Avalon Arts is a VERY small design studio.
And if the truth be known, it's really just me,
and when photography is involved,
my husband Jon.

I'm Charlene McNally and I'm an artist for hire! I work out of my home in Benicia, California.

It's a small town just North East of San Francisco. My office consists of a G4 and a G3, (yes, we're big mac fans!) a scanner, CD writer, a couple of printers, and two resident cats Pendragon and Merlin who constantly fight for my lap.

I create my graphics pretty much exclusively in Photoshop. I use Image Ready for compression and animation. I've tried other graphics applications but haven't found one yet that can out perform Photoshop. In the past I've used Quark for print output, but I'm using Photoshop more and more, even for brochures and such. Mostly because of the new vector based text component in Photoshop.

My web pages are created using Dreamweaver, a Macromedia application. I've graduated through a succession of other WYSIWYG web authoring apps and I think I've settled on Dreamweaver.

I hand code when necessary, but in all honesty, I don't find much need to tweak code with Dreamweaver. I know enough Flash, javascript and cgi stuff to get by quite well, but the technical part of web design isn't what excites me.....

What does excite me? The limitless design possibilities! I'm mad about COLOR!!! And as an artist I LOVE the added bonus of never having to wash a brush! To me, the internet world is a pretty harsh and barren place, aesthetically. My mission is to bring ART and BEAUTY into this arena. I'm not saying it is ALL a wasteland, mind you. I've stumbled upon some very intriguing sites! But all in all Science Needs Art!

You can view the original graphic here along with other digital collage kind of work.

I have many other passions ... I paint, and do a little asemblage and fiber/paper art in my studio in downtown (one main street!) Benicia. I love old growth redwoods, long walks on the ocean, sitting by a roaring fire, and reading books about metaphysics!

My husband Jon is a retired news photographer from a large Bay Area newspaper. He's the Avalon Arts resident photographer and "main squeeze". :-) We collaborate to create Fairy Portraits, He's behind the camera and I make the costumes and digitally enhance the photos.

He's always been in the vanguard of the digital revolution and before he retired managed to re-create his photo department so that they are now 100% digital. (I'm sure there may have been a few others involved but they didn't come home and tell me all about it.)

Well this is way too many words for internet readers. Everyone says you hate to read and hate to scroll! So if you made it this far congratulations! You're a Stranger in a Strange Land!

And for some reason this web site is very popular in Italy! So for my Italian visitors:

Ciao a tutti gli miei ospiti dall' Italia! Spero che godiate il mio lavoro e la vostra chiamata qui. Un certo giorno amerei visitare il vostro paese e la sede dei miei anscestors. Pace a voi!

Please sign my guest book or email me!

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