I am so excited to be sponsoring this event next week! I hope any of you who are in Utah will go.. it looks like it is going to be tons of fun!
♥ sponsored by ♥
becky kimball * soel * see jane blog * milkglass and honey *
elsa bags * armelle * freshly picked * cotton & curls
modern palm * annily green * fifth and hazel * sycamore street press
zupas * {collected} * gatehouse no.1 * heirloom restaurant group
mer mag * the Alison show * the house of Smith’s * Studio 5
Yay for Valentine time! I am so excited to be a part of the 7 days of Valentine’s Projects with the Alison Show and Freshly Picked. We decided the most perfect thing for Valentine’s Day would be temporary tattoos of woodland animals.
Choose from a skunk, deer, porcupine, fox, owl, and squirrel. print it out on tattoo paper, and enjoy!
Photos from freshly picked & the Alison Show
Download the file here- 2 pages of tattoos- first page of bigger sizes for bigger kids, and the second page of smaller options for smaller kiddos.
Head on over to Freshly Picked for the full tutorial. For more Valentine Projects, head over to the Alison Show.
Also- love the designs but don’t want to make tattoos? Check out my earlier post of these same designs, as valentine cards!
I am so excited to be able to collaborating with Alison of The Alison Show and Susan of Freshly Picked for these Valentine’s Cards. Enjoy these woodland creatures and their declarations of love- the fox, porcupine, squirrel, deer, owl, and skunk. Print them out and enjoy!
For personal use only, may not sell or distribute without permission.
As I mentioned in my last post, I have been collaborating a lot with different people in the last year- and these have proven to be awesome experiences for me. Collaboration is great at an artist- because it can really push you artistically to create even better work. I find that when I collaborate with my clients even- really take into account their view and artistic vision, that is can also push me in my own work.
That being said- here is a little bit of what I have been up to:
I formed this company with three friends: Alma Loveland, Angie Anderson, and Darren Turetzky. We are creating children’s apps and are about to release our firt app next Monday called Make it Pop. We have been working on it for quite a few months now, and we are really excited to launch it and move forward on all of the other apps we have planned. It has been a wonderful mix because it has pushed all of us to make even better work and push each other.
2. Bijou
This year for Bijou, I teamed up with my good friend Bri to create some wrapping paper and gift tags. This has been super fun because I would have never thought of creating wrapping paper on my own, and again- it has been so nice to work with someone in creating, editing, and finally producing our final work. I can give you a tiny sneak peak of it here, but we will be posting more pictures in the next as we get ready for Bijou on the 18th.
After I met Alma at Alt in January, I realized how many amazing artists lived near to me. A group of five of us: Alma Loveland, Justin Hackworth, Sarah Jane, and Susan Petersen and I started creating a monthly meeting to get together and talk about things that mattered to us. That has been the most wonderful thing! It has almost felt like a monthly therapy session- to get with other artists and see what we are each doing, and talk about our problems, solutions, and endeavors. It has been one of my most favorite things. Our next meeting is in two days- and we are hearing from a intellectual properties lawyer who will talk about artist rights and property.
Anyways, thats what I have been up to in collaborations. What types of collaborations have worked for you?
Now I have been known to talk about this before- but I view collaboration as essential. I believe that as we collaborate with others and work together we can all grow and do better. Think of all of the things we enjoy because people have collaborated: symphonies, music, technology- all of these exist as people share, challenge, and work together.
So how can you collaborate? I bet the odds are good that if you look around- you can find a way you can work with others. If you happen to live in Utah, a few artists and I have started an artist collaboration called creative collaborative. We meet once a month and encourage each other in our endeavors. Tomorrow I will share with you some specific collaborations I have done- and the HUGE benefits which have come to me because of collaboration.
My gift to you: this fall greeting card which you can download, print, use, give as presents… just enjoy! (click button below to download high res pdf card for your personal use)
My challenge for you: If you download the card, I challenge you to think of a something you would like to do with someone- and do it! It can be small- like completing a craft with someone, or writing a note with your siblings and sending it to your parents. Or look around your community and see if there are group meetings or something you can do to encourage group collaboration in your area. I promise you that it will make a difference in your life- just try it!
About a year ago I remember working late one night, and looking at some other graphic designers blogs, after awhile I began to feel well… jealous. I felt like my work wasn’t as good, and that these other artists were doing a better job. After wallowing in self pity and discouragement for a few minutes I Suddenly realized that I needed snap out of it. I spent a lot of time wondering why I did this, and what I could do to NEVER do that again. I decided to think of these designers as people, and as my friends. This changed everything! I diligently started trying to reach out to other artists around me, and you know what? That changed everything.
These artists around me became friends. And soon instead of feeling jealous when I looked through other blogs- I started to think- Good for them! I started to learn from other artists. Then, I started to collaborate with them. And when I started collaborating- I started getting better as an artist. And then I started getting more business.
I think this is a success story for any artist. Oftentimes as artists we work too much alone. I have found that as I work with other artists, as I collaborate, I learn and grow. I find answers to my questions, and my quality of art increases. And not only do I improve, but I can give back and help others around me. And as I help others, they help me… its a never ending circle.
The past year has become the best “art year” for me. I owe all of that to collaboration.
For this reason I have started, with the help of some other dear artists- Alma Loveland, Sarah Jane, and Justin Hackworth, the Creative Collaborative. This is an effort to help our artistic community here in Utah come together and network and collaborate. The artistic community is unbelievable talented: we have renown photographers, interior designers, graphic designers, bloggers, seamstress, illustrators, painters, sculptors, etc. . . And we need to come together- I am sure that there are untapped partnerships that could really reap some great benefits.
So here is the plan: once a month, the first or second Thursday of each month, we will meet as an artistic community. It is free. We will have some short speakers that talk about topics that can inspire and help all artists. Then we will have Q&A and discussion time, and an opportunity to talk and get to know other artists.
So please come, and please spread the word- the first one is tonight at 7. Kirsten Krason, Dave Broberg, and Diana Palmer are speaking. It will be on 1 East Center Street #214 here in Provo, Utah. (same buidling as Gondolfos) Bring a chair, bring a friend. But come ready to collaborate.
I can’t wait to meet you!
Last week I was able to attend and be apart of Alt (Altitude Design Summit). I had been working on it for many months with some extremely talented people, and so it was exciting to see it all come together. I learned some amazing things, but more importantly, met some amazing people. I met Designers, Bloggers, Artists, and Photographers, and it seemed that everyone I met was working so hard to be successful in their own right.
While there, it suddenly struck me- why do we so often look at other artists in competition? So many times I have been guilty of this; I see another artist succeeding and as I look through their work I either feel threatened and competitive, or that my own work is horrible. How self destructive! How shallow! They certainly don’t help me as an artist to create better work or the be more motivated. And yet it has happened to me more times than I would like to admit.
I need to focus on collaboration, not competition. I think as an artistic community we need to work together. As we collaborate with others, we all learn, we all grow, we push each other, and we all benefit. We can learn from each other in positive ways. Working together we can achieve more, and go farther. We should be more willing to share ideas, advice, tips, and what we have learned with each other. We should be more willing to join together on projects, more willing to ask for help or ideas, more willing to perform art together.
Obviously some level of competition is healthy and important, but I feel that in most cases, most of us are far too competitive, and not nearly willing enough to collaborate or work together as artists.
So, to my dear artistic community: How can we stop feeling threatened by others? How can we learn from others instead? How can improve and create more relationships in our artistic community?
I can tell you what I am doing. I am in the midst of working on creating a monthly get together in our artistic community. It has been inspired by Swiss Miss and her Creative Mornings* and I am working to create something similar in our own Utah Community. I am currently working on get ting permission and a public location- and there will be more details coming soon. But for now,
I dare you to collaborate!!
(Awesome photo of working together, image by Ted Van Pelt)
*These Creative Mornings Chapters are currently full, but in talking to Tina Roth Eisenberg, she encouraged me to start my own thing, and later on try to create a chapter underneath Creative Mornings.