Update to My Projects- There’s been a slew!

With the week off from school, I took every advantage of using that time to learn and listen in on a variety of tutorials.

I have also signed up for several online courses on marketing, the art of action and found a wonderful creative community form which I can have accountability with. In other words, I am sharing with these folks what action steps I wish to attempt even on a daily basis towards my goals (which includes the projects in this class) and along with their support via online community, their insight on marketing your product and services to the web environment has been a fantastic resource for me.

I have done all of the following and more within the last two weeks:

• Listened to the entire WordPress.org tutorials (5hrs +) on running your own WP site on servers (your own or paid) vs. using wordpress.com.

Worth Every Minute – I learned things here that I did not know about despite working with WordPress.com for 4 years now.

• Switched my own hosting servers to Linux from Windows
• Installed WP on all my sites
• Created using Artisteer a variety of themes and have activated one for TheChefMaven.com
• Even created a new heard for both leahquinn.com and thechefmaven.com (samples of both below below)
• Learned even more about using twitter to socially expand my business
• Signed up to hootsuite a total social media tool that’s utterly amazing which brings all your social media onto one platform even if you have different voices/names – for me example, I have Divaliscious and DesignsAnything on twitter. Both are used different in promoting myself and businesses
• Joined TheCreativeEmpire.net which is a huge resource for creative peeps.

Here are some of my new logos…

Click on image to see it in real size…

not sure about the leahquinn.com one yet –

 

New leahquinn.com website header

 

here’s thechefmaven.com new header which is liv:

 

The New Chef Maven Header for Revamped website

 

Im still on the fence with using the font ‘antsy pants’ under the main title that reads ‘organic gardening tips, ….’

 

Here’s the new twitter logo background for when people visit my page on twitter:

 

The New Twitter Background for Divaliscious

 

 

One of the biggest things I am working on is branding my services under the slew of websites I run and host. I am still brainstorming and actually working with people in the Branding business who know more about this than I do, so I have lots to learn.

 

I am still working on a logo for the DesignsAnything.com for this course, as well as a layout, but did come up with this.

I had to revert my designsanything.com to an older version that was originally pointing to a wix designed site that could stay live until I redesigned the site using WordPress.org and it’s features. This also included how I wished for the environment to work for services. In fact I am really changing the kind of services I offer on designsanything.com in terms of getting away from graphic design and doing more of custom art  and art licensing stuff.

 

 

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Update to Projects

In addition to this class, I have been personally working with a life/business coach for about five weeks now and working through a variety of issues and frankly have been very busy in creating more art. After reviewing what I may like to showcase on my designsanything.com website, I realized many things while working with my life coach. And am I ever grateful!

Without going into too many specifics –

• I am getting my latest etsy.com shop up and running – http://theluckyzendog.etsy.com –
• I also run a feng shui site called The Lucky Zen Dog… but this will all tie together soon enough.
• It is with this class, that I will in fact be tying in many of my personal and professional sites into one… making it a more cohesive brand – something which in fact I was talking about with Nanette – the life coach. I pointed out the website www.thepioneerwoman.com which I have seen go from a little blog to something much bigger than the woman herself. No, I’m am not looking to become the next pioneer woman by any means – but instead, have my designsanything.com represent the many designs and art things that I do…

One of the main things I have been concentrating are several things –

• going through illustrator tutorials and learning more techniques about patterning or rather creating patterns while also
• going through WordPress.org tutorials on running php and creating sites.
• going through InDesign tutorials with creating websites since I am used to a Dreamweaver environment in terms of creating websites.
• I have also been chit chatting with my godaddy.com people about what I can and not run on their hosting sites, especially since wordpress has upgraded to 3.0.

In addition:

• aligning myself with groups like http://www.craftmba.com/ –
• and have been taking advantage of any free teleseminars I can get my hands on regarding design and business; business networking and growth.

So what have I been doing in these last two weeks besides all the above? Here are some of my latest illustrations which were completed this past week for my etsy shop – all drawn in illustrator – a very first for me – Some of these still need to be completed. But the premise is rather simple – they are funny animal-related inspiring art to hopefully warm the heart…

Bizzzzzy

Cat we all just get along?

 

I Too Wait For Spring

Cattitude is Bliss and It Annoys the Dog

He Whispers Sweet Mews

I Purr Everything About You

You Had Me At Catnip

 

 

And here’s my new logo design for The Lucky Zen Dog on Etsy:

 

The Lucky Zen Dog Web Banner for Etsy.com

And lastly, here was an interesting try on my first patterns design (fail!) – but will try again… by chance these were butterflies I was designing for a client – and ended up using them for myself! It might take some time to load… but in includes also the art area not just the art board to show how I was reviewing the work in progress plus a color palette.

Leah's try #1 on pattern making - click on image to see full size

There are additional pieces of art, but not enough finished to see them yet – will do for next week…

My Next Steps:

Creating a clear picture of what the front page of DesignsAnything.com will look like. I know for certain I wish a super clean design yet have whimsical ways of exploring the website examples of my work.

I also did some client work – and here’s a copy of a poster I did for Ruben’s…

Click on image to see full size... Ruben's St. Patricks Day Ad

 

Along with postings to my Chef Maven Blog…

New Splash Page for My Main Design Site

February 17, 2011

As I review what I might like to see for the flash page in an opening sequence – I think of my almost finished character developed Irma the mannequin who did much to grow into a complete character last semester. Should I have her move around the page as she points out the various areas/links/menus for visitors to see? Or is that too much of a tacky idea. I do like the idea of Irma since she is a representative of all things art studio related – but is it too much used already? Or would it be fun to see her animated?

I most certainly need to set up samples of my art work, websites, copy writing, etc. and figure out a way to showcase them in an interesting way  – plus – actually I need to identify the list of servives that my business provides:

• e-publishing design
• websites
• graphics for web & print
• business cards
• stationary
• posters
• banners
• portfolio books
• family album books
• web marketing
• copy writing

 

 

 

September 2010 – Irma Update

September 15, 2010

With a new semester upon us, I wish all great success in learning and sharing our art with one another…

Synopsis for my Animation:

I still wish to create the animation of Irma – if she’s to be called that, the sketching model as my main character.

Irma a transfixed wooden drawing model who only wishes to become a real person, and get a real gig – playing music live – it is was she strives for, she yearns for, she dreams this.

As we begin the animation, we will see how she comes alive similar to Pinocchio and either dreams of her escape or literally does escape the confounds of her living quarters – to find a real gig. We see her in city streets whose images of the city streets will be tweaked to be art-like, with tilt-shift techniques where possible. We will she her repeatedly attempt her wish to play in front of a live audience and to become a real musician and even be given a chance for a brief audition only to fail each time, until she finally gets her wish…and how she gets her wish, is still being developed story-wise.  – Maybe she realizes she really needs to believe in herself with a twist on the try, try again, success is sure to follow theme.

Opening Scene:

We see Irma where she stands on the shelf against a wall with a guitar. We see either dots to her thoughts which then convert into the next scene of her escaping with a live dog’s help.

Second Scene:

Once outside, we see her intermingling with the public, city streets and attempting to enter restaurants and attempting to get auditions and gigs.

Third Scene:

Irma feels deflated, depressed and then she has a breakthrough of sorts (to be developed)

Final Scene:

We see Irma playing live, becoming alive and getting/playing her gig. Animation Ends at end of song.

Images:

I have a slew of new photos and images I will incorporate into this animation, so my next step is to select those images (new), tweak them in various ways suitable for the look I wish for this animation. I recently received some interesting new software which allows me to create paintings of my photographs and have had some fun already using it though I am still quite new to all its tricks and fancies of the corel software.

Next Steps:

1. Select the images I wish to incorporate into the developing scenes and action shots.
2. Adjust said images into art-like scenery I wish to then develop into the scenes.
3. Finish writing the lyrics to fit the length & record the music.
4. Finish developing how she has her ‘aha moment’ where she either comes alive or somehow gets ‘it’ to where she lands her first gig. Or has great success with youtube.com – this scene I have to think about.
5. Irma needs to be completely boned in Flash and I think I want to make her back side too so we can see her walk away  – which would make her depressed moments easier to show…think hunched over, walking slowly.

I also did a quick test recording on poor equipment while up late last night just to give an idea of the song I am working on, it’s filled with mistakes and a few giggles – but it runs 2:33 which was really why I recorded it…I even sang some of the wrong lyrics (as I usually do when I am trying to write lyrics – in that I stream what comes out of my mind at that moment) – furthermore, I will obviously rework the recording for this project – but at least it gives you an initial idea…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE6iuShYo9A

LARRY’S TOON INSTITUTE — Lesson Plan

LARRY’S TOON INSTITUTE — Lesson Plan. – wild free tutorials on various animation techniques

procrastination video/animation

This is an amazing example of of animation using a slew of techniques to give us some inspiration…

http://vimeo.com/9553205

School Snow Day but Still Working – Background Images for Animation

Here is a flash slide show for just some of the back ground images I hope to use in my music video with Mirna the Art Mannequin… these images will look even better once zoomed in – as it will be seen in the actual flash video.

Hopefully Mirna will be walking in a dream like state in her miniaturized City of Peekskill seeking out a paying music gig…will she, or won’t she land that gig – you will have to wait for the final video to find out!

I also found out that if you place your current multimedia up on YouTube, you can then link to it easily here at WordPress without going through the WordPress account upgrade of $65+ a year.

http://leahquinn.fototime.com/Peekskill%20Miniatures