Spoonflower Shenanigans

I no longer have fabric and wallpaper for sale on my Spoonflower account because they changed the rates so I wouldn't get paid very much at all and it isn't worth it.  Cutting out the artist is disrespectful to both the artist and the consumer because supporting an artist is probably a small but meaningful part of what motivates someone to buy products designed by artists in the first place.

Thank you to everybody who's bought my designs in the past, that's huge, I appreciate your support over the years and it means a lot to me!

Since yardage and merch haven't panned out, the only products I have left are coloring books on Amazon:

amazon.com/author/jpmorrow

And if you've bought any of those thank you as well!

And I've got plenty more ideas for artistic projects for the future if I have time...

New art for sale!

 I have more artwork for sale in my Society6 shop!  A generic landscape and a wombat for the wall of your burrow.

Landscape: https://society6.com/product/landscape-with-flowers6746093_print?sku=s6-23583199p4a1v45

Wombat: https://society6.com/product/wombat6746069_print?sku=s6-23583161p4a1v45#reviews

Artist Loadout

 Art takes decades to develop even at the best of times but sometimes it is all brought short by a disaster.

My room is a mess of course, I have artistic and literary projects strewn all over the place and I like it that way.  But lately I've been asking myself, what would I take with me if I had to leave in a hurry, like if I had to quit the country and my house might get destroyed.  Family?  Food?  Ammo?  That doesn't leave a lot of room for artwork and decades of toil would go up in flames.

Which leads to the hypothetical question that I have been asking myself and perhaps you should too:

What if all you had room for in your pack was a stack of paper, a book, a sketchbook, some pencils, and a few flash drives?  Would you ditch the sketchbook and pencils and bring more paper?  another couple books?  Smaller books?  Something else?  I don't even know what I'd do, but its something to think about.

Don't share your answers here.  We don't need the government to know.  But someones got to ask the important art questions, especially in an age where many hypothetical cases are not as hypothetical as we should hope.

Vandalism Is Bad For Art

Its still bad!  I mentioned back in August 2017 when the black live matter looters were vandalizing statues and monuments and that was on the news that I thought vandalism was bad for art, and I still do.

The fact that so many people who I thought would know better are supporting murder, terrorism and wholesale destruction to this extent under the flimsy pretext of somehow combating racism, (which it doesn’t) displays a level of air headedness that I would hardly have believed possible.

Take Uncle Hugo’s Bookstore in Minneapolis as an example:

Here are some reasons why burning down a bookstore might be bad for art and creativity:

1, Its burning books!  Books are known to contain lots of art and creative writing.  Also there were a lot of irreplaceable 1st edition books as well as autographed copies some of them by authors who are no longer with us.

2, You just set fire to a bookstore!  Bookstores are places where people can look through and buy books, making all that creativity and art available to the public.

3. Its hard to have a booksigning in a burned out building!  Bookstores commonly have social events such as booksignings which are fun for members of the community.

4. Now the authors and illustrators can’t sell their books their anymore, which means they can’t get paid!  Which is bad for authors and illustrators.

5. Its just bad for everyone!  Burning down a bookstore puts people out of work and is just all around bad for the economy which is also bad for authors and artists.

So if you’re feeling bad about supporting arson and terrorism (and being a tremendous air head), here’s a chance to support the owner and his efforts to rebuild it:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/let-us-help-save-uncle-hugo039s?viewupdates=1&rcid=r01-159106110191-60120bbd3a4a430d&utm_medium=email&utm_source=customer&utm_campaign=p_email%2B1137-update-supporters-v5b

Its probably better than bailing out criminals, and social justice posturing!

This is an art blog, not a political blog so I wouldn’t even talk about this except that it is relevant to art, writing, and creativity in general.

It might not seem like a big deal right now if they haven’t burned down anything you care about, but you or your loved ones could be next, because terrorism is like that.

2019?

My goals for 2019 are to survive and keep doing art and writing.

If you scroll down far enough you can find my broken promises for 2018.

I guess life never hands you enough free time to do what you want.

But I'm just gonna keep on keepin on regardless.


P.S.  If I'm given a choice between surviving and doing art and writing, I'm gonna go with art.

2017 Year In Review

So apparently I did a lot of art this year.  Here's a video I did that's a slideshow of all the art I came out with in 2017:

The music is Never Give Up On Your Dreams by Two Steps From Hell, with whom I do not claim to be affiliated in any way.

The pictures are all the artwork I uploaded to deviantart, in 2017, in chronological order:
https://jpmorrow.deviantart.com/gallery/

Its been a good year for me in terms of art, and I'm going to continue making more and better artwork next year.

Thank you all for your support!

Vandalism Is Bad For Art

One thing about being an artist is that the entire rest of the world is just waiting for the opportunity to betray you.  Well, maybe this is just the human condition and they are after you whether you are an artist or not, but then of course, everyone is an artist.  And it gets a whole lot harder if you're into representational art, that could be enjoyable and embodies the classical virtues of truth, beauty and goodness.  Or even just two out of three.

I feel a rant building inside me and I don't have time to expand on it right now but the greatest enemy of art is political motivation.  The latest example of this is liberals vandalising civil war monuments from the civil war.  Now, I don't care what you think about history or current events, but those have got to be at least life size and they're representational and cast in metal... they're destroying art!

Maybe this should seem obvious... but vandalism is bad for art!

Like I say, I've got a rant building inside of me, and I've got liberals, conservatives and companies to chew out, but I don't have time for that right now.  But I just had to bring this up because liberals destroying statues is a teachable moment and its a bad sign, I don't care if you're hypnotized by the news, its a bad sign.

I also don't like getting kicked around forever and I'm getting my own back.  Stay tuned for more art.

Politics Vs. Art

Or Political Gossip Vs. Getting A Life


I apologize for writing a political rant but I hope you will be merciful considering that this is the first time I have given in to the temptation with regards to the 2016 elections.

It seems like everyone I know has been doing way more talking about politics than usual this last year or two.  Of course I live in America so there's been elections and there's Trump and all that that entails (I think he's the best president ever from a technical standpoint but I still can't help finding him deeply repulsive, which may seem a little odd).  Political speculation has a way of eating into my brain so that I have a hard time thinking about anything else.  And I don't even like politics, it tends to make me feel angry and bitter.

Its my opinion that most people have better things to do with their time than worry about politics.  In my case the time I spend thinking about politics, would be better spent figuring out what mythical creatures to draw, or paint, or what happens next in the stories I'm writing.

Only this time they have gone too far.  This means war.  Now is the time to realize that art and politics are fundamentally in opposition and that artists should strive to reclaim the national conversation which has centered too long around politics with all its bleak ugliness, and replace it with something that's actually important.

I do not advocate armed conflict, or even argument, (for the most part).  Yet I believe that if each of us as individuals follow the creative muses of the depths of our hearts, we will create such a sudden yet enduring storm of beauty and goodness that the darkness will be defeated and light will prevail.

Deviantart Group

I can't believe I never linked to this before

Ornamentation

This is a group on deviantart that I started and sort of manage but the artwork is (almost) entirely by other people.

And there's lots of wonderful art there so go and check it out.

Representational Art and Artists that I really like!

Where to begin?

So I follow a ton of artists on deviantart (a social media community based around creating and sharing art) and a ton of them do representational art that I find really beautiful.

Last June I put up some of it on my art tumblr, (tumblr is a social media platform not based around anything in particular,) and here is a link to that month in the archive to give you some idea:

http://jpmorrow.tumblr.com/archive/2016/6

Because I try (and fail) to keep track of these artists I compiled a list with links to all of them, also on my art blog:

http://jpmorrow.tumblr.com/post/155453576652/linkdump-of-a-ton-of-artists-i-follow-on

This list is of artists that I follow that do representational sorts of artwork, and sadly does not include artists that specialize in photography, decorative arts, sculpture, crafts and all the other wonderful kinds of art.  Maybe I will make linkdumps for them too if I ever have the time.

It is not a complete list by any means but I wanted to share the wonderfulness and help support artists around the world.

I have a Group now check it out!

So, I started a group on Deviantart!

Its called Ornamentation and as its name suggests it is a place featuring all manner of decorative patterns by artists all over Deviantart.

So here it is if you would like to check it out:


http://ornamentation.deviantart.com/

They really have a lot of amazing artwork there!!!

Another Gimmicky But Really Awesome Feature!

So Society6 which is where I am selling my prints and stuff now, has this program you can promote other artists art on your own website and you get paid a little bit every time someone buys it through your link (10% of the base price on prints).

Like, for example if you wanted to buy this kind of really awesome print of a wolf padding along at night and you bought it through this link, I would get money for it and so would the artist:

https://society6.com/product/choosing-warmth_print?curator=jpmorrow

Here's the artist's store on S6:

https://society6.com/hootbark

So I think this is kind of a really awesome feature and I might consider doing more of this sort of thing, since this way I can promote stuff that I really like as opposed to regular advertisements, where it is nothing but dreck.

Thoughts or feedback appreciated.  :)

EDIT:  No, I can't get that feature to work so if you buy anything through these links I still won't get anything.  Hootbark will though, but I guess this means I won't be trying to promote anything this way.

SECOND EDIT:  No, I think it maybe it does work after all.  I dunno their website is so confusing.

So I have a new website where I can sell prints and stuff!

I'm on Society6, where I can sell stuff as art prints or almost anything.  You can buy coffe mugs, tote bags, shower curtains, yoga pants, you name it! :D

They handle printing the designs on products and shipping it out to people and everything so I don't have to do any work except come up with the designs which is the fun part! :)

EDIT:  I forgot to put in the link to the store:  https://society6.com/jpmorrow

So I've been messing around with watercolors lately, and this is my first attempt that actually turned out.  I've been playing around with watercolors lately in the vain hope that the increased evaporative quality of the water, will compete with my tendency to totally obliterate the paper.  The colors have more variety in them than I could reduplicate on purpose, being reconstituted accretions of previous experiments.