Ina Mar “Art and The Earth” Blog

Here’s a new botanical variation for my “Homage to Rodin” series. As requested by many of you, I am now adding some horizontal variations. Click on the picture to see the printing and framing options.

This variation is mixing the Rodin kissing couple (The Eternal Idol, 1889) with botanical elements, namely a green grass field in the Rhön Biosphere Reserve in Germany (Biosphärenreservat Rhön). I visited the Rhone Biosphere Reserve in May 2006, really exceptional landscape:

Visit the official Rhön Biosphere Reserve web site for more information.

Now working on a horizontal wheat variation…

Just wanted to thank Camden Bucey for this lovely Wordpress template “Coffee Stained”. I chose it because I love the idea, the neutral colours and rounded corners.

My latest after-Christmas design is this recycling sign on a Christmas tree with the slogan “Real tree huggers recycle their Christmas tree”. I rotated the oval some 10-20 degrees to the left, to give some “dynamism” to the design, then used three different tones of green, rather neutral greens, to differentiate the font and graphic elements. The sign overlaps the tree there where there are arrows, and the tree overlaps the sign in all other areas; this way both elements are absolutely visible and at the same time mixed into one new unique element: the recycled tree. I used this cute font called “Advert” by Richard William Mueller, I like its curvy lines…

I found some interesting information about recycled Christmas trees and eco-benefits of Christmas tree farms in Care2 (the article is called “Green Christmas Trees“), not only about composting and mulching old Christmas trees, but also other ideas and uses I had never thought about! Like using Christmas trees as erosion barriers on beaches and lakes, sinking them into private lakes to provide refuge for fish, placing the old Christmas tree in a private yard as a shelter for birds… Well just check out the design and give me your feedback!

I’ve been wishing to create a blog for a long time but some concerns didn’t let me blog…

My main problem was: what language should I blog in? I usually think in a mixture of languages, depending on many things, like the theme, the context, my feelings… I once started a trilingual blog but I got lost in it and deleted it. I will try to keep this one in English if you promise to excuse my occasional mistakes.

My second concern was: what should I blog about? I will try to announce here my new designs and artworks and talk about my ongoing activities. There will also be some context on the creations (my inspiration, political context, current-events context, historical, artistic, biographical, whatever…) and eventually some Photoshop, Indesign and Corel Draw how-tos.

My third concern: will I consequently write this time, or will this new blog end up like all the other ones? I’ve created several blogs in the past and tested several blogging systems, but I always and systematically deleted the blogs after a couple of days – or let them get lost unfinished and anonymous in the Internet chaos. Well, I promise to do my best to keep you informed on my current activities.

So thanks for stopping by and please comment and give feedback on my artworks, products and designs!