Want to win your favorite Imagekind print for free?

That’s right, it’s free print Friday! and we’re giving one lucky person the chance to win a free Imagekind print of their choice. Best of all, it’s beyond simple! Just check out our Facebook page and post the URL of your favorite image from Imagekind in the comment section below the announcement.

Hurry, cause it all ends at 5pm PST!

Ok, stop reading, go post your favorite image for the chance to win!

Enter here.

Josh Heilaman is  a self taught visual and sound artist. He was born and raised in Oklahoma, now lives in Texas. Most of his work is in acrylic painting and musical form. He is also very fond of drawing, sculpting and video. Though he generally focuses on character based work, he also dabbles with landscapes and abstract pieces as well. Josh’s work has been featured in numerous publications and shows all over America.

To view more of my Josh Heilman’s art work, check his personal website: www.friskeemedia.com/joshheilaman

To hear some of his music, check out this site.

Where were you born, where do you live, any other background info?

I was born in Oklahoma City, OK. Most of my life has been here in Oklahoma, I moved to Texas for a few years as well. After traveling across the U.S. looking for a good place to live, I have found myself in Oklahoma again. I’ve grown to appreciate many things about my hometown that I overlooked for a while. Now that I am “back home”, I have decided to continue my involvement with the arts and focus on personal and community development.

How would you describe your work?

Over the years, I have watched my work evolve. I started creating at a very early age, mainly pencil drawings of characters and landscapes. By the time I became a teenager, my interests shifted to painting, sculpting and digital mediums. I’ve spent considerable time with most common mediums since then. Somehow, my work has evolved beyond anything I thought it would but still remains as simplistic as the early days of drawing “make-believe” characters. The focal point of my creations has always been based in story telling and character development. I enjoy bringing the believable to the make-believe in all of my work.

What processes and techniques do you use to create your work?

When creating, I typically don’t have any sort of plan in the beginning stages. Most of the time, I begin by making textures and abstract color schemes. These textures will “tell me” what to paint or draw. The process is similar to cloud watching or participating in an ink blot test. Sometimes it takes some time to pull something tangible out of abstraction, but other times it happens very quickly. For those reasons, I typically will work on 10 to 20 pieces at a time. My favorite approach is to squeeze out a big blob of one color and work it into all the pieces in varying degrees. In the end, the result is a very rich and prismatic collection of paintings. The main mentality, that I embrace while creating, is that every color exists in everything all of the time; and I should emulate that in my artwork.

What is your style for creating?

I’ve never paid close attention to style with my work. I find that it’s best to just go with what occurs naturally. Perhaps, that is my style.

Are you a full time artist?

Yes, I am a full time artist. Most of my income stems from commission work, gallery shows and graphic design jobs.

Imagekind artist and all around social media connoisseur Natasha Wescoat was in Seattle over the weekend for the Create Live Seattle event held at Bedlam Coffee. Local artist David Hoang, also an Imagekind artist (!) participated in the event as well. Artists from around the area were invited to participate by working on pieces along side Natasha and David. Create Live is all about merging art and social media and connecting artists together from all corners of the world. It was  great event and glad we could participate.

The coffee shop was like a lions den of creativity. Artists were drawing, painting, sketching on paper and digitally. While everyone was creating, Natasha and David would tag team on the video chat and connect via Twitter with viewers around the country.

After the event Natasha and David stopped by the Imagekind office and were cool enough to answer a couple of questions. We even had them tag up one of our book cases!

Check out Natasha’s Flickr stream to see photos of the event. Also, if your curious at all what our office looks like on a Sunday afternoon, check out the tour I gave them. Don’t laugh at my awkwardness.

Creating polar (stereographic) panoramics is much easier than I initially thought. Or at least learning some of the basic tricks to produce the effect are not as technical as the final result make it seem. In other words, the captivating effect needed to create polar panoramic photography (or “little planets” as they are endearingly termed) is much easier than it looks.

Here’s a quick step-by-step guide to the basics on how to create polar panoramic images. You can use your own photograph, or grab one with a creative commons license. I found this one on Flickr.

1. Select a panoramic landscape photograph to manipulate. Remember, you can always crop your photo to get a landscape look. That’s what I did with this example. Quick tip: though a 360 degree landscape works best, as long as the image is in at least a 1:2 aspect ratio, you should be fine.

2. Square your photograph by changing the dimensions to the largest side. In Photoshop, go to Image > Image Size and increase the height to match the width. Quick tip: make sure the Constrain Proportions box is unchecked.

3. Rotate the entire image by 180 degrees. In Photoshop, go to Image > Rotate Canvas > 180

4. Create the planet. In Photoshop, go to Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates. Quick tip: make sure you select Rectangular to Polar though the other option provides quite an interesting effect as well.

Some additional tips:

1. To avoid off-kilter landscapes when polarized, you’ll want to make sure the landscape is parallel before changing it to a square. You can straighten and crop with the crop tool by bringing the cursor just outside the crop box to rotate
2. Images that are near identical on either end of the landscape work the best. Images that are not similar will look disjunctioned
3. Crop out any bold lines on either end of the landscape or you’ll notice a large line when you polarize
4. You should definitely feel free to rotate the image once you’ve created your planet. That way you can choose what is on top of the planet.
5. You can find additional tips here

Friday Favorites are my weekly wrap-up of the cool happenings going on around Imagekind over the past week. This week saw some very exciting things including the addition of one of the most prolific American turn-of-the-century cartoonists, Zim Zimmerman. Also, one of our member artists posted a great review about Imagekind on our blog that I have to share! Lastly, make sure to check out the latest updates to Imagekind.

Zim Zimmerman Cartoons on Imagekind

Eugene “Zim” Zimmerman was one of the most prolific turn-of-the-century American cartoonists. Who has, however, been since largely forgotten. Founder of what is known as the “grotesque” style of caricature for his use of overly exaggerated facial and bodily characteristics in his subjects.

With over 40,000 illustrations published in his lifetime, Zim’s body of work were often political in nature, highlighting the “melting pot” of American culture and ethnic minorities in the early part of the century. Though many might appear as politically incorrect in our time, the cartoons provide a historical look and critique of American culture during his. Immigrating to the US from Switzerland in 1869 at the age of seven, you can imagine Zim was all too familiar with the struggles immigrants and minorities often faced at the turn of the century.

Most prints were originally featured in the two top humor magazines of their day: Puck and Judge magazines. Now, in conjunction with Imagekind, ASIF-Hollywood Animation Archive has provided a collection of Zim’s cartoons for sale as high-quality framed art prints.

Imagekind Review

After ordering one of his prints one of our member artists, Rubens LP, provided a fantastic review of Imagekind on his blog. He even includes pictures! You can see the full review on his blog here. Rubens LP’s conclusion? “WOW!!! Nice surprise… Very impressive.”

Thanks Rubens! I am a total fan of his work so it was especially great to hear he is a fan of Imagekind!

We love hearing reviews about Imagekind. If you have one yourself on your own blog, send it along! It’s like my birthday when I hear how excited people are to receive their artwork.

More Updates

We’re always updating. This week brings two! First, we released an oft-requested feature: the ability to add images in forum posts. Second, we’ve included the “AddThis” button in Imagekind Storefronts to easily share images found in an artists Storefront with your community around the web. This way, visitors can share artwork for sale on Imagekind to sites like DIGG, Facebook, Twitter and more.  It’s an opt-in feature so you can control if you want your images shared or not.

You can read all the details on the updates in the forum, here.

There’s something about good black and white photography that always seems to amaze me. Maybe it’s the simplicity found from stripping out the color. Or the contrasts between dark and light that forces detail to the forefront. Whatever it is, there is something magical about black and white photography. Like seeing the world in a completely different way: simple.

Check out some of my favorite black and white photos on Imagekind below.

Poster art has the power to inspire. These aren’t your typical dorm room accouterments but posters in the fine art variety. Very inspiring.

Poster artwork goes beyond your dorm room walls. With the bold use of colors, poster artists tell stories visually. Whether it’s a glimpse into the unrealistic, a place to visit, or an idea to consider. Many poster artists use a technique called typography, which is the technique of using, arranging, and modifying the types, or fonts. This can range anywhere from the height, style or even space between letters. Though it is a common characteristic of poster art, not all poster artists utilize typography.

Check out below to see 25 Amazing Typography and Poster Artists on Imagekind.

Friday is here again! And on Fridays, I share some of my Friday Favorites. Check out this week’s and you’ll see Imagekind seemingly pop up all over the place. From Smashing Magazine, to AOL Home and even USA Today. Also, don’t forget that today we celebrate a very special holiday in honor of one of my favorite foods animals; the delicious mighty cow. And if you missed the big announcement about Imagekind, make sure to catch it below.

AOL Home

Ah, AOL. It brings me back to my first forays on the internet. Anyway, AOL Home’s blog ShelterPop gets it exactly right in their blog post of 5 Sites for Affordable Art. Check out what they say about us below. We are super stoked for the inclusion!

Smashing Magazine

I love Smashing Magazine. And no, not just because they mentioned us in their 35 Beautiful Photography Websites, but because they are constantly posting super helpful and relevant content. They really live up to their motto to “Smash you with the information that will make your life easier. Really.” We are totally thrilled, and humbled really, to be listed among such amazing photographers as a place where they can sell their artwork online. We are glad we have built a reputation that supports such fantastic artists. Thanks Smashing Magazine!

USA Today

I wanted to give a quick and big congratulations to our own Rajesh Srinivasan for taking second place(!) in USA Today’s Picture America Contest. Well done Rajesh! You can see and purchase his winning image right in his Imagekind gallery.

Cow Appreciation Day

I love beef cows. But today might just be one of those days when I put down the cow, and trade it for it’s feathery counterpart. Today, July 10, is Chick-fil-A’s 5th Annual Cow Appreciation day. The deal is, if you dress like a cow and go into any Chick-fil-A’s restaurant, you will get free chicken meal. So what’s this got to do with Art and/or Imagekind? HA! Very little… But to show our support of one of America’s best-loved animals, I thought I’d give them their day in the sun and feature some inspiring cow art on Imagekind! Heck, we have a whole homepage dedicated to them.

Holy cow! I was just told about this: The Cow Appreciation Day photo contest. I love it! If you submit a photo, upload it to Imagekind too! And please show me!

Major Updates to Imagekind

We hope you didn’t miss our big announcement this week. But if you did, no worries, I’ve got you covered. I mean, you could just scroll down a bit and see it on the blog yourself, but if that requires to much time and/or effort, here is the quick version:

1. We’ve removed the upload limitations and implemented unlimited uploads.
2. Premium Members can now create their own customizable Storefront.
3. We also unveiled our new Portfolio Manager to help batch-edit your galleries.

Need more details on the features? Check the actual announcement.