Friday, January 30, 2009

Calendar Art



One of the things I love about the beginning of a year is the calendars. Calendars come in all shapes and sizes, all types and an amazing array of colors and styles. If you want a calendar of a particular thing or animal or person, chances are you can find it at your local Wal Mart or grocery store.



Calendar art is one of the most affordable ways of putting art in your home. I've highlighted a calendar before that was done by
Miss Wheelchair Utah 2005, who draws amazing cute stick figures with her limited mobility. There is everything from cartoon stuff including Peanuts, For Better or For Worse, Dilbert, Maxine (which was a personal favorite for last year, all my co-workers would come see what each month had to say),



to art gallery calendars, promoting their shows.


But beware...the price tag is reflective of what's inside, and you have to think about how much you want to pay to keep track of the days of the year. That peanuts calendar I've got up above? It's for sale on Amazon for over $50! You have to be a true collector to want to pay those prices.

Many famous artists have calendars of their work put together so that you can get copies of the prints without paying the price to frame. Although, I'm sure you could frame them when you were finished with the calendar. ;) James Christensen an artist I've commented on before, has started doing calendars. This is from the one for this year.


I love looking at calendars. When I went to Hawaii a year and a half ago (man, it's been that long???)I brought back calendars for everyone. I kept it above my desk to remind me and when the end of December came, I had a hard time taking it down. It felt like an era was gone and I wanted to go back and get another...

Photography ones are excellent for keeping areas in mind, for being inspired and for promoting an area.

There are religious calendars (such as ones with the temples on them). There are sports calendars. Just about anything you can think of can be made up into a calendar. It doesn't mean it's always art.


So what tickles your fancy? Does your family lean toward the comical or the serene? Artistic or thoughtful? Our family calendar is usually simple -- a plain wall thing that we buy where ever we can find it the cheapest, because all we do is write all over it. Then there is the free one from the Credit Union that has the gorgeous photography and we put that one up mainly for the pictures.



My daughters buy what interests them that year. This year, my oldest bought one that has dragon art on it. Oh yeah...feel the power...grin. Last year it was puppies -- I decided to ignore the hint, we have cats. Lots of them.

My husband has a Dilbert Calendar on his desk. I have Anne Geddes on my computer at work, but it's not the kind of calendar you can write anything on.

So what do you use your calendars for? Do you write all over them like we do, or do you gaze at the pictures and imagine yourself there?



I figure I could put together my own calendar with the illustrations I did for Sorry, the Stork Takes No Returns. If anyone is interested, feel free to email me and I'll send you one -- only $8 each! It's a bargain! grin.



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1 comment:

Tristi Pinkston said...

My calendar for this year has puppies on it, too. :)

I love the idea of framing the pictures. Sometimes that's the only way to afford some of the nicer prints!

Wow... really??

so - I didn't realize it has been that long since my last post.  I think I kind of gave up on it, knowing I don't have many follower...