Art By AnneEMcGraw, on December 6th, 2010
 Rocky Mountain Silhouette (12x48") by Anne E. McGraw From the Colorado Collection:
Rocky Mountain Silhouette
As the snow develops over the mountains, the sky turns white, the peaks of the mountains turn soft while snow gathers on the crevices.
Rendered in dark wood stain and white acrylic paint on 1/8″ plywood; Varnished with a glossy UV protective finish
Size is 12×24″ in two panels making the final measurements 12×48″
Signed and dated on back
Sold unframed; hardware not included
Open Edition
Available in single panel editions
Art By AnneEMcGraw, on December 1st, 2010 Starting today and through the entire month of December, I am having a Holiday Sale in my Etsy shop.
If you were on the fence about getting a gift for yourself or your loved one, now is the perfect time to shop!
Enter HolidaySale15 upon checkout and you will get 15% off!
This is a store wide sale that includes everything from Original Art work to notecards to Crochet!
With unemployment at it’s highest and benefits running out for a lot of folks it is really important to support small and local businesses.
So spread the word about my Sale and drop hints to your friends about what to get you for Christmas. 
Marketing By AnneEMcGraw, on November 22nd, 2010 I met Bob a while back because of a random post on the internet. I followed to his website and it was then I discovered he lived just a few blocks away from me. Such a small world! I emailed and met up with him to discuss art and art marketing. He is a great motivator and has such a positive message for selling art.
We should all eliminate the term ‘starving artist’ from our vocabulary. There are many artists making a living in art who are not starving.
One of my favorite quotes from Bob, “Exposure is what people die of when they get lost in the woods. Artists need to get paid.”
You can read more quotes here.
And just recently Bob did a video showing off his shoebox paintings and talking a bit about making a living in the art world in Denver.
The “Non-Starving Artist Program” of Denver’s Bob Ragland
You can browse Bob Ragland’s wesbite and works here. (music upon entering site)
Bob’s sculptures are also at the Kirkland Museum here in Denver.
Art By AnneEMcGraw, on November 21st, 2010 Currently up for auction on Ebay.
 Red Rocks Amphitheater 10x8" oil on panel by Anne E. McGraw  Red Rocks 10x8" oil on canvas by Anne E. McGraw  South Denver 10x8" oil on canvas by Anne E. McGraw Each bid is going for 10 days and the starting bid is $49!
Think of what a great Christmas gift $50 can bring your loved one!
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This was inspired by a few photos I had taken of the mountains the day after the Boulder FourMile Canyon fire.
The mountains were a blue haze vanishing against the sky.
I loved it so much that I used it for my website banner above.
 Boulder Haze 10x20" oil on canvas by Anne E. McGraw And a client loved it so much that they bought it!
SOLD!
Art By AnneEMcGraw, on November 17th, 2010 I had the great pleasure to create two custom orders for clients recently.
The first was this woodland green ombre coffee can cozy set.
The client wanted a specific ombre colorway and asked for one of the cozies to be taller so she could use it in the kitchen for a utensil canister.
I think it turned out great!
 Custom Woodland Ombre Cozy Set  French Market Cafe Painted Wood Sign The second was based on this hand painted wooden distressed sign I made seen here and available here.
The client requested a specific phrase and size of the wood.
The sign was for her mother and although I didn’t know the specific reference of the phrase I knew it had a special meaning to her family.
Because of the size of the sign she requested I was worried there would be a empty space below the letters, so I suggested a established date that would have some meaning to the family.
You can see the results below.
 Custom order hand painted wood sign  Custom order hand painted wood sign There is still time to ask for a custom painting for a Christmas gift!
You can look through what I have for sale on my Etsy shop, my Art Gallery, or here on my website for ideas.
Payment plans are available! You can afford a great gift that will last a lifetime for the price of a latte/day!
Think about it.
Send me an email (anneemcgraw!at!gmail.com) or comment below.
Update: I didn’t realize that the latest client had given me feedback when I wrote this post. So I am going to add the positive feedback below.
Crochet By AnneEMcGraw, on November 9th, 2010 I love crochet (and knitting). It’s a perfect combination of math and craft. The craft is very underestimated in both the time involved and the cost of quality. It’s very easy to go to Target or Walmart and purchase a hat or gloves that some 12 year old child in China got paid pennies to make. It’s another to recognize and support a fair minimum wage for quality handmade. We too often think of the term “fair trade” as a third world manufacturing term, and forget that there are Westerners who also need to be paid a fair trade for their hard work.
Living in Colorado, it’s difficult to find and buy hats or gloves at the big box stores that fit our weather needs. Mass manufacturing of knit or crochet wearables are done without climate specific conditions. You can buy the same knit hat in Mississippi as you can in Colorado, and yet they don’t work in both locations. For example, I bought a cute cotton knit hat and scarf set at the Gap in Mississippi. It was perfect for Missip. However, once I moved to Colorado, that cotton fabric got wet with the Colorado snow, became heavy and stretched and took forever to dry. More importantly the wind whipped through that heavy wet fabric making me feel colder. That is when I began making my own winter wear so I could control the material and density of the fabric.
I started making crochet and knit items for friends upon request. I had such a good response from word of mouth, I spread out and offered items in my Etsy shop and local consignment shops. However, I became disheartened with the low prices and competition of obvious oversea wholesale sellers. Even, local shop owners encourage lower prices to compete with the big box stores. There is still this idea that a single Westerner hand crocheting a hat should be paid a marketable price that competes with that 12 year old child in China manufacturing for Target. So, I stopped creating and offered my crochet items at a basement price just to rid myself of the inventory.
After, a conversation with a happy past customer. I got the bug again to create a new line of crochet items. This time, I wanted to change a few things in my line that would set myself apart from other crochet and knit items readily available in the masses. And that simply is Made in Colorado for Colorado. I decided not to just whip up as fast as I can, with big yarn and big needles and hooks, and focus on making items that were meant for our climate. That means, quality wool that will shed the wet snow and tighter stitches that close out those wind holes. But of course that means, the items take more time to make as I use a smaller hook, I use more yarn to create that density and I use a quality yarn that is naturally water repellent. The benefits are priceless if you’ve ever spent a cold night up in the mountains or tried to ski with the wind whipping through your hat. Quality yarn means the product will last longer and density means the yarn will not unravel or wear-out faster and creates smaller wind holes.
To pay myself a fair wage, I am offering these items at a fair, marketable price where I do earn a minimum wage and a profit. If there is a wholesale interest for a large order, I can offer a discount, so please ask. It takes me about 8-10 hours to make a pair of fingerless gloves and about 6 hours to make a beanie. I don’t think many people realize the time involved when they want to think only about their own wallet. And well, that is why I am writing this disclosure to educate and explain to the public why “fair trade” needs to consider the Westerner when they consider their shopping. I am unapologetic. I also understand many will balk at my pricing, but for those that do, please continue to shop at Target. I am not the right client for you. I am the client for a consumer who wishes to keep it local and will pay a fair trade for my time, effort, expertise, and quality for Colorado winter wearables.
And without further ado, here is my Winter 2010 Colorado collection. Purchase here.
 Heathered Brown Wool Fingerless Gloves with cuff measures 10" at forearm, 8" at wrist and is 10" long folded, 13" long unfolded. Made off 100% wool tightly crocheted. Washing instructions included.  Brown Heathered Wool Fingerless Gloves 9" at forearm, 8" at wrist, 9" long no cuff  SOLD!! Thick Crochet Long Fingerless Gloves, made with acrylic and wool blend, extra long. 18" long unfolded and 13.5" long folded. Stretcheds to opera length. 11" at elbow and 9" circum at wrist. Extra warm because you can wear it baggy.  Striped Teal and Fuchsia Plum Fingerless Crochet Gloves 9" long cuffed, 12" long uncuffed. 10" circum at forearm, 7" at wrist. Made of StichNation Debbie Stoller Yarn 100% peruvian wool; wash in luke warm water and lay flat to dry.  SOLD!! Vintage Red Fingerless Gloves, measures 12" long cuffed, and 16" long opera length uncuffed; 10.5" circum at elbow and 8.5" at wrist.
Art By AnneEMcGraw, on November 5th, 2010 Originally published 2010.04.08 at aemcdraw/blog.com
Long ago…so long ago that I cannot remember where or when, I came upon this old slide of two Mississippi children and St Mary. I can’t remember purchasing them and it is quite possible that it was stuck in some drawer or suitcase that I did purchase at a flea market in Mississippi. When I moved to Denver I wrapped it in a September 2004 newspaper, but I am pretty sure that I had it long before then. They are very old and deteriorating and I had been wanting to scan them into the computer to preserve the image. I often wondered it putting them out there in cyberspace might turn up the identity of these two children. Feel free to pass around this link. I have watermarked the images so they don’t get lost from their origin.
 Mississippi Children Vintage Original Slide ©aemcgraw Something I don’t think I ever noticed before scanning the slide in my computer is the man in the hat taking the photo. My best guess is this photo was taken very early 1900′s. There are no markings or writing on the slide at all to identify this however the St. Mary of Nassau Street identifies on the back “65. Passion Play of 1900″. I can’t imagine that I acquired these two slides together by accident of era. This would obviously make these children of slaves descendants or children of sharecroppers. I wonder why the man would be bothered to even take a photo of his slave’s children unless he is documenting his property. I am just speculating of course. Per the 1900′s era people didn’t usually smile in photos, but the one happy moment for me in this photo is of the little girl. It appears to me that she is holding a flower in her right hand. That makes me smile. Also the little boy looks like he is holding his pants up with a rope for a belt. That is too cute.
 St Mary Nassau 65. Passion Play of 1900 Vintage Original Slide ©aemcgraw I love vintage religious paraphernalia. I especially love the techno coloring of this image. I wonder if this is a slide from a stained glass window or what the original image came from. It is almost like those slide viewers where the image is a bit 3D when looking through the lens.
So let me change the topic here for a bit before I come back to these images.
On Poppytalk, I came across this great and simple DIY weekend project. Normally, I say what a great idea and put it in the back of my brain to make “one day”. This time I was actually inspired to create. I thought it would make a great photo prop for my Etsy listings. I save so many glass jars because I usually stir up a batch of paint to save for the duration while I work. I had acquired a few more than I really needed and they lived in my kitchen cabinets. I pulled out the ‘Atlas’ jars and cleaned them and got to mixing up three paint colors. I chose to use secondary colors because I think they have a timeless vintage feel to them. I used orange, yellow-green, and cerulean blue (which is really just my Rocky Mountain Sky house paint that I have used over and over in my house, with a bit of white). Surprisingly, this project is a little more difficult than one would think. Either the paint was too thick that it took forever to get coverage, or I watered down the paint too much and it would drip creating a streaking effect that was not desirable. Ultimately, it took patience and a lot of second, third, fourth coats to get a flat coverage. The end result is so great however. It was well worth the effort.
I love the three colors together that I wanted to do a painting that would share the same timeless vintage feel. I turned to my old slide of the Mississippi children and thought I wonder if I can put them in a happier setting. The little girl with the bucket made me think of Jack and Jill, went up the hill to fetch a pale of water. I used a sepia or tea stained backdrop and only used three colors to layer the watercolors. I thought it would be appropriate to do a photo shoot with my new inspired painted Atlas jars.
 'Mississippi Jack and Jill' (7.75x10" watercolor) ©aemcgraw
I will be adding a 5×7 print of this image to my aemcdraw Etsy shop. I cropped the edges for the print so that the sepia edging would be clean for matting and framing. I think if I offer a 8×10 version I might allow the frayed edges. I am still working out that detail. But please go check out my shop for this wonderful Mississippi Jack and Jill print! I am so in love with how well this came out.
 Print available at aemcdraw Etsy
Art By AnneEMcGraw, on October 26th, 2010 Maps are landscapes from a different perspective.
 Private Collection Map Art That was the tag line I established to market and maybe explain my love of maps and map art to the greater Art community and collectors. I still love that tag line. It’s my elevator speech when people ask what type of art I do.
These three paintings I created in 2004 while living in Mississippi, I just bought my easel, and wanted to paint something that I was missing. I studied architecture in the Plymouth, Devon, and was homesick. Well, homesick for a location that was not my home, but a place I lived for a semester of school and missed. I then painted North America, because, well, that is my home country. South America came about because of the physical connection to North America and because my college roommate was from Chile, and she was on my mind.
I simply stopped the series there. I wish I had continued. I no longer have the same paint colors available and any artists work or artist’s hand changes over a period of six years.
I have never wanted to sell these originals and simply thought they would stay in my own private collection forever and the public would never see them. I looked at how much I’ve enjoyed my map art and simply said to myself that I bet there are others in the world that would love map art as much as I do. Upon discovering Etsy, I have been offering prints of my private map art collection.
 4x6 Map Art prints It’s been received so well. I’ve been so happy to offer these as prints in a range of sizes, currently 4×6 glossy prints and 8×10 prints on archival matte paper. I’m going to have them professionally scanned and offered as larger prints which will make them closer to the original size of the original art.
I’ve also been branching out and doing States, Cities and County maps. Today, my medium is in watercolor and oils. Acrylics are so aggravating to me these days. I feel I waste so much of the paint on the pallet and I cannot live with myself for useless waste.
You are welcome to view the other maps I’ve currently have available here.
What I currently have available and ready to ship are the prints on Etsy.
Over time everything is going to come and go from this website. I’m looking to be more self sustaining. So sign up for my RSS so you can keep in current contact.
Vintage By AnneEMcGraw, on October 11th, 2010  Vintage Bread Rolling Pin When I moved into my first home and began cooking in earnest, I found my kitchen supplies lacking. I realized one tool I needed was a rolling pin. I bought and use a standard wooden rolling pin at the thrift store. Because of my inexperience with cooking from scratch, my first cooking cursing was due to the dough sticking to the wooden pin. Eventually, you get the hang of it, add enough dry flour, keep the right amount of pressure on the surface, and fall in love with your primitive tool.
In the meantime I sought after an option to the wooden pin and found this vintage ceramic rolling pin. I thought the smooth non porous surface would eliminate the sticking issue. Ultimately, I got the hang of the wooden pin and never used this ceramic pin. I love it for novelty purposes and decoration.
So time has come to pass this vintage gem on to you. I’ve listed this item in my Vintage Finds page here at Summit Ridge Studio. My plan for that page is to list items, one at a time, highlighting deals for the month or week.
So if you are interested you can email me at anneemcgraw|at|gmail.com with your offer or queries of interest. Or comment below and I can contact you.
News By AnneEMcGraw, on October 10th, 2010  Boulder Haze Summit Ridge Studio is named after my first suburbs home street name in Mississippi, Summit Ridge Drive. I thought it also had a bit of semblance to my current location in Colorado. I always loved Studios naming themselves after their street names. The name gives just the right presence to my past and my present.
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