supply chain at Packtech UK. The show is to be held at the NEC in Birmingham on 12 and 13 March. On its stands, EskoArtwork will demonstrate how it can turn the entire packaging supply chain - from brand owner to retailer - into a straightforward collaborative process, delivering consistent quality and importantly reducing production costs and time to market.

EskoArtwork has a long and successful track record of developing innovative packaging solutions for brand owners and designers. The company's latest innovative software solutions offer integrated design tools that support the creative process and streamline the handoff to production. Based on Adobe PDF and compatible with Adobe Creative Suite 3 the solutions include a full range of powerful tools for structural design, graphic design, project management and collaboration, colour management and prepress production for packaging as well as the Enfocus suite of PDF tools Neo, PitStop Professional and PitStop Server. FULL STORY

Blogging With The Big Dogs

Yesterday I posted links to a few of my favorite power bloggers. I define a power blogger as someone that posts interesting content frequently. Today I offer up a few ideas on becoming a power blogger. Please leave a comment and add to this list of ideas ... I am not an expert and I would love to hear from other bloggers on what is working for them.

6 tips to get you off the porch & running with the big blogs

#1 Loyalty to the routine
Embrace the posting discipline the way your dog embraces their daily dog walk. You need to find a way to view posting as a treat and not a chore.

#2 Chew on one bone
Find your passion and narrow your focus to that one subject. I think that is one thing I admire about Moira's blog. She may stray off topic on rare occasion, however for the most part she is on the subject of dog art today .... every day. So hmmm with that in mind I guess I am straying today .... "blogging on blogging".

#3 Bury a few bones in the backyard
Start some posts and save them as drafts. You never know when a big project is going to drain all of your time and having a post or two buried for later is a great idea.

#4 Fetch fetch fetch
Sniff out good content to share with your readers.

#5 Learn some new tricks
Use web tools like Google alerts to help you find fresh content on your area of interest. Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, blogs, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. You can also set up a Google homepage that will post those alerts right on your start page.

#6 Leave them begging for more
Tease your readers with cliff hangers and let them know what you will be posting on next. It might spark their interest, and even more important it will make you hold true to your word and write that post! Here it is 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday and this post is getting written before I am even out of my pajamas. That is because I mentioned this topic yesterday.

Bloggers ... Bark back! Please share your tips and ideas by leaving a comment.