Yesterday I launched another website, http://mountainglenharps.com/! Proprietor Glenn Hill of Mountain Glen Harps handcrafts the most amazing harps, often hand carved, each one a unique a gorgeous work of art. His website had been on the internet since 1993 and needed updating to make it responsive so people can view it on mobile devices, as well as modernizing the look and presenting his incredible work more effectively.
We converted the site from html to WordPress, using the fabulous Divi theme from Elegant Themes. The Mountain Glen Harps home page is a great demonstration of what can be done with this theme.
Because Glenn is very internet savvy and had been maintaining his former site himself, he transferred most of the content and will be making changes to the presentation of the information. I, however, was the lucky one who got to redesign his home page, and I have to say I’m very, very proud of how it came out. Glenn liked it too, in fact his was the only email I’ve ever received that said nothing more than OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in 80-point letters! It’s always wonderful to see one’s clients so excited about the results of your work! Last week I also launched a newly redesigned site for his wife Laurie, proprietoress of Markwood Heavenly Strings & Cases at http://markwoodstrings.com/ All just in time for real life, too – Glenn and Laurie leave today for a big harp convention – the first they’ve been to in 8 years! We’re celebrating the launch of a new look and wishing them both the very best at the convention!
Markwood Heavenly Strings & Cases proprietor Laurie Nielsen strings a harp
I am delighted to announce the launch of a newly redesigned website for Markwood Heavenly Strings & Cases! Many thanks to Laurie Nielsen for entrusting me with the task of modernizing her website so it would be responsive and prepared for the latest search engine requirements in time for the convention she’s attending later this month. I am very proud of how her site came out, and of the brief time it took to complete the work. And when you client says “It’s glorious” when telling me they’re ready to go live…well, you can only imagine how THAT makes me feel! Thank you SO MUCH, Laurie!
Laurie’s husband Glenn Hill makes incredibly beautiful hand carved custom harps and laser harps. Harps are the family business and quality with thoughtful, caring service is the name of their game. So, if you or someone you know is a harpist, please share http://markwoodstrings.com with them for the finest harp strings, harp cases & covers, computerized stringing analysis, harp stringing, and more!
I would like to thank Jacqueline Williams for entrusting me with the ground-up redesign of the website for Jacksonville Chiropractic Clinic, featuring Jacque’s husband, chiropractor Dr. Jason Williams, and the licensed massage therapists who practice alongside him!
Jacque was lovely to work with, and when she had to step aside for a couple of weeks for unrelated reasons, I felt I had enough information from our very productive first meeting to forge ahead on my own. When she returned, she was delighted to find the site ready for her review. We made a few adjustments, I did some housekeeping on the technical end, notified the search engines that the site had been revamped, and it was ready to go! Afterward, she said to me “Thank you so much, Hannah. I’m not very good about delegating, it’s just so much more efficient to do things myself most of the time. But I was really impressed with what you were able to accomplish without any input or participation from me while I was away. I thought it was going to be much more work on my part, but you made it so easy and painless! The site is beautiful, functional and easy to navigate, and I can’t wait to share it with our patients and the community!”
I am particularly proud of how this website came out in the end, and feel the layout and design is flexible enough to use for a number of different types of business. It even looks great on mobile devices!
We were careful to observe the new search engine optimization (SEO) techniques and hope it will be favored by the search engines as a result. You can help by leaving a comment on the blog post announcing the new site, by searching for Jville Chiropractic on Google or Bing and clicking through to the website, then lingering there or browsing the site for a little while, or by sharing the site with your favorite social network. 8.24.14 UPDATE: One of the things we did to boost Jacksonville Chiropractic’s SEO rating was to invest in a paid plugin by Yoast called Local SEO. Previously when we searched for “Jacksonville Chiropractic,” we saw mostly sites in Jacksonville, Florida in the search results. Now, and in record time, Jacksonville Chiropractic’s Oregon site dominates page one of the search results! Alternative searches have it either as #1 in the page one list, or lower on the page, but still on page 1. Even a search for “jason williams dc“, which predictably pulls up results with Jason Williamses from many walks of life, has OUR Jason Williams’ bio page at position #6, and the link to jacksonvillechiropracticclinic.com in position #7! Your help in lickcing the links you found in the search results made a huge difference in the amount of time this usually takes, too…Thank you!!
Please visit the site and take a look around. There is a lot of additional information, new patients can download patient registration forms to fill out and bring to their first visit, and the visual comparison between the previous site and this one…well, there’s no comparison! We would be very grateful if you would share their new site with anyone in the Jacksonville area who needs help from a chiropractor and/or therapeutic massage specialist, or travelers who have found themselves in need while visiting friends and family here. If you are a patient of Dr. Williams or one of his associates, please send them an email with a testimonial via their Contact page. We need current testimonials to make the site complete.
I can vouch for Mira, the resident therapeutic massage and Rolfing specialist. After one hour under Mira’s skilled and sensitive hands, I found a huge amount of pain relief that has remained with me since last November! Yes, sitting in front of a computer all day every day does have its drawbacks, but in no time she put me back in the saddle and ready to build more and better websites. I have a feeling Mira may become active on the blog, sharing information and special announcements.
Last but not least, we set up an online shop for the Clinic. It’s still under construction, but we hope to have it fully functional soon, and then you will be able to purchase the health products they use and recommend to their patients – either for shipment to your home or for local pickup!
We also set up the template for Jacksonville Chiropractic’s first newsletter. It’s pretty clean and simple – they do not plan to do a lot of emailing, but they are co-sponsoring Jacksonville’s First Annual Health Fair in October and would like to share the details with the community as the festival takes shape. In the near future we will set it up so that occasional news and announcements from their new blog can be delivered to your inbox.
I welcome your feedback, and if you would be interested in a quote on a website similar to this one, please send me an email via my Contact page.
More announcements to come soon, and hopefully a catch-up post with the many projects I’ve successfully completed this year but haven’t had time to write about, too.
I wanted to let people know about my Web Design Client Updates and additional news for January 2014. I’ve been busy and it looks like I’ll be getting busier as word continues to spread about my web design skills and work ethic.
Fly Fishing, painting by Joan Pechanec ~ Click to see more on Joan’s new website!
New Web Design Client, Artist Joan Pechanec
First, it’s lovely to announce the completion of a new artist website for Joan Pechanec of Mt Shasta, California. The website is built on the WordPress platform, using the Emphaino theme with lots of custom modifications so the resulting site design would suit her aesthetics. She had a budget and a target completion date in mind, and we finished under budget and on time. She has art works in two categories on her site – assemblage/collage pieces and more recent oil paintings. As she and her husband, author Charlie Price, were on their way out of town for a 3 month writer’s residency at Fairhope on the Gulf Coast of Alabama, it was perfect that they were both able to come up and meet me in person before they left. Working with Joan by remote (a good bit of it while they were on the road to their destination) went smoothly and I’m delighted that both she and her husband are pleased with the results!
Joan wanted visitors to her website to be able to see all the works on her home page, so we chose a theme that’s designed with the masonry technique (like Pinterest), yet with a dark background that really makes the saturated colors in her paintings pop. The masonry style image blocks on the home page are each linked to a post with more details about the painting. Since she will be away for a while, we decided to post the paintings with just the most essential details for now. It was a joy working with Joan’s art! We’ll add text and artist’s comments when she returns home, along with the new paintings she is creating while on the Gulf Coast. I hope you will visit joanpechanec.com and have a look!
Website Update for Artist Christina Madden
Nature’s Views, mixed media painting by Christina MaddenAutumn at the Green Springs, oil painting by Christina Madden
Artist Christina Madden has been painting away since I last wrote, and these two pieces are among my favorites of the new works we have recently updated her website with. The two seem to bookend the range of her style; both are landscapes, but one is a bright and colorful mixed media painting in a more abstract style, the other an oil painting in an impressionist style, with colors a bit more subdued than we usually see from her hand. Christina is working hard to create a style that’s all her own, and it appears to me that she’s succeeding. She’s very excited because she will be going to ArtExpo in New York City this year! It’s been wonderful to watch her style grow and change since we began working together, and I know she will be successful at this prestigious New York show.
Bill Stanton’s Art Exhibit at the GoodBean Cafe
Landscape, 4′ x 4′ oil on canvas by Bill Stanton
I’m sure I must have mentioned that among the things I do to have some regular in-person facetime with artists and their work is curating and managing the art exhibits at the GoodBean Cafe in my hometown of Jacksonville, Oregon. December was a group show with the theme of “Angels,” which drew great enthusiasm from the shop’s clientele, so much so that the owner decided she wants to do the same theme every December from now on! This month we’re featuring artist Bill Stanton, whose landscapes painted in deep impasto oils are in high demand in the area. Bill isn’t entirely reclusive, but he doesn’t do a lot of shows or promotion…it’s mostly locals who are in the know who support his work…so we’re fortunate to have him. We would love it if you could come in and see them for yourself – we just renovated the back wall to make more room for the art, and his large (some huge) paintings look terrific in the space! If you’re not in the area, take a look at this post about the show to learn more.
Web Design Projects in Development and Coming Soon
That’s all I have completed and ready for you to view right now…though I’m working on a bunch of other projects that will be ready soon:
Helping Stefan Baumann complete his artist website
Stefan started on his own, but became too busy to finish the project himself. In addition to a grueling art instruction schedul which involves a lot of travel, he’s painting like crazy to prepare for a big southern California show in September. Want to watch as Baumann’s website develops? Visit www.stefanbaumann.com
New concert posters, video editing and website updates for Christina Duane’s Romancing the West 2014 tour.
Learn more about the amazing Romancing the West docu-concert here: romancingthewest.org
Redesigning the website for Community Works
Community Works is the parent organization for the highly respected Dunn House in Medford, Oregon, which helps women, youth and families impacted by domestic abuse and sexual violence. I am delighted to be working with Development Director Misha Levee Hernandez on this project. (Need help yourself? Visit their current website here. )
Updating artist Pegi Smith‘s existing website with new paintings.
As with Christina Madden, I did not design Pegi’s site, but her previous webmistress is stepping aside from website work and Pegi brought her maintenance work to me just yesterday! I can’t wait to work with her beautiful paintings! pegismith.com
In addition, I’m beside myself with glee that I’ve gotten two new web design projects to begin soon. One is an artist website. Just yesterday I went to visit this artist’s studio and nearly wept at the beautiful work I saw there! We should be getting underway soon. The other is a WordPress based wine club website. I will hear for sure on that one Friday, and we should be getting started around the 27th if it’s confirmed tomorrow that it’s a go.
I hope you’ll check back again to see my very erratic updates on how things are going with these web design and site maintenance projects, and more!
It’s so hard to keep this site updated when there are so many interesting (and challenging!) projects to tend to, so here’s a quick recap of a few of the things I’ve been working on.
“Master Wave,” oil on canvas by Boni de Laire“Still Life with Red Oriental Poppies,” oil on canvas by Billye Woodford
Just after I finished the restoration of a site for Medford artist Boni de Laire, she referred another wonderful painter to me, Billye Woodford from Rogue River, Oregon. I have just finished her site, too. They’re both beautiful, and filled with lovely artwork – representational landscapes are Boni’s focus, and while Billye creates beautiful landscapes as well, she also ventures into florals, portraits and more. Please visit www.bonidelaire.net and www.billyewoodford.com today!
While I was finishing up Billye’s site, another interesting job came my way – a website for a contestant in the upcoming Miss Oregon pageant, Priyanka Samra. Born in Canada and raised in Medford Oregon, Priyanka is a college student in California majoring in pre-med. She’ll gradute at the end of the current school year. She’s also incredibly beautiful and has been modeling since she was 14 – with a special love for the runway. She’s going to be teaching runway lessons to other models to raise funds for her favorite charities – Unique Home for Girls in India, where girls who have been abandoned are given a home, education and a future under the loving guardianship of
their adopted mother Prakash Kaur, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), specifically for their important work on depression. Please visit www.priyankasamra.com to learn more and see the modeling shots in her portfolio gallery…and root for her to win Miss Oregon 2014! She wanted a site based on her friend Mabelynn’s. Mabelynn won the Miss California pageant in 2012 and her site is pretty sleek, so I went for it. As pretty as Mabelynn is, I think Priyanka’s exotic East Indian look, movie-star glamorous yet not excessively sexy, makes her site the winner. Follow her for news on the Miss Oregon pageant, which happens in November.
“Sunrise on the Rhine,” mixed media on canvas by artist Christina Madden
A couple of my artist clients have added new paintings to their websites recently.
Christina Madden paints in oil, acrylic and mixed media; her range of style and subject is quite broad, but recently she’s been refining her style to make it all her own. And is it ever! Her colorful abstract impressionist landscapes are so vibrant and full of life, like nothing else I’ve seen. We’ve also been working to improve the SEO value of her site and making progress. Help her gain better online visibility! Visit her website and feast your eyes on artist Christina Madden‘s colorful world! If you find yourself in Ashland, Oregon during October 2013, stop in at Art & Soul gallery to see a major show of her paintings. She sold ten paintings in recent months, so she had to work very hard to paint new pieces so she would have enough for her show, and they’re magnificent! Meet the artist at a reception on Friday, October 4 during the Ashland First Friday Art Walk.
Artist Eugenia Talbot is an amazing woman, and she just had two shows here in southern Oregon – one at the Berryman Gallery (above the Craterian Theater in Medford) in conjunction with the production of Tarzan there in early September. At the same time I had her work hanging at the GoodBean Cafe in Jacksonville for a one month exhibition that got huge numbers of compliments! I didn’t design her site, but she brought me on for maintenance and updates, as well as to upgrade its SEO value. Once again I appeal to what readers I may have to help increase her online visibility by visiting her Talbott Studios website and take some time to look around. You won’t be disappointed – African wildlife, horses and pet portraits, portraits of people and more await you there!
Susan DeRosa art show card for South Stage Cellars show, September 2013
Oh, and you must see the art show card that Jacksonville artist Susan DeRosa had me make for her debut southern Oregon show (she moved here recently from Arkansas, where she lived for a time after retiring from her career as an art educator in California universities). She is such an amazing talent, I’m glad she now has time to continue refining her own work rather now that she’s done her time teaching others! Her show at South Stage Cellars was such a success, she sold a painting at the opening reception and so many people came that she started crying with gratitude when telling me how she felt about it.
This reminds me of the art show catalog I did recently, but I haven’t had a chance to scan it so I’ll have to post that later.
Apologies to the awesome folks at GMO Free Jackson County for not having time to have them with a project they contacted me about. Please visit their website and lend your support – they working hard to protect Oregon’s organic agriculture legacy. It’s like swimming upstream, there’s so much to do and so much resistance from the likes of Monsanto and Syngenta.
Well, there’s still more, but I’ve run out of time and have to get back to work, so please return another time to see if I’ve had a chance to write more about the fabulous projects I’m involved in now, and what my wonderful clients have for me next! Spoiler alert…looks like a new site and SEO help for Daljit Samra (Name sounds familiar? Yes, that’s Priyanka’s mom!) of the Rogue Valley Inn and possibly some modifications to a fantastic high end fashion site in New York, as well as adding video content to singer/songwriter Christina Duane’s nonprofit websites, Romancing the West and Oh Oregon Frontier Park when she returns from her current tour! Oh, right, I haven’t written about the pleasure of starting to work with Christina yet, have I? Well, we’ll have to tackle that next time…Thanks for stopping by and come back again soon!
I am delighted to have finished a website for Norm Rossignol at www.normrossignolart.com! I was already acquainted with Norm as he had a listing on www.soartists.com, the site I created to promote the art community of southern Oregon, and am happy to know him much better after meeting with him and working on his website. It’s amazing how much this endeavor can show you about a person – some clients have even said they learned much they didn’t know about themselves through the process!
Norm is a plein air painter, which means he paints outdoors, on location. He is very supportive of his fellow plein air artists, to the point that he co-founded the Plein Air Society of Southern Oregon (or PASSO) to enourage and coordinate regular paintings sessions “en plein air” with both new and experienced artists. His watercolors are beautiful, and he has taught watercolor painting at ScrappyCraft in Phoenix, Oregon for the past three years. He’s now taking a break from teaching and watercolors to renew his focus on another love – pastels – and they are just stunning! He is also a member of the Watercolor Society of Oregon and The Pastel Society of Oregon, and the Southern Oregon Society of Artists, as well as additional plein air-focused groups.
Bluebell Woods, pastel painting by Norm Rossignol
Norm is a kind, energetic and engaging man. I can see why his classes were popular! His wife is an avid horsewoman and he enjoys videotaping her weekly riding lessons on Gabriel, her handsome Haflinger. He’s not timid when it comes to trying new things, something I learned when he dived in almost immediately to create his first post his his brand new blog! I hope everyone in the SO art community and all who love plein air painting and landscapes will follow his blog as it promises to be entertaining and informative, not to mention lovely, as I’m sure he will illustrate his posts with images of his work.
Norm was kind enough to write this recommendation for me, which I just received this morning:
Wanting my very own web site seemed so daunting to me that I put it off for years. I envied those who had a site and maintained it on their own. Then there’s the need to ensure your images are protected properly from being copied.
Hannah West has been managing SOAR for some time now and I have seen that site do wonderful things for artists. One of the things that stood out from Hannah’s work is “She has your back.” Not only builds a beautiful site but all your work is safe. Another feature I needed was a Point and Shoot style operation and Hannah has a designed system that is just that easy. Most webmasters can build a web site that is just fine, but a web site made especially for artists is another matter. Hannah being an artist herself has that insight needed to develop a tasteful and easy site to display and use. I am most grateful to Hannah for her hard work and dedication to developing my site.
Easy operation
Attractive presentation
Custom built for your needs
Easy maintenance
Safe from piracy
Something to be proud of
What more could you want?
I love working for artists! Like anyone else, I get tired working at my computer for so many hours each day, but the beauty of their work makes it a pleasure from which I never tire. Elaine’s watercolors are a prime example ~ I felt so refreshed after completing her new website! Please visit it, not just to examine my work in putting together this WordPress site using Elegant Themes’ “Envisioned” theme., but to enjoy the galleries of her incredible watercolors. Maybe you’ll like them as much as I do and will contact her to make a purchase.Elaine also teaches visual art journaling ~ if you’re into journaling, you should visit her blog to see how her watercolor illustrations make her memories come to life in the pages!
Here’s a look at the top part of Elaine’s Home Page. You can see the entire page in my Portfolio, but I really do encourage you to visit her site and see it live.
Just uploaded the eBook I finished last week to Scribd.com. No, I didn’t write it! Just helped with the final assembly. It was written by artist and host of the PBS series “The Grand View: America’s National Parks through the Eyes of an Artist” Stefan Baumann in the form of 4 years of posts at his blog, Daily Painting. A year of editing of these posts and emails sent to his substantial following by student and volunteer blog editor Kris Baxter resulted in this revised eBook. You’ll be able to download a better copy to print straight from his own website, thegrandview.org, soon, but for now, read it (and see some magnificent art) at Scribd.com: http://www.scribd.com/doc/98239726/Daily-Painting-and-Observations-on-Art-Nature-and-Life-by-Stefan-Baumann
We were fortunate to receive a lovely compliment from the local printers Kris took the finished eBook to in Mt. Shasta – they asked if they could use a copy of the cover as an example for other customers to see what they can do! It does look beautiful, and includes many images of Stefan’s fine nature paintings, including plein air landscapes and wildlife, as well as wonderful instruction on oil painting. I highly recommend that anyone interested in art read or download it.
This is a new kind of project for me, and it was really fun to do. If you have a project similar to this in mind, please contact me to discuss how I may be able to help you realize your vision.
Because I work for so many artists, and just because art is my thing and I believe in its power to transform lives and possibly even save the world, I work with Art Presence, the artist group in my own town to promote the arts and local artists. Being on the Board of such a lively and forward-thinking group of people is refreshing and provides me with a break from my computer to have face-to-face interactions with artists I know, network with new artists and Jacksonville’s business people and city representatives.
I had previously started them off with a very simple site hosted at my own art blog, Art Matters!, but the group was small (and un-tech-savvy) enough that it didn’t really take hold at that time. In March we scored a wonderful location, so the group now has a place to meet, a gallery, and a home. To celebrate this incredible milestone, we got the group its own domain name, art-presence.org, and revamped the site. Now that we have around 100 members, a Facebook page (thanks to artist member Cammy Davis!) and a physical location, the site gets a lot more action from both the artists and the public.
Here’s a look at the top part of this WordPress site’s home page, which uses the Chameleon theme from Elegant Themes. Click the image to see more, learn about our members and subscribe to our blog!
DISCLOSURE: This is not a review site, but I do have affiliate relationships with companies whose products and services I and my clients use. If you make a purchase within a few days of using one of my links, I will receive a small commission for the sale. If you have any questions and want to learn more, please contact me through my Facebook page or send me a message using my contact form StudioPress Themes for WordPress
Yesterday I launched another website, http://mountainglenharps.com/! Proprietor Glenn Hill of Mountain Glen Harps handcrafts the most amazing harps, often hand carved, each one a unique a gorgeous work of art. His website had been on the internet since 1993 and needed updating to make it responsive so people can view it on mobile devices, as well as modernizing the look and presenting his incredible work more effectively. 
