Animal Magnetism at the Animal Rescue League of Boston

“Animal Magnetism: Celebrating the Radiant Spirit of Animals” is an exhibit of art prints by yours truly at the Animal Rescue League (ARL) of Boston. You have until June 3 to stop by and enjoy this colorful celebration of fine furry beings, and while you’re there, you might just find a fabulous new friend to adopt!

This art exhibit features four dogs, four cats and a rather saintly cow. All pieces are for sale, and for each piece sold I am donating 50% of the net profit to the ARL. You get an imaginative and colorful work of art, and the ARL gets extra support for all the work they do on behalf of animals. It’s a win-win.

The Animal Rescue League of Boston is at 100 Chandler Street in Boston’s South End.

Adoption Center hours are:
Monday: by appointment only
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: 1-7pm
Friday, Saturday: 1-4pm
Sunday: 1-4pm (adoptions only)
Phone: (617) 426-9170

You can also follow the ARL of Boston on Facebook or on Twitter.

Art on Wheels

Lola’s Urban Vintage Truck

Local truck art has been catching my eye these days. Yesterday, just as the first SoWa Sunday of the 2013 was opening, I spotted several painted trucks in the Artisan’s Market lot.

Above is the roving Lola’s Urban Vintage store truck, whose motto is “Where Street Meets Chic.” Lola’s carries a collection of new vintage and handmade clothes, and many one of a kind pieces.

 

The Fashion Truck open for business at SoWa Sunday

The Fashion Truck is scheduled to be at a full roster of events during the month of May around Boston, South Yarmouth, Milton and Charlestown. Their mission, “Driving Style Forward,” appears to be working for this boutique on wheels with a curated mix of women’s clothing and accessories.

No story about truck art in Boston would be complete without a mention of the food truck scene that has grown fast and furious here in the last several years.

Cookie Monstah truck

This past Sunday, “Boston’s Mobile Cookie Truck, ” otherwise known as the Cookie Monstah truck, was at SoWa Sunday bright and early.

Food trucks are taking the country by storm. Mobile Cuisine, an online resource for the mobile food community, has just started the 2013 Best Food Truck Graphic Design Contest, in search of the best custom designed food truck or food cart design. Elle Decor magazine published this food truck art slideshow with some examples from all around the United States.

As the 2013 outdoor season gets into full swing here in Boston, I’ll be on the lookout for great graphic design on wheels. Stay tuned.

Sundays in SoWa

Another season of SoWa Sundays begins! Sunday, May 5 marks the first day of this neighborhood staple that runs 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. through mid-fall. There is an outdoor artisans’ market, an outdoor farmers’ market, an indoor vintage market and delicious food truck meals in an open air shelter in the parking lot on Harrison Avenue between Gaslight restaurant and Randolph Street.

Some artists at the 450 Harrison Avenue studios will even open their doors to the public on Sundays. There’s a sandwich board sign just inside the building’s Thayer Street entrance that will tell you which artists are in that day.

Here’s a handy map of the South End’s SoWa (South of Washington Street) District.

A very cool event happening Sunday, May 19th is the SoWa Plant Swap. If you’ve got too much of something growing in your garden, you can take some of it there and trade it for something else. What a neighborly idea!

 

Purple Paradise

Purple, the bold balance of hot red and cool blue, is irresistible. Imagine a polished and glistening amethyst stone, fields of lavender flowers or the shiny supple skin of a ripe plum. Equally soothing and dramatic, it can feel luxurious, inspirational, dreamy and romantic. Purple definitely speaks to my creative nature. What about you? What does purple say to you?

Paula Ogier @ DENY Designs

 

Beautifying Life One Mundane Object at a Time

Personal check from the LOVE ME, LOVE MY DOG check collection

There’s just nothing fun, beautiful or imaginative about the zero-personality checks issued by banking institutions. When I got the opportunity to design four collections of artistic checks for CheckAdvantage.com, I loved the idea. Paying bills can be drudgery enough, so why not write checks that make you smile? I have been using artistic checks for many years now, motivated by the desire to feel happy for and appreciative of whatever I write a check for.

It was quite a thrill for me when my new check designs went live on CheckAdvantage.com last week. I’m very pleased with how they look. The designs have gotten wonderfully enthusiastic responses from friends and family, which of course makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, but I’m most excited to see how they will sell now that they are on the market! The image above is “Throw the Ball,” from the LOVE ME, LOVE MY DOG collection.

Checkbook cover from the MEOWZA collection

Each collection offers the option of a checkbook cover featuring the first design in that collection. You can buy them separately, so even if you really don’t need more checks right now, you can still have a great checkbook cover. The covers are available in either cloth or leather. The orange-drenched image to the left is “Nocturnal Twins” from the MEOWZA collection.

Address label from the DEJA MOO collection

Want to add some zing to your envelopes? Address labels are also available with images from the four collections. The image to the left is “Femme Fatale” from the DEJA MOO collection.

Address label from FULL MOON collection

There’s also a FULL MOON collection featuring a series of colorful moon-themed abstract paintings. The image to the right is “Pacific Moon” from the FULL MOON collection.

I hope you’ll visit my CheckAdvantage page and see if something catches your fancy. And happy check writing to you!

All art images copyright © 2013 Paula Ogier.

Check it Out

May Moon
(copyright © 2013 Paula Ogier)

Greetings! February and March have been project-filled months for me. One of the fun new things I’ve been working on is putting together four designs each for four collections of checks.

I recently became one of CheckAdvantage.com‘s licensed artists—a collaboration I am quite pleased about. I’ve always preferred using colorful, artistically designed checks of my own choosing as opposed to the drab zero-personality bank issued ones. I think paying for things (and especially paying bills) should be fun, so getting to see my own designs on checks will be exciting.

CheckAdvantage was interested in a collection of dog-themed checks, as well as a cat-themed one. But they were open to just about anything for the other collections so that gave me a chance to think about what I could do with different styles and themes. The check format presents a few interesting challenges, including the check shape itself along with the various sections on a typical check with account and routing numbers and text that need to considered. After designing each collection, I made a folding checkbook cover design to go with each collection. This was all done with the use of check and checkbook cover templates provided by CheckAdvantage.

Winter Moon (copyright © 2013 Paula Ogier)

I enjoyed playing with ways to crop and format some moon-themed abstract paintings (including the two seen here), and those became a Full Moon series.

Often, cropping an image can completely change the feel and context of it and not in a good way. But I was happy to find that wasn’t the case with many of my moon-themed pieces, some of which looked great with just a detail section and others that just required a bit of repainting of sections.

I’ve finished three collections so far and am very close to finishing the fourth one. After that, there will be proofs to see and then off to market they go!

Twice the Pleasure: Dual Pet Paintings

Bobby and Bing
(Copyright © Paula Ogier 2011)

I’ve had several requests this year for portraits featuring more than one pet. Dual portraits create more challenge in working out the composition, especially when the animals are very different in size from each other. These portraits also give an opportunity for balancing colors in interesting ways. When painting Bobby and Bing, the obvious challenge was scale. I needed to create a vehicle for showing off little Bing, the hamster, so that he wouldn’t be lost next to much bigger tiger-stripe kitty Bing. The bright flower provided an elevated pad for Bing that brought him up to Bobby’s eye level, and it helped to set the stage for a moonlit garden fantasy.

Ernest and Harold
(Copyright © Paula Ogier 2012)

Ernest and Harold were two darling 3 1/2 month old kitten brothers, one a light orange color and the other a slightly darker orange. Orange being a favorite color of the client, it was requested that these boys be painted orange. Although a great deal of orange is used in the portrait, the blues and greens of the tulip vase create a striking contrast, and the muted green of the woodwork connects with the kittens’ lovely green eyes. I loved that this was done when kittens Ernest and Harold were still babies, and that it will serve as a marker of their kittenhood.

What Butterflies? (Seamus & Mila)
(Copyright © Paula Ogier 2012)

Seamus, a stately and mellow Komondor whose hair had been shorn to about 4 or 5 inches in length for the summer, and Mila, a smooth-haired Weimaraner, provided a real exercise in contrasts. Seamus’ dense coat had the curliest and tightest curls I’d ever painted. Mila’s coat, on the other hand, was super sleek. There was also a substantial size difference between the two of them, and I found that the closer I brought Seamus to the viewer, the more his head began to consume the space. So I chose to set Seamus back a little in order to show his grand stature and to avoid overwhelming Mila’s more delicate form.

Scoobie and Dobie
(Copyright © Paula Ogier 2012)

These two Dobermans‘ beautifully sculpted individual facial features and expressions really complemented one another, and I used a range of striking blues to show the variations in tones between them. The warm tones of the leather chair arm and the deep pops of red color set off the brilliant blues.

To see more of my pet portraits, visit my Pet Portraits page.