Wednesday 31 March 2010

Cool Stone - a brand new print from Eyeshoot Photography.



Here's another rediscovered shot from my archives.  I've given it a subtle treatment with texture layers which accentuate the feel of the stone.

UK Beauties - I've finally got my Treasury live!

After waiting for the longest time, I finally have my Treasury up and live, it's a Treasury West (I still don't know what the difference is between that and the main one, never mind the not yet released Treasury East), here's the full view including my alternate choices.


Each link below goes directly to the item featured above - until it sells out anyway!


I'd love to know what you think about it as it's been a while since I've made one and I hope I've not lost my knack.

All of the artists are from the UK and have shops bursting with beautiful things - why not show them some love and have a click around their shops, you won't regret it!

Tuesday 30 March 2010

I've made a perpetual calendar!

The unexpected sale of a calendar on Friday got me thinking.....

If one customer wanted a calender at an unorthodox time of the year, why wouldn't another and why should they have to waste the months which have already passed?

This led me to tweak my design and turn my 2010 calendar into a perpetual calendar, one which can be used for any year.

This is how the pages look now - I think that they look pleasingly more simple than with the addition of the day line at the top, that little bit more space works well.






I'm still waiting on that Treasury and have rather irritatingly just missed T West by a nano second.....my time will come!

Monday 29 March 2010

The first Mini Picture Block sold from my Etsy Shop!

I've just sold my frst Mini Picture block out of my Etsy shop which has made me very happy.

It was good old Ministry of Silly Walks, hopefully it's the first of many!



I don't know if it's coincidental, but that very listing was in a Treasury today, if it sold because of that exposure I think it could be the very first item to sell for that reason!

Miniture Works of Art

Sunday 28 March 2010

I seem to have spent all weekend eating!

It's been a busy few days.....
We returned from a very intense but successful trip to Holland, a 4.30am start followed by a 5.00am start isn't my usual schedule, but I survived!  The rest of the week passed in a normal fashion with the added excitement of subjecting my car to it's annual MOT and subjecting my eyes/contact lenses to their twice yearly poke and prod at the opticians.  Both examinations were passed with flying colours.

Friday was a good day on the Etsy front as I found out that I'd been featured in the Etsy Finds Euro Finds, Go Euro which was showing my April Calendar page in my new Sale section.  I sold two to one person, one plus May to another and a whole calendar to someone else and once I realised what was going on and that the last of my April pages was gone, I relisted the expired print version of the image which promptly sold too!  That was six items in about twenty minutes plus the fifth print to my lovely customer in Australia made a very good day indeed!
 
 Pink on Blue $35 at Eyeshoot at Etsy

In the afternoon we had friends round for drinks and then a splendid supper at The Great Khatmandu where my choices were my usual bbq mackerel, tarka daal and plain rice, I don't think I even tasted the other dishes so my current phase of calorie counting wasn't too damaged.  

On Saturday morning I met up with the Manchester Etsy folk and we had our monthly gossip and muffin gathering which is always a very civilised start to the weekend, a quick (that's quick to eat not quick to arrive) vegetarian chilli with hummous at Teacup followed and then home for newspapers and bit of catching up with the telly before our evening's entertainment.  We were destined for an evening of theatre at Joshua Brooks which was the venue for JB Shorts 3 which consists of six short plays all written by TV writers.  Apart from the fact that the venue was appalling, totally cramped, cold and uncomfortable it was an enjoyable evening with a nice variety of plays (each 15 minutes long) ranging from a very stylised party political party to a Big Brother wannabe.  Each one held my attention but I couldn't have coped with more than six.  A very good evening out.  Fingers crossed for a better venue next time.  From there we wanted food and had spotted ZOUK on the way in and liked the look of it, but when we got there it was totally packed and there was a forty five minute wait at 9.30 which we didn't fancy so we popped into Rice next door which was a bit odd really.  I've only just found out that ZOUK is an Indian restaurant, we all thought it was Chinese.  So it's probably a good thing we didn't go as Indian food on consecutive nights isn't such a great idea.  Anyway, Rice next door looked as if it would fit the bill with a range of noodle, rice and stir fry dishes.  I've never seen such a bizarre menu, there were dishes from absolutely everywhere, China, Japan, Jamaica, USA, Persia, France, Thailand, Mexico, Malaysia, Singapore, Spain, Morocco, Indonesia and South America!  Someone was a bit indecisive at the menu planning stages.  I ordered pad Thai with chicken which came nice and quickly, obviously just out of the pan, with lovely soft noodles and plenty of chicken, it was a massive portion but unfortunately totally tasteless but somehow managed to be enjoyable.....everyone else liked theirs but I think that the Persian saffron fish kebab sauce looked really suspect, but it was all devoured so just me then.  Home to bed, knackered.

Sunday started with Peter having a breakfast meeting at 9.00 I was up not long after that (actually 8 am as the clocks changed last night, so pretty early for a Sunday), a reviving breakfast of mango and cottage cheese did the trick and we were planning a leisurly day mainly at home until a chum phoned with the news that he will shortly be moving to Mumbai and did we want to join him and a friend for Dim Sum at Tai Wu at 2.00 - naturally we said yes, our stamina for dining out is unrivalled after all!

Dim sum was great, it's the first time we have been to that restaurant, the size and location had previously put us off and I'm very slow to adopt new Chinese restaurants as they are generally very disappointing.  Since we stopped eating at the Yang Sing I don't think I've ever have a truly fantastic Chinese meal, which is a shame as we really did take it for granted there for many years.  It was very good and unreasonably cheap at £35 for five of us, we had loads of steamed dumplings, a main course dish of gai lin, some steamed ribs and various things I don't know the names of.  We'll definitely go there again, it's a bit less hysterical than Glamorous and I think the food might be better.  I'd need to try some dishes from the main menu to make my final decision on that.  I think I'll be able to manage that!

Considering I'm meant to be on a diet at the moment I have managed to eat out four times this weekend.....I feel a bit of an epic session coming on at the gym tomorrow morning.

I'll sign off with this lovely Treasury (I've been watching the Treasury clock like a hawk for the last week of so as I have a lovely Poster Sketch lined up but seem to have lost my knack of snaging a slot.  Perhaps this week will be lucky for me!)
 
A Bunch of Hearts



Sunday 21 March 2010

Work, Travels, New Lens and Treasuries.

My two days shooting in Derby went well, it was two lots of school kids and a handful of teachers testing out some furniture and impressive computer kit.  I'm just working through the best of about 350 images and have made a handy little Batch Edit Action in Photoshop to convert them all from RGB to CMYK with a couple of clicks of the mouse rather than the not inconsiderable hassle of tweaking each one individually.  You'd never think it was Sunday would you?
When that's all done I'll be sorting out my packing for our 6.30am flight to Holland tomorrow where we're going to the excitingly titled SPE Intelligent Energy Event in Utrecht where we'll be seeing and I'll be photographing an exhibition stand which Peter has designed for my uncle's business along with a brand new corporate identity.  We'll spend two days there before flying home on Tuesday evening.

I've also got a leg of lamb to do something with tonight as we have a load of people coming round for a very ill times work/supper thing considering we'll be setting our alarms for about 4.00am tomorrow....

I bought myself a lovely new lens on Friday which I used for the first time on yesterday's shoot and it seemed to behave itself well and it will be coming with my to Holland for some more shots, I've not used it outside yet, so I hope that I'll get a chance while we're away.  It's the Nikkor 18-200mm VRII Zoom which a photographer friend in London uses and he recommended it as being very good.  If it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me!

While all this has been going on, here are two lovely Treasuries featuring my Chair with Blue and Orange print and my Love in a Mist Notecard - thanks to both curators!  I've made my first Treasury in ages and all I need to do is wait for a slot to get in out into the world, I don't think I'll manage it before I go away though.

Blue Oranges



Never be Afraid to Love

Thursday 18 March 2010

Matted print sale at my Etsy shop.

I've found a stack of matted prints which I made up when I first thought about selling my work. I matted them myself with nice off white surrounds which measure 30 x 25.7cm (11.81" x 10.12"), the image is 19.5 x 24.6 cm (7.67" x 9.68") and the matt is 2.7cm (1.06") wide.

They can all be found in the Sale Section of my shop.



Santorini Church  

Guggenheim Blue

Rope Coil

Santorini Pews
 
No Parking 51




Wisteria



Wisteria - $35 from Eyeshoot Photography

I know it's not wisteria time yet here in the UK, we're barely into spring but I found this picture from last summer and decided to have a bit of a play with it. It fits in with my two new textured Spring Blossom pictures and I'm searching my archive for a fourth so that I can make a quartet of Mini Pictures which I think will make a really pretty set.

Wednesday 17 March 2010

My Day.....how exciting!

I've somehow managed to spend the entire day doing nothing creative at all!  I started by being woken up half an hour before my alarm by the outside intercom buzzer screaming at me, I had decided to ignore it, but they were very persistent so I staggered to the phone and surprise, surprise, no one was there.....So it was a fairly efficient start to the gym where I did my 40 mins iClimb workout despite my legs being very sore yesterday, it just didn't hurt but it was hard work.  Then followed a bit more of the squat and lunge with the Swiss ball against the wall which caused the super stiff legs of the past two days - I survived, but they still ache!  Weights and sit ups followed resulting in a handy 700 calories extra for my roast chicken dinner tonight.  Yes, I'm back onto counting calories as I seem to be getting a bit to soft round the edges for my liking and there's a rather lovely pair of Nichole Farhi linen trousers I'd really like to fit into with elegant ease in the next month or so and her trousers don't work on top of soft bits!

While I've been featured in so many beautiful Treasuries on Etsy lately I have been feeling a tad guilty for not returning the favour and creating any of my own, so I have.  I've worked away in Poster Sketch over an afternoon break with a cup of tea and a nectarine (59 calories!) and made a nice colour themed Treasury using UK sellers.  If I catch the slot it could be online in a couple of days.  I hope I catch the next opening as I'm out on a shoot all day on Friday and Saturday so will be absent from my Mac.

Anyway, here's a beauty by The Little Rooster to tide you over until mine goes live!

Mondo Azul 


Thank you for featuring my Waiting White Cat print!

Monday 15 March 2010

Flock Blocks!

Here's my Flock image made into a Mini Pictures Duo, the image is trimmed to fit over both blocks with a gap in the middle so that the image 'reads' clearly over the gap.  They look very nice indeed.   I'll be listing more Mini Pictures from now on in various combinations as well as singles.

Sunday 14 March 2010

Mother's day and two Treasuries.

It's been a busy couple of weeks since I got back from my week in the sun, lots of lovely sales to deal with, some new products in my shop, some very nice and welcome real work and quite a bit of just messing around really and having a nice time!

It was mother's day here in the UK today and I duly entertained my mother with champagne and smoked salmon at home followed by a massive Chinese binge at our favourite dim sum restaurant followed by Ben and Jerry's and Alice in Wonderland in 3D which I thoroughly enjoyed.  It was much better than I had been lead to expect.  Back home now to find two very pretty Treasuries full of great items.  So just a quick post today I'm off to watch David Dimbleby on BBC1 with a large mug of tea.

The Red Tent



Eye of the Beholder



Thank you to both curators for featuring my work!

Thursday 4 March 2010

Three Treasuries Today!

I've been shuffling paperwork at mum's today so it's was very nice to find my work featured in three lovely Treasuries while I've been otherwise occupied!

 
I've still not sorted out my pictures from my recent trip to Fuerteventura, they are few, but hopefully there will be some good ones there......

Tuesday 2 March 2010

I'm back from Spain and Print Club's back in my shop.

I'm back home from my week in Fureteventura with my parents, it was a nice relaxing time and despite not being a sun worshipper it was very nice to be warm after the miserable weather we've been having here lately.  I read three books, which considering how few I managed last year is pretty impressive!  They were: The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zaffron, Martyr by Rory Clements, and The Curious Instance of the Dog in the Night by Mark Haddon - a bit of a mixed bag, but I thoroughly enjoyed the indulgence of reading as much as I used to!

I decided to reintroduce my Print Club to my Etsy Shop after an absence of some time, the deal is that for $400 I will send you a print of my choice once a month - a complete surprise on your doormat for 12 days of the year!


I have also started a Sale section where I shall be offering various items at significantly reduced prices.  I've started off with some individual pages from my 2010 Calendar which haven't sold.  Each month of which I have some leftovers will be available as a single listing for the measly price of $1.90, they'll make nice little decorations for your desk, mantle, dresser or fridge.