Category: Attitude

#110 He She Me & We

Chaz DeSimone 9 Comments
110 He She Me & We#110 He She Me & We
Click image to view full size or download poster for gallery-​quality printing & framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

Ampersand stars in hilarious music video

The ampersand looks kinda happy.Amper­Art #110, He She Me & We, was inspired by a cre­ative, fun & very fun­ny video, Sec­ond Favorite Man, by Tight Paja­mas. You’ll see, it fea­tures our favorite char­ac­ter, the fun & fab­u­lous ampersand.

Watch the video!

Most of you know I love nud­ism & hate coun­try music — not to men­tion I kin­da like amper­sands — so this video real­ly made me a fan of Tight Paja­mas. I laughed my naked ass off.

In the band’s own words:

“Sec­ond Favorite Man” is the debut sin­gle by the bay area’s Tight Paja­mas. It address­es the “cheatin’ & lyin” you often find in coun­try music, but in a total­ly unique way. In fact, it cel­e­brates a kind of love tra­di­tion­al­ly bemoaned in country/​western songs!

If you enjoy the song & the video, please con­sid­er shar­ing the link with your friends via social media. With your help, we think it has the poten­tial to be spread far & wide.
You can sup­port our work by down­load­ing a copy of the song here [like Chaz did].
tight​pa​ja​mas​.band​camp​.com
Thank you for sup­port­ing weird art & the weird artists who make it!

Musi­cians:
Mau­rice Tani — lead vocals, elec­tric gui­tar & bass,
Robert M Pow­ell — Back­ing vocals & ped­al steel gui­tar, engi­neer­ing, mix­ing, mastering
Susie Davis — pro­duc­er, back­ing vocals, piano
Pam Del­ga­do — back­ing vocals

Not men­tioned is the per­son who sug­gest­ed the title of the Amper­Art piece, He She Me & We: Jeff Green­wald. He co-​wrote the song with Susie Davis & shot much of the video. (He’s the “rab­bi” in one of the pho­tos.) I checked out some of Jef­f’s own videos & books. He’s a very inter­est­ing guy. His speech about Noah’s Ark is enter­tain­ing: Jeff Green­wald /​ Noah’s Ark

Please comment here.

chaz sez ...

Check out the new “chaz sez” blog at Des​i​moneDesign​.com, my com­mer­cial graph­ic design web­site. It’s most­ly about design, typog­ra­phy, print­ing, pub­lish­ing & mar­ket­ing, but on occa­sion I’ll divert to a side­ways top­ic that just can’t escape my rant­i­ng & raving.

Production notes for #110 He She Me & We:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: Adobe Illustrator
Fonts: Cooper Black, Benguait Charisma
Ampersand: Benguait Charisma
Effects: Gradation intended to resemble a method of screen printing, common in the 1960s-​70s-​80s, as were the chosen typefaces. 
You may repost the AmperArt image. Please credit Amper​Art​.com.
To download a full-​size high-​resolution 11x17-​inch poster, click on the image.

For pro­fes­sion­al graph­ic design, please vis­it Des­i­mone Design.

Desimone? Damn good!

#80 Believe & Achieve in 2016 — Happy New Year!

Chaz DeSimone 3 Comments

80-Believe-&-Achieve-wm

#80 Believe & Achieve
Click to view full-​size or download hi-​rez image for gallery-​quality printing and framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

Happy New Year

First, have a blast cel­e­brat­ing 2015! Then use these tips to keep your New Year’s resolutions.

If you haven’t made any res­o­lu­tions yet—because you know they are so excru­ci­at­ing­ly hard to keep—read this won­der­ful advice from a friend, Tam­mi Bran­nan. You might even want to rethink your New Year’s res­o­lu­tions and actu­al­ly look for­ward to keep­ing them in 2016!

When choos­ing New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions that you want to achieve, make sure you do these 3 things:

  1. Iden­ti­fy 2 – 3 areas in your life you’d like to improve.
  2. Pick one action item for each area that you can do now to exact change.
  3. For 5 min­utes, 3 times a day focus on each action item, whether you’re say­ing it to your­self as a promise or you’re tak­ing steps towards accom­plish­ing that action.

The 2 rea­sons why folks fail when it comes to their New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions is because they:

  1. Pick Res­o­lu­tions they don’t care too much about achiev­ing, and…
  2. Sit by in hopes their New Year’s Res­o­lu­tion will come to them, instead of tak­ing active steps to achieve them.

If find­ing the per­fect occu­pa­tion or busi­ness is one of your 2016 goals, Tam­mi Bran­nan offers career devel­op­ment coach­ing for indi­vid­u­als & teams. She says, “Live a life that is truer to you.” You’ll find lots of insight­ful videos & arti­cles at her web­site, Instinc​tiveLife​.com. I endorse Tam­mi as a per­son of high integri­ty & gen­uine con­cern for individuals.

To Do & To Don’t List

AmperArt-TO-DONT-LIST-2016-227w

fea­tur­ing the Pan­tone Col­ors of the Year for 2016

Here’s a TO DO LIST guar­an­teed to sim­pli­fy your life. It’s actu­al­ly my spe­cial­ly designed TO DO & TO DON’T list. This is brand-​new art­work in the two Pan­tone Col­ors of the Year for 2016: Rose Quartz & Seren­i­ty. Down­load the TO DO & TO DON’T list here and print out sev­er­al copies for your friends.

chaz sez ...

My favorite quote about dreams & pos­si­bil­i­ties is by Walt Dis­ney, who real­ly accom­plished some aston­ish­ing feats. (Did you know Dis­ney­land was built in less then one year from ground­break­ing to open­ing day?) Walt said:

 “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”

And he did. Birdies sing & flow­ers croon.

Read More

#68 Knife Fork & Spoon

Chaz DeSimone 18 Comments

68 Knife Fork & Spoon

Click to view full-​size or download hi-​rez image for gallery-​quality printing and framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

This edi­tion should be titled “Lar­ry & Susie” because what these peo­ple stand for is far more sig­nif­i­cant and inspir­ing than a lit­tle piece of art­work with an amper­sand in it. But since Lar­ry’s trea­sure to me inspired this work, I did make it as spe­cial as I could (and learned a cou­ple new Pho­to­shop effects in the process).

 Before I pro­ceed with their sto­ries, here’s an invi­ta­tion to attend Susie’s “Use Me & Abuse Me” par­ty between Wednes­day, Octo­ber 24, 2014 and until all the guests have left or are passed out, which is sev­er­al days lat­er, where she invites you to shame­less­ly plug your own web­site or blog. Go there right now and join in the fun, but don’t for­get to come back here. If you miss this par­ty, sub­scribe to her blog and you’ll get an invi­ta­tion to the next one.

Mention your own blog or website at Susie’s
“Use Me & Abuse Me” party:
susielin​dau​.com

Like I said, this edi­tion is about  two very spe­cial peo­ple, both of whom I admire great­ly for their courage, faith, and inspi­ra­tion; both of whom I met online some­how; and both of whom I’ve nev­er met in person…but I feel like they’re my next door neighbors.

LARRY

I’ll start with Lar­ry, because he’s the inspi­ra­tion for this Amper­Art piece. A few years ago my broth­er Andy gave me very designer-​style Mick­ey Mouse cof­fee mug, which I love and use every sin­gle day (unless I need just a tiny jolt, then I grab my small­er cof­fee mug from The Orig­i­nal Pantry, old­est restau­rant in Los Ange­les – just so you know, I pur­chased the mug; had to, as I exam­ined a case of 60 to find the per­fect print­ing). I thought it would be cool to have a Mick­ey Mouse cof­fee spoon, not think­ing I’d actu­al­ly find one. Well, I did, on ebay, from this guy named Lar­ry who I knew was going to send me a spec­tac­tu­lar piece after a cou­ple con­ver­sa­tions with him. He real­ly want­ed me to be hap­py! And when it arrived – hap­py I was! For a moment my kitchen was the hap­pi­est place on earth! Not only is it the clas­sic “old” Mick­ey, the spoon is a real tea­spoon size, per­fect for a cup o’ joe, it’s in excel­lent con­di­ton, and states the copy­right is owned by that revered name of old, “Walt Dis­ney Productions.”

So Lar­ry real­ly made me very, very hap­py with that spec­tac­u­lar, col­lectible mas­ter­piece that I stir my cof­fee with every sin­gle day, no mat­ter which mug I use.

mickeyspoon

Lar­ry also sub­scribed to Amper­Art, and always leaves a nice comment.

We began com­mu­ni­cat­ing, and what an inspi­ra­tion this man is.

What a bat­tle Lar­ry has gone through, hav­ing con­tract­ed an entire body worth’s of can­cer from serv­ing our coun­try for over 20 years – in the prox­im­i­ty of Agent Orange. He’s told me hor­ror sto­ries that are out of a sci-​fi movie, but unfor­tu­nate­ly he real­ly lived them. He’s been in and out of the hos­pi­tal dozens of  times for can­cer treat­ment, each time pulling some­thing else out or treat­ing this or radi­at­ing that. I was shocked to find out that this poor guy was only the same age as me, when the descrip­tion of his health has him sound­ing 80 years old. 

But don’t let him hear you or me call him “poor guy,” because just like Susie, Lar­ry lives life to the fullest. He’s a fight­er, a believ­er, and says he would­n’t trade his life in for any­thing. He says he’s been in some awe­some places, thanks to the ser­vice, that peo­ple only dream about. And if you enjoy my Amper­Art, you can thank Lar­ry: he says each one brings him so much joy, there’s no way I can stop doing them. That sure makes me feel good, too.

Lar­ry is in and out of the hos­pi­tal almost con­stant­ly. And although today he said things are look­ing pos­i­tive and he’s feel­ing bet­ter (he says he hopes it’s not a dream), I urge you to please pray for this gen­tle­man. He has been an inspi­ra­tion to me, and I’m sure to every­one who knows him. I’m sure he’d love to hear from you: Ljvsfc@​aol.​com

 

SUSIE

Susie Lin­dau is a self-​professed wild child, and she has her read­ers in stitch­es with each and every sto­ry on her high­ly enter­tain­ing blog.

Then last year she endured a dou­ble mas­tec­to­my, and with­out miss­ing a beat she laughed and joked through­out the entire ordeal, edu­cat­ing, enlight­en­ing and  inspir­ing oth­ers with unbe­liev­able spir­it. That over­with, Susie con­tin­ues to write about all her incred­i­ble adven­tures that are dar­ing, amaz­ing, and even sil­ly. But always fun. And wild. There’s even a pho­to of her dou­ble implants on her web­site. Check that out.

If you haven’t already, join the par­ty at susielin​dau​.com. Oh, and about the mid­night curfew…not so, Susie’s guests par­ty into the wee hours and even for days afterwards.

These are two very spe­cial peo­ple, and I could write a lot more about each of them. But I have a par­ty to crash…

 

Production notes:
Original size: 10x15 inches
Program: Photoshop
Font: Goudy Oldstyle bold
Images:
Lace pattern: obsid​ian​dawn​.com (many exquisite Photoshop patterns and excellent instructions on how to install them)
Antique silver cutlery: 123rf​.com /​ photo by martinak
Special thanks to Mike McHugh at cre​ativesweettv​.com for tutorial on bending spoons with the Photoshop Puppet Warp tool.
No dinnerware was harmed in the making of this art.