Its's a jungle in here!

I love Etsy, some of the work there is fantastic. I did register and add some products but it is a site you would want to be working on full time, adding products and promoting them. My two websites already keep me very busy so Etsy just hasn't evolved for me. It leads me into my hand painted products as Etsy would have been a great place to exhibit and sell them, unfortunately it didn't exist then. I have hand painted- T-shirts, door knobs, vases, greeting cards, chairs, and toilet seats, yes, loo seats! In the early nineties Ireland wasn't exactly a hot bed for designer goods, but one lady had set up a designer interior shop called - Presents Of Mind. It probably was one of the first of its kind in Dublin. I had hand painted some vases and plates as gifts for friends and had such a good response, I thought I would produce them as a product to sell. I approached Presents Of Mind and, bingo, I had my first order. Nothing sold for six weeks and she was about to ask me...

I came across Threadless a year ago and I think it is a great idea and a great website. It would have been fun to have had something like this when I left college. Anyway, it must have been my blog that inspired me, (talking about my T-shirts) I entered some designs into Threadless. I have many designs that I am not doing much with and I thought it would be fun to get some feedback on them. The idea of Threadless is you enter your T-shirt design, people vote for it and leave comments. This is a little scary as they are pretty honest. When the voting ends and if you get a high score your image will be printed, the Threadless team pay you for this of course! I have to add, you would want to spend some time on your entries as there is some serious competition on this site, but it is a great way for a young artist to have their work viewed.

Early in my career I had an obsession or maybe I should say a fetish for.... yes, cows! Coming from Ireland you see a lot of cows, as I love to mountain walk I have encountered a few cows in my time. Ireland is very green and I love the black and white contrast of the cows against the greenness of the Irish countryside. My first successful cow image was an illustration called "Two Cows In A Field" and it was an illustration of just that, two cows in a field! Unfortunately I don't have that image but here are a few other cow designs I have done. There have been vases, candles, door signs , t-shirts, posters, wrapping paper and ...... Cow Parade . This cow now sits in the Children's Hospital in Crumlin, Dublin. It is really nice to know that kids are getting enjoyment out of it. This image above is a lovely print, it sells on my website I add baby's birth details to the print by hand. It is a great gift for newborn babies.

I laugh at some of the things I have done over the years with my work. I had left college to a fairly bleak Irish economy, I had an agent in London and was illustrating children's books. I loved this but there was always a burning ambition to sell my own product. At this stage I had no knowledge of selling to the public or mass production, but had a feeling that to produce and sell my work would be fun. So, I set up Wartissmus. These were hand painted T-shirts with hand sewn adornments on them. Yes, they were WILD! I worked again with Joyce Daly and we started to sell our T-shirts from the Design Center in Dublin. It was such fun and we sold lots of T-shirts. People loved them, it was great. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and it was our success that brought us to this point. All our products were hand done and we just couldn't keep up with the work. Again, I was back illustrating for other people but waiting for my next solo project. Here are some of our T-s...

Starting a blog has been a very daunting task, I have been thinking about it for a long time. Well, at last I am beginning to blog! I am going to start at the beginning of my career and show work from my early days up to my present day work. So watch this space as I bring you through the years of Carla Daly's art. This is my first post, I know it is small but it is a big step for me.