Alex Colombo is an Italian artist and designer who has lived in the U.S. for many years. Originally from Milan, Italy, Alex has a background in fine arts, architecture, and textile design. She worked in interior design for many years and most recently she has transitioned into illustration and now art licensing.

“It all started while I was surfing the web for ideas on what to do with my art,” says Alex. She’s been painting since she was five years old. “Some two years ago, as I was transitioning from interior design to illustration & crafts, I was hand painting and selling my prints and cards through local shops and fairs as well as publishing and marketing my first illustrated children’s book. Surtex is now less than one week away and here I am, ready for the best licensing show of the year!”

What is something you cherish? — I asked Alex. “Arts, artists, beauty, nature, production and teamwork. I love collaborative projects, I have learned and taught a lot by sharing with other professionals.” Alex also added, “when I did interior design I learned team work. I learned to respect other views and also have a more logical approach to my own work. I had to understand every single part of a project, how other trades that share the load with you or around you work. It’s indispensable to collaborate well if I wanted to get a project fully done, and done well, within budget and on schedule.”

Another thing Alex cherishes is helping others. “I like to create and part of that creativity is to help others, especially artists, achieve their goals. So I like to cherish, encourage and help them become successful, and everyone else will win too.” Alex really enjoys friendly chats with other artists and admires their work so much that she started publishing whole interviews about them and their journeys in the art world. The blog, ‘The Moon From My Attic,’ now has a great following and provides new and established artists a forum to share their stories and explorations in the art licensing world.

 “Thank you Cherish! and see you at Surtex!”

Alex’s website: www.alexcolombo.com | Alex’s blog: creativeconceptsdesignstudio.blogspot.com

Now, you have to understand, with his autoimmune disease PSC that he was born with, this is no small accomplishment!

He made this animated video to tell his story of both transplants and his relisting to the liver transplant waiting list. Watch Benjamin Hummel’s Transplant Story.

Life isn’t always easy and pain free… but it is something to cherish.

You can check out his art and support the mission to celebrate life at PaintingForLife.com and Facebook!

Click here for the directions.

All photos by Easy Dreamer Photography.

Incoming search terms:

• dalecarlian horse embroidery patterns
• craft card
• easter garden craft
• egg craft and art images
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• love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination wedding invitation border

In this 3 hour Mixed Media Canvas Painting Collage Workshop, designed by artist Cherish Flieder, students learn techniques to artfully use many mediums together for both professional art and personal craft applications. They are guided through the process to make a unique canvas creation that embodies a theme of their choice. Students explore how to combine the use of watercolor, colored pencil, markers, acrylics, collage elements and embellishments like embroidery, buttons, beads, fabric scraps and more. See examples and get inspired to mix and match elements to make your art fun and vibrant!

If you are interested in participating in future classes, contact Cherish to be added to the wait list.

Incoming search terms:

• embroidery — orange tree
• how to make a mixed media collage on canvas
• mixed media canvas painting collage workshop
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• cha 2012 mixed media

Illustration sample testing the new water based Koi Brush Coloring Pens from Sakura of America

Painting by Cherish Flieder
www.SomethingToCherish.com

If you can’t see the flash gallery, please click here to view it on Flickr

I am excited to share some snapshots from my recent CHA experience. I have attended these shows since 2007 and I can easily say that CHA 2012 Winter Show was the best year yet!

As a part of being at the event, I exhibited my 3-D art licensing illustration and design portfolio in the Designer Showcase. I was privileged to meet up hundreds of creative people walking the show floor and taking valuable classes. This year I got more time to test many new products and techniques through the make-n-takes which is what the whole craft industry is about!

The day before the show started I took classes from 8am-10pm at night and then more classes peppered through out the other show days. To me education is a very valuable part of my CHA experience and I learned so many new ideas about marketing, business, retail and even a couple classes on the legal side of things. I look forward to implementing what I  learned into my art business the coming year and I am eager to share this knowledge with my students and manufacturing and publishing clients as well!

Also, if you missed the opening day “She’s Crafty” flash mob, this is for you!

Incoming search terms:

• art licensing
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• exhibiting at cha licensing

That is where it starts. However, I recently I came across this article that both explains Pinterest and gives some practical business tips for using it to promote your art, products, publications or whatever visually engaging images you want to share with the world. Of course, it should go without saying that you need to apply the 80/20 rule and keep the promotion to a minimum and keep the sharing other valuable content that relates to a maximum.

via Entrepreneur.com.

Move over Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Another social media site is stepping up as a valuable marketing tool for businesses.

Pinterest, an online bulletin board for your favorite images, launched in 2010 and is already experiencing wild growth. The site registered more than 7 million unique visitors in December, up from 1.6 million in September. And it’s driving more traffic to company websites and blogs than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined, according to a recent report from Cambridge, Mass.-based content-sharing site Shareaholic.

Read the rest of the article here.

Related articles:

• Pinterest: A Beginner’s Guide to the Hot New Social Network
• Pinterest: 13 Tips and Tricks for Cutting Edge Users

!!! BEWARE of their TERMS — since these articles were released new fine print details have been found to have major problems.

Incoming search terms:

• embroidery pinterest
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Last fall I was honored to be accepted into the iThemes Education Program as a higher education instructor, teaching web design and marketing. It is a pleasure to teach my senior illustration students at Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design who are wide-eyed and enthusiastic about the possibilities of today’s technology. Since 2008, I have been teaching there about 2–3 classes a semester. I have learned many things about what works well in the classroom and how to improve on areas of common difficulty. When you think about the history of mankind, the Internet is still an infant and there is still so much to learn and teach one another. This ebook was a wonderful place to share some of my knowledge and experiences. iThemes professionally organized all the information from several contributors into an easy to reference handbook of best practices.

I just want to say thanks to iThemes for giving me the scholarship to their educators program for helping me continue to do my best as a teacher in the world of this changing technology. I also want to say thanks for asking me to contribute to this ebook which will certainly be the first step in assisting many more teachers work together as we tackle the exciting new world of web design.

Incoming search terms:

• love letters are key by cherish flieder

Here is a sneak-peak of what you will find on my “Valentine’s Day to Cherish” board for decorating your home, office, classroom or making some goodies for your loved ones. Put on your cupid winds and fly over to Pinterest soon!

You are invited to follow my board “Valentine’s Day to Cherish”  and don’t forget to search Pinterest for all the latest posts on “Valentine’s Day.“

Happy pinning!

Incoming search terms:

• butterfly clock by cherish flieder