A big "thank you" and some progress

Looking for that creative spark with my camera... in the meantime...

Thank you, Dors

A wonderfully talented artist from Australia, Dors, has a way with pencil art. She asked me recently if she could execute a drawing from one of my photos, and of course I was delighted to say yes. You can see the completed work here on her blog (original is on my blog here).

Out of the blue a couple of weeks ago, Dors got in touch and kindly offered to send me the artwork. It arrived yesterday and, after leaving it for the day to "rest" flat after its journey in the tube, I had a look at it for the first time this morning. It's brilliantly executed and all the texture is there from it's woolly winter coat..

Well done Dors, and thank you so much. I'm now waiting for it choose its space on my wall :)

This week I 'ave mostly bin Zazzling

With Mother's Day coming up, I've been doing a fair amount of creative work on my Zazzle store. I've done some other work as well and I thought I'd share some of the designs I like most of all.
Click any of the images to see more details and read the verses etc.

Remember, all designs are customisable so you can add your name and your own message if you want.

Mother's Day
This Mother's Day card features a reproduction painting of a sleeping lady and a verse that starts:

Some deserved words to say how much I
appreciate all the wonderful and loving
things you've ever done for me...

Read more by clicking the card

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Orange Lady for Mothering Sunday
 ..and this one starts:

A very special bond was created
when you gave me life.
I love you Mum and want you to...

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Pink Princess
A cute birthday card for a Dad from his little pink princess. The inside verse starts:

He reads me bed-time stories,
To spin me nice dreams
And buys me lots of presents...

as always, click the image for more...

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Keep things safe
Cute stickers to keep a little pink princess's things safe. Stick them on school books, belongings and private things in your room.
Make sure no-one touches them at the risk of having their head chopped off! They have been warned!!

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Keds Ladies Shoes
The renowned Keds shoes with one of my designs. These lace-up ladies shoes feature the Lady In Orange design of a lady looking wistfully into the distance. Click the image and see the shoes from all the different angles.
If you like this design, you can see all the other items in my store which feature it.

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Heroes of Classical Myth
The customisable quote reads:

Non illegitimi carborundum est

Do you remember this humorous mock latin phrase from a few years ago? I've suggested two other Latin quotes you can use instead. Also available as a fridge magnet

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St. Patrick's Day Stein
Here's a stein featuring Spudman Paddy and a number of traditional sayings in Gaelic for Paddy's Day, celebrated all over the world by anyone who can claim some form of Irish, Gaelic or Celtic connection. For example:

Croi follain agus gob fliuch: "A healthy heart and a wet mouth!"

Click the stein for more... and you'll find a link to all the St Paddy's Day gear I've made.

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Even birthday card humour!
The sheep, with its cute inquisitive face is saying:

Is it ewe that's got a Birthday today?

with an equally dreadful pun inside! hehe!! Perfect for that difficult to buy-for friend or relative, it strikes just the right tone of friendship ..and you can always act a bit sheepishly (groan) at the dreadfulness of the puns!!

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Money-off Coupons

Check out the current coupons you can use against purchases from my store and see how much you'll save!


comments / feedback always welcome :)

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I made some sales through my Zazzle store

I'm finding the creative work on Zazzle rewarding, almost in it's own right and, bonus, I make sales, too!

It's not always my fine art that sells...

Here are some of my sales in the last few days, not a black and white / art photo amongst them!

Lose it at the weekend - poster

DJ on the decks - birthday card

Salsa dance fun

Daddy from Princess birthday card & verse 

My sales pitch...

All are customisable with your own words / pictures. See how easy it is to do on my Zazzle store: HightonRidley

I've got lots of blank cards with a selection of my artwork ready for your own message, have a look and let me know what you think. ...And for kids you might like gifts and cards from my Spudpeeps range.

If you're the type who likes to say the extra special things on a greetings card, you should probably see my Thinking of You, Thank You and Inspirational ranges.
I've even got a Gothic range, for those whose tastes tend that way. And if you're a romantic at heart, see everything with traditional poetry.

If you like what you see, you'll probably want to spread the word and tell friends and relatives alike, I'm sure. Folks do like to hear personal recommendations because there's so much dross and so many scams around—so help them out and let them know.

Go on, right now - strike while the iron's hot!  :) If you twitter, then click the tweet button, or maybe you do lots with stumbleupon - click the Stumble It button. It all helps, so thanks in advance!!

Own a piece of my affordable artwork

...on something useful. Remember, the very best of my shots are available on items to suit all pockets. If you find an image in my galleries you like, there'll be a panel next to it showing all items available with that image. I know that many, many of my followers really like my work, and if you are one of them, you'll find something affordable to own, whether t-shirt, poster, card or mug.

I love to read your feedback and you can be sure I take it into account as my art progresses...

comments / critique / feedback always welcome :)

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I apologise in advance...

...for the birthday card verse I wrote—it's a right groaner (you can avoid it by reading no further!)

From a Pretty Pink Princess to her Mummy

(or Mommy)

I love my Mummy because...

She helps me play dress-up, I get to use makeup,
We giggle and laugh a lot.
She chooses the dresses, the shoeses and tresses,
And ties up my hair in a knot.

She's now my hand-maiden, with eyes of black raven,
And maybe a hint of a witch,
In dreamland at Camelot, I rule and I'm Queen a lot,
With Mummy to see there's no hitch!

Copyright 2010 HightonRidley

What did you think of my cheek, rhyming "shoeses" with "chooses" and "Queen a lot" with "Camelot"? Anyway, here's the card I wrote it for:

And while I'm on about my Zazzle store, I did another Potato Patch character - Spudpeep Paddy, who is the first aider there. If any of the other Spudpeeps have an accident, he sorts out any cuts, bumps and bruises.

see all my Spudpeep Paddy items in my Zazzle store

You may now punish me in the comments for my dreadful rhyming!

comments / critique / feedback always welcome :)

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A group shot in the potato patch

I think this was their New Year Party!

Spudpeep Group Shot

Here's the Spudpeep folk so far, hanging out in a corner of the Potato Patch where they live.
From left to right we have Spudgirl Daisy, Spudman Yeehaw! and Spudpeep Bounce.
I think Yeehaw likes Daisy. What do you think?

See the kids gear, gifts and cards they appear on over on my Zazzle Store

If you leave a reply, do you mind being both brave and honest? If that's ok, rate them on a cuteness scale of 1-10, ten being puppy-cute and one being "stick to photography"!!

comments / feedback always welcome and actively sought :)

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Another Spudpeep - meet Bounce!

Spudpeep Bounce

Here's another of the Spudpeeps folk that live in the potato patch. Spudpeep Bounce is lots of fun and likes to bounce everywhere. If you can't get there by bouncing, Spudpeep Bounce just might not turn up! And being so bouncey, a special tumble-proof hat is a must. Do you see it?

See the kids gear and gifts he appears on over on my Zazzle Store

comments / critique / feedback always welcome :)

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Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my readers!
Have a really great time and here's hoping for a prosperous New Year to you.

Spudman Yeehaw

My new character comes from a series I have planned, called the Spudpeeps of the Potato Patch. And he says "Happy Christmas", too!

I've been drawing these characters for years, mainly for personal amusement. Back at school and college I used to sneak into empty classrooms and draw them on the chalk / whiteboards. I've even been known to do it in meeting rooms in my business life! Ever the child, hehe!

Spudman Yeehaw is a delightfully friendly chap. He loves horses and wants to ride one someday. He runs around all the time pretending to be a cowboy and being very helpful in a clumsy sort of way. Sometimes things end up in more of a pickle after he's been helping!

He even features on some of my cards and gifts over at my Zazzle Store

comments / critique / feedback always welcome :)

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Desiderata Poster - love it or hate it?

This just goes to show...

I Have Time

I took this picture ages ago now and returning to it recently, I wondered why it's not proved more popular. My artistic intent was to use it to portray a sense of facing the future, one with portent and hazard but with a feeling of being in control of your own destiny.

A serene horizon shows the outlook is potentially good but the overhead clouds curling down, almost reaching for you (the pillar), acts as an omen, warning of the potential danger that lies all round.

I processed it with that in mind, going for heavy contrast and lots of grainy, dirty noise in the sky. Maybe it was lacking something else? This is the one:

I Have Time

As I said, its not done so well in views, comments or with real-world galleries. But I was confident in its 'worth' as an image so I scratched around in my head for ideas and Desiderata (that great verse, starting "Go placidly amidst the noise and haste...") came to mind.

It's a wonderful verse, imparting great wisdom from a father to his son. Written in the 1920s it was, and still is to this day, great guidance for any teenager.

There's such a great fit between my artistic intent for the image and the verse, that I put the two together for a poster in my Zazzle store ...and a couple of days later I sold two!
Here it is with the verse in place.

Desiderata poster by HightonRidley
More Inspiration Posters

Yaay for me!

The lesson? Don't give up on an image that you feel is great. All you have to do is find the right venue and audience. Like that's easy! lol, but at least you know where to put your effort.

comments / feedback always welcome :)

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I made some sales at Zazzle!

I know some of you are thinking about joining Zazzle so I thought I'd report back on recent progress.

Sales made

Sold 2: Dog Rose - notelet / card by HightonRidley
Browse more of my Cards

Sold 1: Grazing Pony - postcard by HightonRidley
Browse more of my Postcards

Sold 1: You Lift My Spirits postcard by HightonRidley
Browse my postcards

Products designed

I've laid my designs on 425 products from 40 images so far. The most popular fine art ones are shown in the panel:

make custom gifts at Zazzle

How easy is it to have and manage a Zazzle store?

In a word, relatively straightforward. I created my store on 11th Nov, so I'm three weeks into it (not many sales yet - but that's to be expected for such a new store) and haven't found anything that irks too much.

Like with any new arena, it takes a little while to orientate yourself to their way of thinking but once you've done that all works well.

The basic principles are:

Zazzle is..

...a Print on Demand store. Your designs get put on their product blanks and when they sell them, you get a royalty payment.
You don't even have to have any designs yourself, you can promote others' work and still earn a goodly commission from it.

Store Setup

• There are no setup fees or running costs. When an order comes in and they fill it, you get a royalty fee, based on a commission you set
• You create a store, choose a template / theme  and give it a name. Your store is located at www.zazzle.com/your_store_name
• It's also mirrored at .co.uk .au .ca and others, with all prices displayed in the local currency

Making products

• You place your uploaded images onto the various product blanks that Zazzle stocks
• You fine-tune your design for a product using a pretty neat design tool, sizing and placing the image. You can also add text with a huge number of typefaces / fonts to choose from.
  
• You give the product a title, description and a bunch of tags
  
• They have a Marketplace where you can put your stuff for sale, or you can keep your gear private
  (once in the marketplace, you can't change the image of a product)

Managing and promoting your store

• You get to create category folders and can have nested subcategories. You put the products in them and it's up to you how you organise this.
  
• They make it dead easy to promote your store or individual products, with the same sort of sharing facilities you see all over the web. They give you html for pasting into blogs and emails and generally make it easy to show off your stuff in places other than Zazzle
• I've used some of their promotion facilities in this post—all I had to do was copy and paste.
• They give you a Zazzle blog panel for putting in your blog sidebar though I find it a bit limiting. Instead I use Zazzlit! a Google gadget I created for the purpose. Look over in my sidebar at the top. See a tutorial on using it.
  
• Most blogging platforms are supported
• If you're feeling brave and aren't too afraid of changing CSS and HTML, they have a store builder and you can then control all aspects of your store layout
• ...and, no, I haven't been brave enough yet!
  

Most of my followers are other artists so I'm guessing you're one too? If you are, why not give Zazzle a go for your artwork?

If you decide to have a go, let me know so we can hook up on Zazzle :)

comments / critique / feedback always welcome :)

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Tutorial on using my new Zazzlit Gadget on your blog or web site

After something like five or six intense days, I've finished both my Zazzlit Gadget and the tutorial on adding and using it.

What is it?

Regular readers will know that I've recently opened a Zazzle shop (basically they make it dead easy to get your images onto products. No set-up fees.)

In these tough economic times, sales of my work through my web site have dropped off. People aren't really spending on fine art the way they used to. Not mine, anyway (and I keep hearing the same story from other artists).

The shop is a way to offer my work, albeit in a different way, at a much more affordable price. And it's starting to work.

So what is the Zazzlit Gadget? It's a way for Zazzle storekeepers to display just the products they want, in a small gadget in their blogger side panel or on their web site. Zazzle provide a couple of brilliant panels but they don't allow you to narrow down the products displayed.

But my Zazzlit does! I had to write it because I couldn't find one anywhere that did the job half decently, one that any shopkeeper could use. The thing about the Zazzlit Gadget is that I can put one on each of my sites / blogs and get them to display the type of gear most suitable to the folks who visit those places.

Tutorial - a piece of cake

My tutorial shows you in 5 easy-to-follow steps, with live working examples, how to point and click a Zazzlit onto your blogger blog.

Another revenue trickle / stream is always good...

I'd encourage any of the serious artists who follow me to sign up for a Zazzle shop - apart from the effort in uploading images and applying them to products, any sales made are pure profit. If you do, get things moving by using Zazzlit.

I'm not saying this is an instant earner but if you already sell your work and have a good handful or two of regular followers, then with Zazzlit you should see some additional revenue.

As usual, I'm after your feedback. What I want to know is, was the tutorial easy to follow and understand or did it frighten you?!

Secondly would you/will you use Zazzlit on your Zazzle store or does it have any drawbacks that need fixing?

comments / feedback always welcome :)

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My first Zazzle award!

As you know, I've just opened a zazzle shop (I think US folks have to use the US version of my shop to see the prices in dollars—let me know if otherwise, please.)

Lucky day for some...

Well on Friday 13th I happened to notice I was getting postings on my zazzle wall from peeps congratulating me on my "TBA". As I'm a complete zazzle newbie, I had no idea what this was. Some digging around later and I see it's quite an accolade—a Todays Best Award.

The product was a greetings / note card featuring my barbican steps image.

How exciting!

comments / feedback always welcome :)

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About my new shop's products

I thought I'd better explain why I've gone for a Zazzle shop and the difference between the products there and those on my website.

In a nutshell, if you don't want hand-processed, signed prints then they are much more affordable via Zazzle.

I don't make that many sales via my website—hand-processed limited edition prints of my artwork are relatively expensive (especially in today's economic climate) and are beyond the reach of most of my followers. However, I know that most really like my work, judging by the comments left and if you're one of them, it's now much more affordable to buy...

Products on my Website are...

• Hand printed on the finest quality paper
• Hand mounted using archival quality material
• Signed, dated and titled by hand
• Available as limited edition prints as standard
• For framed options I use a local professional framing service

Products in my Zazzle shop are...

• Much more varied, with mugs, t-shirts (to come), cards and more
• Printed on demand using a high quality process
• Customisable
• Much cheaper than the hand-processed prints on my website

See for yourself. In the panel below you can see my current range of cards and notelets (or if you choose, you can see all products).

With the Christmas holidays approaching, tell someone you care by sending them one of my fine art prints. What are the chances they'll ever get such a unique card from someone else?

make custom gifts at Zazzle

comments / feedback always welcome :)

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My shiny new Zazzle store

I've been searching for a while for a print-on-demand shop and now I've found one.

Zazzle.co.uk

Shops at zazzle are free to run—no setup or placement fees. Immediate appeal to a Scotsman! So I've spent the last couple of days setting mine up and I'm pleased to announce it's now open for business.

One, Two, Three - Snow! note / card by HightonRidley
Shop for a greeting card at zazzle

What's really cool is the level of customisation you can do to your products. You can even set some items, such as a card's inside message, as a template item. You provide the initial message but a customer can change or personalise it.

On top of that you can earn commission when folks follow your link and buy from other people's shops. Not bad.

The only drawback I found was initially getting used to the way you do things there, especially with the way you create products. But once you're used to it, it's really quite easy.

I know there's quite a few cat fanciers that follow my blog, so how about this:

Nedda by cunningba
Create Full colour postcards online at zazzle

comments / critique / feedback always welcome :)

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Mugs, Magnets, Note cards and coasters

I've just started a shop over at CafePress especially for various wares with my photo art work printed on it.

Free version of shop

I've set up a free version of my shop, which allows for one of each type of product. So for Walking The Dogs I've set up a mug, a fridge magnet, a pack (20) of note cards and a coaster.

Walking The Dogs

If all goes well and I make a few sales, I'll upgrade to a premium, unlimited-product shop.

comments / feedback always welcome :)

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Get your pony mug here!

I thought I'd try something a little different... here are my triptych pony shots on a mug.

Pony Mug

If you like my work and want to own a piece but mounted / framed prints aren't your style or are too expensive for your budget, you might like to get a pony mug via my CafePress shop, Mayflowersteps instead.

What do you think? Will people like them enough to buy one?

comments / feedback always welcome :)

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