I am going in on all the images that I have in all my shops to improve the tags and key words for each image. Large job but it is a very important part of what I am trying to accomplish. I just feel that after reading further that I can improve the images actually be found on Google by doing a deeper and clearer job. The images now on Snowman Pastiche have be added to and the products have been better identified. The same goes for the Let It Snow shop. All apparel, shoes, cards, and gift items are clearly noted.

This gift, a mousepad with snowman and penguins, is identified with Mary Parker and with The Edith Collection among other tags to make it easier to find.


So these fun Christmas Characters re-created by Mary Parker are among many others I am taking from The Edith Collection and adding to the shops for Christmas gifts and fun stuff. The Holiday Shoes are in all my shops and will be more extensively covered as I cross like them with the images in Christmas Depot. That job is underway and will require much more reading.

Tags: Zazzle galleries, Snowman Pastiche, Let It Snow, snowman, apparel, keds shoes

I have taken the time to work on this site and to try to build it as I would like to have it seen. My limited knowledge about any of this is most restrictive; however,I can say that I am slowing pulling it together. The pages which I have improved and added are sections for Fruit and Flora, Wild, Rustic Lodge, and the very large Mary Parker Portfolio. Adding the pages and putting the material on them is becoming more flexible. I have to say over and over that RapidWeaver is the most wonderful thing around. The entire process has been made possible only because this software is so GREAT.

I have had the idea that if I took some of the new products that I am selling on line and placed them in the sidebar in relative locations that it might look interesting. That is the direction that I am heading toward now. Trying to communicate with this site will grow more functional, I am sure, as I progress in the understanding of all of it.

Tags: Mary Parker, Fruit and Flora, Wild, Rustic Lodge, Let it Snow, Santa, Snowmen

South American Llama design created for apparel, paper products, gifts and ceramics. I love brilliant color. I love it to use when I am painting and building designs. This design was built to say, ‘Hello Llama’, and it does just that with color. The use of the llama as a design element was selected only because of the animals uniqueness. This design is one of the new selections in WILD and it has everything available to support it.

I am working on the shop WILD today and will be reorganizing and addling images and products to it . The new works will be featuring animals and tribal designs from many far away places.

WILD LLAMA

WILD LLAMA APPAREL

Tags: llama,Wild, bright color,apparel,cards, gifts, south american animal

My cool little shops are lighting up and making progress! I have been busy trying to improve this site so that I could better explain the portfolio and the use of the designs that I have made. The Christmas images are all designs which I built for the Mary Parker Christmas Portfolio. I created a blog on those images on blogger, CHRISTMAS PIZZAZZ, and I have not yet found the magic formula for getting it all seen on Google. I will keep building and adding images and reading. One day it will work as I would like it to and it will be another ‘mountain’ I will have climbed.

The cards are doing well in all the shops. I have not learned how to link to the products in my CafePress shop, CHRISTMAS DEPOT, but I hope to learn how shortly. Meanwhile, it is a cool shop that is doing well and has a lot of different looks.

Tags: Christmas,Edith, Mary Parker, just loveable

I am trying to work on the pages of this site and although RapidWeaver is the most wonderful thing that has happened to me and the computer, I have MUCH to learn about the simplest thing. I am trying to create pages which will reflect the type of images that my catalogs are composed of rather than placing all those designs into albums as I though I would do in the beginning. This too may change but for the present I believe that it will be a cleaner page if I handle it this way. The first new page will be FRUIT & FLORA and I am placing a montage on the page and then some of the various images from the collections in that catalog to give a feel for the way that catalog flows and how it will be used.

The shop, a la Mode, will be the one which takes this type of material for product. The everyday images that follow fashion trend. That is such a wide swath it won’t be very definitive.

FRUIT & FLORA

This is the montage which I have put together to represent the images from this catalog.

Tags: upgrading site, new pages, fruit and flora, a la mode shop

This is my image. I created it. I drew it. I painted it with gouache. I used pen and ink on it. I put it in my portfolio, MARY PARKER CHRISTMAS PORTFOLIO. It belongs to THE EDITH COLLECTION, INC. My company. The design number is CH454. It was licensed to good manufacturers in the late 90s for pillows, in the 2000s for gift bags and then for cards. This image below is now being used by me, the owner and holder of the copyright, to use as I see fit. I am using it to create products with print on demand companies, CafePress and Zazzle. I did not give permission to any other company at any other time to use on plates . That usage which I have talked about in the last blog entry is THEFT.

THIS IS ONE OF THE IMAGES WHICH A COMPANY CALLED ROYAL NORFOLK HAS STOLEN FOR ITS OWN PERSONAL GAIN.

Tags: santa image Mary Parker card

This is a regular happening. What is? Having your images ripped off and reproduced in China and sold to manufacturers around the world. Oh, yes, did I mention that when that happens there is nothing of consequence that you can do to prevent the theft from occurring?
I have had this happen more times than I can count. I have had companies who are in the US and were using the images. Some were companies ‘unaware’, others I had to go to court and demand settlement. Others it was simply a fox chase. You spend loads of money and time bleeding trying to stop the theft to no avail. Yes, there are laws. Very funny and sad. I learned to just keep going and try to build images faster that the Chinese could rip them off. That too was a joke. A major portion of the United States manufacturing is done in China and when you license an image to a good manufacturer and he goes to China to get the job done, the design is lost out the back door.

Posting this to let others know that this is theft. I did not license these designs to any manufacturer to use on plates.








This image below is one I will be using to build products on CHRISTMAS DEPOT, CHRISTMAS CARDS and THE SANTA SHOP this week. This was how I made a living and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to show others what happens to work you build with your hands in good faith. Oh, Mary Parker is the name under which I built all my Christmas images. This company 3 Peas in a Pod is actively selling work which is illegal.

Tags: rip off images mary parker santa, theft China manufacturer

Mary Parker Christmas designs are selling in the Zazzle galleries. SNOWMAN PASTICHE which is my Zazzle gallery for just Snowman images is perking up a bit! The truly cool Keds shoes, which I love to edit my designs for, are always a great purchase because they are fun and so cool for the Holidays. You know that I coordinate all the products to match. So when you get a pair of shoes, you could also get a matching tote bag, or a greeting card.
SHOES FOR CHRISTMAS FUN!

GREETING CARD

Tags: keds shoes, Christmas Pastiche, images, Zazzle, Mary Parker, Edith Collection

I have prepared 17 new images and put them into CHRISTMAS DEPOT. They look great. The problem was in trying to come up with the correct margin of bleed for the designs so that when I use a structured border it would not be lost in the process. I think that now I can go forward with that under control. The images are mixed with snowmen, Santas and a teddy bear or two.

These same images are to be placed on my other shops: CHRISTMAS CARDS, THE SANTA SHOP, and SNOWMAN PASTICHE. At the moment, however, Zazzle seems to be working on their platform (?) because the site is not responding to the process. I am sure it will be nice when it is finished but to just ‘encounter’ the mess when you are trying to accomplish a task, it is frustrating and discouraging. It has been changing things around for quite sometime. The flash panels they have, which are ever so great, would not load for nearly a month. So, I am building successfully at CafePress.

I have become a member of their Affiliate Program which is connected to Commission Junction and I am hoping to place my work out there for some active company to pick up. Just another hook in the water. And another area I will have the challenge of learning. I do feel that if I can get some companies who do a lot of this type of thing that the images I have and will be able to place in the Christmas Depot will generate some type of income. I am hoping to have this thing moving for Christmas 2009. Sounds reasonable.

Today after the mess at Zazzle I think that I will try to build a Squidoo lens for these images. I just want to create one that is alive and when I think about it carefully, I believe that I could better approach the idea if I think of it like presenting my work at Surtex. The presentation was done with 5 catalogs and 22 feet of art display. All of that was carefully divided into collections and collections into categories and categories into the 5 different catalogs: Christmas, Halloween, Rustic Lodge, Fall Harvest, Everyday. Oh yes, the leftovers were also accumulating into extra catalogs: Teddy Bears, Farm, Wildlife, Primitive and Tribal Design. So there your go, how to do all this. Go nuts thinking about it. Right. And even the Christmas, back where we started, is divided into many parts.

Anyway, all that matters is that I come up with a way of presenting the images I am currently working on in a fresh and alive manner for a Squidoo lens!

Tags: Christmas card images

This is a major attitude adjustment for me and all I can say about it is that I am truly trying. It feels more like Lilliputian strings of control rather than actual ‘need’ to make this site visible. But here goes....
I have the Twitter installed. Another string to tie me up. Well, it is.
I also have been working on my next 20 images to go in the card store. Need to get these done as soon as possible.I reached the 17th image but not 20. And tomorrow I will put them into the shop.

Tags: setting up twitter, learning how, attitude adjustment

This is the spot where my Halloween collection first came to life. The long drive in heavy traffic from I40 on hwy. 66 into Sevierville and on into Gatlinburg was an experience but it surely had it’s rewards. The collection of Halloween images which came from it brings royalties to this day. Here are some of the displays which are on the road today. You can see how the ideas were born.




















The road sides and the shops, the restaurants and the hotels all deck out in truly creative displays of scarecrows and pumpkins. Every kind of pumpkin or gourd know to man must be displayed. The fall festivities open with flair and excitement. These kinds of displays together with a rich imagination and I started to build my Halloween. Image after image. Witches, scarecrows, ghosts, haunted houses, and funny crows and mice that dressed up for Halloween. I loved Halloween when I was a child and I love the idea for all those things coming to life full of pranks and laughter and silly things. I painted each year in the mountains building a collection of images which I licensed for many products. These images were created in card sizes at 150% and in welcome mat sizes of 18.5 x 28 inches. They were painted in gouache. Later a couple were painted in acrylic on canvas.

If you click the site map for this site and then go to the ‘Shops” page you can see what I am doing with the images today. I am also planning on putting all the portfolio out for sale. I just have not had the time to tend and learn together. I spent all my time building images for my portfolio and licensing and absolutely none learning how to use a computer. That was a bad mistake. So I will try to learn now as fast as I can.

Tags: Gatlinburg, Tn, fall displays, Halloween inspiration

I just took this huge gouache illustration, 17.5 “ x 24.5”, and edited the color tones just a bit and put it in OCTOBER 31 for a poster. The second is a smaller gouache painting of another haunted house which is regular size, 5” x 7” @ 150%, and it is now available as a card.






Trying to keep the Halloween and Christmas up and having to edit each one individually is very hard. I am making it but slowly. I have just done my first Squidoo. It is a lens on Halloween images and their availability on Halloween products. I hope to learn how to develop this connection for all the categories in my portfolio and for the paintings I am hoping to be able to start in the spring.

Tags: Halloween Poster, Haunted House, Squidoo,

I have really pushed to finish the witch from original gouache rendering to a usable design for Halloween apparel. This was done in Photoshop and layered with painting. Here is the dear with her scaredy-cats and she is telling them they will enjoy the ride.





What little I know, I did with filters after I finished the repainting. I saved the various layers to add the filter to the cats, the pumpkins and for the background.

This afternoon I took a snowman from the CARROTS AND SCARVES collection of my Christmas portfolio and did the same for the snowman image. This image was rendered in acrylics on canvas. I think that I like the stuff after I have reworked the images better than when I did them. Well, that was years ago, anyway.




Here the cleaned up image is and the product below made from this image is Christmas Snowman shoes. There are matching products for this image, also. This will be in SNOWMAN PASTICHE.



Here are the Shoe!

Tags: snowmen, Christmas, products, Halloween, witches,

You must go to my new page on this site. It is called SHOPS. This is the page which I will be able to post all the new work and the new products in a variety of shops which I am opening. Check it out. Now, this blog can be focused on how the designs come about and how they came about. Both past and present of the collections as I edit them and create new products and new work. Soon, perhaps in the spring, I will be able to start my painting once more. The stores will be up and running and I will have the newness of a new year to begin ...

Tags: shops, new web page, my new page

At last a new image completed and already applied to product in the LET IT SNOW STORE. I’m coming. Slowly, perhaps, but still I’m beginning to put it together. An I removed the penguin on the right and made another product image for tote bags and t-shirts. These will also have matching Keds shoes to go with the designs. The shoes,however, will have to wait until I can create some border images to go with the grouping.



This is the image I took the above motifs from. This below image was originally painted in gouache on a 5 x 7 inch @ 150% hotpress watercolor paper. After I removed the elements, I repainted them in Photoshop.

Tags: penguins, penguin for holidays,

I have created new Stores for my Christmas images. The headers are below; however, it is taking me quite a while to edit all the images necessary to put into the shops. I need about 25 images per shop to start with. Having the images is not the problem. Editing and preparing the images for other products takes a bit of time. I am a learner on Photoshop and I don’t know the shortcuts or the ‘proper’ way to do the work necessary. So as I have said before I am doing what comes naturally — look, see, render! Well, I don’t know another way so its stand up and do that or do nothing

.

This shop will contain the images from that collection. Those are of penguins, polar bears, pandas and all their friends, of course.



In this shop I will put all the Santa images. There are a number of different kinds of Santas, from Victorian to Elf Santas. They are rendered in different ways and it creates a different feel for the various images.



Now, THE SEASON is for religious images and I have some angels which will go into this shop.



This shop will contain the images which start in fall and go into winter and Christmas with a rustic, country flavor. So Thanksgiving will go into this shop as well as some winter cabins and rustic Christmas.

In order for the images to reach these shops, I must redo them completely in Photoshop by resizing, repainting and in most cases building a stronger base beneath the watercolored base so that the new adjusted motif can be used on larger products than cards and can be successful as a t-shirt image. Here is an example of what will go in the shops. This example is of Penguins and it will, of course, go in the LET IT SHOW shop. No, these shops are not full nor are they ready to be seen. This job of mine takes quite a bit of time and a lot of thought. So here it is.




This is the card. And below is the image for t-shirts, tote bags and other things. Oh yes, there will be matching shoe but that is also another exercise.

Tags: shop header, new headers, penguins

NEW EYES is what I need to accomplish the things I have set out to do. Yes, NEW EYES. This Saturday morning while I listened to Charlie Rose’s interview with Peter Gelb, and Penny Woolcock I realized that what they were saying about Opera was what I needed to reach me own objectives. Charlie was interviewing them about the celebration of the 125th Anniversary of the Metropolitan Opera. I love to listen to his interviews because as I have said before, the ideas and concepts of the who, what and where, how and why ooze during that hour. This time as he visited about the Met and opera, the concept of NEW EYES fell upon my ears and I realized that NEW EYES was exactly what I needed for my own work.

Opera plays an important roll in my sister’s life and without going into this let me say it was her life and it became a part of all my family’s life. So when hearing this interview I had not only mine in the present hearing but mine from an earlier time in life. Opera was something that came to the world from Italy and it was from and for the people but it grew over time to be thought of as for the upper class or wealthy. Something which was above the common man. Far, far from the origins of the art form.

Peter Gelb, according to TIME, is a revolutionary and visionary in the field of classical music and it is because of his ground-breading initiatives that Charlie’s program and my connection to the depth opera ment to my sister that I could hear something so vital so real so necessary to what I was doing that when I heard it I knew that NEW EYES was necessary for myself.

To keep it alive it needed to bring in new eyes. How I interpreted it for my use is this way. I spent 16 years building and working designs which I either sold the use of or licensed the use of to manufacturers for their products. I spent another 10 years building and creating designs and selling a product and my painted works to retail stores. All of those 26 years were competitive and were not shared intellectually with other artists or inquiring individuals. Now, finding myself in a completely new arena, the on-line print on demand stores of the web, I cling to the learned positions of all those years. The position which knowing and applying was the absolute safeguard of your income, your designs, your tomorrows. The shows or exhibitions were not open to the public. The exhibitors were strictly advised not to enter the booth of another exhibitor without consent or invitation. No cameras. No copying anything in any way. Such was the stuff of lawsuits. I had to enter such a suit more that once to maintain my rights and keep my designs from being used by manufacturers who tried to unlawfully use them without license. Those kind of lessons are not forgotten.

Artists do have eyes. I have eyes and there is nothing new in the art world that has not been seen or done before but it is entirely new based on HOW you see. How you interpret what you see. It is extremely competitive. So I used my eyes as did the others and I interpreted what I saw from my position but I did not copy or in anyway use the explicit design of another artist. Now in this on-line store idea, I have trouble as I discover that the works are touched and used by all other shops. Well, China had eyes on designs when I was licensing. Those eyes took and still take designs from artists. China looks at it as just competitive not theft. Eyes of the beholder.

For my NEW EYES it will be to openly spread my work to all the other shops and allow my designs to flow outward without the fear or anxiety and to try to see how the NEW FORUM really works. I will use my NEW EYES to do what seeing allowed me to accomplish in my 26 years of experience as an active and very successful participant in the marketing of designs to retailers and manufacturers and I must add as a painter in the preceding years. So today forward NEW EYES will look at the on-line print on demand stores of the web.

Trying to build up the images that are needed in the various store and still remain with your eyes open is a real task. However, I am making progress and enjoy the feeling of having moved one more image forward from their storage to an active place in the Zazzle or CafePress stores that I am opening.

The big challenge at the moment and an ongoing important part of all this is to learn how to interact with the other people and to connect all the images with as many places as possible. This is so foreign to me and so blank in my mind that constant investigating is required. As I spend all day editing and repainting the images in Photoshop so that they will be usable on products for things other than what they were originally built for, the time required to learn how to ‘network’ and ‘wire’ all of this seems to drift further and further away. Nonetheless, I will reach the objective.



This witch and her cats has to be removed and then reworked to go on products about 200% larger. Here is the result and this is now in product in the OCTOBER 31 shop. Actually, if I can keep the pace up and LEARN how to do all of this, in 12 months this will be a truly large site and exceptionally large shops with an amazing number of images on a rotating basis.




The recent image that I enjoyed so much is this little Santa elf image. So from card to t-shirt and tote, here he is:




This is the larger, reworked image as an image for a tote. He is the same on a t-shirt but without the border effects. This will be in the new shop which I hope to open on September 22.

Tags: Halloween Christmas Santa elfs, witch "scaredy cats"

This Monday was sicking. The stock market continues to go down and my personal well being is being greatly diminished. This is even more reason to push forward with my work. I have not learned how to successfully blog and cannot even see who could give a care; however, everything I read and all the print on demand companies stress the need to blog the things you would want to sell.

I am focusing now on Christmas as it is the time of year that business make from 60% to 80% of their entire year’s profit. It was that way with my licensing also. I made more from Christmas images by Mary Parker than all the other stuff. Too, the gas prices are bursting the top out of everyone’s finances, so it is likely that more people will stay home and perhaps, just maybe, they will shop the internet. I do regularly. But then when you find yourself on the side of a mountain you tend to do that if you want to have anything. So high hopes.










These are three new works which I edited today from cards images. I removed the angels from the card and cleaned them in MaskPro and then repainted them in Photoshop CS3. That was for both of the angel images. The motifs are them used alone for t-shirts and as shown above as images which can be used on tote bag and other products. The Santa was a simpler job. I just reduced him and cloned the sides in to reshape the size. It did take all day.

Now here is a situation. When I was licensing my work, it was not considered good taste to put angel motifs on rugs because you walked on them. I will be building Christmas shoes and I don’t think I will put angels or religious icons on the shoes. Putting them on t-shirts is much different. When in doubt — don’t. So I won’t.

Tags: Christmas work "angels on shoes", "Stock market plunge"

I record CHARLIE ROSE on PBS and listen in the mornings before work or starting the day. He has an inquiring and open format that allows reason to open out and through his questioning unexplored insight becomes my thought for the day. This morning I listened to Charlie opening conversations with Johathan Alter, Bob Schieffer and Paul Begala. Although they spoke on things entirely different from the underlying thoughts of my own, I listened as they opened their views on the campaign for President.

One should know that I have a very deep habit of listening to the ideas and opinions of others, particularly those whose ideas and opinions have accomplished something of merit in our society, and retranslating it or adapting the ideas to fit my objectives. So when hearing this morning the insights they shared individually and collectively about the personalities running for office of President, I observed that there was something in those view points which I might be able to use to shed light on the problems I am having in finding my way back to painting and living a productive life. The larger the personality the easier it is to observe the traits or ideas and the larger the accomplishments the easier it is to identify the components.

I am trying to use the designs I built for 16 years. I am trying to apply my mind to understanding how I might do that and return to the creative act of painting. While opening the portfolio, I re-discovered that the designs were built for products; therefore, they could be used on print on demand products with little or no problem. They were not sacred. Never were and that was a motto that I used many times over the years as I built the collections. The position I am in today is very different from the position I was in when I built the collections. So what was it I was doing and how did I use what ever it was to build the work. What happened to stop the work. What and why I am trying to do today with those same images? So when I heard them, the men above on Charlie Rose, say that Obama had recently focused on Obama rather than what it was that Obama was going to do, my mind grabbed the thought. I have been focusing on my own pain and not on what or how I am going to use it to produce.

‘Round the horn? Maybe. But that is the thought that opened my mind this morning and that is the place where I need to center my direction. It changes nothing regarding my emotions but it does help in removing the cart from in front of the horse. When I painted and sold eggs to retailers, how did I do that? I painted thousands of eggs every year for 10 years. How did I do that? When I painted images for manufacturers and built collections and presented them successfully every year for 16 years in New York at the SURTEX show, how did I do that? When I packed everything up and closed everything down and moved to the mountains, how did I do that? When I arrived at the cabin in the woods, how did I put it all together? Well, I realized this morning that I needed to modify my thoughts a bit. I was thinking too much about my ‘self’. Perhaps, if I changed that just a little I might be able to find the focus that I have previously used to build.

That is I used my mania to build. I used my will to stay in the kitchen when it was hot - real hot. I would play Offenbach’s prelude ORPHEUS IN THE UNDERWORLD until I was exhausted. I would use it to feel and then stop, dead in my tracks, return to the calm focus of the work at hand. I did this with Mozart. I did this with Charlie Daniels Band, Redneck Fiddlin’ Man. I would play the Tractors (their country rock) until the sound vanished and the mania was exhausted. But at the same time I was playing these CDs, I was painting and building images with speed. I would paint as many as five designs at once. Five-up I would call it. So that is some of what and how I worked my mania as a tool. But to do it over and over for 26 years and each time it was like new, how did I do that?

My mania rapid cycles. A lot of hilly roads. But underlying a continuing build ascending upward in the fall of the year and blessedly arriving a the fall equinox where all was perfect if only for a while. This is my time for building, for creating and for an iron will to be applied to clear objectives. I would fly across the sky like a Phoenix right into the eye of the sun and fall every evening into my ashes only to rise the next morning and do it over and over and over. I would not trade that for any part of a smooth even playing field.

So here I am. In a log cabin, in the Smoky Mountains, with large portfolio of product oriented art work... I was derailed by the villain CANCER which attacked my husband, my friend, my companion, my partner in life. It took me from 2002 until the summer of 2005 when I packed up and headed for the mountains, for my production to suffocate. And for it to suffocate completely, it wasn’t until the summer of 2007 when I got a grip of the hole I found myself in, that I started to rebuild a new phase. So I am through bleeding all over myself. It is not about the pain or the problems, or all the fine yesterdays. It is all about how I take what I have and what I am and rebuild it all. A little different perspective but that difference makes a monstrous difference in accomplishing the objective.

OBJECTIVE: Regain dominance over my plight. Make the existing images work. Paint.
TOOLS: God given talent. Mania. Will power and focus. A brain. Ability to stay in the kitchen when it is hot.

Tags: "will power" direction "artistic creations" mania

This effort to open my entire portfolio and edit the images for on-line store is an extremely hard task for me to grapple with in my mind. I am an artist with a personality disorder and I maintain control over it with self imposed isolation, fish oil and folate, strict sleeping habits and routine. I have trouble with depression and mania. I built THE EDITH COLLECTION portfolio by obsessively working day in and day out and it worked. I could ride the storms out. I lived for the presentation at the SURTEX show in New York each year. I presented my portfolio there every year for 16 years. When you went there your ideas, your work, designs, contacts - they were all confidential. No artist was allowed in the booth of another without express permission. No cameras. All my work was kept from the public for 16 years. The show grew and grew and grew. It was alive with artistic expression and creativity. Alive with excitement. Alive with the anticipation of licensing your creations to a manufacturer. The artists there came from all over the world not just the US but from all over the world. Every year new artists came and every year artists vanished from the scene. I loved it. It was like blood in my veins.

Now, I am trying to take all the hundreds of images and open them out into print on demand shops. The shops are like massive groups of social bees incestuously visiting and touching the images and using them to reach their own opportunities. It is so opposite. It is so unreal and yet I feel compelled to take this portfolio which made me a fine living and open it like a thief trying to sell the images on the street corner. My psyche hurts inside as I do this. WHY? ...and my images, well, they are not sacred or they would be in some church. They’re not. They are in a storage unit just sitting.

Well, for what it is worth in 2002 my husband and business partner got colon cancer. It was in a lymph node. He underwent major surgery. It was not good. But he, unusual man that he is, would not recognize that position and as we journeyed each day to chemo we continued with our business. He managing and I painting and never stopping, we continued right on through the 2003 SURTEX and right on to the next major surgery. It was in his liver. He underwent another major operation and I made deals in the hospital parking lot. Neither of us stopped. We went right on to the 2004 SURTEX and the next major surgery. That was by pass heart surgery for 5 major arteries. We both continued to work through all of this.

You see there was a lot of mania and a lot of roller coaster emotions for me and try as I did. I could not keep my head above the ‘water’. I packed up every thing, gave away truck loads of manufacturers samples to people and to Goodwill. Then I sold everything I would not need and we moved to the Smoky Mountains. I have skipped over this fairly smoothly. My dear strong willed husband weathered it all and came through it all successfully and with his life even as I speak. But for me, well, I had an episode.

We used to wonder just what my capacity was. That was it. I was unable to go to SURTEX in 2006 and 2007 and just like if you put your hand in a bucket of water and removed it, that was the way it was when I was unable to attend. Since then it has been like trying to breathe in quicksand.

I am trying to find my way back to painting. Painting everyday but painting with a different mind. Painting as I used to paint when I painted my emotions. I still hunger and thrust after the excitement and the forum, the opportunities, the exhibition.

Tags: "why on-line shops" painting , Maina depression episode

Today I worked on creating a new Halloween card and t-shirt from an image which was square. This had to be done by first removing the border and resizing it to fit the card size. The original size was 8x8 inches. The new card image size is 7.5x10.5inches. This is a regular 5x7 @150%. I selected the border and drug it to the new base in Photoshop. There I used a free transform to create the new border.


This is the new border:


The subject was removed and ‘repainted’ in Photoshop to change to painted feel of gouache to a stronger feel and when it was resized using ALIEN SKIN BLOW UP it would look good as a 14 x 12 inch t-shirt image. The background was filled in and painted to be able to receive the removed image in this more narrow format.


The obvious areas were smoothed out and blended placed under the frame and the removed image on top. Then some repainting on multiple layers to return the feel of the original painting.




Last put the subject image through ALIEN SKIN BLOW UP and there is my new t-shirt image.



I have shown it here on black. This is actually a transparent image background and will be used on dark fabric.
This may not be the right way to create the products which I needed; however, I did it this way until I learn a better path. That I hope to do soon with LYNDA.com

Tags: Halloween "resizeing image"

I worked with manic speed and focus yesterday. Made some very important errors. I forgot to tag my blog and put the permalink in place. Today I had to drive 70 miles to the Mac Store to renew my ONE on ONE. That’s worth it. It’s my roller-coaster emotions that stress me out. Trying to make my portfolio work. Well, what I mean is that I built one really great portfolio of images which I used to license to manufacturers and I cannot just walk away from it and let it perish in the dust. That is what I am trying to do. Breathe life back into my work. Oh, the work was good. That was not the problem. I just bottomed out emotionally because of, well a lot of things. Anyway back to the images. I built another on-line shop.

I am taking 100 Christmas images. Cleaning and editing them for use as cards for the Holiday Season. That should be of interest to people who do shop on line. But they have to ‘see me’ to buy the cards. That is what I am learning all of this for and with the hope that once the images in the overall portfolio are placed productively into shops, I will be able to return to my painting. Painting is the objective. That is the place where I am trying to reach. So until that moment, check out the Christmas Cards and see what I am talking about. I have about 29 in place at the moment and will reach that 100 mark by the end of September.


make custom gifts at Zazzle

Tags: "Christmas cards" "Christmas images"

This has been a test to determination. I have managed to find my way through the maze of placing the CHRISTMAS PIZZAZZ blog, which is the blog for the images in the MARY PARKER CHRISTMAS PORTFOLIO, on a domain page with Blogger. Great. Today I have created another shop CHRISTMAS CARDS which will eventually hold several hundred Christmas designs. The images will reflect a great deal of difference in style and rendering and will be nothing but cards and postage stamps.

I have been editing and cleaning up the images and preparing them to open this shop. The first round of cards will be 50 images by the end of this week and in different categories. This use of Photoshop even if it is very basic for me is very helpful. I was able to use a couple of filters today as I put borders and trim around the edges. I know that I will be back with my lessons at LYNDA.com before very long. I am very excited about the way in which those lessons are explained and that I can use the information instantly with work on these images.

This is the banner for the CHRISTMAS CARD SHOP:



This is great to have hundreds of images; however, they don’t just spring out there automatically. I sit here while my bones disolve -- I’m sure. Every moment of this puts me closer to where I so desperately want to be and that is painting. Painting once more. All I know about sanity.

Tags: images "Christmas Cards" "Zazzle shops"

The MARY PARKER CHRISTMAS PORTFOLIO has a blog on Blogger. That blog is called CHRISTMAS PIZZAZZ. I talk about the collection of images that I have in that portfolio and describe my editing process and what I am doing to evolve the work. Today I have anchored that blog with Google and created a web page which will help to strengthen my visibility on the web--or at least that is part of the theory.

I am thrilled with RapidWeaver. It is a most wonderful thing which has created for me the very base of what I am building and will continue to be the place upon which I put together all of the work in THE EDITH COLLECTION. Each movement forward brings me closer to the window I will build to be able to paint. Painting once more in a ‘fine arts’ fashion. That will become my main purpose, daily paintings with daily posting of new work. It is just a great feeling to put another brick in place.

I hope to be able to put the galleries to the Christmas and to the Halloween on this site by January ’09. I will have ordered them as I go through the images building new products and creating new art work with the editing processes. That is one of the objectives for this site.

Well,here is the new base for the MARY PARKER CHRISTMAS PORTFOLIO.

Tags: "Mary Parker Home" "Christmas collection site" "Google blog base"

I will try it this way. I hope it works.
Having trouble. Keep fingers crossed.
OK I do not know what is going wrong here but this image no matter where it originates,( psd, jpg,or png) I cannot get it to become visible. I thought it might be the added type but that was flattened. Guess it’s just a Halloween image and there are spooks in my computer. This is just a note to explain the image which would not load.

Tags: pumpkins, Halloween, Jack-o-lantern

This work was accomplished within a morning; however, it could have been much sooner if I didn’t have to learn everything as I go a long. I can tell you that using Photoshop CS3 and using the Intuos 3 Graphics Tablet is like heaven. It does help to press SAVE often. So here are some results for new products:



I put the image on black so that it would appear as it would when applied to a dark or black fabric. I used MaskPro to clean up the image and verify that there was no some “trash” I could not see that would appear when it was applied. I completely reworked the surface with numerous layers trying to maintain the same feel of a painted rendering but strong enough and clean enough to print clearly. The eyes are all re-done and the cat’s whiskers show off great.

UNFORTUNATELY MY IMAGE WILL NOT APPEAR.
I will try to make it on a second publish.


This line of type was done in Photoshop CS3 and that is a great pleasure not to have to go into another program, especially when you are like me and learning. This image is now on a t-shirt in my shop OCTOBER 31. It also made it as a card.

Tags: pumpkins, Halloween, Jack-o-lantern

I am taking images from the Mary Parker Halloween portfolio and creating new images. This image of a scarecrow was originally built to go with images which looked old and faded. I will up-date the elements as I remove them and brighten up the feel.
I have decided to remove the pumpkins and try to make them into a t-shirt . Below are the pumpkins removed and the surface of the pumpkins reworked as well as the pumpkin edges. I will try to add and restructure the grass to add texture and interest. As for the ‘Scaredy Cat’ I think I will give him some new eyes. This work is now in progress and when completed will go into the OCTOBER 31 shop.

Tags: Halloween scarecrow jack-o-lantern

This week has been crowed with compiling designs to use for various stores (my on-line store fronts). Christmas is upon us as far as design goes. In the past Christmas was designed a year to two years in advance of its exposure to the manufacturers market. My activities today are different but still have many components of the methods I learned in previous years.

I have a portfolio of Christmas designs which I licensed under the pseudonym ‘Mary Parker’. This rather large portfolio of work is divided into various categories. I plan on taking those categories and opening an on-line store for each of them. This is a massive learning experience for me and the deeper I go into the use of the computer and the adapting of the existing work the more I find myself hooked on the process. Those categories are as follows: Snowmen, Santa, Let It Snow, Rustic, Religious.

It remains to be seen how much of this I will be able to configure and adapt, especially with my lack of knowledge, and placing of the designs in the various on-line stores. The gamble is ALL OR NOTHING. Apparently, it is part of my being. I have lived this way for many years successfully; however, this is going to be the test of all tests. I have accomplished opening the WILD store which contains images from my portfolio of designs influenced by fashion trend and its connection to nature particularly wild animals. Skins exotic and different animals from different countries and the primitive or tribal designs which confirm the like country. I have accomplished opening HALLOWEEN NIGHT, OCTOBER 31, a la mode (which reflect the images used in WILD and other fashion oriented designs) and SNOWMAN PASTICHE.

Opening these stores is one thing, filling each of them consistently is very hard for me. It is similar to learning how to juggle. I believe that from all I have read that these stores need to be driven by blogs. I, therefore, have created, aside from this site blog embracing the entire concept, a blog for all of Christmas, CHRISTMAS PIZZAZZ (this blog will cover all of this area), and OCTOBER 31 (this blog for all of Halloween carries the same name as the on line store OCTOBER 31). The idea is that with enough designs to fill and maintain a changing content in on-line stores, blogging about the images and how they were created and what and what I was doing to the designs as I progress through this wilderness of the web that I could with a lot of work and persistence generate interest. That is the premise. I might add, I want to start my objective of painting, again, everyday. (High hopes----ooooops there goes another rubber tree plant.)

At the same time, in building this site to blog about all of my activities, wheres, whys, and hows of the construction, this blog will embrace the whole and while opening and building the store fronts to accommodate my work, I will be able to build the albums of the portfolio which I introduce in this site introduction. That is actually by default as I compile the designs for other usages.

These are the headers I build yesterday and plan to create the stores for them:

This Snowman Pastiche is now in progress and I am filling it.

Tags: "building on-stores" "plan for blogs" banners

Well, you live and learn. And last evening I learned that I hit the wrong key and deleted all of what I worked on for an hour to present -- the way in which elements and color in designs, even of different cultures and from different points in time, touch and excite artists such as myself and what happens as the result.
So I will try to re-enter my post and expand the connection.

I was asked by a company to create some designs using Mexico as a point of departure. I researched the idea and fell in love with the wonderful designs found on the ‘ceramica’ of Mexico. I love strong dramatic color, color which vibrates the emotions in my body. I found in the designs of yesterday, the tourist ware, and the elegant designs of the ‘Talavera ceramica’ titillated that emotion.
Samples of the majolica designs I found on the TALAVERA SHOP and elsewhere. The designs reflect the Spanish influence and can be likened to decorative design of Spain, Portugal and Italy.


This is a design which I did for products inspired by the tile designs of Mexico. This is a card available at ‘a la mode’.


The same design is applied to Keds shoes and available at ‘a la mode’.

The tourist ware is quite different but I fell in love with the earthy reality and the bold renditions of everyday life. The joy, the sorrow, the celebrations, the beliefs and the COLOR touched my own creativity.
This example is was located at ‘early california antiques’ and it shows a peasant sitting with his back to the viewer and the cactus on the right. These designs can be found with grounds of deep blue, terra cotta, black or a green wash or even on a neutral base but always illustrated with everyday reflections.



I purchased a book, ceramica mexican pottery of the 20th century by Amanda Thompson in cooperation with the California Heritage Museum, Santa Monica, California, which opened the door to a beautiful history and photos of many different kinds of Mexican ceramic.


Below are my own configurations and combinations of color and design; all of which were inspired by the look and feel of tourist pottery from Mexico during the 1930s and 40s.



SHOES in ‘a la mode’

MOUSEPAD in ‘a la mode’
Further information on Mexican tourist ware:
mexicofilenewsletter200609

Tags: Mexican pottery ceramica tourist ware

I have taken a number of wild animal skin designs and added the tribal motifs of Africa. Those designs were rendered in gouache on Arches Aquarelle/Watercolor, hot press, 90lb paper. The tribal motifs were gleaned from the reference, AFRICAN DESIGNS From Traditional Sources, by Geoffrey Williams. This is a great book and is the obvious reference for many of the leading designs which have in recent years been on every thing from sheets to clothes.

This is what I did with my designs:




The Congo motifs are on the sides, heel and across the upper part of the toe on this shoe. These shoes are available in my shop, ‘a la mode’.

The store is growing and also contains designs inspired from Mexican Pottery which I will be developing tomorrow.

Tags: African, wild, skin, animal, design, painting Congo

And this is an example of a card composed of the animal skins of an Indian Tiger, an African leopard and the African plains zebra. This design was rendered with gouache and was licensed as a gift bag to a manufacturer previously and now, I edit it, place a line of type on it and use it as a card. The card can be customized in the shop to say on the inside anything the buyer might like to say. It will be available in WILD and in ‘a la mode’.




This is an example of product in stores which are currently using the animal skin motifs. This wonderful tote bag comes from POTTERY BARN.



House hold products sold there which also use the motifs are found in their plush jacquard-woven bath towels.
Jacquard meaning woven on a loom with an intricate and variegated pattern.

Tags: African, wild, skin, animal, design, painting

I have now compiled images and edited them for the following stores: OCTOBER 31, HALLOWEEN NIGHT, WILD from Edith, and ‘a la mode’. Currently, I am adding images to the ‘a la mode’ shop. This shop is largely based on fashion trend and there is and has been a trend for animal skin designs for household product and for linens and textile. So pulling these designs from my portfolio has been fun. There is also a heavy trend and has been for several years to add the feminine form to product. Say, interesting faces, women busy with packages, women or girls doing things they enjoy and I have some looks which were painted with an impressionist style which I am adding to the products I will be placing in ‘a la mode’.




Products with women’s faces or form are everywhere and on every thing from greeting cards and wrapping paper to fabric and household products. One interesting use of women’s faces is on shoes. The ED HARDY line by Christian Audigier from NOTHING TO WEAR has created a most interesting rendering by using needle point and placing the face of beautiful women on high top sneakers.




The animal skin designs are flexible and I can quickly change them into product of various kinds. They are dramatic and they touch a place which causes one to think about where these animals come from and about their place in the world. This vary interest and focus on the design whether as a painting or a product brings the animal’s welfare to the front . Fashion no longer support the use of real animal skins and real fur but the use of the patterns in textile and surface design keeps the animal and his habit in an awareness.

Tags: women, "a la mode" impressionism skins animal "animal skin design"

This is an example of one of the kid’s t-shirts which I have created in OCTOBER 31. I took the original digital file and removed the center and main element, cleaned it and added a few stars and a line of type (Photoshop CS3), up-loaded to the store and applied it to a product. Here is the original. I moved this image around to make cards, t-shirts, and I will put the design on Ked’s shoes.




Learning how to do all of this sometimes results in a tangle of unexpected results! I have lost my entries. Sorry about that but it’s what happens when you are learning how to do new things.

Tags: Halloween mouse "t-shirt" painting

This is one of my Halloween shops. Take a look and check it out.



create & buy custom products at Zazzle

Tags: Halloween shopnew blog

It’s time to bring the fun and anticipation of Halloween to design table. All the trade magazines and the mail order catalogs are featuring the products for Halloween. I have a large collection of Halloween images which I have licensed to manufacturers under the pseudonym ‘Mary Parker’. Well, those fun illustrations are going to find themselves all opened up and available on products of apparel and gifts this year in my shops, OCTOBER 31 and HALLOWEEN NIGHT.

I am excited about the Keds shoes which I have designed and have in my OCTOBER 31 shop. So far I have created 15 pairs of Halloween shoes. They are a wonderful way to enjoy the season and I have them in women’s and kid’s sizes. There are lace ups and slip ons. Cool!

I am filling these shops and two others, ‘a la mode’ and ‘WILD’ while planning to open the Christmas shops. Having a very large portfolio of designs with many different collections is an exciting asset. It’s like opening a chest of images all set and ready for new products, gifts and those cool shoes. I love it.

HALLOWEEN SHOES!!! They are in OCTOBER 31. Check them out.

Tags: Halloween, shoes