Sunday, January 31

New Banners for My Shops! Let Me Know What You Think!

I just created two new banners since my trial of Adobe Elements is getting ready to time out. What do you think? I changed the photo shop banner because it still had paintings in it from when my shops were united. I also found a seller on etsy who makes coffee cup sleeves out of your shop banner! How awesome is that! I ordered one of each of the shops. Here's the old one:


I'm not sure I love the overall color tone, I may keep working on it.


I really like the painting shop.

I'm also working on a ceramics shop banner for a shop COMING SOON!
Bookmark it now! I'll be getting pieces up there soon!

Saturday, January 23

New Painting!

Here's my newest painting! It's another scene I photographed at the Woodford house in Fairmount Park, here in Philly. I have to tour these other houses.

Friday, January 22

PHOTOGRAPH GIVEAWAY:

Giveaway Day Has Arrived!

And the Winner is...............

Paintingpam!

Congrats! You'll be getting a free 8 x 10 photograph of your choice from my etsy shop, www.allisonostertag.etsy.com

You can follow Pam at her blog: http://paintingpam.blogspot.com

I went old-school and put everyone's name on a piece of paper, folded it, put it in a bag and asked a unbiased party (Emily, my coworker) to pick a name. Sorry for those of you who didn't win, but I was really excited by the response so I'll be doing this again soon! Check back for more info! Thanks everyone who is now following my blog! BTW, I would have held the drawing at noon, but we had an office meeting until 2!

Saturday, January 9

FREE 8 x 10 PHOTOGRAPH GIVEAWAY!

I'm giving away one free 8 x 10 Photograph of your choice, and you can choose from any image in my etsy shop that is 8 x 10 or larger! All it takes to enter is to leave a comment someplace here on my blog (any posting)! When you leave your comment, be sure to mention you'd like to be included in the giveaway! The drawing will be in two weeks and I will notify the winner by e-mail.



New Year, New Fabulous Cookbook!



For the last couple of years I've treated myself to a new cookbook every year and this year I'm so excited by "My New Orleans" by John Besh. It's a huge beautiful coffeetable book with fantasticphotographs, but what impresses me the most is his mission to save the rituals, incomperable local ingredients, and what makes New Orleans different from getting muddied by post-Katrina influx and disorganization. With sections on celebrations like the Feast of St. Joseph and Revillion, features on strawberries (from the North Shore strawberry festivals), creole tomatoes, figs, seafood and odd items like mirlitons you'll find out alot about New Orleans you didn't even know. The writing is beautiful. Besh grew up in Slidell, LA and trained in restaurants there and in Europe, fought in Desert Storm and returned to the area to settle with his family where he runs several restaurants, so the stories are personal and the photos feature family and people he knows from the city.

I was most impressed with the section on the Vietnamese community and the new Urban Farm Besh is supporting, a 28 acre farm being developed by the community to allow locals to farm, hold a market and sell to local restaurants. Besh also raises his own hogs and cattle in town for use in his recipes. His comittment to local food is a huge asset to rebuilding a sustainable local economy that benefits the residents of New Orleans.

Last year I picked up these two cookbooks at the Big Blue Marble bookstore next to Weaver's Way co-op in Mt. Airy

Saturday, January 2

Mummers Parade 2010






Here are a couple of my pictures from the Mummers parade yesterday. I love the mummers and I did a research paper on them in college for my art history class on masks. I really appreciate how authentic it is in Philly, not a lot of polish or commercialism, just some folks working together, families and friends making costumes, raising money, painting backdrops, and doing their own choreography, music and working all year to put it together. Congrats Mummers! Thanks for all of the hard work!

Paintings In the Works



Here's one of the new paintings I managed to get done over the holidays.



And here is the photo I took at the Woodford House in Fairmount Park that I used as a reference image.



Here's another painting when I was first laying out the shapes and the reference image I pulled from a magazine hanging from my bookshelf.



Here's the same painting almost done (no flooring).



Here's the finished one. I'm really excited to finally be working on these again after being away from them for longer than I can remember. I posted both of these on etsy and I'm going to try and get some small 5 x 7" paintings done before going back to work on Monday!