Artist and Web Designer living in paradise
The public art event I am participating in will be having it’s Artist Portfolio Release and “Vernissage party” on Friday, April 27th, from 6 – 10pm, at 300 SW 1st Ave., Suite 139, in Fort Lauderdale, 33301. Here is their website for more info. See you then!
Full Sails in Fort Lauderdale Artist Portfolio Party
I’ve recently switched my old site entirely to WordPress. I chose to go with the Genesis Framework by StudioPress, and chose Prose as a theme. Why? It’s the theme I went with when we decided to install WordPress at work. Prose is the theme used by Williams Sonoma, so since my boss liked all the functionality it had as well as its clean look, I advised on using it. The reviews were fantastic as well. I wanted something clean, secure and updated frequently, and Genesis seemed to fit the bill.
I liked it so much, I bought it for myself. I also reasoned that I could learn how to manipulate the Genesis Framework and apply what I learned to the same installation at my company. It also allowed me access to their super-helpful developer forums, which they don’t allow at work.
What do I think so far? Prose is cool. It’s very SEO-friendly. It was only a few days before the new site meta appeared in Google. It comes with a ton of SEO functions, so if you’re an SEO junkie, you’re going to appreciate this. Prose comes with a fantastic “point and click” interface that allows non-coders to change fonts and colors right away. For those who code, you can make mods in a custom CSS file or a custom functions.php file.
Prose is perfect for a blogger with lots of written content. As an artist like myself, it’s not ideal and I could go with other themes better suited for visuals, but I’m going to get to know this theme well so I can work on our company blog better. Then perhaps I’ll create my own Genesis powered theme.
The latest version of Prose is also mobile-responsive. Another bonus. Although I noticed the static Pages did not seem to integrate with this feature well. I’ll look into a possible fix.
I have only made some minor mods to the theme, but I look forward to getting into it some more. I plan on creating a homepage portal that looks more like a site landing page rather than a blog, changing the footer, adding some social media icons, improving the image plug-in (that does not render properly in older IE browsers), and changing the layout, fonts and colors. So far, so good.
Here is a collection of older illustrations and drawings I have done over the past 10-15 years or more. I love drawing more than anything it seems. The drawings here range in style from a conceptual story-telling to real-life works done with actual models, people or still-life. I have worked in black pastels, inks, colored pencils, water color washes and scratchboards.
You’ll see some skeletons dancing about through some of the most recent drawings. I love the Day of the Dead concept, and I think it’s helpful that we remind ourselves of our mortality, and that we need to make the most of our lives while we are still breathing. I use the Day of the Dead concept to explore the issues of the female artist who struggles for her own separate identity when she is partnered with an artistic man who often gets more credit for his work. There are times when the artistic male would be nothing but a skeleton without the vibrant, brilliant woman in his life, and we as women artists need to stand up and take credit when it is due.
There are a few drawings celebrating the work of Tom Waits. I’m inspired by a lot of music, but particularly the work of Tom Waits. When I listen to his music, I always see pictures form in my mind.
I’m a huge fan of drawing live scenes where ever I am…I love the rough, sketchy bare bones of a drawing. I’ve traveled this country quite a bit and always find myself drawing some random scene or person in a restaurant, bar, etc. I tend to leave these drawings behind. There’s probably a drawing still hanging up in a bar somewhere in New Orleans, Key West or Portland, OR. Who knows? I hope so.
I’ve managed to upload most of my content for this new site, but still need to make some serious mods to the Prose theme here. Prose is a great theme and it’s going to be fun to trick it out a bit and make it my own. I plan on installing some new web fonts (Palatino is a bit boring), new colors, widening the layout a bit, and tweaking the gallery/lightbox plug-in style and functionality.
Also, the homepage blog style isn’t working for me. A new homepage will be constructed using custom loops to feed content to modules on the page. It would be nice to have a large image slider at the top as well.
More fun with WordPress continues…
Here is a selection of some of the paintings I’ve done since 2000. All are acrylic. The first four are political. The others are inspired by poems and music. A few towards the end are humorous takes on hairstyles of the 80′s. I like injecting humor into my work. There are a few nudes I did for a woman’s art show in Miami, they are in the possession of collectors.
I used to be a muralist and decorative painter. I started a company, but lo and behold, the economy imploded and I had to go back to painting houses for $10 an hour because no one was spending money on luxuries like fancy painted walls. (Which led me back to graphic design!) I loved -and still do love- painting walls. Or anything, for that matter.
I’ll post some samples of my work here…not because I still have aspirations of being an in-demand decorative painter anymore, but because I still love it and still do it once in a while in my own home and the random odd weekend jobs from word-of-mouth folks. And you might enjoy it as well—
One of my favorite things to do is to draw random people on the spot in real life, in real time, wherever I go and may be sitting at the time. I’m a true people watcher. I don’t consider myself too social, but when it comes to sitting in a brewpup in downtown NOLA armed with a Micron pen and a Moleskine, everyone is fascinating.
In the winter of 2010 I did a series of drawings while taking the south Florida Trirail commuter system from Hollywood to my workplace in Delray Beach. I have been riding trains, buses and ferries all my life. I took 2 buses out of my hometown of Hull, MA to downtown Quincy, where I would then take the red line all the way up to Downtown Crossing to loaf about Boston Common, or maybe even Cambridge, to buy an almond croissant at Au Bon Pain and pretend to hang out with the other punks in the pit behind the news stand.
No better people watching right there, boy-o, than at the Cambridge pit at Harvard Station.
Anyway, I wrote the folks at Miami Herald and Sun Sentinel and told them about my sketches. I had drawn a bunch of commuters over the winter of 2010. When I heard Trirail was struggling to keep funded, I thought about my days riding Boston public trans, and how I’ve been so blessed to take advantage of a great train ride that deposited me smack dab in front of my employers doorstep for all intents and purposes. I avoided great personal injury, I surmised, from avoiding the driving on I95, and I taught myself various computer languages to boot while sitting comfortably on the Trirail. When I got bored, I drew random folks from all walks of life who for the most part had no idea they laid in my scope. I ended up with a collection of everyday folks who depended on public transportation to get to school, work, their family, the airport, etc, now made into art.
Miami Herald ignored me. Typical. If it isn’t a scandalous politician, the Marlins stadium boondoggle or Castro dying again for the thousandth time, then why bother? Sun Sentinel, however, printed a few of the sketches and an essay I wrote in their paper. It was the first time for me and I was kind of proud of it. Maybe it raised some awareness that yes, real people take the train, and they matter. Here are a few of those drawings:
I'm a professional web designer as well as an experienced artist and painter. I love what I do and where I live—Florida! My … Read more >
