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Momentary Contact – A Call to the Heart

by Adonna Ebrahimi

For this body of work, instead of holding a paintbrush, I challenged myself to use natural objects from the outdoors and discarded items from the home. The contrast of these dual sources brings competing energy to the process. I like the pleasant tension. Pressing my fingers into the deep smooth paint and onto the flat coarse canvas sparks a sensation of pure joy and energy and reveals these flowers as I enthusiastically create. I hope you can appreciate this experience and perhaps imagine how you might approach it if given the time and space.

I have always loved flowers, everything about flowers. When I plant them, I wear no gloves. I want to feel the soil as I prepare the space that will ultimately nurture beautiful blooms. I want the touch and the scent of the soil on my hands. It connects me with the focus of my art. Have you ever felt that? If not with soil and flora, then perhaps with some other tactile creation. You of course have.

Flowers have a general, basic design that repeats in thousands of forms. And yet, each one is its own miracle of intricate shape, texture and fragrance. A single flower can compel us to joy. And when one flower combines with some others – of the same species or not – in a single spot, the result can mesmerize an unsuspecting viewer. I seek that power when I paint.

Some of my “tools”. Fork, feather, bubble wrap, credit card, shelf liner, and my fingers, of course 🙂

Bio

Adonna Ebrahimi
Born and raised in the Cincinnati Tri-state area, Adonna relocated to the West Coast in 1998 and began her professional art career. After being introduced to commercial art through a vocational – technical program in high school, she knew at a young age art was her calling. While working for small advertising agencies in Northern Kentucky and New Jersey she raised a family while eventually being led back to what she has always held dear in her heart, creating original art. Adonna’s mission is to create art that inspires and uplifts people in their sacred space.

Working out of her studio at H Gallery & Studios off Main Street in mid-town, Ventura, CA, Adonna invites collectors inside by appointment. She shares new work on social media platforms, Instagram and Facebook, and you can find her @ArtistrybyAdonna as well as on her website, www.artistrybyadonna.com.

Her floral interpretations invite you to experience her love of flowers and transmits onto canvas unique tools found in nature and one’s household versus standard brushes. This has resulted in a body of work that prompts viewers to take a much closer look.

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Jumpin’ on the Throwback Thursday Bandwagon

Reporter's First Place WinI thought the day would never come when I would start posting old photos, but here I am in 2019, and mysteriously, this 35-year old gem rose to the top of my flat files.

For weeks I’ve been seeing Throwback Thursday images sneak into my Facebook and LinkedIn feeds. Old photos continue to pop up, so what’s the point of making the excuse that all my photos are old? Of course they’re all old—it’s just a matter of degree.

Throwback Thursday can really take you back. The photo I chose to post shows me being hoisted by the Three Bearded Men early in my Photojournalism education.

While Editor-In-Chief of The Reporter, Moorpark College’s student-published newspaper, our staff grabbed a First Place General Excellence trophy at the Journalism Association of Community Colleges southern California conference.

That was the spring of ’84 when journalists were still using typewriters, film cameras, Compugraphic Editwriters and the old process camera.

Just one year later in the spring of ’85 Apple introduced the LaserWriter, the first desktop “type and image setting” machine, changing My World and The World forever.

Guide to Card Sizes

Preparing handmade greeting cards or note cards can be tricky, especially if you want them to fit in standard sized envelopes. Here is a chart that will help you as you prepare your card stock and artwork. Protective sleeves are also a nice packaging touch, and can be purchased to fit only one card and envelope, or up to 8 cards and envelopes. Note that the A6-8 sleeve only holds about four A6 greeting cards and envelopes.

Use the charts below indicated standard U.S. sizes to assist in sizing when creating your own greeting cards.

The sample below shows how to position your artwork on 8 1/2″ x 11″ cardstock. If you are using electronic files, and you want the image to print right to the edge of the card (called a “bleed”), the image needs to be larger than the size of the card. The red lines below indicate the bleed position on an A7 vertical card. The bleed must hang over on three sides by a minimum of .125″.  Then, after you print your card you can trim it to the right size.

Flair Magazine Annual is Back in Print

Flair Magazine 1953 Annual

Left is the original 1953 Annual, and right is a reprinted compilation of the critically acclaimed magazine.

While out and about last weekend I happened to wander into a Barnes & Noble bookstore.

As usual, I found myself in the Graphic Design section, and my attention was immediately drawn to a large red volume on the top shelf.

Pre-ecommerce, I had searched unsuccessfully for another copy, wondering if the magazine had been published for more than just one year. The volume in B&N was confined in a clothbound box and shrink-wrapped, so there was no opportunity to browse its pages.

Knowing Flair was again available, I checked it out on Amazon. Still, no opportunity to flip through the pages but with plenty of copies available, I snatched up a cheap one just so I could cut out the uniquely designed and printed pages.

Flair was quite innovative and was said to be “the first magazine that became an art form,” featuring the work of Salvador Dali, Matisse, George Bernard Shaw and Walker Evans to name just a few.

According to the Amazon description of the new publication, “this facsimile edition offers the same ingenious bookmaking of its predecessor, including multiple gatefolds with die-cuts, booklets, and accordion folder leaflets.”

If you’re a fan of uniquely printed art, you might pick up a copy of the Flair Annual 1953 while it’s still available.

Print Mount bags

Buy Only What You Need, and Take a Discount

A focus on service means we’ll gladly break a package of 100 to sell you only what you require. Whether you need 10 or 10,000 clear greeting card bags, print sleeves, bookmark sleeves or clear plastic boxes, we take the time to carefully inspect factory shipments and customize your order, so you save big, especially on oversize bags. We also offer shipping choices, including USPS Retail shipping so you can save even more!

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Delicate Balance

This image was cropped to a square to ready it for a square greeting card design.

This image was cropped to a square to ready it to print a square greeting card.

A tiny flying insect that I called a “fairy-fly” landing on the flowering Nandina, aka Heavenly Bamboo, inspired me to do a quick photo shoot on my lunch hour last week.

“No matter the time you live, no matter who, or what you are, every one and every thing is in delicate balance.” Should I add typography to this image? What words? Different words? The jury is out. What do you think?

 

Type Machinations for the Typophile in You

TypoPaint portraitSearching for a definition of “typophile,” I ultimately found one that suited my purpose at Urban Dictionary, which, aside from its definition of typophile, is worth further exploration and I recommend you do so.

Suffice it to say, I am a lover of type, one might even say, I am obsessed with type. I’ve been that way ever since I was a child, and I suppose I’ll always love type.

Which explains why I was intrigued by an article for a Photoshop filter that aids in creating illustrations using, you guessed it—type.

It’s amazing how much creativity and technology programmers have packed into Typo-Painter. Illustrations like you see here can take minutes, instead of hours or days.

Typo-Painter is a fun little Photoshop filter that produces a typographic representation from any raster image. Of course the first thing I thought of Typo-Painting was myself, but people are obvious. Typo-Painter can be used on any raster image, using customizable text. It has a simple interface window for font, horizontal resolution and size. In all, a few simple controls yield a multitude of possibilities. Specially priced at $5 on Mighty Deals, it just might be worth a try.

 

There’s Reason to Celebrate. The Shipping is on Us!

fireworks

You asked for it and we’re delivering. No matter how large or small your order, for the next week, standard delivery is FREE. Enter the code INDSHP at checkout after choosing your shipping method. This offer can’t be combined with other discounts or offers and is good through 7/8/14.

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Important documents need protective packaging

Apple, Inc. sponsored ad for Educom '87If it’s Thursday, it must be throwback time.

While today, so much of our news is digital, electronic, and fleeting, all the more reason to protect your tangible items like photos, newspapers, cherished greeting cards and other important documents in clear protective bags. We don’t have any minimums on the quantity you order, and that can help you save money, especially on the larger size bags. No matter what size you need, you can order 3, 300 or 3000.

Order your bags today, and don’t forget to take advantage of a variety of ways to save on Oak Creek coupons.

Spring is in the air, at least in some parts of the world and that means time to go through the flat files and drawers where we might find newspaper clippings, photos and other important documents. Performing this ritual, I found an accumulation of documents needing protection before decaying into yellow dust. Luckily, the older documents, like this Los Angeles Times article about Educom ’87, have long been comfortably nestled in clear plastic bags designed especially for protection, preservation and display.

The first time I worked as a consultant to Apple Computer, Inc. was in 1987 when I was one of a 3-person team hired to design and produce a daily print newspaper for the Educom ’87 international conference for higher education. For this purpose, the company Desktop Design was born, and John Grzywacz-Gray, Roger Karraker and I named our team Piece o’ Cake Productions.

Our 5-day mission was to demonstrate Apple’s cutting edge technology to university educators from around the globe by producing a daily “On-the-Spot” newspaper covering the conference. Each morning we delivered a new edition to the conference floor. To our knowledge no one had ever done this before. We were making “desktop” history. For the next three years, our Piece o’ Cake team consulted and worked with Apple, Inc. to introduce new technology to educators. Apple, Inc. sponsored ad for Educom '87 .