Casa Linda Estates, Little Forest Hills, Forest Hills

"Pinkie" 2.5x3.5 ACEO PURCHASE AT ETSY I just listed an ACEO over at Etsy. This is Pinkie the octopus, and she will be on sale for 50% off this week if you check out using promo code: IHEARTMOSAICS. She will go back to full price next week. Great addition to any Cephalopod collection. DESCRIPTION: Iridescent glass in the background, pink and orange glass on the Octopus. She is signed on the back and there is a hook for easy hanging. This small work of mosaic art is 2.5 x 3.5. She is packaged in a cotton bag for safe keeping. I will be listing new works all month over at Etsy so check back often. In addition to Octopus and Robots there is always plenty of dog and cat art!

Today I want to share my recent process video that shows the prep work I do using the smudge tool to soften and blend each and every pixel on my client photos. My subject is Lady and I hope you enjoy this Photoshop tutorial. If you are a potential client I think you will have a better understanding of my process and if you are a fellow digital artist I hope you find it helpful. I do offer classes in Photoshop and my next workshop is in June. "Lady" © rebecca collins /artpaw.com

ATC Mosaic Trading Cards © rebecca collins Pink Octopus © rebecca collins Last weekend I took part in a local ATC mosaic card trade and the theme was the beach. It gave me a great excuse to revisit Squid and Octopus. I made a pink octopus and a red tentacle that I traded, but I had one pink Jelly fish looking guy that I could not let go of because I loved him too much. I really liked his composition and it sort of inspired an entire "series" of ATC sized Octopuses, or Octopi. So this last weekend I started working on a full dozen ACEO cards. Red Tentacle © rebecca collins Doing so many of these in different colors I started thinking about the terms artists use when working in multiples on the same subject. I could call this a "study" because I am having fun seeing how the different glasses combine and cut. I could call it a "series, or I could say that it is "production" work since I do intend to sell them eventually. I will for now avoid the "production word", because for me that implies it is no longer fun and I am actually have a great time doing these little cards. Each one is very different even though they have the same basic layout. I do intend to choose my favorite color combo and create a larger project based off of these little experiments so I suppose they are study in a sense. And then there is the whole concept of "obsessions". My very first mosaic was an octopus, and then my next 6 projects were Cephalopods of some sort and here I am returning to the subject again. We recently saw the Chagall show here in Dallas and boy did that man have his iconography down. Half way through the show you started looking for a goat, rooster, or violin in every single painting he did. Dont get me wrong, I loved his work and the show. Where was I, oh yes, artists do tend to get stuck on subjects and themes and I do not know when it borders on obsession and when it is just knowing what you like. I like squid, I like bugs, I like birds, I like robots, and yes of course I like dogs and cats. I like technology and I like glass. I think I will always return to the same themes over and over again. When it comes to my personal mosaic work it is never really about the subject when you get right down to it and it is much more about the process and the simple love of making things.

Today I just uploaded a video tutorial on using the liquify tool in Photoshop for opening up eyes. Most of my clients are totally unaware of how much prep work I do with their images before I even start playing with colors. Half shut eyes, missing ears, and pixelation due to low res images are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to issues that I often must resolve before I start working with color and paint tools. I know a lot of other pet portrait artists follow me here and I plan to start doing more tutorials when I have time. I will also be teaching a 2 day workshop in June here in Dallas on using the Wacom tablet. You can register for that on-line at the Creative Arts Center WebsiteCreative Arts Center Website. The fee is $225 and I will cover the smudge tool and the paint tool and students will get the chance to play with the Wacom tablet themselves. The workshop is Jun 29 - Jun 30/ SATURDAY & SUNDAY 10:00am - 4:00pm ( 2 days) Creative Arts Center Dallas Texas.

WISHING ALL OF YOU GUYS A TERRIFIC EASTER. The truth is that we are not terribly religious at my house, but I do love Easter and I love spring. For me I am reminded of childhood memories and all of the fun and silly things that American consumerism brings to the holiday.... Easter dresses and egg hunts and all of that pastel hued goodness. I remember picking roses at my Gan Gans house on Easter Sunday. Since I am not a person of traditional faith you may think that I will be missing out on the big important messages that so many will rise early to hear tomorrow and yet I will be spending the day off-line with my family & friends and I will be celebrating spring and celebrating new beginnings. I hope you get to enjoy the holiday exactly how you want to as well! "Big Tommy" © rebecca collins "Atticus" © rebecca collins

My Artist Pals at Pinterest MY ARTIST PALS: The other day I started a board on Pinterest to start adding my artist friends to. In the old days we all made good use of blog rolls, and links on our websites to our pals. Cross linking helps your friends rank well in the engines, however these days I think that very few people actually click around a new site they discover in hopes of finding cool links to other fun sites. They do however use the heck out of Pinterest. Please CHECK OUT MY FRIENDS and if you like their work then click through to their sites. LIVING THE CREATIVE LIFE: I am very proud to know a lot of really talented people, both on-line and off. In the last five years or so my husband and I have been very focused on expanding our creative communities here in Dallas. I think often my family tends to define us as the odd "Aunt and Uncle" without any children. I suppose having not created any humans does set us apart from our siblings however we are very focused every day of our lives on creativity and on creating, we just skipped the whole part about creating kids. Art fills us up and we never regret our choices. MY BEST ARTIST PAL: My very best artist pal is indeed my husband Dan Collins. He has a painting and printing background but he is really a Poet. He has been watching the mail this last month for a package from a publisher ... it came this week! He has been included in a terrific chapbook by Naugatuck River Review. You can purchase a copy for only $10 on-line at their site. There are some really terrific poems in the book and the cover is very lovely.

Before & After © rebecca collins / artpaw.com SEE FULL PROOFING SET. Working from ordinary snapshots is fun and yet challenging. Sometimes clients send in photos that tell a great story and yet they may be rather lacking in detail, or low in resolution. One recent client sent me several shots of his German Short hair Pointer, all of them full body action shots. He indicated he could send more pics if needed. Instead of asking for images with greater detail I chose to work with one of the images he sent because I sensed that he wanted me to paint his pup in action. I really loved the ears flying in the wind, and while I had to paint in some eye highlights to indicate that they were even there, I feel the overall story with this project is more important than a classic head & shoulder formal portrait where every whisker shows. © rebecca collins / artpaw.com Original snapshot

Nick Cave http://amoa-arthouse.org Last weekend I traveled to Austin for a workshop on art marketing ( will post more on that later), and I was so delighted to discover the work of performance artist Nick Cave. This artist creates what he calls "sound suits" out of a wide variety of materials from twigs, buttons, and hair to sequins. The suits make different noises when worn. When he made his first suit he really did not even know that he would be using them in performance. Of course the suits we saw were not moving, but they looked as though they might come to life at any moment. His technical execution is without flaw. I suppose if you had to try and label these by medium and technique you might want to say that Cave is working in fiber arts, however as a mosaic artist they look like "fiber mosaics" to me. I GUESS SOMETIMES THE THREE LETTER WORD "ART" IS REALLY ENOUGH. I asked, and no photos inside ... so of course we had to shoot a couple through the glass.The show closed on the 24th so we felt very lucky to have stumbled on to it. mosaicartnow.com

Yesterday I worked up at the Creative Arts Center with my students and I got a lot done on my own project. They seemed to enjoy having the extra lab time and I enjoyed getting out of my regular work space. I also was able to get a Teal color study done last week ... pics below. ATC Mosaic 2.5 x 3.5 inches Teal Color Study © rebecca collins Spare Part Robot Totem WIP Detail © rebecca collins As you can see in the above shot of my current robot project I am at the fun stage of adding bling to the surface that will not get grouted. I love working in stained glass and collage, however all stained glass mosaic work has a physical flatness to it that is impossible to escape unless you mix it up with other materials. My goal this year is to discover ways to work with the glass I love and introduce chunkier elements so that my layers start coming forward. I am really having fun with this fellow! Spare Part Robot Totem WIP Detail © rebecca collins Spare Part Robot Totem WIP Detail © rebecca collins

© rebecca collins / artpaw.com Happy Valentines Day everyone! My valentines day is going to be a good one. I get to work on mosaics today and tonight I teach class. Dan and I celebrated last night with dinner out. Maybe I will pick him up some chocolates later.

Robin Dodd Photography Found on Etsy This month I am looking at Teal. I once had a living room painted in a dark teal and it was so dramatic at night. WHAT IS TEAL ... TEAL is a low-saturated colour, a bluish-green to dark medium, similar to medium blue-green and dark cyan. It can be created by mixing green with blue into a white base, or deepened as needed with a little bit of black or gray colour. The complementary colour of teal is coral. It is also one of the initial group of 16 HTML/CSS web colours formulated in 1987. Its name is derived from the Middle English _tele_, a word akin to the Dutch _taling_ and the Middle Low German _telink_. As a color, its name is believed to have been taken from the small freshwater Common Teal, a member of the duck family whose eyes are surrounded by this color. Teal is one of those shades that many people can confuse. I am often surprised to find people calling baby blue teal sometimes. I LIKE TO THINK OF TEAL AS AQUAS DARK BROODING COUSIN. Where as Aqua and Turquoise are always ready for a party, Teal is much more likely to hit the streets late at night after the party is over. Teal is dark, rich and smoldering. Teal will not ask you questions that you can not answer and Teal is totally indifferent to your problems. Teal rhymes with steal and that is just what this hue will do when you combine it with warm golds, oranges or reds ... it will steal the show. Later this month I will be creating some new teal backgrounds here at Art Paw and will post some new dog portraits that take advantage of Teals drama. I started a board over at Pinterest for teal that you can follow.

A"Spare Parts Robot Totem" © rebecca collins Last August I started on this project. It got set aside when I got really swamped in the fall with portrait commissions. I am really happy to be back on him. I wrote extensively on my plans for this fellow last August. He has come a long way since then. You can see the prepped board without any tess below.... Once I get the base board glassed in I will grout and then work on top of that base with chunky tess that will not be grouted. You can see where I have laid out some black & silver bits ... those have not been glued yet. I will also be making some paper collage tessera on thin balsa that will get varnished and placed on top so that more of the digital collage work shows above on a top layer. This project is an experiment where I am trying to move forward with my layers and get chunky and build the work out and above the glassy collage work. You may not can tell from this shot but the spare parts sit on top of a thin board that gets bolted on. Even the ceramic robot head will get bolted on top ... see image below for the mechanics. I love the long size on this mosaic. This project is 12 x 36 x 2, and I would love to do 3 of these guys in different color combinations.

"Miss Bailey Hides from the Puparazzi" © rebecca collins / artpaw.com (see all proofs) This is one of 4 projects that will ship out today. I really enjoyed working on this sweet Yorkie in glasses. When an unusual shot like this comes in I really get a kick out of doing something different. Over the years we have done just a very small handful of pups in shades. © rebecca collins / artpaw.com "My own Ajax" © rebecca collins / artpaw.com

"Gertie" © rebecca collins / artpaw.com THIS IS GERTIE THE BULLDOG. Her Mom took advantage of our 50% off sale and she will be shipping out tomorrow. She ordered Monday and Gertie will ship on Friday. That is super fast, and it is super fast because this is a "_NON -PROOFING SALE_". My client chose her favorite red themed background and I got busy and created her portrait and now I get to ship asap. Proofing is a lot of fun, and I usually enjoy providing 14 different colorful samples on-line, but proofing does add a significant amount of time to a project. That is why I decided to offer a deep discount for Valentines day on "non-proofed" projects. It also allows me to hold a very unique sale that hopefully will not irk any clients that have paid full price in the past weeks or months. After all it is a totally different sort of custom art service, and a little less extensive from what I usually offer at full price. ANYWAY ... THE SALE ENDS AT MIDNIGHT TONIGHT SO CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO ORDER AND SAVE ON A PROJECT FOR YOUR SWEETHEART. I have several folks that have ordered multiple projects. I have a busy week ahead of me.... yay! Gertie Detail.

"Bird & Giant Berries" © rebecca collins / artpaw.com COMPLIMENTARY COLORS ARE THOSE OPPOSITE EACH OTHER ON THE COLOR WHEEL. Red & Green are my absolute favorite complementary colors. They just make each other pop. Often people are afraid to combine these colors because they think that they look like Christmas. While it is true that a pure Kelly green and a cherry red may look a little bit like a Christmas tree, the reality is there are tons of dirty shades of green and deep blood reds that can combine to create pure magic. Today I will post a few of my digital paintings that take advantage of the power of Red & Green. "Dezi the Bulldog" © rebecca collins / artpaw.com I love the colors above in the background, the green is so sour and yellow it is almost a gold. "Big Tommy & Ball" © rebecca collins / artpaw.com This is one of my favorite works I did of our Big Tommy. The lime green ball at the top right makes this piece pop. It gives it an action and a story. "Beetle sketch" © rebecca collins / artpaw.com The Beetle sketch above almost vibrates due to two different complimentary color duos, red & green are bouncing off of each other and also the purple antennas are playing off of the yellow background.

SAVE 50% FOR A LIMITED TIME SALE ENDS 1/31/13 I AM HAVING A LAST MINUTE VALENTINES DAY SALE! If you want to order and have me ship your artwork super fast and you want a red background then this is the sale for you. It is a _"NON-PROOFING SALE"_, which means that instead of providing you with 14 colorful samples to choose from ( often time consuming on my end and on your end); I just create the artwork and ship it out to you. YOU DO HAVE THE OPTION OF CHOOSING FROM 6 DIFFERENT RED THEMED BACKGROUNDS. USE PROMO CODE : "RED" WHEN YOU ORDER HIT RECALCULATE AND SEE YOUR SAVINGS. THEN E-MAIL US A PHOTO TO : ARTPAW.COM@GMAIL.COM Click here for more detail and to see the background options!

Art Paw Custom Pet Portrait Proofing Page WOW, LOOKING BACK AT DECEMBER LAST YEAR WE DID AROUND 38 PET PORTRAITS! A lot more than we will see this month. Things have slowed down a bit. I did get in an order yesterday, but for the first time in a long time I feel caught up. That is a nice yet scary feeling. So far this month I have proofed 9 clients. I guess next week I will send out a newsletter and see what I can do to drum up some business. If you are a repeat client dont forget that you can save 15% on future work by using the PROMO CODE : REPEAT when you order on-line with our shopping cart.

"My Eye" 2012 By Mary Ellen Croteau The mosaic above was made from bottle caps. Mary Ellen Croteau is a fine artist working in variety of media. She works large and small. She ended up on my radar from a post over at Artaic Innovative Mosaic Blog. I was in search for mosaics created from non traditional materials for a slide show presentation I will be sharing with my mosaic class this Thursday evening. "Close" By Mary Ellen Croteau Mary has nested bottle caps inside of each other and the end result is really breathtaking. This self portrait is 8 feet x 7 feet. I have a false story in my head that women do not take on large scale projects very often, and large scale works seem to get noticed in the art world. Maybe I only think that because "I" am afraid of scale, Mary is obviously not afraid of much! Check out more of her work on her website it is very well done and includes diverse galleries, spanning over 2 decades and even video interviews. ... http://www.maryellencroteau.net Non traditional Mosaic Board at Pinterest

"Seeing Red" My Inspiration Board on Pinterest I STARTED A RED BOARD TODAY OVER AT PINTEREST. Red is one of my favorite colors and yet I have done boards for pink, blue, orange, and yellow before I even thought of tackling red. I think I prefer red off-line more than on. It is so strong and often hard to photograph. I have found some yummy examples though. CHECK OUT MY PINS AND FOLLOW ME ON MY SEEING RED BOARD. I am still waiting for my book about the history of red to arrive from Amazon ... maybe next week I can share some facts on pigments and dyes with you. MY OWN THOUGHTS ON THE COLOR RED: Red can be a sledge hammer and honestly who does not want to throw down a sledge hammer every once in awhile. Red is an exclamation point, it seldom whispers, it is full of attitude and strength. You can try and class it up a bit with white, grey and black, but at the end of the day it is still going to be red. You never have to wonder about it ... it will not pretend. AS GREGARIOUS AND OVERLY DEMONSTRATIVE AS IT CAN BE ... RED WILL NEVER CHEAT ON YOU. I use a lot of red and warm tones in my work. Often clients will request reds when ordering a pet portrait for a man. It is a masculine color I guess, although I think of it as pretty gender neutral. ARTIST QUOTES ABOUT RED: "A thimbleful of red is redder than a bucketful. " - Henri Matisse "I love red so much that I almost want to paint everything red."--Alexander Calder "My mother warned me to avoid things coloured red." - Claes Oldenburg "Red protects itself. No colour is as territorial. It stakes a claim, is on the alert against the spectrum." - Derek Jarman " I want a red to be sonorous, to sound like a bell. If it doesnt turn out that way, I add more reds and other colors until I get it." - Pierre-Auguste Renoir "You cant go wrong with the use of red; every painting should have red in it." - George De Groat "A good painter needs only three colours: black, white and red." - Titian "What I love most about red is green." - Rebecca Collins

"Poste" Italy 2012 © rebecca collins "WHAT I LOVE MOST ABOUT RED IS GREEN" .... For my first post of 2013 I chose the "Poste" image above because it is red ... and yes it has a splash of green, is that electric or what? The other day I was thinking about doing color studies in Mosaic this year and a title for a piece came to mind before the actual piece even started to happen in my brain and that title is "What I love most about red is green". So anyway yea, I have a title for a mosaic so now I need to get busy with it. SETTING UP LEARNING CHALLENGES FOR MYSELF... For the past couple of years I have tried to take on difficult things to challenge myself artistically. In 2011 I played with the color pink all year long because I hated it and thought it was weak. Well I kicked pinks ass and I used it in every way possible that was not overly sweet and girly. Now I love pink, it is one of my favorite colors. Last year in 2012 I focused a lot on ceramics. I had a story going that I was not very good at ceramics and so I wanted to try the medium again and see what I could do with it. I can not say that I kicked clays ass, but I will say it is my friend and I am very comfortable there now. So here we are in 2013 and I am going to study and embrace my strong suit .... color. I am great at color, anybody will tell you that. I never worry about my color choices and instead I work intuitively and play with color like a child with a new box of crayons. I told my best friend about my choice for 2013 and she asked why do you feel like you need to study color? I told her it had nothing at all to do with need and while I think she was hearing the word "study" as intense focused hard work, I can only see studying as playing. I can not wait to get started! I do not know why it never occurred to me before that studying and exploring something you are already good at can be a challenge in itself. HOW TO START FRESH WITH COLOR AS THOUGH YOU HAVE BEGINNER EYES? HOW WILL I STUDY COLOR? I am going to choose a different color each month and focus on it both in my mosaic work and here at Art Paw. I am going to try hard to do one small color study mosaic per week. Those little works will be for sell in my Etsy shop. I am going to borrow from the web and other bloggers and start doing Tuesday-Huesday posts here on the blog. These posts will talk about one color for an entire month, so there will be 3 posts this month all about the color red! MORE WAYS TO STUDY COLOR ... I am going to be reading books about color and every time I go to an art show or museum I am going to really think even harder about the color choices that other people make and how those choices are unique to those artists. Last night we watched the 1990s movie Dick Tracy and I thought I was going to absolutely drown in pure reds, greens and yellows. If you have not seen it in awhile it is worth a revisit ... yummy color-candy there. So my study in 2013 looks like this ... I will be reading books, going to museums, watching movies and making art! Not a bad life. So anyway ... please check back on the blog with me this year.... I will have lots to talk about.

WELL I AM INTO THE FINAL STRETCH WITH HOLIDAY COMMISSIONS.... YAY! If you placed your order by my posted deadlines you have been proofed, and if you approved right away you have either shipped or you will ship by Friday. I am now working on just a few late December orders that I have allowed to squeak in. I am not accepting new orders for Christmas delivery. All new orders will go on to my January calendar. A FEW SHOTS FROM MY CRAZY CURRENT WORK LIFE .... Above: Screen shot of my "November Done Folder" ... 344 assorted folders, docs and items that represent about 35 projects. It takes up 10.98 GB of space. In addition to many digital files, I have dozens of paper to-do lists and hand scrawled phone messages each week... time to take out the trash. ABOVE: MY PROJECT BOARD ...see all the grey metal showing ...that is a good thing... it means that I am clearing things out. Bottom right corner is a stack of pending projects .... orders that were never paid, or photos were never sent. I do not have time to chase down assorted dropped ball or un-finalized orders. Above that is a stack of checks that need to go to the bank .... I do not even have time to take care of banking right now. AND IN MY FRONT ROOM 3 TERRIERS SHARE A CHAIR ...WISHING I WOULD GET MY WORK DONE SO THINGS CAN GET BACK TO NORMAL. THEY WILL LOVE CHRISTMAS ... THEY ALWAYS DO. Today I will be placing a holiday message on the phone and letting the machine catch my calls so I can focus 100% on the final projects that need proofing. I will return calls once a day each morning and evening, and I will do the same with e-mail. OK, I will probably check e-mail more like 3 times a day ... that is the best way to reach me.... artpaw.com@gmail.com. THANKS TO ALL OF MY TERRIFIC CLIENTS THIS YEAR ... YOU GUYS ARE THE VERY BEST! I look forward to working on more of your animals in 2013.

Hey guys ... I am just a tiny bit behind on commissions, but do not freak out, I will be getting caught up this week, I can promise you that. I proofed 34 clients in November and I still have just a handful of orders from that month to go! SO HERE IS THE LOW DOWN ON CURRENT PROOFING: IF YOU PLACED YOUR ORDER BY 11/15, I will get you proofed by this coming Thursday 12/6. Most orders that are this old have already been proofed and shipped, but a couple of you guys have taken a bit longer and I am working on your orders right now. IF YOU PLACED YOUR ORDER AFTER 11/15, BUT BY MY HOLIDAY DEADLINE OF 11/30 I will get you proofed by this coming Sunday 12/9. If you are just now placing your orders and trying to squeak in after my posted holiday deadlines I will do my very best to get you proofed as soon as possible after all of the November orders are completed this week. My goal is to continue proofing December clients until 12/17, at which time we will need to close out our shipping. Please be patient and know that I am doing my best and working late nights and weekends to take care of you all of my 4 legged clients.

I am checking my list twice and yes, it is that crazy time of year and I have a few dozen commissions to do in just a couple of weeks. I am totally on target and will be proofing folks heavily for the next 5 days to get caught up on all November orders. TODAY IS THE VERY LAST DAY FOR OUT OF STATE CLIENTS TO ORDER A HOLIDAY PORTRAIT WITH A GUARANTEED PRINT DELIVERY. Click here and place your order for a custom portrait today! AFTER TODAY: We will still be taking orders and proofing clients on-line, however we can not 100% promise a print delivery. You can gather around the laptop and share your custom proofing link with your loved ones on Christmas morning. Then they can choose their favorite colors. We will even try to ship out a few more late orders when people are willing to upgrade their shipping options. (If we finish a project on December 19th we just can not use our standard ground shipping and be confident that Fedex will be able to get it to you during the final week of holiday shipping madness.) LOCAL DALLAS CLIENTS: You have until the 3rd of December to place your order if you want to pick up your prints in person. OTHER GIFT IDEAS: Gift certificates are quick and easy. CLICK HERE TO ORDER AN E-CERT that you can print out and place inside a holiday card. We also have tons of fun dog and cat gift items in our Cafe Press Gift shop, Or check us out on Etsy.

Today only I am having a sale on OUR LARGEST SQUARE PET PORTRAIT! You can save $100 when ordering a 34 x 34 Stretched Painterly style portrait by using promo code: " save100 " OUR DEADLINE FOR THIS SALE IS MIDNIGHT TONIGHT and our deadline for ordering any sized pet portrait with a guaranteed holiday delivery is this Friday11/30.