East coast trip

I find myself in a town called Easton, philadelphia. My husband had to travel to the east coast of the U.S. To consult, and I decided to come with to spare him the back and forward flying and to see what the east coast has to offer.

The hotel we're staying in for a couple of days called The Grand Eastonian has such lovely ceilings, I love how the the cement and pipes are visable.























The town however is quite strange, the vibe is peculiar and people dress badly. It's deathingly quiet and hosts a large amount of tobacco shops. It's also home to the crayola factory and museum. I visited the factory but will probably skip the museum. I think what this town needs is to make the largest crayon in the 'world'/U.S. ;) bring the tourists in. The downtown architecture is lovely lined with buildings from the 1700s.



















Anyways I'm not sure if the town's creepyness stems from the fact that I was reading New Moon. A great read suggested to me by my sister, that I finished and gobbled up greedily in a flash. I havent been able to finish a book like this in a long time, and i used to enjoy reading when i was younger. It's just annoying how
commercialized the series has gotten and I refused to see the film until I finshed the book. I've also read Twilight and have not seen the movie yet. But I am burning with curiosity. It will however probably be a great disapointment... Like the movie Stardust, the book was amazing, the movie was great but it's annoying how they change things in the story.

So my mission today is to pull up google maps on my phone, and locate a bookstore before I set off to wander down the streets of this strange little town. I need to get the third book in this twilight series. My husband is using my laptop for work, his is in for repairs, and I refuse to watch senseless TV, which is more commercials than actual content.

But otherwise I am feeling inspired and have been considering writing a book myself. An adult sized book with some illustrations ;) I always wondered why novels don't have atleast some illustrations. I always find myself intently looking at the cover every so often when I try to imagine the decriptions of the author.





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Giclée Prints

I recently discovered a printing method called Giclée, while looking for ways to transform my walls into my own mini gallery. There are such great artworks out there and walls should be filled with awe-inspiring creativity. If not only for the hope that surrounding yourself with talent... might inspire your own creativity ;P then for your human soul, because down to basics... viewing beautiful things makes you feel tingly and happy inside ;)

So to quote Wikipedia: Giclée (pronounced /ʒiːˈkleɪ/ "zhee-clay" or /dʒiːˈkleɪ, from French [ʒiˈkle]) is an invented name for the process of making fine art prints from a digital source using any high quality ink-jet printing and is often used in galleries and print shops. Giclée is generally a fine art term, that has come to be associated with prints using fade-resistant "archival" inks (including solvent inks) and the inkjet printers that use them. These printers use the CMYK color process but may have multiple cartridges for variations of each color based on the CcMmYK color model (e.g. light magenta and light cyan inks in addition to regular magenta and cyan); this increases the apparent resolution and color gamut and allows smoother gradient transitions. A wide variety of substrates are available including various textures and finishes such as matte photo paper, watercolor paper, cotton canvas, or artist textured vinyl.

You can purchase these high quality Giclée prints at Allposters.com. A lot of well known and not so well known art is for sale using this printing method. And if you read the description next to any of the Giclée artworks for sale at Allposters.com it says: "This art print was created using a sophisticated digital printer. The Giclee printing process delivers a fine stream of archival ink on archival paper, resulting in vivid, pure color and exceptional detail that is suitable for museum or gallery display."

So to make things even more complicated for myself I also decided since I have to frame a whole bunch of artworks, including the ones I plan to make in the future... I should buy my own framing equipment. So I took out some framing books from the library like the Home book of picture framing by Oberrecht, Kenn.

It sounded like a straight forward thing to do however, framing equipment can get a bit complicated, you have miter saws, routers, matt cutters etc etc. And then you have to get the various materials to make the frames..wood, glass, nails, matting board, framing tape, corner clamps etc etc, and the materials that touch the artworks has to be acid free archival standard, so your Giclee's will last longer. It's a lot of tools especially if you're routing your own wood, but I thought as an artist it might be worth the effort. I did find out later that you can buy the wood online routed to size but alas I have my equipment already. I haven't tried out the equipment yet, but I must say I'am a bit nervous about using power tools with large blades...eek...Let's just hope the equipment doesn't gather dust...I will have to report back later on my success or failure...hopefully with all ten digits in tact ;)

My husband and I decided for our living room to get old commercial or advertisment type prints, like the ones usually found under the vintage tag at Allposters.com. .

These are the one's we've selected:






Poster Advertising an Exhibition of the Collection Du Chat Noir Cabaret at the Hotel Drouot, Paris

Giclee Print

Steinlen,...


Buy at AllPosters.com



This cat poster is quite popular, and I'm not the kind of person that likes going for the popular artworks, but I like cats...;)








Le Frou-Frou

Giclee Print

Weiluc,...


Buy at AllPosters.com











Cycles Sirius

Giclee Print

PAL (Jean de...


Buy at AllPosters.com









Copertoni Impermeabili Moretti

Giclee Print

Mauzan, Achille...


Buy at AllPosters.com





There are so many prints to select from a person could go insane with choice!

Unfortunately we move around so often I haven't had the chance to purchase any prints or make any frames yet....;)

And if you're looking for more original Giclée prints artist Shirin Sahba http://limonana.blogspot.com/ is selling limited edition Giclée prints of some of her paintings. Beautiful stuff!!!
also check out her website at http://www.shirinsahba.com/

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Frilly Lilly has arrived

So the day has finally arrived, and my first Children's book has been published. I've taken some photos of the book. It is now for sale at Lulu.com and on amazon. The price on lulu.com is $12.72 excluding shipping and on amazon it's $16.95 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. I tried to keep the price as low as possible but colored books seem to be expensive to make.

qtFunk a dream come true!

I am a person who just loves do-it-yourself type of things, the idea of printing on clothing and even making my own furniture has always appealed to me. I guess it's just part of my creative nature. So my qtFunk shop was started when I humbly, just wanted to by a super funky creative pillow for my home. Well the searches led me to cafepress.com, a cool site were you can make a print for your own pillow! It has been so much fun I've hardly been able to contain myself and the ideas has been flowing along with the coffee and the joy.

I truly enjoy drawing and messing around on graphic design programs. I'm also in the progress of publishing a cute children's book called Frilly Lilly on Lulu.com, which is also a great passion and joy in my life. I've sent it for approval and I'm still waiting for it to be officially for sale. I love creating characters and hope that my characters will bring a smile to everyone that sees them...So visit my online shop at www.qtfunk.com and browse around. I'm also selling Frilly Lilly merchandise there. Here is a sneak view of some of the items for sale in my shop.
Faeriebee Throw Pillow

Faeriebee Magnet

Faeriebee Flip Mino

Frilly Lilly Large Wall Clock

Mr. Sock in Love Infant Bodysuit, character from the story Frilly Lilly

Dragonbee Jr. Ringer T-Shirt ( This character is also in the picture book Frilly Lilly)

Retro Squirrel Throw Pillow (the pillow that started my shop)

Retro Squirrel Tile Coaster

VISIT ME! http://www.cafepress.com/qtFunk

The Dawn of qtFunk

It's a very bone chilling day today, which makes it a wonderful day for writing a few words in my blog. I have recently finished my picture book entitled Frilly Lilly, I have hit the publish button. But as with everything in life there is a waiting period...so I have about another month or so to go before it will be for sale on Lulu.com and Amazon. Hopefully this time there will be no problems with the format and size.

But as always the creative juices are flowing and I am busy working on new ideas and new characters...it's all very exciting. I will also hopefully be able to upgrade my cafe press shop http://www.cafepress.com/qtFunk to a new fancy pansy site.

Frilly Lilly Calendar

I'm still busy with my much anticipated Children's book called Frilly Lilly. The idea for the book came to me at the end of 2005, (when I learned about lulu.com after printing a photo album book on this website) so I do hope that 2009 will bring the completion of this project. I've learned the slow and hard way about Graphic and illustration programs and the various methods of drawing digitally. Unfortunately there are loads of things I would have done differently, like hand drawing the images instead of drawing them directly on the computer with a mouse...But over all this has been a very satisfying experience and getting the opportunity to attach my name to a fun project like this is a good feeling.

It's been interesting to live in this time period, where all artists are created equal, and everyone has the opportunity to publish their work. And instead of being judged by publishing companies, we have the option to be judged by our peers. That is democracy...even the shy ones can succeed.

But let me not digress...I have recently finished this book of mine, to find out that I did not upload the files at the right size...I was a bit sad because I was already having publishing parties...well in my head more than any where else, and thinking of new creative projects...I birthed it...it grew up and I thought I had reached the stage of letting it go into the wild world and fend for it self...but it was not to be, I had to change the size of the images and upload them again.

Well The thing was at that time I was in South Africa for a couple of months, very busy planning a wedding to my own Prince Charming/Love of my Life on top of that dealing with the South African Internet connection which is expensive and capped....and to top it off didn't feel like paying the postage to South Africa, since every time you make a revision to your book on Lulu you must purchase a revision to make sure it's correct. It is very expensive to change it after it's been published so printing the revision is important.

So after we were done with South Africa, my husband and I moved to the US. So the time was ripe to get back and finish this project...but then my clever husband started putting wild ideas in my head of adding extra things to the images to give it that little extra something...I groaned a little...and thought...This project has gone on forever...it needs to end...My life legacy needs to be more than one children's book....but alas...I thought he might have a point...so decided to rip out the Ol' white paper and pencil, and draw...and I must admit really loved it...it is millions of times faster than drawing on the computer screen...

But anyways...so out of my older vector drawings I have made a calendar for sale on Lulu.com. You can see it here:

And have today printed a copy of my revised Frilly Lilly with all the added extras! So as much as
I love this project, I'll be glad when it's done....cuz I still have so much more to offer this world...;P






Frilly Lilly Merchandise available...;P