I have just opened a Gallery on Imagekind, a US based print on demand service that allows you to purchase fine art prints from as little as $12.74US for prints which can be customized and ordered with millions of combinations of frames, museum quality papers, canvas types, and sizes.

Giclee Technology

Giclee is a form of fine art printing which is superior to any previous form of inkjet printing. Giclee is a French word that means a spray of liquid, which possibly derived from the word “gicleur” meaning “nozzle” or “to squirt.”

The giclee printing system allows a precise level of color representation and ImageKind offers eight different paper types and two different canvas types that are widely used in the visual art world for prints and paintings, look tremendous, and will last for years.

Examples of framed ImageKind prints:

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RedBubble.com is a new Australian online Art Gallery and Creative Community where you can purchase high quality prints and t-shirts with artwork, photography and digital imagery submitted by a gallery full of Australian artists.

I have recently set up my own gallery at RedBubble so that I can offer prints of some of my artwork and photography for sale. I will also be able to offer prints and t-shirts (and other products as they become available) of commissioned art to my clients.

Please click here to visit my RedBubble Gallery.

I only have a couple of images available for sale right now, but will be adding more as soon as I have a chance to re-scan images at a higher resolution than I use for display on my website gallery.

At the moment it is only for deliveries within Australia, but I am sure that in time, Red Bubble will expand to include many more items that will be available for purchase worldwide.

I have contemplated opening a store at Cafepress for a long time, and once I have my RedBubble gallery up and running I will probably look into Cafepress again.

Michelle

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This is the latest piece I have been working on, an acrylic landscape painting created in a modern minimalist style on gallery wrapped chunky canvas. This painting developed quite differently from my original inspiration, so differently in fact that I initially started painting purple clouds! I am quite pleased with the way this one is coming along, as it was the strong contrasts in the light and darks of a desert sunset that I wanted to capture, and in particular I wanted to achieve this with rather bold brush strokes (considering the size of the canvas) and some pallette knife work for added texture. After looking at this piece for several days I am contemplating whether or not to further lighten some of the area around the sun, and some of the reflections in the middle of the painting.

One of the things that I am finding rather surprising with the modern, minimalist, abstract/contemporary styles that I am experimenting with at the moment is just how long they take to complete to my staisfaction - simple and less detailed definitely does not necessarily equate to less time to create, and I can definitely say that I have a new found respect for artists who work in these styles!

“Desert Sunset”, Acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas, 2006

Right side view

Left side view

Cheers

Michelle

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This is the first floral acrylic painting I have done, of a tropical Bird of Paradise that I have growing in my front yard (I have a ‘brown’ thumb so its lucky this poor plant is still alive:). I really love the striking colours in this tropical flower, which is actually a native plant of South Africa and is also known as a Strelitzia.

This piece was definitely experimental, and a lesson in completing the background first - originally I had the flower backlit with a studio style background but I couldn’t achieve the halo lighting effect that I was visualizing so settled on a more abstract background.

The first image shows the whole painting, but after playing around with it in my graphics program I think for framing I prefer the closer crop of the second image. Overall I am happy with it, but at this stage I’m not sure if it needs more glazing or if it is ready to spray with gloss varnish so I will leave it for a couple of days and then take another look at it.

Above: Full painting Below: Cropped

“Bird of Paradise”, 8″x11″ Acrylic on canvas

More information on growing this beautiful tropical plant can be found on the Tropical gardening website.

Michelle

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This is a painting I completed yesterday, another in my flow series, experimenting with different interpretations of fluid motion. LOL - capturing digital images of my artwork is a challenge in itself -no matter what I do I can’t seem to get the images to accurately reflect the depth and detail.

I painted this one horizontally, like ripples in a pond, however when my ten year old daughter saw it she promptly turned it upright and told me I had painted a purple wave. That individual interpretation is what I love about abstract art, and I have called this one ‘Purple Wave’ purely because my daughters vision was different from mine!

“Purple Wave”, 5″x7″ on canvas board, 2006. Currently available at ArtByUs.

Michelle

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ACEO’s are a sub-group of Small Format Art that I also love creating. ACEO is an acronym for “Art Cards, Editions & Originals” - collectable little artwork gems only 2.5″ x 3.5″ in size. Size is the only guideline for artwork to be defined as an ACEO - they can be created in any al all mediums including collaged items, as long as they meet the size requirement, which is the size of a standard sports trading card.

ACEO’s can be framed and displayed on your office desk or walls or kept in a collection in Trading Card Albums/boxes as a mini art gallery for your coffe table.

Here are a few of the ACEO’s I have created:

“Purple Fudge” acrylic Abstract on mattboard

“Frog On A Log” Prismacolor Pencils on mattboard

“Lost in Thought” Prismacolor Pencils on mattboard

More ACEO’s can be viewed in the ACEO gallery on my website

Storm Coming, 5″x7″ acrylic on canvas board

I’ve been experimenting with a new Abstract series based on this concept, this first one, ‘Blue Flow’ is ACEO sized (2.5″ x 3.5″) acrylic on mattboard.

Viewed as Portrait format:

Viewed as Landscape format:

And the first one, as yet untitled, 3.5″ x 5″ acrylic on canvas:

Viewed in Portrait format:

Viewed in Landscape format:

The scanned digital images of these are rather disappointing as they have lost much of the vibrancy and depth of the originals. I havn’t varnished them yet, so will do so and see if I can get better images.

Michelle

Hi and welcome to my new art blog! My name is Michelle, I am a Western Australian artist who specialises in Pet Portraiture and Small Format Art in a variety of mediums, including graphite (black and white), Artists colour pencils, ink, acrylic and pastels.

Small Format Art (SFA) is defined as any type of artwork that has a maximum size of 14 inches (35.5cm) in any one direction. SFA is collectible, affordable artwork that make wonderful unique displays in homes and offices to suit your own personal decor or personality. SFA can be collected by artist, theme, style, color or an eclectic mix to create an eye catching display to suit your own individual taste. They are especially suited for small display areas such as hallways, mantlepieces and desk tops where larger art work would be unsuitable or simply wouldn’t fit.

As an artist with three small chilren, I love Small Format Art because the smaller size allows me to be creative and productive within the limited time that I have available. Although SFA’s can take 50-60 hours or more to complete over many days or even weeks, it is also very rewarding to be able to complete a finished painting in a looser more artistic style in just a day or two!

I love animals and the majority of the artwork I create is animal portraits. As a professional Pet Portrait Artist, my pet portraits are highly detailed and very realistic - if you would like to see examples, they can be viewed on my website http://www.pencilportraits.com.au.

However, with the SFA I create, I find myself drawn more towards less realistic styles that really express my creativity - I really don’t like labels and would prefer at this point in time not to be limited to creating art within the confines of only one artistic ’style’. Many different art movements inspire me and as a result, the SFA that I create is an eclectic mix of styles that might normally be labelled as abstract expressionism, minimalism, surrealism or modern/contemporary with some representational pieces thrown in for good measure! That is my idea ofArtistic Freedom:)

I’ve decided to create this blog as a separate entity to my original blog http://www.petportraitartist.blogspot.com/ for several reasons - firstly, for myself I like the idea of maintaining a visual diary of my work and at the same time being able to record some of my thoughts and emotions surrounding each piece, and secondly the majority of Small Format Art that I create will be available for sale in different venues such as Ebay, Art Wanted, Art Cards Wanted and Art By Us and by listing each artwork here in one place, it will be easier for me to keep track of everything, plus I would imagine it will be a bit easier for those who like to collect my artwork:) If you would like to join me on this journey of dscovery, please add this blog to your RSS feed to recieve notification when new art work is added (simply click on the second orange button on the right that says ‘Feed’ - or if you use atom click the first button that says ‘Site Feed’).

Cheers

Michelle

‘Tall Poppies’ 4″x4″ art squared, acrylic on canvas, 2006

‘Solitaire’ 4″x4″ art squared, acrylic on canvas, 2006.

‘Ginger Kitty’ 4″x4″ art squared, Prismacolor pencils on blue suedeboard, 2006

Michelle

PencilPortraits

Just to be different I have painted several modern/contemporary abstracts which are very different to the more normal highly detailed and realistic animals I normally do. My aim with these was in fact to avoid lots of detail and take the minimalist approach. These are all 4″x4″ art squared pieces, acrylic on canvas. I really enjoyed doing these and have listed two on Ebay to see how they go - they were a lot of fun and in between commissions, I plan on doing a lot more in this small format size.

Solitaire

Tall Poppies

View From The Dunes

Michelle