New Website Features

Well, after months of planning and building, PencilsandPixelsArt.com's new look is finally launched!

Here is a list of some of the new things you'll see:

1. Streamlined design that is more user friendly than the previous one, and better colors!
You will notice a lot less clutter. Web sites are a lot like houses - once in awhile they need to be straightened up and get rid of what is no longer of use. Some services were discontinued to make way for other ones that are more useful.

2. A division of the site into 2 sections, one for "Pencil Art" and one for "Pixel Art".
What's in each section:
Pencil Art Section:
This section contains all information, prices, and galleries having to do with pencil portraits and original artwork.
Pixel Art Section:
This section contains all information, prices, and galleries having to do photo restoration, colorization, editing, and digital photography.

3. New Frequently Asked Questions Section

4. New gallery of digital photography.

5. Easy links to my Fine Art America and Red Bubble galleries to buy prints and see larger views of my original art and photography.

6. New options for pencil portraits including new paper sizes, creative backgrounds, and personalized text insignias.

7. New photo editing options including Full Photo Touch-up (the Hollywood Treatment), and creative photo backgrounds.

8. New portraits and art work posted!

9. Simpler order forms.

10. More informative pages such as how to choose your photo for your pencil portrait.

11. New "Comments" page showing comments form customers and visitors.

12. Better site map.

Of course you may notice some other differences along the way too, but these are the major changes. Many of the popular features are still there like the celebrity vote, news and updates section, articles and reviews, and link exchange.

Hope you enjoy the new site, and find some helpful information!

Using Art To Help Charities

I am sure we all have our favorite charities that we donate something to every year. Of course with the economic struggles, sometimes it is hard to make ends meet, let alone donate to a worthy cause. However, I have found there are a couple ways artists can help charities without stress.

First - Auctions and Fundraisers

Does your charity have a yearly auction or sale to raise money? Consider donating some of your art work to be auctioned off or put up for sale. Prints and photos are always popular items. Not only does this bring in funds for your charity, but also shows off your work! I was fortunate enough to be able to donate some of my cat photos to help a non-profit feral cat organization - even though it was located in another state.

Second - Donate a Portion of Your Sales

Sometimes for artists it is hard to bring in cash but donating even a small portion of your sales to help a good cause is well worth it. Put it on your website so your customers know what charity they are helping out with their purchase. It will make them feel good too!

Of course there are more ways to help, like donating your time as a volunteer. So, find a cause that you are passionate about, and see what you can do.

My current charity is a local non-profit organization called SOCKS (Save Our Cats and Kittens). They are a wonderful non-profit organization and no kill shelter that rescues hundreds of cats from being euthanized every year. A portion of the proceeds from all my cat photography and drawings will go to them to help feed and care for the kitties while they find them good homes.

My blue point Siamese, Sasha, was a young abandoned kitty. She showed up with her 2 kittens in my yard one day starving and skinny. It seems appropriate that pictures of her and her kittens should go towards helping other cats in similar situations.


Sasha Tayla, one of Sasha's kittens

Way Behind!

Wow, I haven't posted here in ages! Not for lack of things to write about, just a lack of time. So, here is a quick post to try and catch up.


I have posted several new digital photos in both my Red Bubble and Fine Art America galleries. You an see one above. I posted some other beautiful sun rise and sunset shots, as well as some fun ones of my cats at play. I plan to donate a portion of sales of any of my cat pictures or drawings to our local cat rescue organization SOCKS (Save Our Cats and Kittens). They are a great non-profit organization and no kill shelter that rescues hundreds of cats from being euthanized every year.

I have also added a new graphite art work entitled "Film Star". My portrait of Sean Connery has been very well received on Red Bubble and has gotten some incredibly nice comments. He was also featured in 3 different groups, which made me feel honored. The art community on Red Bubble is extremely friendly and supportive. I wound up using a completely different picture of him than the one I posted here, so take a look!

One reason I have been behind is I have been working on a total web site overhaul for PencilsandPixelsArt.com. I plan to launch it in the next couple days. Please check it out! You will see a much cleaner design with new art works and new features!

More Art Contests

I have been entering contests lately for fun and to try and get some recognition. I am limiting to myself to what I consider the reasonably priced ones. Some of them can be pretty expensive! Of course those are the ones that usually offer the best prizes, so it's a catch 22.

Here are a couple I found that look interesting:

FALL 2008 ART CONTEST - "PORTRAITS"

INTERNATIONAL ARTIST MAGAZINE'S ART COMPETITIONS

WORKS OF CONTEMPORARY DRAWING AND WRITING ABOUT DRAWING ANNUAL 2008

These are just a couple that fit my areas of art work. There is a huge list of contest you can sift through on Artshow.com.

Red Bubble Promotion

To celebrate selling 100,000 items, Red Bubble.com is offering free shipping. The coupon code is ‘100000masterpieces’ – just enter this during the checkout process to receive the free shipping offer. Hurry! This expires at midnight (GMT) on Oct 30, 2008.

So now is a great time to buy cards or prints of my art and photography!

Some New Works and a New Gallery Site

I have completed a couple things recently, one just today in fact.






I had been working on this one for a long time off and on. I would get bored and did something else, but I finally finished it up, and am quite pleased with the results.






This one was just for fun, and gave me a chance to play with Pastel Chalk pencils. Those pencils are quickly becoming a favorite.

I have also found another fabulous site for selling prints of my work. It is called Red Bubble.com. It is free to sign up, and they offer tons of features to artists. It is extremely easy to navigate as well. I highly recommend Red Bubble if you are looking for an easy way to get your work out there. I now have much of work on my Bubble Site, in addition to my gallery on Fine Art America.






One site I was disappointed in is Artist Rising. It took 2 weeks for my gallery to even become active. I had to try consistently to get works to upload properly, and then it took several days for them to display because of their approval process. I found the whole thing frustrating. While I am sure many have had success with it, I would not recommend it.

As a side note, the portrait contest winners haven't been announced yet. I am still hoping for honorable mention!

Art Contests

I found an interesting art community website called A Singular Creation. One thing I like is that they run free art contests every month. The Art Showdown Contests all have different themes, and there is small prizes, normally $50 for the winner. The winner is featured with a small statement form the artist, but 4 pieces also receive honorable mention. Each artist can enter 3 pieces. See the Art Showdown Contest Rules and Guidelines.

This months art contest hit me right in the middle since the subject was portraits. I entered 2 celebrity pencil portraits, Tony Shalhoub and Elizabeth Taylor. I also entered my graphite portrait of the sweet little boy, Deaven. I was extremely pleased, and surprise, when, out of 299 entries, Deaven was chosen as one of the 16 finalists. The finalists are currently open for public vote, and will remain so until Oct. 6. the it goes to the final vote of the judges, and the winner will be announced Oct 10th. I hope you will check out all the finalists and casts votes for your favorites. There are some really nice pieces.

I honestly don't expect to win, but am hopeful for honorable mention. That would be a big enough boost for my ego. :)

This months contest is black and white, again another nice match for me. I plane to enter a couple original pieces, one of which I am trying to get done before the Oct 14 deadline. Check out the contest themes and deadlines.

Time Slipped Away!

Wow! I can't believe it has been so long since I posted. It has been a busy summer with work and vacations, so that is my excuse!

I have recently been experimenting with pastel chalk. I really like working with these. General's makes some in pencil form, and there are also pastel chalk sticks. They lay down very soft colors that blend easily. I have used paer towels and q-tips to blend them. I also like how they erase easily too! I have been using them on greay pastel paper, and the colors really stand out. Only thing is, there is no balck, so I have been mixing them with carbon or graphite.

"Daydreams" is the first work I created with pastel chalk pencils on white paper. I used a thin tip black pen for her eyelashes. For her skin tones, I applied the pastel challk to a paper towel and then to the paper.

I will be posting some other pasterl chalk works shortly in my gallery on Fine Art America. I recently added some high res images of some of my graphite portraits to my gallery there. they have a wonderful high res preview featrue that really lets you see the detail in a piece.

So, if you want to get into to color, but want something that blends easily, and don't like the waxy look of colored pencils, give these a try. Especially on colored paper!

New Artwork

I added my new art work "Sasha" to my Fine Art America gallery several days ago.




Sasha is the name of my recently adopted cat. I found out the name means "moon" in Hindu, and a cat with the moon seemed to be a perfect fit! I really wanted the moon to have some detail, so I based it on a royalty free high res picture of the moon. It was neat to be able to see all the craters on it's surface.

I added a little color to her blue eyes with some pastel chalk.

I also added some high res pictures of some of my older portraits and celebrity art to my gallery. Clicking on them in the gallery brings up a detailed high res preview of the pictures.

I am still trying to recreate my collection of digital files from my art, which were lost in the hard drive crash a few months ago. All the images I just added had to be photographed and loaded again.

Back Again!

Well, my blog has suffered again because I was on vacation. I had a fantastic time with my family. Unfortunately, it seems to be my routine to go out of town and come back sick!

Enough about that though! On to drawing news. I am working on an original, that is really coming along quite nicely. Sometimes pieces surprise me and wind up being easier than I expected. I am going to be very vague, so everyone can venture some guesses. It has an animal with unique eyes. It is set at night, with the moon at its back. I plan to render everything in graphite, except the eyes that will be in color. I think it will be a nice look.

I had a fun time drawing with one of my nephew while I was away. That has been our tradition in recent years, to draw together from the same picture. This time it was R2-D2 from Star Wars. Droids are a challenging subject! However, I kind of enjoying doing something with sharp angles and hard lines. It is totally different from portraits of people, that is lots of soft edges and flowing lines.

Well, that's all the news for now. Watch for a post about my finished original soon, and see if you guessed right. :)