Pixelpaint Customer Of The Month for December 2012

Our last customer of the month for 2012 is the lovely miss Sophie Osborn! Check out her canvases and have a read of what she had to say below.

What’s your name? Sophie Osborn 

Where are you from? Auckland (via Namibia & South Africa)

Can you tell us about the inspiration behind the art work you chose: I have just bought my first house and needed to put some art work on the walls to fill in those empty spaces. One of the few downsides of owning a home is not being able to travel, so when I bought a few vouchers via Treat Me and was trying to figure out what to put on my walls, I considered all the places I have travelled and where I have yet to travel. I ended up asking a few of my friends around the world to send me a photo or two they have taken in their own travels and every day life and trawled through all of my many hundreds of photographs and decided on three; two places I have yet to travel but would love to go (The forest is Iowa in the Autumn; the beach is in Mexico) and one place I have been and would love to go back to (The rocks were a picture I took in Rarotonga).

What is your favourite thing about your canvas: My favourite thing about my canvases is the opportunity they give me to dream about my next holiday, where ever I happen to go. Its awesome owning my own home but I do miss travelling!

What are you planning for your next canvas: I have asked my friend in Iowa to go back to the same spot in the forest and take a picture of it in winter, spring and summer and would like to print all of them so I have all four seasons. Winter is coming in Iowa so I am not that far from my next canvas, so I will be keeping my eyes on Treat Me for more of your deals.

Staff Pick

We recently printed his awesome photo on to canvas and fell in love with it! It belongs to Zania Bennett of Palmerston North and shows four generations of her family. Such a rad idea! We think it's a beautiful photo! Thanks for letting us share this one Zania. 

Canvas Inspiration: Bus Blinds

If you're stuck for last minute gift ideas, chill out - we got this one! Personalised bus blind styled canvases are where it's at. We print hundreds of them and although they're nothing new, they do look cool, and for some reason everyone just kinda likes them. They are mega easy to personalise and even easier to make. If you don't have Photoshop you can even whip one up as Word document and convert it into a jpg to use for one of our canvases. 

(FYI - using a word document and converting it into a JPG will only work for our smaller canvas sizes, such as A3 or A2, anything larger would need to be done in Photoshop or made professionally!! Make sure you check our image requirements which can be found here: http://help.pixelpaint.co.nz/entries/20927332-what-are-your-image-requirements-size-resolution-format-file-names)

Their simplicity allows them to work in most spaces so they're not a risky gift choice, and we think the bigger they are the better they look! The main thing we like about them is that you can make them as meaningful or as meaningless as you want. For example - you could list the streets you lived on growing up, make it into a canvas and gift it to your Mum. Or you could list all of the reasons why you deserve a pay rise, canvas it up and gift it to your boss. Try a regular or jumbo panoramic canvas in portrait orientation for something a little different.  

Here are some images of bus blind we love to get you inspired! 

Artist Spotlight: Myke Sutherland

We love working with artists! Offering talented individuals an affordable way to show off their skills, and getting to see their projects freshly printed on to canvas makes us feel pretty cool. It makes us feel so cool that we're staring to feel greedy about it. So we thought we'd share some of their talent with you guys, starting with this awesome dude Myke Sutherland. Check out his work below plus a few words from the man himself!

Art work and words below By Myke Sutherland

When I get to illustrating, the hours seem to fly by. Before I know it, it's at 2am and I have to be up for work in a few hours! As an Animation Director at Oktobor Animation in Auckland, the Nickelodeon TV shows we work on require my full attention. Our projects include Penguins of Madagascar, Monsters v Aliens, Robot and Monster, and I'm currently wrapping my head around their Kung Fu Panda Season 3. Luckily it's the kind of work that feels more like play!

Work is not the only thing that gets me going, I spent my entire childhood with my mum shooing me off the dining room table so the family could eat - I just love to draw! Since leaving Disney in Australia about seven years ago, I've turned my animating into illustration, since then I've been making a nuisance of myself at Pixelpaint....

I'm addicted. There's really nothing better than the satisfaction of actually getting something printed and tangible on the wall. And yes, I've gone a little mad! I'm not even gonna count how many I've had printed. I'm kinda running out of wall space though. I think I need an intervention. 

Fortunately they've kinda taken off, seems I'm not the only one that reckons art doesn't all have to be darkness bizarre and macabre. Cute and fluffy has a market!

That's right babes, you can purchase one of Myke's rad illustrations for your very own! These make awesome gifts and the kids go crazy for them, you can check him out on his Facebook page here!