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You can have my shirt when you pry it off my cold, dead torso.

That’s how strongly I feel about the Bella+Canvas 3001 Unisex tee. In fact, it’s our go-to shirt for screen printing.

Here’s Bella’s description of this awesome tee:

This updated unisex essential fits like a well-loved favorite, featuring a crew neck, short sleeves and designed with superior combed and ring-spun cotton that acts as the best blank canvas for printing. Offered in a variety of solid and heather colors.

This shirt feels super soft to wear, it’s light (4.2 oz) and it’s 100% cotton. I love 100% cotton because it’s easy to maintain and breathes better than many blends. Plus, it looks fantastic on me. They don’t mention that on their website, but it’s true. Actually, this shirt looks good on every person we’ve sold it to or printed for. It’s just a great choice of tee when you need something that fits a wide range of bodies.

They also have some fantastic color choices in this tee.

For some reason, the pale yellow (pictured) feels a tiny bit lighter and easier to wear than darker colors like black or orange – but I allow for my imagination to have taken over here because I love the color so much. Some of my favorite printed Bella tees of ours are black.

The counterpart for the 3001 is the Ladies 6004. It’s basically the same shirt, but with slightly shorter sleeves and a tighter fit. Even so, the unisex t-shirt looks great on feminine bodies, which I can’t say for many other brands where frumpy seems to be an okay standard. This one I can actually suggest and still sleep at night.

If 100% Made in America is important to you, you’ve got options. They also have the 3001U, which is the same shirt but 100% made in the USA. There are fewer color choices, but maybe you can sleep better at night. Still, their policy on only working with overseas factories who don’t use sweatshop conditions makes me feel good about the brand in general.

This is a super value shirt, which is another reason I recommend it to our custom print clients. I believe it’s the lowest-priced shirt in the Bella+Canvas brand and for the money it’s far superior to similarly-priced brands like Gildan or Jerzees.

There are also some reasons I love this tee that only have to do with the screen printing process. These shirts are super easy to print on. First, they’re light (4.2 oz), so getting them on and off platens, folding back into boxes and all the other handling we do doesn’t make us feel like our arms will drop off after a run of 50. They also have a tight weave, so the ink goes on smooth like buttah.

We also have very few loose strings, holes and sewing weirdness when we get the blanks in our shop. Their consistency in quality is nice to rely on. We have had some issues with certain colors (you know, the exact ones we needed at the time) being out of stock at Bella and all our third-party vendors, which can be frustrating. So we have to be cautious about recommending it to customers, making sure we get their order in sooner than later.

So let’s sum up:

• This shirt looks great on me
• We get great printing results
• It looks great on me
• Super Duper great value

I realize that I don’t really have anything negative to say about this t-shirt. So if my review sounds like I’m shilling for Bella+Canvas, you’re right to be suspicious – but I’m not. I decided to start off our t-shirt reviews with our favorite tee. Coincidentally, it’s also the one I look best wearing.

Questions? Just email [email protected]. We’re listening!

Sparky & Jenni with the Hawthorne Middle School Eco Club, the coolest kids like, ever.

Print t-shirts live and in person while showing grade school students how to conserve our resources? Sign us up!

A few months ago we got a call from Toni Min, science and math teacher at Hawthorne Middle School. She had been to our booth at a festival and saw our on-the-spot t-shirt printing. Toni told me about her after-school Eco Club, which is completely awesome. They actively learn about ecology and the environment by working on projects such as growing their own garden and talking about the benefits of recycling.

One of the more interesting things we do at our live screen printing events is put our crazy art on people’s existing garments. We’ve printed on some really odd stuff before (wool sweater), and even had a few brave souls strip so we could print on what they were wearing at the moment (which is why we carry a robe). Toni loved this idea (minus the stripping) and wanted to know if we would be willing to print on her students’ shirts specifically for the Eco Club – thereby demonstrating how we can reuse old things rather than always acquiring new stuff.

Jenni and I are totally on board with that. We do a few pro bono events a year for causes we align with, so it wasn’t hard to get us to say yes to this one. We love working with kids, we work hard to protect the environment, we already had the ink…

Sometimes our live printing events can get chaotic and crazy. At high-profile events, it can be a nonstop situation, printing and interacting for hours straight. Apparently people love watching what we do up close and personal! So we weren’t sure what to expect with the HMS students.

Let me tell you, these kids were the coolest cats around. Smart as whips, uber-curious, funny, and just crazy fun to be around. It was a total blast. Thanks, guys! You rock.

Sparky explaining how it all works.

Ms. Min checks the temp on a drying t-shirt

New shirts! Old shirts, but… new.

We even printed on dark tees.

You can see us print live all over Los Angeles. Sign up for our newsletter and find out where we’re going next!

Imagine this printed on leather.

Is that a weird question? I mean, after all, it says, “vegan” on it. Of course it’s vegan. It’s right there in the phrase.

Yup, I get it. Except I’m not talking about the message printed on the shirt. I’m asking what’s behind the printing of that shirt.

Is it vegan?

Before we get into some answers, let’s think about a situation we can all relate to.

You’re at a restaurant and you ask your waitperson if your selection is vegan. They pause, consider, and say, “Uhh, yeah. Sure. I think so. Hmmm. Probably.”

How do you feel about that? Kind of… annoyed? Frustrated?

That’s often how Jenni and I feel when we see someone selling t-shirts plastered with a catchy vegan phrase and ask, “Is your printer vegan? Do they use vegan inks or sustainable methods?” and we’re met with blank stares – or worse, total apathy.

Annoyed. Frustrated. Somewhere a unicorn just died.

Even as we clench our fists and mourn mythical creatures, we’d much rather educate than berate. Better results, ya know? Besides, we’re not perfect. We do our best. Caring is numero uno.

Hopefully, you’re one of those vegans who really does care about more than how much cash they can make in the vegan marketplace. As plant-based eaters, I believe we’re also default environmentalists. If we’re going to put our message out there for the world to wear, we should at least try to move in the right direction.

For you, Caring Vegan, I’ve jotted down some information that will help prepare you for your next run of vegan tees. Read on!

No Worms Were Harmed in the Silk Screening Process

We can clear our consciences right off the bat with this little nugget. In silk screening, also known as screen printing, a mesh screen is used as a stencil to push the ink through. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the screens were made of silk. As you might have already guessed, silk is not vegan. Oh no! What to do?

You can chill on this one. The good news is that, these days, screens are made from nylon, not silk. The term silk screening is still used, because, well, we’re used to it. Also, nylon screening doesn’t sound as artsy-fartsy.

Now that we know the worms can relax, let’s move onto inks. Are they vegan? Are they safe?

Are Screen Printing Inks Vegan?

Now and then, we get this question from some of our lovely customers. I wish more people would ask (or care). In fact, one of our customers spent time calling around Los Angeles with that question, only to be disappointed by printers who either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. Sound crazy? We thought so.

Thankfully, there’s a simple method we use to find out if the ink we want to use is made with animal products or tested on animals. You ready for this? We call the manufacturer.

Mmm-hmm. Yup. That’s it. Even better, we get answers. Sometimes we have to wait on hold while they find their chemical engineer, or we have to rephrase the question. A lot of people don’t immediately understand what “vegan” would mean, so we educate them and ask more specifically about whether or not the ink contains any part of an animal. We’ve always received informative, respectful answers. It’s just that simple.

So if you ask your printer if they use vegan ink, they may not know what you mean. Hey, that’s okay, this is your opportunity to educate them. If you explain nicely, rephrase your question and they give you flack (or don’t know), consider going elsewhere.

Soft Hand, Cold Heart

So you’re at your local vegan fest, festing it up with your jackfruit tacos and all the Soy Dream you can handle, and you find yourself at a vegan apparel booth. Wow, those are some sick vegan tees. So soft, and you can’t even feel the print. You just gotta have one!

Hold up there. Before you plunk down your vegan cash, let’s talk about how those t-shirts are printed. To get a really soft hand like that, screen printers use either water-based ink (we’ll get to that in a minute), or possibly a method called discharge printing. Essentially what a discharge print does is bleach the dye out of the shirt, then a water-based ink is applied for color. What’s the problem?

Discharge inks are highly toxic. There’s formaldehyde and a whole cocktail of other chemicals that you’re not supposed to breathe while printing (or ever). Why should you care about what some screen printer is breathing? Well, that bleaching cocktail at some point not only vaporizes into the air, some of it gets washed down the drain. Where does it go? Some of it gets filtered and sent back to you as tap water. Some it goes out to the ocean, unfiltered. Some of those those animals that you fight so hard to protect live there.

Recently, there have been developments in discharge printing that allow for an enzymatic process. That means “natural” enzymes are used to bleach out the dye rather than toxic chemicals. Still, there a couple things we need to consider:

1. The dye from the shirt is still released somewhere. Where did it go?
2. What constitutes a “natural” enzyme? Where do they come from? Animal source? Do you know?

If we’re going to demand that people not use animal products, we should demand to know how that vintagey t-shirt is made. It affects both our environment and the animals.

Water Based Ink is So, Like… Sustainable, Man

Water-based printing is great. It looks good, it feels good on the shirt, it even sounds really environmental. After all it has water in it! That must be awesome! The assumption is that, unlike plastisol-based printing, it’s the best thing for the environment. Why, just take a sip of this water-based ink, it’s delicious. *disclaimer: don’t do that.

Before you drink the water-based kool-aid, read about the myths of water-based inks. Then come back here.

So now you understand that water-based ink is not just water and harmless color made from unicorn breath, it’s actually made with solvents and other chemicals. Not that plastisol ink is chemical-free, but the cleaning methods are very different (and the way we do it, sustainable). Water-based printing can be done sustainably, so knowing how things should be done will help you choose wisely.

What About the Shirts?

Well, thankfully, most shirts are typically cotton or synthetic and no animals are used. However, there are no innocents in textile manufacturing. Virtually every method affects our world in some way. Here’s a great source of information on the different fabrics and their impact on the planet: http://www.greenchoices.org/green-living/clothes/environmental-impacts

Vegans Are Environmentalists

As you can see, no t-shirt printing method is 100% perfect for the environment. It’s about making an educated, conscious choice. You can’t please everyone, but having solid answers for your customers is a pretty big deal.

If you care about the environment and the animals, it’s worth asking your screen printer about their methods. If they can’t (or won’t) answer your questions, it’s the same as a waiter not telling you if your meal is vegan or not.

You wouldn’t accept that, so why accept anything less than vegan and environmentally-friendly screen printing?

More questions? Ask in the comments or email us!

Here’s a fun poster I did for our local Chamber of Commerce’s holiday party last year. The most fun element was illustrating the flapper. Unreal! Finding and manipulating the right typefaces to exude that art deco 20s vibe was also the bee’s knees.

Like a lot of the work I do, I used reference photos, tracing some parts and making up the others. The advantage to illustrating in the final design versus using a photo is that I can change the line color, weight, fills, and add elements (like the flower in her hat) to tie it all in to the poster design.

Because I created it in Adobe Illustrator, I was also able to pull out elements to make smaller signs, flyers and table signs for the event.

There’s sometimes a misconception that creating design comes out of thin air. The whole “staring at a blank canvas” thing. It can be like that. Most of the time it’s a result of doing a lot of homework on the subject matter – that’s where the ideas come from. The result you see here isn’t complicated, until you start conceptualizing all the other million ways it could have been done. There are always some pretty bad ideas (and designs) that get thrown out.

That’s the work. That’s the art. It’s also the fun. That’s why I do it.

Chocolate and Art Show?

You had me at choco–. This looks like a super cool show. If you’re in L.A. February 19-20 and you need something fun to do, go go go! Check out their Facebook Event page here: http://bit.ly/choco-art-LA-FB

This is also my first exhibit in a long time. I’ll have four pieces up at this show. Weee! Here’s a sneak preview:

Love Bird, paint pen on wood

Bear+Donut, mixed media on skateboard

Hipster Pub Dude, paint pen on skateboard

Retro Tube Sock, mixed media on skateboard

I hope to see you there! If you can, please find me and Jenni and say hello. Send a text to 818-835-2585 and we’ll let you know where we are!

In my quest to fill the world with the happiest, weirdest art in the world, I have dreamed up yet another vehicle for the task: A coloring and activity book!

While it’s in the works, I couldn’t resist sharing some of the pages with you. Here’s one that will both scratch your coloring itch and stave off Alzheimer’s. It’s printable on regular letter-sized paper (select Fit to Page for best results). Enjoy!

Oh no! It’s Christmas Eve and somebody forgot to buy tags for the gifts. Hmm. Well, you could just get out your Post-it pad or use your burrito wrapper from lunch. Aren’t you swanky.

No! Don’t do that! No one will appreciate black bean remnants on their gift, trust me.

Instead, use these printable gift tags that I designed just for you. Merry Christmas! It’s so easy. There are stockings, snowflakes and even some lightsabers thrown in because apparently there’s a new Star Wars. They should really do some marketing, I had no idea.

There are several pages with different styles. Choose your favorite or use them all!

If you need help figuring this out, it’s okay. We’ve all had someone put too much bourbon in our egg nog once or twice. Here’s how to use these things:

1. Download the PDF of the gift tags here.
2. Print them using your home (or hotel) printer. They are letter-size pages, so it’s easy. I suggest printing at full size, but if you shrink to fit, the world will keep spinning. Depending on how much egg nog you’ve had, it may spin faster.
3. Cut them out using the handy dotted lines as a guide. I use a fancy Fiskars cutter, you could use scissors. Or the plastic knife from your burrito (I suggest rinsing or licking first).
4. Fill them out. Yeah, I thought that was obvious, but you know… egg nog.
5. Tape them to the present. Wait, you did what? Ha! Oh well, open them up again and see who gets what, THEN tape the tag to the gift.

If you’re having trouble reading the instructions (egg nog), just look at these photos:

In case you got lost (egg nog), here’s where to download the printable gift tags: http://bit.ly/christmas-tags

Happy Holidays and please tag responsibly.

Oh! Wait! Once more thing… try some delicious vegan egg nog.

Who loves to color? Ooh, oooh, oooh, we do, we do!

If you love to color and you want to turn a blank or printed tee into your own work of artistry, you’ve come to the right place. I’m going to show you how easy it is to color a t-shirt with fabric markers. How easy is it? Super easy.

Here are the supplies you’ll need:

• Printed T-shirt
• Thin cardboard (letter-size or larger)
• Fabric Markers

The Printed T-shirt

For the purposes of our tutorial, I chose one of our own white tees with our famous Vegan Zombie printed in black. You can use any t-shirt you want, really. Go thrift store hunting if you want to do it on the cheap! Sometimes we find some pretty interesting stuff that begs to be decorated. You can also dig something out of your closet, or if you’re cheeky, your roommate’s closet. Just make sure it’s clean. Even a new t-shirt will work best if you wash it once before coloring.

Helpful Hint: If you use someone else’s shirt, make sure they are not wearing it at the time. Although in certain situations, that might be fun.

The Cardboard

In our house, finding cardboard is easy. There’s always some kind of cardboard available, if it hasn’t already been taken by our 8-year old to build a Bionicle diorama. A cereal box works great (take out the cereal first). If you don’t eat cereal (what’s wrong with you), you can use a cracker box, the back of a notepad or cut up one of those boxes from your latest Amazon order. You just want something large enough to fit behind the area you’re coloring. If you have a small piece you can move it around as you go. No biggie.

The Fabric Markers

You can find Fabric markers in most craft stores like JoAnn, Michaels and Ben Franklin. You can also get them online. Most markers are about the same in how they work, so don’t sweat that too much. Try to find ones with fatter tips to start out. If you’re coloring a large area you’ll start to get cranky using a fine tip. Not that I would know, of course. Call it… intuition.

Let’s Color!

Get yourself set up in a well-lit area with a nice, clean, flat surface. I usually pour myself some sort of cocktail before starting, but you can substitute cocoa, tea, or I hear some people even drink water. Let me know what that’s like.

Put your cardboard piece inside the shirt (not behind it). This keeps any ink from getting through to the back side.

When you start to color, you’ll notice the color going onto the shirt is a lot lighter than the cap. That’s okay. It might look like your marker is running out of ink already, but it’s not. You’re coloring on fabric which soaks up a lot of ink, hence the cardboard. Fill an area with color, then let it dry for a few minutes. Go over it again and you’ll notice that it’s much darker now. Yay!

Let it Dry, Already!

If you’re like me, you’ll put your shirt on right away and go parading around like you just invented cereal. While I can’t fault you for this, I do recommend that you let it sit overnight to dry completely. I guess you could use a hair dryer if you’re in a hurry, but I haven’t lab-tested that as of this writing.

The Result

Here’s how mine turned out. I really loved doing this because I could add shading and make my Vegan Zombie design look more hand-drawn and sketchy.

You can see that the color is not particularly dense. I left mine this way, but you could always let it dry, then go back over it again to darken the colors.

In the side-by-side below, you can see that our full color screen printed version is much brighter and darker with lots of flat color. This is what I love about doing this crafty coloring project, no two t-shirts will be the same, even if I colored them myself.

I Want to Do This RIGHT NOW!

It does look exciting, doesn’t it? Like I said, if your significant other, partner, brother or roommate has a t-shirt that looks like it would be fun to color, that’s the quickest route. But since you have to live with them afterwards and you still need to go out and get markers, why not pick up something new (or used)? You’ll sleep better.

If you think you can wait longer than five minutes (or even a few days), you could order one of our ready-made kits.

I hope you have fun with this. Let me know how it works out for you!

It’s a Sparky print studio tour. Expect nothing less than weird.

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Want to get someone’s attention subconciously, want to get on someone’s nerves?  You need to annoy them, and here is how you can do it.

1) Crack your knuckles/toes.  Cracking your knuckles is easier and more common, but if you can crack your toes, that really gets their spine tingling.  Not only is it not common, it sounds louder and more painful.

2) Bite your nails.  Just the sound of that can drive some people insane.

3) Keep staring at a certain part of someone’s body.  For instance, pretend you see a giant zit on someone’s cheek and keep staring at it to the point where they need to move away.

4) Be sloppy.  Untuck your shirt halfway, have a milk mustache, and have long fingernails (if you’re a guy) all at the same time.

5) Last but not least, Talk!  Talk about anything and everything.  See an ant, talk about it.  It must be touch for ants, huh?  Is that a tree?  What a nice tree.  You’re nice; why are you so nice, it’s amazing!  You know what’s amazing?  Magicians.  It’s not real magic though.  It looks like it though, but it’s just tricks.  Like in the song, you know, sing with me. “It’s tricky! It’s tricky!”.  What you don’t like singing?  It’s good for the heart….and so on.

Want to get someone’s attention subconciously, want to get on someone’s nerves?  You need to annoy them, and here is how you can do it.

1) Crack your knuckles/toes.  Cracking your knuckles is easier and more common, but if you can crack your toes, that really gets their spine tingling.  Not only is it not common, it sounds louder and more painful.

2) Bite your nails.  Just the sound of that can drive some people insane.

3) Keep staring at a certain part of someone’s body.  For instance, pretend you see a giant zit on someone’s cheek and keep staring at it to the point where they need to move away.

4) Be sloppy.  Untuck your shirt halfway, have a milk mustache, and have long fingernails (if you’re a guy) all at the same time.

5) Last but not least, Talk!  Talk about anything and everything.  See an ant, talk about it.  It must be touch for ants, huh?  Is that a tree?  What a nice tree.  You’re nice; why are you so nice, it’s amazing!  You know what’s amazing?  Magicians.  It’s not real magic though.  It looks like it though, but it’s just tricks.  Like in the song, you know, sing with me. “It’s tricky! It’s tricky!”.  What you don’t like singing?  It’s good for the heart….and so on.

Megan Branch, Intern

What’s the very earliest thing you can remember? That sandwich you had for lunch today? Your last day of high school? How about your first day of kindergarten? Can you remember anything before that? In Karl Sabbagh’s new book, Remembering Our Childhood: How Memory Betrays Us, he challenges the idea of “recovered memories,” an idea that has been at the center of several recent court cases. In Remembering Our Childhood, Sabbagh uses scientific experiments to show how fragile our earliest memories are and how easily they can be reshaped during early childhood. In this post, I’ve tried to copy something Sabbagh does in the book and collect early-childhood memories from some of the OUP staff. Some responses were funny, some were sad, some seemed like they couldn’t be true. Whether you have faith in the accuracy of early-childhood memories or not, the employees at OUP definitely have some interesting ones. After you read, feel free to comment with your own recollections from early (or not so early) childhood.

Paige, Marketing Manager, Online & Scholarly Reference: My earliest memory is a mosaic of images from my family’s house in Omaha, where I was born and lived until I was nearly four. I remember the bright pink only-in-the-70s shag carpeting in my bedroom, the view out the backdoor to the park, the house flooded with sunlight, and the brown, green, and beige color scheme.

Rebecca, OUPBlog Editor: When I was about two and a half my Nana Sara passed away. I don’t really remember Nana but I do remember that day. I remember being terrified at seeing my father upset and my brothers, (who never paid attention to me) took me into the study to distract me and keep me away from all the friends and relatives who had come to sit Shiva. They helped me draw a picture of Nana and then let me hide it anywhere I wanted in the house. I hid it behind a picture frame in the hallway and no one found it there until we moved eight years later. I distinctly remember being both scared of what was happening to my father and excited that my brothers were giving me their complete attention – and I was so proud that I kept the secret of the hidden picture for so many years.

Susan, Senior Publicist: My earliest memory is from before I could speak or sit up on my own. I was lying down on my belly in my crib and I distinctly remember trying to lift my head because I wanted to take a look around. I tried and tried but realized quickly that I was unable to get my head up and that I would just have to be patient and wait. This is all before language but I remember thinking this precise thing. I simply put my head down, closed my eyes and decided to wait.

Betsy, Publicity Manager: My parents took me on vacation was when I was three. I remember packing all my dolls into the backseat of the car, and I remember being in the hotel room and being so happy that I could still watch “The Muppet Show” with my dad even though we weren’t at home. The TV was mounted up on the wall, and I had to look up to watch, but I was so happy to see Miss Piggy.

Cassie, Publicity Assistant: Can my answer be that I hardly remember anything? Most of my childhood “memories” have been extrapolated from one of the many, many, many pictures documenting it. So, for example, I think I remember falling asleep with a giant picture book/encyclopedia type thing about wolves when I was about six, but it may just be because I have a picture of me, dead to the world in my little pink room, with a giant book open across my chest.

Lauren, Publicity Assistant: My first memory is my mother standing in the kitchen holding my just-born brother and pushing a drawer shut with her left hip. She was wearing a blue terrycloth shirt and it was sunset, so the kitchen was very orange.

Shannon, Editor, Humanities: Well my first memory is of the moon landing in July, 1969. My mother stopped vacuuming to point at the fuzzy black and white television screen and explain the impossible goings on going on there. I mean, the TV itself was mind-boggling enough for a small fresh brain.

Purdy, Publicity Director: I was the youngest of three boys, still in diapers, growing up in a small house, in a small town during the dawn of the 1970s. I remember we had a dog named Stacy whose white coat was only interrupted by a brown black triangle near her throat. She had ghostly eyes that could be blue or gray, or white depending on the light. She was extraordinarily beautiful and had a wolfen look to her. Each morning I’d climb out of my crib, wake my brother Richie (whom I called Neighbie, short for neighbor, because I didn’t quite understand our fraternal relationship), then we descend the stairs to watch Popeye or Captain Kangaroo cartoons on the television before Neighbie went off to school. Often we’d discover by a big goopy pile of dog poop downstairs and Neighbie would step right into it and wiggle his toes about. He claimed this was “fun,” he claimed to “like the way it feels.” When he grew bored, however, he knew better than to walk about the house and sent me back upstairs to seek help from my sleeping parents. My reports were met with groans and more often than not, “Not again! What is wrong with that boy?”

Sarah, Associate Director of Publicity & Communications: My earliest memory is being tucked into my parent’s bed with my brother and my two cousins. I’m not sure why we were all bundled into bed together if our parents were having a date night together or what. But at this time we all lived together in a two family house in a working class area of New Jersey.

Megan, Intern: When I was really little, probably around 2 or 3,  I had some kind of eye condition that meant monthly appointments at a huge children’s hospital downtown. I don’t remember what went on at the appointments, but I do remember the waiting room. I loved going downtown each month and getting to play with the bright red, perfectly detailed, miniature kitchen, complete with metal taps!

First, a heartfelt thanks to all my new visitors and regular readers. You all rock.

Over the past year I’ve moved into the tighter, cozier space that is my niche market: children’s educational publishing. It’s nice and uncluttered in here. I can breathe a little better. My posts here have followed suit, focusing on children’s book publishing and creating educational media for the little nippers.

Anyone who knows me vaguely well understands that I am all about art being a business. That is, art that you intend to make a living from. There are some who long to live simultaneously in dual worlds; Van Gogh’s and Bill Gates’s. Hope and luck do not make an art career (or an economy). Hard work and business acumen can.

My life drawing teacher at the American Academy of Art used to gesture across Michigan Avenue to the Fine Art school and, in his crackly Lithuanian accent, tell abstract students to join their friends. He was teaching us how to make a living with objective art rather than starve with subjective doodles.

Nothing wrong with Fine Art or Abstract art. I enjoy it immensely. It’s just a chancy way of making rent.

I got carried away for a moment, forgive me. Back to the present!

I’ve been a longtime fan of Home Office Warrior, an excellent blog for, well, people who work from home. Even as one of those “artist types” I found an environment that’s all about making money from doing what you love in your own home office. It ain’t easy. At least there are others willing to share their wisdom and experience.

I was recently asked to be a regular contributor to HOW. It took me all of 30 seconds to consider before committing to a weekly post for the online magazine. I’m really excited about this and honored to be among some very smart people.

I urge you to check it out and add it to your feed subscriptions. There’s so much knowledge there, it’s crazy to pass it up.

So of course I’ll still be writing here regularly, but I can focus on publishing and children’s media here and write about freelance business issues on HOW.

It’s a great opportunity and I’m honored to accept the challenge.

Thanks again for reading and I hope to inspire some great conversations in both places.