Dec 25, 2014

Christmas Deer Painting

Happy holidays! I hope you're all having a wonderful holiday and getting some time off to relax and spend with friends and family.

Here's a new painting of whitetail deer and a Christmas tree on a snowy moonlit night to celebrate the winter season.


8"x10" oil

Dec 14, 2014

Wildlife Gifts for Dog Lovers

Still scrambling to do that last minute shopping? There's still time to wildlife art gifts from my Zazzle store. I've been adding lots of new products featuring my yellow Labrador Retriever puppy painting. I've also add products featuring my paintings of wolves and foxes that would make great gifts for dog lovers. People who love domestic dogs often also enjoy images featuring their favorite pet's wild cousins such as the wolf and fox.

Many products would be perfect as a main gift, such as an iPhone or iPad case while smaller, more affordable gifts like keychains and coffee mugs, would be great as stocking stuffers.

Here are a few examples of things you can find in my Zazzle Store.










Lots more products in my Zazzle Store so go browse around for that perfect gift!

Dec 1, 2014

Miniature Painting - No 61 - Chickadee #4

New small painting of a black-capped chickadee on a branch with autumn leaves. The perfect Christmas gift for the bird lover you know!

5"x7"
Oil on Multimedia Artboard

Nov 27, 2014

Stocking Stuffers for Horse Lovers - Mare and Foal

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday! Lots of delicious turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie!

But now that Thanksgiving's over, we all switch gears and start thinking about Christmas and what we're going to get our friends and family for gifts.

Well, today's post is to give you some ideas for holiday gifts for the horse lover you know. I have been putting a lot of images featuring my horse and wildlife paintings on products in my Zazzle store lately. But for this blog post In particular I want to focus one horse image, a dapple gray quarter horse mare and her palomino foal. And even though this image is on lots of products, I'll just be showing some products I think would make good stocking stuffers, smaller and less expensive items. I can't show them all here but here are a few to get you started and give you some ideas.

Here's a candy tin featuring the mare and foal with a yellow background. If you visit my store you can also find this with a green, blue, purple, or pink background.


Here's a bottle opener showing the green leafy pattern background.


Here's an espresso mug featuring the purple background.


How about a refrigerator magnet?


Or some Christmas ornaments?


A bathroom set including a soap dispenser and toothbrush holder. This one is shown with a pink background, but other colors are available.


There are also lots of cases for electronic devices available, from Kindle covers to iPhone cases.

Lots more to choose from than just this little sampling here! And most of these products have more than one background color option. On top of that, they are also fully customizable. Click the big blue "Customize It" button under the product image and change things however you wish. Change the name, font color or style, or remove it altogether. You can also change the background color, or reposition and resize the image however you like. It's up to you. Customize it to give the horse lover you know a unique and personalized gift that can't be found in any mass-product chain store!

Look at more mare and foal products here.

Nov 26, 2014

Snow Fox Holiday Greeting Cards

Some new Christmas cards up on Zazzle featuring my painting of a cute red fox sitting in the snow. A few different color variations for you. And these are fully customizable, so you can change the text to say whatever you want. You can also do things like change the font style, color, size, or position, or even change the card's background color. Just click the blue Customize button under the image to adjust it to your needs. Here are the few variations I posted to get you started. Go from there!





And here are matching envelopes and postage stamps to go with your greeting cards!

Nov 21, 2014

Miniature Painting - No 60 - Christmas Bells

I little departure from my usual animal paintings to create a holiday image featuring shiny gold Christmas bells and a bright red ribbon. Add some holiday themed art to your walls along with your other Christmas themed home decor this year.


6"x6" oil on Gessobord
Available

Nov 16, 2014

Happy Kitty Sad Kitty Products

Lots and lots of new products added to my Zazzle Store since my last post. Please consider supporting artists this holiday season by buying Christmas decor and gifts from Zazzle stores run by individual artists rather than buying products mass-produced by huge chain stores. Not only will you be supporting individual artists, you will be giving unique gifts. Most of the products on Zazzle are fully customizable. You can customize iPhone cases with a monogram or name. You can create unique invitations to your Christmas party. You can personalize products for birthday parties, baby showers, weddings, and more!

I have put a lot of products up in the last couple weeks featuring a variety of subjects from deer to ducks. But today I'm going to just show some of the cat products I've put up recently. These would make great gifts for the cat lover you know.









These are just a few of the many kitten products available. Browse the cat section of my Zazzle Store to see all the many products you can find featuring these adorable kitten faces!

Nov 8, 2014

New Social Media Site - Tsu.co

I've been a Facebook user for several years. For a time I would spend a couple hours a day there. As with many social media sites, it is sometimes the only way I interact with distant friends and relatives. Sometimes it was the only way I know what's going on in their lives. Facebook used to be one of the best social media sites for that. Used to be....


This past year or so I have become totally fed up with Facebook. Many people don't realize it but once upon a time, in its earlier years, you got to see every single post your FB Friends posted. Yes, 100% of what your Friends said or shared or did would show up in the main feed. If you're new to FB you may not realize that's the way it used to be. If you're not new to FB you may not have realized things have changed.

You ever wonder why Aunt Matilda never seems to be on FB anymore? I bet she still is. You just never see her posts anymore. She used to post a lot about gardening, and canning her fruits and vegetables. While you enjoyed reading about her daily life, you aren't really into gardening and canning so you didn't normally Like or Comment on her posts. Now she no longer seems to be posting, right?

Well, she's probably not gone. But, because you didn't Like or Comment much, Facebook has decided for you that you are no longer interested in reading her posts. Therefore they are no longer visible to you. Yes, Facebook has decided to determine what you should and shouldn't be allowed to see.

Why is this? Why can't you see all Aunt Matilda's posts whether you Like and Comment on them or not?

Well, I can't say for sure since I don't work for FB. But from what I've read in articles and blogs there have been a lot of changes to the way FB determines what you get to see and what you don't, and it's most likely all about money.

You see, from the beginning, FB promised it would always be free to use. As they grew, however, they saw lots of ways to make big bucks. That's fine, we all want to make lots of money. But at first it was just from advertisers. Then, greed started to creep in. As they got millions of users, they wondered if there wasn't a way to make money off them too. But, since they had promised FB would always be free, they couldn't start charging us to use FB. So, they had to figure out a work-around, another way to get money out of users and still tell them FB was free to use.

This is when the algorithms started kicking in, deciding for you which posts you saw and which you didn't. They claim it was to reduce the clutter on your Feed, preventing you from having to filter through posts you weren't interested in. Interestingly, though, it coincided with their introduction of the Pay to Promote feature. Previously, all your Friends saw all your posts. Now your visibility has been reduced to about 20% of what it used to be, and so it is with your Friends.

So, Aunt Matilda is probably still posting about her peach cobbler, but you just don't see it anymore. But, with the new Pay to Promote feature, she could pay money to make sure you see more of her peach canning techniques! Of course, she probably doesn't know you're not seeing them. And she's probably wondering why you're never on FB anymore either.

OK, but enough ranting about FB. This post was actually to talk about a new social media site that I think is going to be a big thing. It looks and feels pretty much like FB but with a couple of big differences.

So far, at least, they do not try to decide for you what you can and can't see. You see all your Friends posts. Second, they have decided to actually share their success with you, the user, rather than try to squeeze more money out of you. They make money from advertisers, just like FB does. But instead of keeping it all for themselves, they share a little of it with us, the users, because we're what makes that ad revenue possible. Yes, post and Share and Like and Comment just like you would on FB but now you could actually earn money for doing that! How cool is that?

Let me warn you, Tsu launched only a few weeks go, so there are still some kinks to work out. So don't be surprised if there are a few glitches, and lots of changes, still to come. But I have a feeling it's going to be a successful thing in the long run, and it's exciting to get in on it this early!


But you can't sign up that easy! Registering with Tsu is by invitation only. You can't go directly to Tsu.co and sign up. You need a Friend's link. So I'll provide you with mine here. Come check it out and Follow me there. It's totally free to sign up. And you might just earn a little pocket change in the process.

www.tsu.co/ForestWildlifeArt

Nov 6, 2014

Cardinals and Holly Gifts and Decorations

The Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons are fast approaching! It seems like we were just having Fourth of July barbeques a few weeks ago. Where did the summer go!?

Well, here it comes, ready or not. So I've been trying to get ready. I've been adding a lot of Christmas themed products to my Zazzle store recently using artwork from my Cardinals and Holly painting. There are all kinds of products, from Christmas stockings and ornaments to everyday items like coffee mugs and accent pillows, that you can use to decorate your home with a holiday theme.

To give you more choices, I've added my cardinals image to products with different backgrounds so you have a variety of colors to choose from to best go with your existing home decor. There's a red theme, and a green theme, and a yellow theme.

There are literally hundreds of products so I can only show a few examples here. We'll start with a few red theme items.

Here's a Christmas stocking that you can customize. Just change the text in the text box on the right to replace the current name with your own child's name. You can change it even more with the blue "Customize It" that will allow you to also change the font color, style, and size to your liking.


I have a new Christmas greeting card available this year. This image was available as a holiday greeting card last year but only in its original form. This year I've added a fancy red border to give it even more of a Christmas holiday feel. This card is also fully customizable. Change the greeting in the text boxes at the right, or click the Customize It button to also change the font color, size, and style.


Need an "ugly" sweater for that Ugly Christmas Sweater Party but don't really want to look ugly? Again, the text is fully customizable. Change it to say and look however you want.



Now for a few green theme items. Here's some cardinals and holly gift wrapping paper. Again you can change the greeting to whatever you'd like. You can even change the background color with the Customize It button if this particular shade of green doesn't suit your tastes.


Some holiday paper plates to use for the family get-together. There are matching napkins and placemats to go with them.


And how about a holiday scarf for staying warm?



And if the traditional greens and reds of Christmas are not really to your liking, I add some products with a softer, pale yellow background, such as this wrapping paper.




But there are lots and lots more products in each of these color schemes. Here are the links to browse all the products within each color category:




Shop Art Supplies

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