And the winner is...........................

So aside from drawing my own sister's name out twice (no, I'm not giving her the prize - I will get her something a little special later on for being ridiculously lucky!)... the (real) winners are:

1st - Shelley
2nd - Jess
3rd - Kellie

Congrats ladies, I will be in contact with all three of you to organise who gets which prize!

Thanks to everyone for participating, stay tuned for Giuseppe's next exciting release, and watch out for more giveaways over the next few weeks - it is almost Christmas after all!

katie :)

It's treasure hunt time!!!!

Ok lovelies… here’s the deal.  Work your way through these clues… email me (Katie) the answers by Wednesday 5pm and I’ll do a random draw for our prize winners!  We’ll have three winners –a 50% off voucher for Giuseppe’s next big release (coming VERY soon - most exciting but still a secret!), a 5”x7” print, or a pack of 4 greeting cards of your choice.  First place getter can choose whichever prize they want, second and third can then follow, iykwim?!  Rightio, here goes:

1.  How many spots on the “Jolly Giraffe”?  (this includes half spots, and spots on the face!)

2.  What colour is the icing on the blue butterfly’s cupcake?

3.  How many hedgehogs are there in the Alice in Wonderland croquet game?

4.  I come in 3 colours with 3 different images, and I happen to be Oscar’s (Katie and Giuseppe’s son) favourite set of illustrations… I am the ______ series!

5.  How many prints are currently available as greeting cards?

6.  What name is on the “Spaceboy” image in the “Personalised Artwork” album?

7.  Finally, which of Giuseppe’s current range would you like to see on a greeting card (that we haven’t got already)?

8.  You can score a second entry by suggesting Giuseppe’s facebook page to friends… tell your friends to pop a note on the wall to let us know you sent them, or post a link to Giuseppe’s page on your business page – make sure you tag  “@Giuseppe Poli – Artist” to ensure it appears on our news feed.

All answers can be found at:   http://www.facebook.com/giuseppe.poli.artist  (check the ‘photo albums’ tab)

Email your answers to katie.poli@gmail.com by Wednesday 5pm (Qld time) and we’ll draw the winners Wednesday night!  Yay!  Happy hunting gorgeous people!

NB  Email addresses will be immediately discarded and NOT be used for any other marketing purpose.

angels

Someone asked me a little while ago for Angels.... and it's been sitting in my mind since then.  I've finally been able to spend some time on them and at first I found it a little tricky to design something that was a little different and captured what I felt I wanted to convey.  Well, they came pretty quickly, probably because it brewed in my head for a little while :-)

and I'm super excited about them :-)  I'm really looking forward to painting these....got a great feeling about them.

I love the little Angel and little girl swinging....it's such a beautiful place to be.

hope you like them! :-)

Shop online

We've been looking at online stores for a little while now and are now more openly publishing our Madeit store.

Katie has done a great job at setting this up, and I'm so excited to share it with you all.

Just follow this link  http://www.madeit.com.au/giuseppepoliart/   or click on the image to the right of this blog.

Enjoy! :-)

my trip to Wonderland with Alice

Well, I'm so excited with the work that I've produced with Alice in Wonderland!  I didn't know much about the story and it took a bit of time to get familiar with it.  I made loads of designs/compositions, tried new/old techniques and it was the typical artwork story of gradual victories, discovery, wins and loses.  It's funny, but it's not often that myself (and I'm sure other artists) start a project with a clear vision of the end result. We try this, see how it works, nah don't like that, like that bit, let's explore this.... what a ride :-) and as always with art didn't realise just how close I was to the final product, felt like I was a little lost and then a few strokes of colour here and there and it all started to come together.

What I love about these pictures is the gorgeous detail that resulted.  Here's a closeup.... got watercolour, pencil, and computer strokes in this - just makes it delicious :-)

I've been wondering what to post and so I thought some behind the scenes stuff and ideas would be fun.  I really enjoy reading about how others create so hopefully someone out there will enjoy this.

Here's a layout sketch from the pile of work produced in the process.  I've finally arrived at this angle, where we get a good closeup of the cat and see Alice's face as well. You don't want to know the number of angles and layouts I experimented with :-)  So now in this pic, I'm working on establishing the tone, trying to make it look interesting in B/W before we start with colour.  This is important in composition, because the eye travels around the painting bouncing around dark areas and light areas.  It also makes the pictures look so much more enticing if they still look clear in B/W.

 

Below, I'm still playing with layout and composition of the Croquet game. Here I'm tackling layout by solely focusing on silhouettes - a technique that Animation masters use. If the silhouette of a character is clear, then the viewer instantly realises the action/moment/identity of the character and doesn't have to ponder too much - the image works and captures the attention quickly.  The Croquet game was so full of these little moments and I wanted to capture it all, so I had to cheat a little and put in some fun moments from different time slots - Alice laughing at the absurdity of her flamingo, the white rabbit which comes in later in the scene is added, the Queen of Hearts gets into her tirade later into the scene as well but by this time Alice is not happy.  I wanted to capture the chaos, the Queen's anger, the King keeping the peace, the hedgehogs walking off, the white rabbit, the small time when Alice is happy and the guests all playing for themselves without care for taking turns, the crazy unlevel Croquet playing pitch.  There's also a little bit from the very beginning of the chapter, one of the gardeners has forgotten to paint a white rose red.  Imagine it. Imagine if the Queen saw that. What chaos :-) and it's actually quite a troubling scene for Alice - how do you make a happy image out of that :-)

Well I'm glad I've posted this.... it's been fun.  Looking forward to sharing more soon.  May see you at the Handmade Expo this Saturday or on Facebook. 

Enjoy :-)

work work work.... I love it!

Thanks again to the awesome feedback and participation.  I am absolutely loving this, and it's so great to know what people are wanting because I just want to make art that brightens people's day :-)   There are so many ideas in the backlog and knowing what is more in demand helps me prioritise what I work on next.

I've been wanting to blog more and was hoping to put little pics up with each post but each time I think of blogging I hold off because there's just a little bit more I could finish off, and then I'll post it.... well that seems to be a recurring issue, so I've decided, pics or no pics I'm going to post anyway :-)

We've got some awesome suggestions for new artworks.  Have finished the first of many Circus pics.  Got some Pirates in the pipeline, and of course Alice in Wonderland, which is getting pretty much as much of my focus as I can spare.

Here's a little sneak peak again....

.... chat more soon :-)

We have winners!!!!!

Thank you so so much to everyone who took the time to enter our little blog competition... thanks to you we  have been able to get an idea of some of Giuseppe's more popular designs, and Giuseppe has a whole host of brilliant ideas for new designs (he is going to be a busy busy boy!).  We also have almost 300 followers on facebook and 19 blog followers so we are having a little party over here - thanks so much for joining us for the ride!

Now onto the important details.... we have some prizes to give away!   Wahoo!!!  (Make sure you read all the way through!)

Drum roll please............

....................................

....................................

The winner of the 8" x 10" personalised print, valued at $25... is.......

Tina Mihalitsis!!!!!!!  

Congrats Tina  :)

But wait there's more!

The winners of the 5 packs of soon-to-be-released greeting cards (each pack containing 4 cards of your choice), valued at $10 per pack..... are.....

Lisa from Cute at Buttons!

My 3 lovelies!

Jodie Kochman!

Anita McDonald!

and

Kim from Cuggles Kids!

Congratulations to all these lovely ladies... I will be in contact with more details.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!

We are so thankful for all your feedback and so excited about the release of our greeting cards that we'd like to give a few bonus prizes!
Firstly to Becky Truloff - we are sending a 5"x7" personalised print your way.... for the amazing amount of 'likers' you have referred on - thanks again!  (you would have thought with all those entries your name would have come up at least once, but that's the luck of the draw! lol!)

Finally as we did not have a huge number of entries, but were so grateful for the time people put in to their feedback, we are sending EVERYONE else who commented on the giveaway post below (on this blog) 2 greeting cards (of your choice).  If you could please email me at katie.poli@gmail.com I will let you know the final selection of images for the greeting cards so you can choose which two cards you would like.

Thanks again!
smiles...
katie and giuseppe

Studio update...

Hey all, thanks for your amazing response to our competition! It's been fabulous so far and we love your suggestions... I want to do them all :-) so I'm just going to have to keep running hard to bring them to life :-) I really appreciate your wonderful feedback and your time in providing it, cheers!

I sit here in this little "studio" surrounded with artwork I've done and thinking about the new works I'm working on, I'm so excited about sharing these pieces with you....so here's a little sample of something that is brewing away that i'm super chuffed about... my journey down the rabbit hole with Alice,

and yes it is little :-) I just don't want to give the whole lot away until it's finished...I hope you find it a tasty little morsel.....

Can't wait to have this available...

Chat more soon!

It's giveaway time!

If you are a facebook follower you may have seen that we are soon-to-be releasing a range of greeting cards using Giuseppe's images! Well, now we need your help. Our initial print run will only contain 10 images... the hard thing is deciding. So we thought we'd hand it over to you, our lovely fans, to help us choose... and as we're so excited about the new cards, we want to give away some stuff in the process!

PRIZES (the important stuff!)... there will be 6 lucky winners!
One 8"x10" print of your selection (personalised if you wish!)
Five packs of cards (each containing 4 cards of your selection!)

HOWEVER - If we reach 300 fans before the end of the competition, we will have DOUBLE the prizes available... if we reach 400 fans, we will TRIPLE them! If we manage to get to 400 fans, we will also have to do something spectacular in the discount department :)

Your mission is as follows: (and yes, you can receive multiple entries!)

(1) Become a facebook fan (if you aren't already... follow the link on the top right hand corner of the blog) and comment below to let us know - 1 entry
(2) Become a follower of this blog and comment below - 1 entry
(3) Comment below to let us know your favourite images from Giuseppe's current collection that you would like to see on a greeting card - 1 entry
(4) Comment below to give us some suggestions on new images that you would like to see Giuseppe paint - whether it be for personalised prints, greeting cards, or both! - 1 entry
(5) Invite friends to become Giuseppe's fan on Facebook - for every friend that becomes a 'liker' (get them to let us know you sent them) you get 1 entry!

So the more you do, the more entries you get! Wahoo!!!

The competition will close on Friday 23rd July at midnight... so get cracking!

We'd love you to be a part of the fun!

smooches...
xox

Hey from 'the other half'

Well hello there lovely fans!  Thanks so much for joining us and for all the support you have given us as we have gradually gotten Giuseppe's dream off the ground over the past few months.  I'm sure you will agree that it has been lots of fun seeing the new artworks appear... I know that I get excited posting new paintings up for you all to see!  You will probably quickly realise that I (Katie) tend to be the communication front as I don't have the talent so I would rather Giuseppe spends his time with a paintbrush in hand! 

If you are a regular facebook user, you will have noticed the production of artworks coming in waves followed by quiet periods... we are a busy little family and sometimes general everyday existence, Giuseppe's day-job, combined with being Dad (and doing a fabulous job of cleaning the kitchen every night!!!) have to take priority.  In saying that, Giuseppe is keen to provide a constant stream of new artworks so any ideas are always more than welcome.

We hope that you will continue to follow this journey, contribute suggestions whenever the inspiration takes you, and help us keep creating funky things for you and your special little people!
smooches...
katie

Welcome!

Hello!

Welcome to the start of my first Giuseppe Poli - Artist blog! I'm pretty excited as it's another avenue to share things with you and can't wait for it grow.

Cheers and chat soon!

G :)