Prepping For Black Friday #2 – Sale On Etsy Prints!

As we approach Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, I have another post about my wares, this time with a big, fat, site-wide discount!

Now Has Come The Time For Silence – © Sarah Allegra – fine art print

Enter code MYTHIC2014 to get a whopping 20% off any and all items from my Etsy shop!  This is a huge sale, the biggest I’ve ever created, so take advantage of it while it’s active!  It will be good until January 31st 2015; perfect for buying holiday gifts for yourself and others, as well as spending any Christmas money you might get 🙂

Let me tell you a little bit about my prints.  They are made at an extremely high-quality printer in downtown Los Angeles.  My printer is not at all easy to get to; there is always traffic and I manage to get lost and the entire experience of getting there is terrible, but I wouldn’t change printers for the world.  Even if I moved out of state, I’d keep using them and have them ship me my prints.  The incredible quality of the prints they deliver is just that high.

Aerie – © Sarah Allegra – fine art print

Each and every image is carefully calibrated to reveal even the tiniest details.  They somehow manage to keep the highlights high and the lowlights low without a single pixel’s worth of detail loss.  The colors are an exact match for how I intend the images to look.  These are NOT easy things!  I have been through many printers before I found POV Evolving.  And a special shout-out and thank you to Lauren, who always handles my orders!  She is a delightful person and makes sure each and every image created is perfect.

In addition to all that, they only use archival inks and paper, making prints that are museum-quality and which will last for a lifetime!  The paper they use is this thick, luscious paper, almost like watercolor paper; nothing cheap or flimsy.  Every single time I have an image printed, I’m impressed with how amazing it looks, even though I’ve been seeing how great they look for several years!

To The Lost – © Sarah Allegra – fine art print

In addition to the incredible quality of every print, all my images come in limited edition runs.  There are a few exceptions, but generally it looks like this:

12 size small prints at 8″ x 12″

10 size medium prints at 10″ x 15″

7 size large prints at 16″ x 24”

That means that there will only ever be 7 prints made of that particular image in that size, in the entire world, ever!

Occasionally, I also have props or wearable art available in my shop as well!  Right now, you can have your own Wind Goddess headdress, which also looks quite wintery, for not very much 🙂

Where Earth Meets The Sky – detail.

The Wind Goddess Headdress available on Etsy now!

I also have a section of my shop dedicated to ME/CFS/fibro-inspired prints from my Enchanted Sleep series!

Each and every print will come signed and numbered along the white border.  If you’d like a short, special message included, I’m happy to add that for you, free of charge!

One more word about my prints; the quality of them was high enough that Peter S. Beagle himself took them along legs of his The Last Unicorn screening tour.

Five of my prints along the left side of this photo (photo not taken by me)

This was extra special because not only was Peter S. Beagle, one of the biggest sources of inspiration to me and one of my two favorite authors (the other being Robin McKinley) had this adorable moment with Game Of Thrones author George RR Martin right in front of my prints:

Peter S. Beagle and George RR Martin with plushies, in front of my prints!

I’d like to say quickly that the above photo went a bit viral and I have been credited as the photographer, but I did not take this photo.  I wasn’t even in the same state as they were at the time!  I tweeted about the photo since it’s adorable and also in front of my prints, and then it really took off, but I did not snap the image, and though I have tried to correct news sources, they continue listing me as the photographer.  So, I’m sorry to whoever did take this photo; I have tried to set the record straight!

This Dying Body – © Sarah Allegra – fine art print

Take a look around my Etsy shop and don’t forget to use your discount code MYTHIC2014 to get 20% your entire order!  Let me restate that this is the biggest, farthest-reaching sale I have ever had on my prints, so be sure to take advantage of it while it lasts!

If there is a certain image you’d like a print of, or you see an image you like but want it in a different size, just let me know!  Some of my images are under contract and I am unable to sell prints of them for that reason, but the majority of the time, I will be able to accommodate you very easily!

Remember, the discount code is only good until January 31st 2015, so get ready, get set… go!!  Happy shopping!

Katie Jonson being silly and posing with a framed print she modeled in

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Prepping For Black Friday #1 – Red Bubble Items!

As we approach the Holiday Season, I’m dedicating the next few days to promoting my artwork-related items, which would make wonderful gifts for anyone!  Whether you’re looking for straight artwork you can hang on the walls, some inexpensive stocking-stuffer/Secret Santa gifts, or something with a more practical application, I’ve got you covered 🙂

Today I’m focusing on items which can be found in my Red Bubble shop!  I talked about this some in my last post, but I can go into it a little more in its own post.  What do I sell in my Red Bubble shop?  A LOT.  All of the following can be found with my artwork on it!

• Blank greeting cards/postcards (very inexpensive… and you could grab a couple for yourself and a few to give away!)
• Stickers (again, very inexpensive; grab some for yourself and some for a friend!)
• Tshirts and hoodies
• Laptop skins
• iPad covers
• iPhone covers
• Galaxy phone covers
• Throw pillows
• Tote bags (so, so useful, especially here in Los Angeles where plastic bags are banned!  Slide your purchases into one of these babies :))
• Duvet covers
• Mugs (who doesn’t use mugs?)
• Travel Mugs for liquid on the go!
• Lastly, my favorite, my new 2015 Calendars!

I started buying Red Bubble calendars before I ever started selling any of my own and I’ve been constantly impressed with the incredibly high quality year after year!  The paper is thick and lush, the inks print vividly and the design maximizes the room for artwork!  I truly love having one of these in my house each year (and I get frequent requests for these as gifts for friends and family).  It’s such a simple way to get 12 unique pieces of art to hang on your wall, adding beauty and magic every single day and it comes at a great price!

My 2015 Calendar!

And if that’s not enough for you, you can also shop by series!  Want to see everything DreamWorld-related?  Enchanted Sleep, for those who chronic illness has touched?  Orphans of the Mother Road for vintage-lovers?  Glass Walls for the animal-lovers in your life?  Pop Culture-inspired?  How about Music- and Literary-Inspired images?  Or are you a fan of a good old self portrait?

I have never had any issues with any of the items I’ve ordered from them myself, nor have I heard anything negative from others.  Red Bubble really makes buying fun and easy!  You can visit one site and take care of many people on your to-buy-for list and get your shopping done quickly!  And if you’re looking for any image in particular on any item in particular, just let me know!  I can very likely accommodate any requests!

As always, I sincerely thank anyone who helps support independent artists with their buying power!  You guys help make what I do possible 🙂  Keep an eye on the blog for the next couple days as we approach Black Friday and Cyber Saturday/Monday!  New items will be showcased and some really fantastic savings will be revealed as well!

Happy shopping to all!

Lady Death, by Sarah Allegra

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Kicking Cancer’s Ass With The Yellow Knight

I have known Erick Reidell for several years, but he and Geoff go way back to high school.  Erick has always been an adventurous, creative, gregarious person, and we found a lot of artistic common ground to talk about when I first met him as Geoff’s new girlfriend a little over five years ago.  Which was a relief to me, since I just wanted Geoff’s friends to like me!

It was a shock to everyone when he was diagnosed with cancer that same year.  Cancer cruelly seems to always pick on the best, most wonderful people.  Erick would not be anyone’s “typical” cancer patient.  He doesn’t smoke, lives healthfully and is always full of optimism and cheer.  That first year Geoff and I were dating, Erick had a seven-pound tumor removed from his abdomen.  There were many breathless months while Erick endured chemo and treatments and recovered from surgery.  I vividly remember the night Erick’s wife called Geoff to tell him that the most recent scan had come back clear, and for the time being at least, Erick was in remission.  Everyone was, of course, extremely relieved.

Since then I’ve gotten the chance to get to know Erick better myself, and I can say he is one hell of a guy.  Hard-working, artistic, funny, a great husband and dad and always ready to face the next challenge his body throws at him.  He is such a lovely man that I suggested he become ordained online so Geoff and I could have him marry us at our wedding, which he did.  The wedding was, of course, a wonderful, beautiful blur of a day, but it will always mean so much more looking back and remembering it was our dear friend, and not some stranger, who performed the ceremony.

Alex/my man of honor, me, Erick, Geoff and Geoff’s dad/best man, Larry.

Late winter, after several years of being clear, Erick’s cancer once again returned, and once again, he beat it.  Not without great effort from him and his doctors, but he did it.  When we knew we’d be seeing each other over Christmas, Erick asked to be a part of DreamWorld, which I gladly said yes to.  I also felt that a very serious charge had been given to me.  I wanted to make sure I did something special for Erick, something true to DreamWorld, something that spoke of his struggles and also something that would ring true to other cancer sufferers.

Out of these swirling thoughts came the Yellow Knight.  Yellow, since that color is associated with cancer-awareness ribbons, LiveStrong bracelets and the like.  His armor is made out of little bits and swirls of ribbon (or paper, as it ended up, but it looks like ribbon) much like the awareness ribbons.  Though ribbon would seem like a frail and flimsy defense, he defeats the horrible cancer-monster.

I’ll talk briefly about how I made Erick’s costume on, again, a next-to-nothing budget.  His cloak was the same one I’d used in Paul Telfer’s Sleeper’s Sentinel photos, so that was already made.  I wanted to make a chestplate and bracers for Erick’s armor.  Ihough I’d originally planned to use actual ribbon, I was dissatisfied with the ribbon selection both in my ribbon drawer and the craft store, so I decided to use paper instead.  That was also quite a bit less expensive, so double win!

For the chestplate, I stared by gluing two layers of cardstock together to give it a firm, stiff base, and covered one side in muslin for a more “polished” finish.

Matching up cardstock and fabric shapes.

Cardstock back of the chestpiece.

And fabric front, with a slight seam down the center to help shape it.

You can see my black and red suitcase on the floor, which just shows how hurriedly I was trying to put this together before we left for our trip.  I got the bracers made too; fabric shapes with cardstock bones to give them sturdiness.  I was planning on just tying the bracers on with ribbon, and I figured I’d do the same for the chestpiece since you wouldn’t be able to see the back or sides anyway, so the problem of keeping them on was easily solved.

Bracer with cardstock bones.

At this point, we really had to leave, so I just cut lengths of paper and used my rotary cutter to slice nice, straight even strips into them.  I packed my glue gun and other supplies I might need and we hit the road.

Our time visiting family was short, so we decided to shoot right after Christmas.  I spent one long afternoon of our trip bent over the chestpiece and bracers, hot gluing the ribbon strips to them as quickly as I could.  I alternated the colors, types and thicknesses  the papers frequently to give it more depth, using cardstocks, vellum and tissue paper.  Unfortunately, I was so busy feeling stressed about getting it done before the shoot the next morning, I completely forgot to take photos of the gluing-on process.  But you can probably imagine what a slightly-crazed woman wielding a glue gun in one hand, paper ribbon strips in the other, muttering dark curses under her breath, hunched over fabric/paper constructs and commanding the glue gun to heat up faster and just GLUE looks like.

The morning of the shoot came, and I’d managed to finish the costume (though my lower back was still complaining from having hunched for so many hours).  I knew I’d be doing a lot of work to the cancer-monster in post, so I simply had one black trash bag bunched up into a ball which Erick could punch, and I’d made a very, very rough wire frame for another black trash bag into something that was somewhat wing-shaped.

I scotch-taped the bags as needed to hold their shapes and let Erick pummel the central mass of the creature.  Geoff helped tremendously with flipping the cloak and holding the wings up for me to photograph separately and composite into the final image.  All said, it took perhaps half an hour.  The park we were in was just beautiful and quite deserted given the very cold weather and early hour, and I couldn’t resist taking some snapshots of plants covered in jewel-like snow.  I’ve said it before, but as a California-native, snow is UTTERLY MAGICAL to me whenever I encounter it.

Little Jewels

Erick looked incredibly noble and at home in his costume, and I’m so glad Geoff reminded me to take a portrait of him not in action.  They’re quite different shots, but I think a lot of Erick’s quiet, inner strength and grace shows through, especially in the second portrait.

After that, we all had a lovely breakfast at a local cafe and warmed up with hot food and coffee.  A successful shoot!

I hope these image can be an inspiration to others fighting their own battles; perhaps simply reminders to not give up quite yet.  If you have had experiences with cancer or other long illnesses yourself, I would love to hear from you!  I hope I can make the cancer community proud.

And with that, let’s see the finished photos!

The Yellow Knight

The Yellow Knight -detail

Ribbon Armor

Ribbon Armor – detail

Thank you, Erick, for coming to play in DreamWorld!  🙂

This is not the time or place to get into it all, but it seems I will be heading into another of my own health battles, of the bureaucratic nature this time, and any well wishes and prayers would be appreciated!

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Small Business Saturday And Cyber Monday

First of all, happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrated it!  I had planned on a Thanksgiving post, listing what I’m grateful for and whatnot, but I woke up yesterday with a swollen, very unhappy wrist on my dominant hand.  I’m being ginger with it today, and trying to really limit my computer use, but I did want to get this timely post out.

So, the holiday shopping season has officially begun!  I, for one, despise the idea of shopping on Thanksgiving or Black Friday.  Crowds are not my thing in the best situation.  Even a gentle trip to the grocery store on an average day can be too much for me.  This is my hiding out period where I really try to leave the house as little as possible.

A less stressful approach to holiday shopping, in my opinion, is in Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday.  Now, I may or may not technically qualify as a “small business,” but I think I fit the spirit of it if not the letter 🙂  You don’t get much smaller than buying from a single person!  And Cyber Monday?  Heck yeah, I’ve got that covered!  Everything of mine is available online.

And what, pray tell, are these wondrous wares?  Well, let me give you a little run-down!
I have blank greeting cards available at my Red Bubble shop!

One of the many blank greeting cards I offer.

Personally, I love having a stash of blank greeting cards in a drawer, ready to go at a moment’s notice!  You never know when you might need them.  And I’ll confess, I sometimes buy cards for their sheer beauty, with no intention of giving them away.  Those ones usually end up on my wall somewhere.  Either way, they’re very well-made, handy and inexpensive!  And if there’s an image you’d like but don’t see in my shop, let me know; in almost every case I can add it for you!  Stocking stuffers, anyone?
I also sell 2014 collectable calendars!

Sarah Allegra 2014 Calendar

Each year I put out a new calendar with 12 of my most popular recent works.  This year’s batch includes images from my DreamWorld and actor portraits series as well as my CFS/fibro/ME series Enchanted Sleep.  I genuinely love the quality Red Bubble puts into their calendars; they’re printed on gorgeous, thick, heavy paper which is perfect for jotting down as many notes and reminders as you’d like!  Plus, I love the extra magic the calendars sprinkle into every day.  And need I tell you they make excellent gifts?  🙂

On a side note, I keep my Red Bubble prices low so that they’re available to as many people as possible.  I don’t make much from these sales, but it’s important to me that as many people as possible have access to my images.

For those looking for a unique gift, either for themselves or someone they love, my on-line, self-discovery-through-photography course Introspective is an excellent choice!

Introspective

Introspective is a fun and truly unique, eight-week experience.  Each week I will guide you through a new concept to explore with photography, such as love, fear, secrets and joy.  What do those subjects mean to you?  And how would you portray them in a photograph?  Let’s find out!  Self portraiture is encouraged (as I think it’s an invaluable way to know yourself better), but by no means is it required.  At the end of the eight weeks, you’ll have gotten to experience yourself in a new way and learned things you never knew before.

This would be perfect for your artsy sibling, the person who has everything or anyone with a desire to have an adventure and come out knowing themselves better!
And of course there are always prints available!

I sell prints through my Etsy shop, which are printed by an amazing local printer.  They are printed on museum-quality, archival, thick, luscious paper which is not unlike watercolor paper.  All the images are printed in very small, limited edition runs and come individually signed and numbered.  They come in three different sizes and are truly stunning.  These really have to be seen to appreciate how beautiful they are.  The level of detail captured in these prints is spectacular.  And as with the cards, if you would like a print of something and you don’t see it in my shop, just let me know!  In almost every occasion, I can accommodate your request.

Thank you to everyone for supporting my art through your kind comments, well wishes and purchases.  I so appreciate all of them and I hope everyone has an excellent holiday season!  Here’s a lovely DreamWorld image, featuring the gorgeous Katie Johnson!

Faerie Dust

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Summer’s Winter

One of the unexpected perks of being a photographer who often shoots in natural settings is that I have been able to witness some examples of incredible beauty and wonder that I never would have seen if I wasn’t out in it so frequently.  One example of this is the sudden winter that fell over a nearby forest in the middle of summer.  The forest is rich with a certain kind of tree which apparently reproduces in much the same way a dandelions does; growing a downy, fluffy seed which the wind carries far and wide.  I have searched and searched, but I still have no idea what the name of the tree is; if you know, please tell me!  Regardless, the result of the trees was that huge sections of the forest was covered in a magical “snow.”  I couldn’t have asked for a setting more perfect for DreamWorld.

Naturally, I leaped into photographic action.

The first photo of the series featured Dedeker amidst the snow trees.  She carried such a feeling of wonder and awe, much the same as I had felt the first time I saw the snowy landscape.

All Of Winter In A Day

All Of Winter In A Day – detail

All Of Winter In A Day – detail

All Of Winter In A Day – detail

The second photo I created was with Katie.  I decided there should be someone who ruled this forever-winter corner of DreamWorld, a benevolent being who would keep things always winter, but it would be a spring-like winter full of life and growth.  I’m sure a lot of my fascination with this idea has to do with the brutal Los Angeles summer we all go through every year, and the fact that heat makes all of my symptoms much worse.  I dread summer every year, and I long for a place where summer could never reach, so the Snow Saint was created.  I wanted her to have a semi-religious quality, something that hinted at a spirituality as well as power over nature.  Katie easily embodied all of these elements at once.  The Snow Saint looks like a queen, like someone to be revered, but also someone you could approach and who would hear your supplications.

Where Summer Dares Not Tread – detail

Where Summer Dares Not Tread – detail

Where Summer Dares Not Tread – detail

And yes, on both occasions my models and I were shaking “snow” off our clothes and out of our hair for hours, but it was well worth it 🙂

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