"ART is a word which summarizes THE QUALITY OF COMMUNICATION. "
L. Ron Hubbard

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Update to start the new year

I just wanted to give you an update on what I am up to. I felt, with the economic downturn, that I needed to develop some low-cost products that could be offered to friends, former buyers and students. I discovered a wonderful "Print-on-demand" website, lulu.com.

One item is a 12-month calendar for 2009 with one of my pictures (beautifully produced) matching each month ($20). It's a flip-down calendar so that each month displays the calender on a separate 8.5 x 11 page below a full page photo of a painting.

The other product is a 40-page coloring book (32 illustrations in black and white, $15) of a poem by Dean called "The Doll's Journey." The poem, in blank verse, tells of a little girl who lost her doll. Only a man she meets tells her the doll is not actually lost but just on a trip. The man proceeds to write her letters. There is a wonderful surprise ending. The idea for the poem came from a footnote in a biography of that great writer of children's stories, Franz Kafka. What the mysterious young man in this poem does, Kafka is said to have done in 1923 in Berlin toward the end of his being Kafka.

We are now working on a perfect bound volume of Dean's poetry letter called "Deanotations," issues 1-20. It will be approximately 125 8.5 by 11 pages. Should be finished and published later this month. This poetry letter was produced from 1984 to 2004 and consisted of a total of 110 issues containing Dean's poetry and my illustrations.

In the longer term, I am working on a book of Art Basics and Exercises intended for my students and others who either have been mystified by some aspect of the art process ("I just don't understand color") or just want a sort of workbook that they can use to improve their skills. This book will be in Black and White (unfortunately) because it would be prohibitively expensive to produce in color. My solution is to produce a computer-readable version on CD that a buyer can ask for and have sent for just the cost of a small production fee and mailing cost. Or—alternatively—I could post the color version on the web for download. What do you think?

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