IdeaJones

Tag: Redbubble

  • Peace Waves

    Peace Waves

    The 50th anniversary of the “Summer of Love” is this year. I’ve been drawing peace symbols, partially because of that and partially because recent events have a lot of us feeling jumpy, and being jumpy isn’t ground where peace grows well.

    I’ve also been drawing a lot of rainbows. The rainbow is a symbol of hope and renewal. Also, I have friends who are LGBTQI, and they’ve been feeling pretty nervous. Hard on the heels of the legalization of gay marriage comes a backlash, and I’ve talked to people who have been threatened, or had friends threatened.

    It’s never easy to be human, but sometimes it’s harder than usual.

    So many battles from when I was a little kid in the 1960s are having to be fought again. The fight for civil rights is ongoing as someone is always trying to gain an unfair advantage by stomping on possible competition. They never seem to figure out that the people they’re stomping on are more likely to be potential customers, and that if you let everyone cook, there are more pies, so more opportunities to get more slices yourself.

    Anyway, here’s the latest peace symbol from our Redbubble store, available on all sorts of things from stickers to clothing:

    Peace Waves by IdeaJones

    https://www.redbubble.com/people/ideajones/works/25878578-peace-waves-by-ideajones?asc=u

  • Happy H-OWL-oween!

    Celebrating the bird of Halloween, the Owl, with owl trivia:

    Did you know that a group of owls is called a “parliament of owls?” Probably because they

    This is "Harvest Moon," a digital painting based on my acrylic painting, "The Night Watch."
    This is “Harvest Moon,” a digital painting based on my acrylic painting, “The Night Watch.”

    seem so dignified most of the time (not that most parliaments, or congresses, are all that dignified, but we can hope).

    There are over 150 species of owls in the world and some say there are over 200 (depends on how you classify them).

    There are owls on every continent except Antarctica.

    And owl’s eye is not a sphere. It’s more of a tube, which helps give them better depth perception. They al

    My second owl painting, The Night Watch. The first, Did Someone Say Lunch?, is on a market umbrella sold at a charity auction.
    My second owl painting, The Night Watch. The first, Did Someone Say Lunch?, is on a market umbrella sold at a charity auction.

    so have binocular vision, like humans.

    Some owls have “ear tufts” of feathers on their heads — but they aren’t ears. They may be used to communicate (to signal mood, for example). They also help with camouflage.

    That flattened facial shape that owls have? It helps funnel sound to their ears.

    Owls have three eyelids — one for blinking, one that closes for sleep, and another that cleans the eye.

    Owl feet have two toes facing forward and two back (with some rotation). This is called having “zygodactyl” feet.

    The largest recorded owl fossil, Orinmegalonyx oteroi, stood about three feet tall (so how big were mice back then?).

    A painting and poem from our Redbubble.com shop.
    A painting and poem from our Redbubble.com shop.
    The moment just before takeoff. Ready to fly, but not yet in the air.
    The moment just before takeoff. Ready to fly, but not yet in the air.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Neon Owl bright against the night sky.
    Neon Owl bright against the night sky.

    If you’re looking for something “owly,” check out our shop at Redbubble.com

     

     

    At our Redbubble shop, you can find tees, purses and tote bags, all sorts of stuff to keep you flying.

  • We thank you, they thank you…

    (Quick note — if you haven’t gone to Rebubble.com and signed up for their emails, you really should. For example, they have a sitewide 20% sale going today. Getting great stuff from talented artists is wonderful, but getting a deal on it? Awesome!).

    If you've made a purchase from us, you've helped a refugee start a new life in America!
    If you’ve made a purchase from us, you’ve helped a refugee start a new life in America!

    If you’ve bought anything from our Redbubble store, or from our Etsy store, in the past three months, you just did something very cool.

    Four times a year, we take 25% of everything we’ve sold and buy something for a charity. Right now, we’re supporting Opening Doors, a charity that helps refugees resettling in California. These people arrive in the U.S. with next to nothing. They’re often fleeing violence and the threat of death, so they don’t get to bring much. The charity finds them housing and helps them get started with language classes, help navigating getting the kids into school, how to get around using public transportation, etc.

    So what did you do? You helped buy bus passes so that people who don’t have the money even to ride the bus can get to the doctor, or get the kids enrolled in school, or buy groceries. Often refugees arrive from places that don’t have much in the way of public transportation, and they don’t know the city. Volunteers show them how to use public transit to get where they need to go, taking them to appointments. It makes a new and intimidating place just a bit more familiar.

    Opening Doors also collects items for “welcome kits,” including pots and pans, dishes, etc. When it’s time to turn part of our sales into donations, we contact the charity and ask what they need most. This time, Opening Doors asked for bus passes, so that’s what we donated.

    We. Not just Mark and me… if you bought anything from us in the last three months, you’re part of “we.” You bought bus passes and donated them to a charity. You are part of the day someone gets a bus pass, leaving $7 in his or her budget for food, or school supplies for the kids, or medicine.

    So thank you. We thank you, and they thank you. Enjoy being a patron of the arts (buying something from a small arts business like ours makes you a patron of the arts), and a humanitarian. As a friend of ours says, “You are awesome! Own it! Own it!”

  • Working Dark

    Working Dark

    Working with old photos is an art in itself.
    Working with old photos is an art in itself.

    I don’t usually create dark, moody artwork. Perhaps there are elements of “Simran: Altar of Memory” which are bittersweet, even sad (it’s about dementia, after all), but it’s not spooky. Recently, however, I decided to work with old tintypes and photos my grandmother gave me, and one in particular just seemed to pick up on the fact that it’ll be Halloween soon.

    This started with a scan of that old tintype. I work with old photos from time to time, healing scratches, brightening faded images. Working with this photo, I tried to heal some of the damage of time while only brightening it enough to reveal details. Once I did, I discovered details I wanted to emphasize, like the skull in the lower left. This might not have been a skull at the time the photo was taken, but when the image emerged in working with it, that became the theme of the picture, so I repeated it.

    That led to other repetitions. Ordinarily, I would smooth out the background, eliminating visual “stutter.” In this case, I cause the stutter. Patterns repeat in the background, in the setting, giving the photo a cluttered, neurotic feeling.

    When it felt like I’d reached that point, I turned it into a digital watercolor and continued painting, sometimes pixel by pixel. As I worked, I gave him a backstory. A brave boy, the son of parents who hunt the things that go bump in the night, he is comfortable in the graveyard, knowing his parents have banished evil and confident that one day, he will take his place beside them.

    His image is available in our IdeaJones Redbubble shop.

  • A Piece of Peace

    Peace Square Tie Dye IdeaJonesHi — I guess it’s current events that have me working on peace symbols. Here are some events from 1966:

    • Sniper atop the tower at the University of Texas kills 12 and wounds 31.
    • Riots in Watts, Cleveland and Atlanta
    • Civil rights marcher James Meredith shot.

    Sound familiar? Here’s the good news — while it feels as though current events are unique, each generation laments how the world it going to ruin. We remember the past through filters of our own youth. Looking back, we’re always younger, probably fitter, definitely less aware of mortality. I told Mark the other day that what I really want is to move to Santa Cruz circa 1966. He said that Santa Cruz might be doable, but 1966 wasn’t. Would I really want to return the world to 1966, with the same social problems we have now but less progress on them?

    With pollution but less being done about it? People I have come to care about shoved back into their closets, or kicked off the bus? No, of course not.

    The world is always what we make of it. ItPeace Neon Peace IdeaJones’s as good as we decide to be. Which means there’s hope. So I keep making peace symbols and giving my pennies to charities helping people and pets in need, and hoping.

    Look at Opening Doors, a small charity helping refugees resettle in the Sacramento area. Just as we’re hearing a lot about how we should just boot anyone who comes here back, there are people helping those who have fled violence and hunger to start over in America.

    “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ” That’s from our Declaration of Independence. We’ve spent all the time since trying to decide who is included in “all.” Does it mean dark people? Women?

    Like the Biblical commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” it’s hardly ambiguous, yet we argue over the meaning. Both are ideals to strive towards, and imperfect human beings fall short of them, but they give us a goal. Like the idea of peace. We may never achieve perfect peace. We’re not even sure what it would look like if we did. But it gives us something to reach for, a destination to head toward. It gives us hope.

    I hope that for today at least you are at peace.

    By the way, these designs are available on jewelry at Zazzle.com, and on bags, clothing, and more at our Redbubble shop, where a portion of each sale goes to charities helping people or pets in need.