JOHN LENNON'S 70TH BIRTHDAY - OCTOBER 9TH

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TOMORROW - OCTOBER 9TH would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday. To those of us who grew up on The Beatles (we were called Beatlemaniacs) this is a big day. It must be a big day for everyone else too - Google is celebrating it with their first ever animated Google Doodle - check it out below. If you go to Google.com you will have to press the little red play button on the doodle and the animation will play along with a clip of the song "Imagine".


This unique Google Doodle is a wonderful tribute to someone who was so much a part of our lives - a legend in his own time and after his time as well. What you may not be aware of is the artwork is actually inspired and part of it actually is John Lennon's art! The portrait sketch of John that comprises the two "o's" in Google in the animation is a well known self-portrait.

John was quite an artist, having published a number of books which included doodles, drawings and artwork he created. I actually own the original editions of several of these including Spaniard in the Works and In His Own Write. They are filled with his wonderful and whimsical doodles and sketches.

He also created a book of drawings for his son, Sean, called Real Love. John Lennon had an interest in art his whole live - he was even encouraged by a teacher to go to art school because he didn't get good grades in anything else. To quote one of his instructors, Lennon was "Hopeless. Rather a clown in class. A shocking report. He is wasting other pupils' time."

Lennon met Stuart Sutcliffe (the original bass player for The Quarrymen) in art college, by the way, so you can credit John's artist skills with giving rise to The Beatles! John did not graduate from the Liverpool College of Art - he continued his rebelliousness, disliking the structure of a formal art education and dropped out before his final year. His art school experience did not stifle his love of drawing and John created his wonderful, quirky and totally unique art the rest of his life.

It's hard to Imagine John Lennon being seventy years old. Because he was taken from us he remains in our minds as he was when we lost him. He left behind a legacy of great music and creativity for all to enjoy. Imagine how he would have loved that.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOHN
You live on in our hearts.




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SKULL POP ART - Sugar Skulls as Art

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BIG BANG - BLACK HOLES POP ART
and the case of the
POP ART SKULLS

I have a friend who loves skulls and she wanted me to illustrate a skull for a tattoo. Skulls are kind of not my thing, ya know? Skulls are very goth and goth is dark and scary - not bright, colorful or humorous, all things I tend to infuse into my style of pop art.

But pop art is defined as "a form of art that depicts objects or scenes from everyday life and employs techniques of commercial art and popular illustration." Pop art gets to play with the images that bombard us daily and skulls are all over the place in today's graphics so why not play with skulls?

I am not into goth, dark or scary but I figured why not do Pop Art Skulls in my own psychedelic, sixties pop art style? I love Day of the Dead skeletons so I took my cue from the vibrant way that an image of death is treated in the folk art skeletons of the Day of the Dead celebrations. (If you're not familiar with the Mexican holiday of Día de los Muertos - Mexico's version of Memorial Day - take a look at some of the Day of the Dead images on Google.)

In this series of Pop Art I am taking silhouettes of every day images then filling them with parts of another pop art design I've created. In this pop art design I wanted my typical rainbow colors but slightly darker and less saturated overall so I dropped in black shadows and overlays on the background areas.

I also wanted some solid black shapes to sharpen the colors and to bring in the "dark" element so I popped in some black "holes" and a big graphic black circle for balance with some ghosted white stars shooting out from it. Then in went some big, bright round areas for tension across the front and all of a sudden I was seeing "black holes" and a "big bang".

These all translated nicely on the skulls giving them cracks and shattered areas - like skulls that had been around for a while. I got rid of the jawbone, added some jagged breaks and removed a tooth just to add to the illusion. What I ended up with was a cosmic explosion inside of a human skull. I kind of like the idea of a bunch of black holes and a big bang floating inside a dead head, it's sort of modern day physics meets Gothic horror - very fitting so close to Halloween!

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SIXTIES POP ART GUITARS ILLUSTRATION

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POP ART GUITARS  Retro Sixties Style Music Pop Art

I have a thing for guitars. I learned to play an acoustic guitar when I was 13 because I had delusions of being a folk singer. Not a pop or rock singer - at least not then. NOW I'd like to be a rock star, lol. It might have something to do with getting back my youth but I really think it's because I still want to be "cool".

As close as I'm gonna get is with this fun and colorful Pop Art Guitar illustration. It's part of a new series of Retro Sixties Pop Art illustrations I've started for my website and online gift store.

I took my Retro Sixties Pop Art Sky illustration and used sections of it inside the silhouettes of some vintage classic guitars. I used a Fender, a Gibson, a Martin and a Les Paul for my silhouettes because they're the big guns of the guitar world. Once I got my four guitars done I decided to do another version with a reflection below. (I love that one, especially on black.)

I kept debating whether to insert some text - like Rock Forever or Rock On - but in the end decided against it because guitars are not just for rock and roll. Many of these great guitars have created some incredible jazz, blue, classical and country music. My pop art is very vintage sixties style art which speaks to rock but the happiness it imparts can be heard in all forms of music so why limit my audience?

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RETRO SIXTIES STYLE POP ART SKY - New!

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I'm starting a new series of retro, sixties style pop art illustrations inspired by the great illustrations that were so popular when I was first learning to be an artist.

Growing up in the hippie era I was inundated with posters, album covers and images all around me like the ones below.

Then, of course, Peter Max (my pop art hero) exploded all over the sixties with his work and I immediately began to put felt tip pens to bear on my own versions of art like Peter Max's below:



If I turned in a paper at school there would be a little spot illustration at the top of the page, my Pee Chee folders were covered in mini Peter Max and Blue Meanie style doodles and my notebooks were filled with them.

I have always loved color so it's not surprising my work is extremely influenced by this iconic, bold and colorful style of art. I didn't call myself Pop Art Diva just because I needed a catchy brand name - I am a pop art diva, grown out of the soil of Andy Warhol, Peter Max, Lichtenstein, Sixties rock art, Disney and Dali - nutritional inspiration that fed my budding little artistic soul.

I've done a lot of art in my life, I've worked in a lot of mediums and styles, but I always come back to my first love of line, design and explosive color. It makes me happy, it makes me smile and it is the essence of my artistic dynamic.

RETRO SIXTIES POP ART SKY is actually the first stage of another illustration. I have taken this landscape style and used it as the interior to a series of classic guitar silhouettes. I've outlined a Gibson, a Martin, a Fender and a Les Paul guitar and have overlayed sections of this image into them to create the second part of this illustration. I'll post it up later this week.

I plan to do a whole series in this manner - create one large image then use that image within another for a double series of retro sixties pop art. Ideas are cramming my head so full I'm waking up in the middle of the night making notes!




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ARE YOU A BABY BOOMER WHO CAN'T GET A JOB?

For many of us fifty and over this is one of the hardest financial times we've ever faced. We are nearing retirement, ready to retire or have retired and BOOM! - our financial security has blown up right before our very eyes.

Many of us find ourselves in the very scary position of having to continue working when we had planned not to or, even worse, having to go back out and get a job in a job market that has traditionally tossed aside anyone in our age bracket.

It's a daunting and slippery prospect for anyone who has not had to contend with the job hunting process of searching, writing resumes and interviewing for several decades. Though I am self-employed I am not immune to this situation as I am constantly talking with boomer friends who are facing joblessness and are out there hitting the bricks in search of work and income in a very tight job market.

On top of this I discovered that looking for a job has changed completely in the years since most of us had to actually do just that! The way to find jobs, the resume writing formats and the interview process are not what they were in our early days of job hunting and without some insider knowledge most of us boomers are left out in the cold wasteland of employment opportunities without a clue.

I was recently hired to do the book cover design, the landing page and edit a new book by Mary Eileen Williams entitled "LAND THE JOB YOU LOVE - 10 Surefire Strategies for Jobseekers over 50". What I discovered opened my eyes to why so many of my friends and colleagues are still out of work. They are not prepared for today's job market and, as a result, they are unemployed.

Eileen's book LAND THE JOB YOU LOVE is written for those of us 50 and over who are out there competing in today's job market. She has taken her twenty years of experience as a job search specialist and career/life transition counselor and applied it to a comprehensive, step-by-step guide specifically aimed at job hunters 50 and over and her book takes you through every phase of the job search, resume and interview process of today's job market.

Here is an interview I did with Eileen on today's job market and the issues facing baby boomers dealing with that market:

Listen to internet radio with PopArtDiva on Blog Talk Radio

If you're 50 or older and you're out there looking for work, LAND THE JOB YOU LOVE is an invaluable resource, workbook and guide that will be the best investment you could make in your future employment.

If you're a baby boomer and you're still out there hunting for a job, please take a moment and check it out:



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I want S'MORE! TODAY IS NATIONAL S'MORES DAY

TODAY IS NATIONAL S'MORES DAY

Why are they called S'mores? Because once you have one you want some more!

Definition of a S'More
A dessert consisting usually of toasted marshmallow and pieces of chocolate bar sandwiched between two graham crackers.

As I've said before I grew up in a camping family so S'mores were one of the earliest sweets I can remember. I loved mine where the marshmallow was toasted almost to the point of being black because it would melt the chocolate until it dripped off the graham cracker. There's nothing more fun than having to blow out the flames on your marshmallow then quickly sticking it on the waiting chocolate covered graham crackers and squishing the whole pile into a gooey mess. To this day it's the only way I will voluntarily eat a graham cracker and enjoy it.

Being part of a good scouting family we were required to gather our own marshmallow toasting stick and whittle it to a point ourselves. I still have the little knife my father gave me one camping trip when I was deemed old enough to do this myself.

S'mores are such an iconic part of an American campfire experience that it's almost sacrilegious to be sitting next to a flaming wood fire and not pull out boxes of graham crackers, bags of marshmallows and bars of chocolate.

If you've never had a S'more then you've missed out on one of the all time great classic pop culture foods of America and it's time you tried one - here's how to make the classic version:

• Start a campfire.
• Get 2 squares of graham crackers ready on a paper plate.
• Place enough Hershey's (yes, I said Hershey's - it's not a true pop culture food without Hershey's) chocolate to cover one of the graham cracker squares.
• Get a stick from a nearby tree and whittle one end to a point.
• Place a marshmallow on your stick and roast it to a golden brown color - the marshmallow should be melted enough to almost be falling off your stick!
• Quickly grab the marshmallow off the stick and plop it down on the chocolate.
• Put the second graham cracker over the marshmallow.
• Squish the whole gooey mess until the chocolate and marshmallow ooze out the sides and onto your fingers.
• Eat with childlike abandon and glee.

You can, if without a campfire or open flame, microwave the marshmallow but it's not really a S'more without the charred marshmallow. The direct fire gives a crunchy caramelized addition to this campfire dessert that nothing else can reproduce.

Ben & Jerry's has a S'mores ice cream flavor, there's a Pop Tart S'mores, there are S'mores flavored energy bars, Russell Stover has a S'mores candy bar, Weight Watchers has a diet S'mores treat and Epicurious has a S'mores Cheesecake recipe. Krispy Kreme even has a S'mores Doughnut! There are all sorts of ways to get the S'mores flavor in the 21st century but none of these can compare to the classic campfire treat above.

A Few S'mores Facts

• The first printed record of a S’mores recipe appeared in "Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts" published in 1927
• “National S’mores Day” is on August 10th each year - this date was instituted by the Hershey Company.
• The Hershey Company makes more than 373 million HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate bars a year. That’s enough to make 746 million S’mores!

Modern S'more Variations:
Chocolate Chip Cookie S'mores, Chocolate Banana S’mores, Peanut Butter & Jelly S’mores, Coconut S’mores, Rocky Road S’mores, Peanut Butter Cup S'mores.

And, of course, my adult version, the
S'MORES MARTINI!

HAPPY NATIONAL S'MORES DAY!

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POP ART HOT DOG with Chips & Drink - Fast Food Art , No Calories

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HOT DOG AS COOL POP ART

As promised - or threatened, whichever way you choose to look at it - here is my Pop Art Hot Dog with sides of potato chips, a dill pickle and a nice soft drink.

I wanted this to be a companion piece to my Pop Art Hamburger and Fries so I left the hot dog and the bun normal colors in all sections and played with the side orders colors. Nothing like a blue dill pickle to tickle your food humor!

I also tied the background in - using ovals on this instead of the squares on the burger piece. I really think these backgrounds give the illustrations a very retro look.

I realized what I have here is a Pop Art Chicago Dog thanks to the pickle and tomato! I'm a fan of chili dogs myself but I wanted a classic hot dog because pop art is a comment on pop culture and the classic frankfurter is part of our Americana. If you're from L.A. think of it as a Dodger Dog, lol.

I have to be honest, I drew the bloody hot dog a few times. For some reason it's so simple that I struggled to keep it from being unrecognizable! I originally had a mustard bottle in the background but there was WAY too much yellow when combined with the chips and mustard so I switched it out and put in a soft drink, then added a nice slice of dill pickle! Gotta have my dill pickle!

Hot dogs always make me think of campfires at Boy Scout Jamborees. My dad was an executive with the Boy Scouts of America and we did a lot of cook outs - I mean a lot! The whole family was in scouting (Den Mother Mom, Eagle Scout Brother, Girl Scout Sister) and I spent a lot of my summers as a kid hanging out with Boy Scouts of all ages. I can still recite the Boy Scout Oath, "I will do my best, to do my duty, to God and my country and to obey the Scout law to help other people at all times. To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight." Amazing considering I sometimes forget what day it is now. . .

I will tell you that a hot dog on a stick over a nice wood fire tastes like nothing else on this earth - maybe I should have stuck in a small serving of S'mores on my Hot Dog Pop Art?

It's a nice mate for my Pop Art Burger and Fries, don't you think?

Both images are available as posters, t-shirts, cards, aprons & even shoes at The PopArtDiva Gift Gallery

Both are available for licensing as well - all of my images are.

POP ART BURGER & FRIES
by PopArtDiva

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Vintage Keds Sneakers Return as Retro Pop Art Tennies

Remember Ked's Shoes? We used to call them "tennies" - they were lace up canvas shoes with a rubber soul and I must have had dozens of pairs of them in the fifties and early sixties. My brother used to have the hi-tops as well - they were introduced as Pro-Keds in the sixties and were marketed as basketball shoes. In fact, they were worn by many popular basketball players of the day.

Keds were "scientifically designed" according to Colonel Keds - remember him from this commercial?

I remember picking at the blue rubber label that was glued to the back of the upper soul until I peeled it off. I did it with every pair of Ked's shoes that I owned. I'd save that blue rubber label too, until I stuck it somewhere and forgot it.

Did you know that these style shoes were called sneakers because the rubber soles allowed you to be silent when walking - thus you could "sneak" up on someone?

I loved those shoes as a kid, I'd wear mine until they got holes in them from wear and tear and washing. Mom used to clean them in our washing machine - I think that's why she liked them, they were easy to keep clean as well as fairly inexpensive. When you had 3 children outgrowing shoes faster than a speeding bullet access to cheap, washable shoes was a boon to the family budget.

I hadn't seen those shoes in years - they got pushed aside by Nikes, Reeboks and then by all the designer athletic shoes with all the bells and whistles of today's sports shoes. Simple little canvas tennies were out of style until retro fashions brought them back. I even saw them worn by Bella Swan of the Twilight films!

Now, thanks to modern technology, I get to put my own pop art designs on those same Keds shoes and I can change the colors of all the laces, trim & rubber souls to match my art as well. It's a real thrill seeing my art on something I loved as a kid. . . and the first thing I did when I got my first pair of my Pop Art Keds shoes was look for the little blue rubber label on the back of the heel - still there but I think I'll restrain myself from trying to peel them off . . . maybe.

Ain't technology grand when it brings back something so cool from the past?

ORDER YOUR OWN PAIR OF MY RETRO STYLE KEDS SNEAKERS,
You can even customize the details with your own color preferences:

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POP ART MARTINIS 2010 - Cocktails Revisited

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POP ART MARTINIS 2010

This is my latest in my pop art food series. I did "MARTINI ME" (see below) for The Martini Diva Boutique and really liked how the martini and the olives turned out and thought it would make a great traditional style pop art for The PopArtDiva Gift Gallery as well.

I love the playful look of the martini glass and the multi-colored olives but it was the background that really gives this Pop Art a retro look. For some reason the shades of the pastels and the stripes remind me of the Rat Pack - think Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin hanging out in Palm Springs.

When I first started The Martini Diva several years ago I did my first version of Pop Art Martinis which had brighter coloring and animal print backgrounds:

I also did Pop Art Margaritas, Pop Art Wine and Pop Art Cocktails for a series of four. I try to work in series for several reasons, it's a good idea if you're creating illustrations for product licensing and merchandise and it's also good for home decor as people often want a grouping for wall art. As always I do my images in several different shapes as well - usually a version in a standard print/poster size (18x24 or 16x20), a square version and a long horizontal rectangular version (great shape for over beds and sofas and as a cup wrap around).

I also keep my "working" files - an unflattened version with all the layers still workable. I have often received licensing requests where a client will ask for one of my pieces but with different colors, different text or a different layout for a specific purpose. Think of any of these as cocktail napkins, coasters or paper plates or even as wrapping paper or fabric designs!

I myself use my designs on several products like t-shirts and aprons, cups with a wrap around graphic, shoes, ties and even skateboards. All of these require different layouts of the illustration. Keeping my working files allows me to adjust almost any part of the illustration which is a real time saver!

The first part of Pop Art Martinis 2010 actually started as a single Rainbow Martini for a saying I wanted to illustrate for products at The Martini Diva Boutique:

When I finished it I realized it would be a good idea to post the martini image without the text as well and then I saw the possibility of the martini glass as a new Pop Art Martini!

I'm going to have to revisit my margarita glass, cocktail glass and wine glass as well I suppose. Then I think I'll finally tackle a Pop Art Beer - it would go great with my Pop Art Hamburger & Fries, lol. But first I'd better finish my Pop Art Hot Dog & Chips (update: Pop Art Hot Dog finished 8-6-2010!)

All of the above images are available on posters, t-shirts, cards, shoes, hats, totes, aprons and even business card designs, postage and skateboards at my stores - all of them customizable too. Just click on any of the images or links to check them out!

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GRUNGE ART - Rorschach Pop Art with a Schmear?

GRUNGE POP ART

My Rorschach Grungy Graffiti with a Pop Art Touch

With my artistic bent towards pop art and pop culture I always taken note of how the world of advertising and marketing bring fringe movements to the mass media of billboards, TV ads and product hawking. It has always fascinated me that underground movements that wish to defy the commercialization of the modern world end up as such a large part of that world sooner or later.

The marketing machine of modern times is a hungry, voracious carnivore always on the ready to gobble up the latest "hot trend" and poop it back out to aid their product sales. This has always been somewhat humorous to me which is why most of my pop art has a decidedly light, silly and colorful feel to it - I think laughter is a much better weapon to deflate pomposity than anger.

In the past year or so I've been seeing a lot of the Grunge influence popping up in ads and marketing. Cars, clothing and a ton of other brands/products are all getting a bit messy with the splatters, splats, drips and uncontrolled element that are big part of the grunge look. Whenever I see a new visual trend in mass media I get my "pop art" radar up and start doing some digging around to find the inspiration. In this case it was the Grunge movement that started in the mid eighties in Seattle, Washington.

There's some lively discussion as to what constitutes "grunge art" but messy and dark seem to be the two common elements. Remember that this art is inspired by the Grunge music scene that started in Seattle - a music that merges the punk/hard rock sounds of the preceding era with the apathy and angst of the youth of the 80s. Most people will think Nirvana and Pearl Jam, though both these groups were a more commercialized interpretation of the original Indie garage music beginnings.

There was a lot of distortion to the instruments in grunge music, especially the guitar, kind of a "messy" style of music filled with dark emotions (angst) and characterized by "grungy" looking band members. (The term grungy itself originated sometime in the mid sixties as an alternate term for dirty or filthy and to this day I still use the term for something dirty and sticky - i.e. "my kitchen floor is so grungy my feet are sticking to the tile!") Thus angst, boredom, dishevelment and distorted sound combine to create Grunge and Grunge art is a visual of these same qualities.

Twenty five years or so later Madison Avenue gets a hold of it and turns it into a sales aid - then I have to get a hold of that and turn it into a visual prank! Behold! My take on the Grunge trend of today's popular culture - a Pop Art of a graffiti Rorschach test on acid. And yes, being a former Mad Woman, I turned it into products too - that's just what I do.

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