Leave it to a Chicago politician to drive me out of my illustrator's block. Corrupt Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, was trying to auction off Obama's senate seat to the highest bidder despite knowing he was under the watch of the FBI. Makes you wonder how he got to be governor anyway.

Oliner Graphics participated in its first trade show yesterday. It was very fulfilling and very exhausting. I was extraordinarily busy and didn't get to sit down for 5 hours. There was a giant inflatable man (see below) across the floor from me which was quite distracting. The whole family came and wore my graphic t-shirts and they functioned as walking billboards which proved to be highly effective. I met other great vendors too that I can highly recommend, balloonartistry.com, Sarah Merian, who owns a photo/video company, and "two really fun jewish girls from Brooklyn" Karen & Sharon (917-359-3377) at partymavens.net.

Ok, now we're really having fun. I took a tabletop poster print (11" x 17") mounted it on foam core, cut out the portrait and made a foam core spinner for discounts and prizes. My beautiful assistant is also holding some of the "Oliner Cash Coupons" with her graphic on it that go with it.

Parents! Take a look at that portrait graphic over the spinner. Those tabletop poster prints are fabulous for using in many different ways at your own event. If you request it, I'll be happy to flip the art so that you can place the portrait on both sides of the same piece of foam core and stick it in your centerpiece! There's a great idea!

I'm setting up for my first trade show and thought I'd show you how big the portrait posters are and how cool they look next to a standard 12 year old boy. Once again, I took this image with the lowly mac camera (at 6:30 am, very bad light!) on my computer and it needs to be flipped. Why does it do that? With all the programming they have why can't that camera take a right-facing picture that I can use without me having to go into photoshop to horizontal flip???

I'm also back to programming again. I love it, I could easily transition to "geek" if I don't watch myself. I'm revisiting a site I made called Lauren's world. Here's the link if you'd like to see it, (click here!) I set this up when I first started programming and my daughter and her friends loved it. Trouble for me was it was too clunky and time consuming to use as an actual product on my site. I'm trying to reprogram the games now using frames (maybe a bit old fashioned, yes) and tables and importing it into my current Rapidweaver page layout program so that its more insync with my site. The goal is to take these pages and make an effortless web page for each of my Bar/Bat Mitzvah kids so that they can have their own Flash RSVP gaming page with their order.

How about this! I was working away in my office when these came to the door from the local PTA. They were thanking me for working on a logo and a new cover design for their school.

It's that time of year again. Time for the annual Hanukkah Luau. This began years ago when I wasn't quite sure how to throw a Hanukkah party and threw in the Luau portion to cover up any mistakes I made!



I actually cut out the envelopes and card stock and made that psuedo-embossed bronze colored leaf on the flap. I created the envelope out of crumbled supermarket paper bags to give it a rough beachy look. I also wanted to respect the economy and go green by cutting and creating my own invites for this yearly party. Look at that, I took the photos of the invites with my Mac camera and it looks like they need to be flipped!

What a day in the market. On lighter news my husband told me a joke,

"This market is worse than a divorce. I've lost half my net worth but I still have my wife!"

My artwork is meant to be seen LARGE. Which means on the teeny-tiny format of the computer you are missing some of the POW! of my poster-sized pieces. Here's an example of Elise, a lovely girl with lovely fine soft features which can get a bit washed out on the small screen. I've blown up parts of the image and, as you can see, when they are blown up even this little bit you can see so much more of the details and shading which make the pieces so rich and engaging.

THE BIGGER THE BETTER!!

Here's the stamp art sample!

Here's something nice I just got in…

Hi Liz!

We got your wonderful artwork a few days ago, and we are sooooo thrilled! Beautiful, exciting, eye-catching design & colors, with excellent materials, and workmanship, delivered in a timely manner, etc! We will definitely recommend your artwork to all our friends, and use your services again as the occasion presents itself. Thank you!!!!

Best,
Lyn 

This one was more party and polly pocket! More of those eyes and smiles.

Here's an interesting version of what you can do with the eyes in an illustration. The client requested "more sparkle" in her eyes as her entire life people have said she smiled with her eyes. Here's the first version...



...and here's the sparkle version! They really pop. I created the difference by layering a series of the lighter shades within the eyes with a variety of gradients. Further I added additional shading and highlights to the outside of the eyes to draw in the viewer. Its a subtle but very powerful difference that really changes the viewers perception.

This will be placed behind Diane at her latest book signing.

This was tough and still isn't finished. I need a model to base my work on and all the bulldogs I found as samples looked like this...
way too cute!


I pulled the sabre tooth fang concept from another dog illustration I found and tried to rework the concept but tried to make it more vicious. I may try to expand the body back to where the text begins. I'll look at it later.

another version of the same:


I don't know what I like better here. Now I'm thinking that I like him like this, he looks angrier. Maybe I'll change my mind later. Its always good to walk away from this stuff and revisit it visually fresh the next day.

Here's our Evan on site at his Bar Mitzvah with his sign-in-board. What a handsome guy! Its so great to get emailed these final photos. After I've spent about four hours illustrating someone and getting into the "zone" I feel like I personally know them, despite the fact that my clients are all over the country.

From the client:
Hi Liz,
Here are a few pics of the poster at Evan's duckpin bowling party tonight. Everyone loved it!
Jennie

My artwork is designed to be blown up HUGE! As you can see from the detail here from "sarah's right eye (scroll down to the bottom of the page for sarah's whole image) . Shown in the teenie, tiny scale of the internet really takes some of the power away from them. If I only had to worry about my work appearing on the net I could probably cut down my illustration time to 1/4.

To get that wow factor, I include a FREE portrait poster with the basic package. Its a huge 2' x 3'.

Thanks to my wonderful client Jennie, I have these great photos of Evan's Bar Mitzvah suited up in Oliner Graphic originals. Jennie is the best and all of her friends and relatives should tell her how great she is once they see this site! Thanks for sending me the photos!

For first time visitors to this site that want to see a blow up of Evan's art click here!

Aunt Ellen

Grandpa "Big Dad" Alvin

Evan and Aunt Ellen





Evan and his mom and dad

Evan's little sister Kennedy (future client?)


From the client:
The T-shirts were a huge hit, particularly the kids thought it was cool to have Evan on the shirts.

Team members can buy apparel and gifts here, http://www.cafepress.com/olinergraphics/4875903

Well, I've been working on that book cover for Diane Dutton. If you've been here before you've read how I did the test image based on myself. Diane has a fabulous website named http://www.businesswomenspeak.com/. She provides straight, clear ideas concerning how to get your voice heard in a male-dominated financial field. This cover is for her book called, "Soar Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Lock in on the secret weapons gauranteed to rocket your career." If you're interested, you can purchase the book with the old cover and title at this address: http://www.businesswomenspeak.com/womenladder.htm

I was just emailed this from one of my Bat Mitzvahs. In this case the mom used the poster to highlight where the sign-in books were and to help direct the guests to different locations. We also offer mini-poster prints (actually not so mini 11" x 17"!) for only $8.99 in our shop sites. These are great on doors and outside the building for parking etc. Don't forget the art makes great thank you cards too, all available in your shop. Don't forget this poster art is included in your portrait purchase.

Took my kids to my Celebrate Showcase (Bar Mitzvah/Sweet 16) Trade Show yesterday and I'm going to give a couple of plugs to the other vendors that they just loved! Here is my daughter sporting a balloon hat from the Twisted Balloon Company. My booth was next to his at the show and his work is fantastic. My kids walked around with these hats on and gave out his cards all day. (Of course, my kids were also my own walking advertisements sporting shirts from my own site.) He doesn't do centerpieces but if you're looking for them (perhaps with some Oliner Graphic images?) then look no further than Balloon Artistry. I watched him make a life-sized balloon palm tree in about 1/2 hour. It was amazing.



Sorry about the quality of this pic but I wanted to show the airbrushed tattoo. My kids picked these up and loved them from Joan at Everything Plus. Joan doesn't have a website but you can contact her at ibjbus@yahoo.com or 201-768-8942. Gail, the party planner's site had a fabulous character artist who draws quick party sketches right at your party. They were so much fun!



Of course, my kids also came home with tons of great photo frames and greenscreen images from The Main Event and Ace Entertainment. Dance Heads offer absolutely hysterical CDs. We couldn't stop laughing. Todd Yahney is a DJ who sported they "giant inflatable man" I discussed on my last trade show post but he gave out very cool photo magnets that they have plastered all over my fridge.

Here I am at my site, it was another busy, fun day.

My client has a great sense of humor. Because I'm realizing that people seem to respond more quickly to personal images on the web, I suggested that we pose her (my client) in various guises. Here she is as "Mom". I had her pose and then when drawing the image put the crazy hat, pearls and mom glasses on her. Not to mention I considerable aged her, really she looks about 29. I then went with the idea of the "Uncle Sam wants you" theme and there ya go. My goal with this would be to create a collection of images that her clients could look forward to when they logged in.