Gentle souls that they are, animal pals are most happy to share, even helping to work through the process with me when things are tough.

In my many years as a product and concept developer, I learned the technique of getting inside of a particular product or challenge. It’s working from the outside in, and the results are often magical. Even when the subject is inanimate, amazing things happen when you work to strip out its superficial aspects. Somehow, when you reach the “inside” of the challenge, it makes itself more clear, and yes, sometimes more animate, thus malleable. And therefore, more open to impression and input.

If this all seems a bit abstract, it’s because it is, in fact difficult to understand without a bit of practice. You’ll have to work at it for a while. But its worth it.

Featured here today is a recent commission, of a cat named Earl. Apparently Earl spent much of his life with his eyes half-open. Which made him a uniquely distinctive subject. I learned a lot from him as we worked together on his portrait.

Books Come to Life!

Not to be confused with Cro-Magnon! More product development experimentation resulted in this new set. I tried an archival glue glaze with these, and it dries faster than the diamond glaze I used for my set of Vintage Camera Magnets.

Still loving the logo on the front of the tin, too. It’s a portrait I did for my niece, Lilly, of her dog, Chloe. Both of them are wonderful girls, as is Lilly’s sister, Anna. Being their aunt is among my greatest privileges.

As with all new product development, there’s a definite learning curve. Lots of research to be done, including researching suppliers (I like to buy as much of my supplies as possible from etsy selllers). I finally settled on 1″ glass tiles from another etsy seller. I bought a few different kinds of glue and magnets, before settling on diamond glaze and rare earth neodymium magnets.

Found some great round tins, too, which I hope make a nice presentation for gift-giving, storing these magnets, or for anything else a buyer might like to keep in one.

After much experimentation with image sizing, cropping, cutting, and copying, I think I finally have a system down. It’s still extremely labor-intensive, and it remains to be seen whether this category will successful for the Jada Jazz Shop.

I ASKED the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell
me what is happiness.
And I went to famous executives who boss the work of
thousands of men.
They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though
I was trying to fool with them
And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along
the Desplaines river
And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with
their women and children and a keg of beer and an
accordion.

This piece was printed on Epson Velvet Fine Art Paper. Prints made on this 100% cotton rag, archival paper are difficult, if not impossible, to differentiate from the original art.

I’ve matted this artwork to an 8″ x 10″ size, which fits standard-sized frames that you can find in any big-box store. Thanks for having a look.

I already had some vinyl sleeves and colored tassels on hand from our years owning Steeplejack Books bookstore, and I made a decision not to use archival paper for the bookmarks. But the blank greeting cards were another matter, since I wanted them to be archival in case a buyer or gift recipient wanted to frame them.

I also decided to sign and date them on the front, for the same reason. More about the paper selection in a subsequent post–in the meantime, here’s one of my new cards.

They all have in common this strange anthropomorphic quality, containing the presence of something alive. This is why I love and draw them. This piece was done with a micron pen on pre-stamped paper.

I made this from a photograph I took when I was in San Francisco a few years ago. I drew it with a micron pen, with no pencil sketch beforehand. A difficult task, to be sure, especially when trying to capture the nuances of perspective and architectural detail. I colored it with watercolor as soon as I’d finished it.

Here’s the artwork as it would look framed.