The Japan­ese who were affected by the recent earth­quake and tsunami need all the help they can get. I have made a dona­tion to the Red Cross, and I cre­ated this draw­ing as an incen­tive for oth­ers (you!) to help as well.

The spe­cial 8.5in x 11in print is for sale in Poki­dots! shop for $10, which will entirely go to the Red Cross. For every pur­chased print, I will donate $10 to the Red Cross whose mem­bers are work­ing hard right now to help the Japan­ese peo­ple who have been affected by this dis­as­ter last week.

Please click here for more details about the print and your dona­tion. You can con­tribute and buy your print now, and don’t for­get to spread the word!

Poki­dots! 2011 cal­en­dar is avail­able, and it is designed to help the planet! The ‘Pretty Planet’ Cal­en­dar is filled with tips that help reduce our impact on the envi­ron­ment. Every month reveals a new color, a new illus­tra­tion and a new eco action. If we turn these actions into habits, the planet will only start to feel bet­ter.
See all the pages of the cal­en­dar here.

The Pretty Planet Cal­en­dar is 5″ x 5″ and it is printed on 100% recy­cled card­stock. It stands on the desk or on the counter, and it can also be car­ried along and used like an agenda; there is room for your lit­tle daily notes.

Click here to order yours now.

Poki­dots YAAAAY!! greet­ing card col­lec­tion, fea­tur­ing 6 truly cute char­ac­ters (Lulu, Saki, Cyn­thia, Julie, Kim and Jenna) is now on sale at Poki­dots! new Café­Press store. Take a look!
A bunch of other items with the lit­tle char­ac­ters are also avail­able now: T-shirts (Junior, women’s and mater­nity), bot­tles, mugs and totes.
There is a sec­tion for each of the girls, with prod­ucts fea­tur­ing her. Choose your favorite, and you know, you don’t have to resist the temp­ta­tion to buy something! :)

Allu­minare has been a light­ing com­pany since 2001. They make all kinds of light­ing fix­tures, from ceil­ing light­ing to table lamps and lamp­shades. As of 2008, they started mak­ing more home items, such as pil­lows, cur­tains, wall­pa­per, even fab­ric! Every­thing is made in the U.S.A. with the newest tech­nolo­gies, for high qual­ity prod­ucts at afford­able prices.

The great thing about Allu­minare, besides the qual­ity of their prod­ucts, is that you can cus­tomize any­thing you buy. If you want a ceil­ing lamp, for instance, you can start with the model you want and change its size, its shape, its height, even the color of its cord and its trims. You can also choose from a wide vari­ety of designs to put on your lamp, and cus­tomize the col­ors of the design as well as the scale! There is no way you won’t find some­thing you love. As you cus­tomize your item on the web­site, you get an instant pre­view of it to see how it is look­ing, and an instant updated quote on it. Extremely convenient.

As of yes­ter­day, I am part of the Allu­minare design­ers. I have cre­ated three pat­terns exclu­sively for Allu­minare: Mars Gar­den, Heart Poin­set­tia and Pic­nic. You can also see them on my Allu­minare page and see the vari­ety of looks you can cre­ate by only chang­ing the col­ors and the scale of each design on your product.

So, which was the room that you wanted a new lamp­shade for?

How dis­ap­point­ing is it when you receive a greet­ing card on a spe­cial occa­sion, with noth­ing but a sig­na­ture inside — no mes­sage or any­thing that makes it personal?

A few months ago, I started work­ing with John Gen­ovese on his new line of greet­ing cards. John’s idea is to help the sender out by giv­ing them the begin­ning of a mes­sage they will write in the card. The sender will have to fill in the rest, thus the name of the com­pany: FiLL Me In Greet­ing Cards! Brilliant!

John gave me his fun ideas and I brought them to life with col­or­ful car­toony illus­tra­tions, and all the cards are being printed in the U.S.A. on recy­cled paper.

Please visit the FiLL Me In Greet­ing Cards web­site to see all the cards avail­able and know more about the com­pany.
If you have your own greet­ing card com­pany and and are inter­ested in Poki­dots!  illus­tra­tions, please con­tact me; I will be glad to work with you!

Now I feel that Poki­dots! web­site is more “com­plete”!
In my blog, I will be shar­ing my expe­ri­ence as an inde­pen­dant illus­tra­tor. My fel­low artists can learn from my jour­ney and from the tips I will share, and cus­tomers will have the oppor­tu­nity to know me bet­ter.
I will also be shar­ing my thoughts on art, illus­tra­tion, design and fash­ion as well as other top­ics that are rel­e­vant to art and design.

Visit Poki­dots! blog now and don’t hes­i­tate to write com­ments on my posts!

If you are in the art field and you wish to share some­thing through Poki­dots! blog, it will be a plea­sure for me to fea­ture your post as a guest post. Con­tact me now and we will dis­cuss your idea!

Every­one waits for the June issue of the Sur­tex newslet­ter, On The Sur­face. It is the issue that comes out right after the show, and gives the “scoop” on how the show was.

This was my first time exhibit­ing at Sur­tex, and I was so glad to see that Poki­dots! stu­dio was fea­tured in the post-show newslet­ter, right at the top!
> Click here to see a copy of June’s On The Sur­face.

This year’s show was suc­cess­ful, and the atmos­phere was very pos­i­tive and opti­mistic. I hope this means a lot of suc­cess and good busi­ness for all the happy artists who were exhibiting.