About Toni

About Toni

This web-site was created for many reasons -- to promote my artwork, and to contribute to the successes of my art career both online and off.

ART EDUCATION has been minimal, as I am self-taught, and took a few community college courses in order to perfect my technique, and another purpose was to find out where I stood among other wannabe-artists.

IN GENERAL, about me -- Born at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital on Woodward Avenue, in Pontiac, Michigan on Thursday, December 28th, 1961 at 9:40am to Percy James and Sharon (Douglas) Donelow.

I am a person with many various talents and skills, ranging from my artwork to creative writing (and we do a lot of singing in our house, so that must mean something!), including songwriting, and essaying, and letter-writing -- skills also pour into areas such as do-it-yourself projects at home (I wasn't afraid to lift the hood of my old van, but am limited to what I will work on,ha) -- am [of course] interested in desktop publishing, document design and newly touching on web-design as well (user-friendly thus far) -- digital photography and graphics as well. Day jobs usually consist of office work -- generally Administrative Assistant/secretarial/word processing (yes I'm a fast typist!) and I am a self-taught medical transcriptionist. I don't limit myself as far as what new things I am capable of learning, and find this to be an optimistic and challenging outlook -- as I'm always finding something new to learn.

First of all, I might add, I'm the divorced mother of 2 young sons, who are the stars in my every sky, Bryan and Jeremy.

I'm a people person and have many friends and acquaintances on the Internet, in which I enjoy the most fine of conversations--and often many of them are in faraway places.

I did not spend years entering art-contests, or selling my art in art fairs, or promoting it to anything but a limited number of book publishers (offline!) during the past decade -- my artwork has been something that's been placed on "back-burner," due to life's always getting in the way -- it has always been my wish to bring it to the fore, and it has taken a great deal of time getting here, thanks!

Feel free to check Published Projects if you would like to view some of my published items -- however, I will give you somewhat of an overview here:

1990-1991 -- FROG GONE REVIEW poetry chapbook, Mt. Clemens, Michigan; fully illustrated (cover to cover) 2 consecutive poetry chapbooks for a small publisher; black and white; pen & ink.

1991 -- PERVEY book cover only; Published through Harlo Books, Detroit, Michigan ; Pen & Ink; released and distributed only in CANADA.

1991 -- Pen & Ink MCDONALD's Placemat, Adult Career Training Corporation/ACT time-limited printing of 1 million copies of a tray-liner (yes, the paper in the bottom of the tray...) distributed only to McDonald's restaurants in the State of Michigan during the summer of 1991. The Rochester Clarion Newspaper interview article coincided event.

1994 --1997 COURAGE CARDS ART SEARCH WINNER three consecutive years in a row (among approximately 30 such winners per season...) -- see Published Projects, to view cards. (International Distribution & sending!)

(nothing of mine is on this site currently, but it's a GREAT CAUSE!)

1996 -- PUBLISHING CONTRACT with New Canaan Publishing, New Canaan CT: Purpose to illustrate a series of 5 full-color early reader children's books -- date of release has yet to be determined. 4 books are completed by illustrator, with the 5th, also having been written by me, still unillustrated. Please inquire with your interest at www.newcanaanpublishing.com -- links to the pages on Amazon.com for these books will be included on Published Projects page!

1996 or 1997 - COMMISSIONED by COURAGE CARDS for "Snowman & Friends" -- I was told that this commissioned piece was one of Courage Cards' best sellers

1997 -- COURAGE CARDS HOLIDAY GREETING CARD CD ROM COMPUTER PROGRAM; 3 designs featured on this holiday greeting card program.

2000 -- Art displayed online for the first time on http://www.findmeanartist.com artist portfolio site!

Launched this site (under previous format) on July 21st, 2000, from Royal Oak, Michigan

Artwork displayed on http://www.panormus.org -- Italian Virtual Galleria!

CURRENTLY (and most recently) involved in working with Infinity Books (check out their http://www.buybooksontheweb.com) as a freelance illustrator, as well as freelance editor/proofreader...

December 2000 -- "DragonFire" pen & ink piece displayed on San Francisco Bay Review Science Fiction Fantasy special site during the month of December 2000 --Artist Profile also featured! Click on link below! (back-issue available for viewing!)

Founder: ARTWAVE CREATIVES WEB-RING, & INTERNET ADVENTURES IN ART WEBRING