The Design Style Guide is a wonderful place that is bringing together thousands of items that are appropriate for Home Decor. Their main purpose is to promote the team and its members to Interior Designers (and like-minded consumers) through various promotions and advertising techniques.   This is part of the move to promote handmade items instead of mass produced things. Their focus is on marketing and branding “Handmade Home Decor” to professional Interior Designers.

Design Style Guide Giveaway #5

They are having a series of giveaways – the current one with Diane Clancy (yes, ME!!) at Etsy and 1000 Markets.  This is a free giveaway and I encourage you to join in and see if you can win!!  The Giveaway is through October 20 – so join in today!!  Here are the details about the giveaway on the Design Style Blog.  You know my art – I encourage to go join in the giveaway. Here are my shops Diane’s Etsy shop and Diane’s 1000 Markets Shop. This is a great opportunity and let’s hope one of you wins!

If you would like to join Design Style Guide, please click here:

Thanks for stopping by!

I am adding new things every day to my shops – I am getting back in the flow – so keep checking to see which one YOU want to take home!! Thank you!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Design Style Guide Giveaway, Etsy, 1000 Markets

Win 2 free cards!! It’s that time of year again! For the worldwide One World, One HeART GiveAway – I am pretty excited!!  There are already over 400 blogs giving away gifts to people who enter their giveaways!!  You need to leave a comment to participate – of course with a way to contact you. Details for you to join in your own blog are here.

Lisa Oceandreamer started OWOH 2 years ago and she has a blog here which lists all the blogs involved and gives the details. If you are thinking of joining in and having your own giveaway, please go there and get the details.

Conundrum I, Collage © Diane Clancy

Lots and lots of blogs are giving away items – to show love and build the blogosphere. So once I knew, how can I resist? My give-away will be two of any of these cards of my vibrant, colorful paintings. You choose which ones and I will send them to you – for FREE. (and yes, you can choose 2 of the same).

Reflections in Blue I, Pastel © Diane Clancy

You have until February 11 (at least at most blogs) to leave your name and join in each blog’s give-away. If you want to win the give-away, leave enough information for me in a comment to this post so I can get a hold of you. Remember your email is hidden so it is safe with me.

Reflections in Blue II, Pastel © Diane Clancy

Make sure your email address is a valid one and not one of the no-reply ones. Please do not leave sensitive info like your address or phone .. I can get your address when you win!

Mother Watching All, Oil © Diane Clancy

I will accept all entries until midnight eastern time on February 11 and then the winner will be announced on February 12 … and then your gift will be coming your way! To ANYWHERE in the world!

Sight, Collage © Diane Clancy

Here are more details if you would like to participate. There are tons of blogs participating … so gone on over and check them out! I know I plan to!! Also this list will stay up for 6 months after the event ends – so it is a great way to find wonderful new blogs!

Anticipation, Collage © Diane Clancy

The prize is any 2 of these cards. The size is 4.25 x 6″ and they are professionally printed. I look forward to seeing who wins!!  Starting in March I am going to be doing a monthly giveaway of one of these cards – your choice – in exchange for allowing me to put you on my email list … this is NOT for this giveaway – but for the one starting montly in March.

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: One World One Heart, GiveAway, Lisa Oceandreamer, blogosphere, free, Diane Clancy, vibrant colorful painting

Technorati Tags: give-away, mailing list, newsletter, marketing

Most days I read Alyson Stanfield’s Art Marketing Blog which I find very useful. I learned about blogging from her free Art Newsletter which you can sign up for at her Art Marketing website. When I started my blog less than a month ago, I studied Alyson’s posts on blogging to make decisions about how I wanted to proceed. In this one blog I get all sorts of insights from many different artists through their comments. Alyson encourages us as artists to use technology in our art businesses.

Conundrum III, Collage © Diane Clancy

Alyson, writing about an art-marketing workshop she gave this weekend, wrote in her blog, “One of the big lessons I always learn at these workshops is that artists who use technology have a distinct advantage over artists who don’t. …”

Alyson continues, “Stay on top of technology and use the tools that are available to you. Only 3 out of 66 artists in the room yesterday had a blog! … think of that. Three of 66!”

From Alyson’s blog I learned that WordPress is free blogging software. From what readers (and Alyson) wrote, I made a decision to go with WordPress and I am delighted that I did! I wouldn’t have known how to start without this great resource of Alyson Stanfield‘s blog.

This painting “Conundrum III” is from my collage goddess series that is inspired by my former quilting. There are many actual fabric pieces in this collage besides paper and paint.

Please share your thoughts in a comment.

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: WordPress, Alyson Stanfield, collage, quilting, fabric, ArtBizBlog, ArtBizCoach, marketing, technology, goddess, double face

I was thinking about Matisse when I was creating this pastel painting. Many people have asked me where I have gotten my (they say) unusual sense of color. At one point my mom and I pulled out all the artwork we 4 children had made to sort out whose was whose.

Woman and the Sea, Pastel © Diane Clancy

I was amazed to see that my color sense was already fully developed as a child. I remember painting a pink bunny in a pink field in the 4th grade. The pinks were intense and many different variations closely related. But I was surprised to see that the rest of the pictures I created were also true to my future sense of color.

Each of us as children had a very disctinctive flavor to our creative process. Mine was easier to tell apart from the others, but we were each individual. What fun my mom and I had as we went through these memories. How I wish she were alive and healthy today!

Matisse’s paintings inspired my spiraly and curlycue things … I used to make afghans and quilts with these kind of color combinations. Afghans are one place I could play and explore color with freedom. Thank you for joining me down Memory Lane.

- Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Matisse, pastel, color, creative process, quilting, inspiration

This image has me going in several different directions at once. Sometimes it looks very cosmic to me with vision or an eye in the center, with cosmic rays radiating out. Other times it seems to be an icon for modern culture – somewhat garish and not quite on target. Either way to me it does look like a mandala – not like Sue O’Kieffe‘s mandalas – but one nevertheless.

Emanate II, Digital © Diane Clancy

This is a digital painting that I made with Studio Artist. Sue has asked in a comment about this program and how it differs from Photoshop. When I am less tired, I will explain some of the differences. If you look at “Conundrum I” in “2 Collages With a Quilting Influence,” and then look at “Emanate II” again, you may be able to see some resemblance.

In this creative process I was playing with Studio Artist to understand how it works and I used “Conundrum I” as a base image to play with. Hint: with Studio Artist, you always start with opening a “source image.” You don’t have to use it – but you need to have it. When I look at “Emanate II,” I see “Conundrum I” very strongly – having spent dozens of hours creating “Conundrum I,” I know many of the scraps of quilting fabric quite well!

Let me know what you think. Do you see “Conundrum I’? Do you see an icon or a mandala? Or what else do you think?

- Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: icon, mandala, Sue O’Kieffe, digital painting, Studio Artist, creative process, quilting, fabric, Photoshop

I love to work with color. Quilting was fun when I was younger because it was (in certain types of quilting) creating designs of color in a structured way. I didn’t have to draw anything, but could still create. And I am so taken with all the different kinds of fabric – especially quilting fabric – that I was delighted for the excuse to buy quarter yards.

Conundrum I, Collage © Diane Clancy

In my younger days, before I realized how longingly I wanted to be an artist and create art, I “allowed” myself to quilt. Because quilts are (were considered back then) “functional” art, it was within the code of acceptabilty in my family.

Anticipation, Collage © Diane Clancy

Once I “fell” into creating art on paper and was encouraged to call myself an “artist”, I still loved the different fabrics that available – especially the quilting fabrics. When I could also paint, I didn’t want to sew as much. So I started putting paint, paper and fabric together to create “Quilts on Paper.”

Today I was inspired to write this after visiting Lisa Call‘s site showcasing her Comtemporary Quilts. I was very nostalgic for quilting reading her site. Lisa’s blog is very beautiful also. Her work is inspiring me to stretch my own creative process.

Thank you for reading about my journey,

- Diane Clancy

[tags]goddess, double face[/tag]

Technorati Tags: quilting, color, fabric, artist, Lisa Call, creative process