Wow. Another month comes to an end. I am not looking forward to this winter. Very doubtful we will be able to go to Florida, so we are gearing up to spend the first full winter at home in at least 10 years. (I was even interviewed about this in the local paper last week!) Not looking forward to it. Plus, I just learned that an event I was going to be participating in next week has been cancelled because our region is now going back into “Orange” Covid-19 mode. It was a fundraising event so I feel really bad for the charity it was supposed to support. Hopefully they will be able to reschedule, but I somehow doubt it. “November” and “outdoor event” don’t go well together, at least not in Quebec.
I should be grateful for the extra time that has been given to me to learn to grow my art, and I am. One thing I am currently looking into to grow the business side of it is e-mail marketing. I am of two minds about that, and would appreciate it if you would share your thoughts in the comments section below the blog. I regularly sign-up for emails on a variety of subjects. Of course because of this I get a ton of emails about art (techniques, art supply stores, artists I follow, etc.), as well as cruises (don’t know when, if ever, we will be doing that again!), investing, surveys, kijiji alerts, you name it! Once in a while I unsubscribe from one that I either have lost interest in or that turned out to be nothing but a trick to get me to purchase something I don’t really need (way too many of those!!). In my case, I would use an email subscriber list for announcements, like “a new painting is available”, or “I am doing a show at such and such a place”, or “one of my works received a prize”. I might also use it to announce a special promotion. So definitely not every day, likely not even every week! Of course one of the hardest parts of starting an email distribution list is getting people to sign up. Most organisations will use what is called a “lead magnet” to convince people to hand over their email address. I am sure you have seen them: “Free ebook”, “Top 10 tips”, “Special discount”, etc., depending on the subject or industry. To me they seem like trickery, but maybe you have a different opinion, especially if what you get is valuable to you. So I have two questions for you:
Thanks for reading!
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Ooops! Missed my target posting day!
What’s going on, you might ask? Well, aside from helping my significant other to rebuild our front (or is it back?) porch -- it is physically at the back of the house, but it is the main door -- I have been doing the usual, that is learning new stuff! Eric Rhoads is to blame yet again! Earlier this week, he had an artist demonstrating pastels. I tried pastels in a workshop a couple of years ago and found that I didn’t like them, mainly because of the mess they make. However, I had never really looked at someone using them. It was mesmerizing! How quickly he could fill a space with color! And how loose it could be! I have pretty much given up on painting loosely. Even when I set out to do a loose piece, my “this-has-to-be-just-so” brain takes over and pretty soon I am using a #1 or #0 brush and I’m in there perfecting things till the cows come home. I thought I had accepted the fact that I was just not a loose painter. But watching this artist maneuver the pastel sticks woke the sleeping beast. So even before the demonstration was finished, I was up in the studio checking out what pastel supplies I had in my inventory (it’s like an art supply store up there…) I found I had pastel paper and a box of brand new sticks I had bought a few years ago, just in case..... I spent the rest of the day watching “Pastels for Beginners” videos on youtube (Yay youtube!!) So after getting the basic do’s and don’ts, some of which I would never have thought of on my own (like tilting the surface slightly forward so the dust falls directly on a tray, or a piece of sticky tape as I discovered in another video) I attacked my first pastel. Of all things, to keep this simple(!), I started painting a woman’s face, without a reference photo, just for fun. Although I will never claim it to be good, I am happy with the results, considering that it is drawn from imagination and a first piece using the medium with a very limited range of colors, which turns out to be more important in pastels than other mediums. Of course I had to fiddle with details in the eyes and the mouth, but the rest is quite loose for me. I enjoyed the experience, and am impatiently awaiting a used pastel set I found on Ebay. I doubt that I will ever create finished (ie. sellable) paintings with pastels, because framing them is even more complicated than watercolors. However, I think that doing studies before starting a painting in another medium would be a very interesting use for pastels. I rarely do studies now, mainly because it takes just as long to do a study as a painting in watercolor or oils, so why not just do the painting! But pastels are quick, colorful and modifiable, just the qualities you need to do a study. They are also very portable, so they might get me outside to do some plein air work! Great question!
Why paint at all, or why paint this subject in particular? Why paint at all is the hardest to answer. I suppose there are as many answers as people who paint, and I am not 100% sure of my own answer to this. Aside from the satisfaction of constantly learning, and the sheer joy of seeing things appear before my very eyes, I guess part of it is leaving something of my passage on this earth. Not the kind of legacy like Rembrandt's or Picasso's or anyone like that, but simply something that my children and perhaps their children can look at, remember me and, hopefully, smile. I always find it sad to see someone's original art in a bin at a thrift store, especially if it is dedicated on the back by the artist to the receiver. If this piece could talk!! I hope my art never winds up there, but I guess by then I won't care much. The second question, why paint this, is easier. What makes me choose a scene, unless of course it is a commission for a client, is a gut reaction to it. I have found over time that an unusual angle (like Blue Boat), but especially strong shadows and light (like Mishka), have a special attraction for me. Sometimes, like with Chatsworth Gate, I take it as a challenge. Can I do this? The down side of this is that sometimes I can't find what to paint. I don't want to paint boring. I also find it difficult to imagine a good painting. If I can see it, I can probably paint it, but if I can't see it... oh boy! I guess that's something I will have to keep working at! If you have ideas, or photos that you think could make a good subject, please leave comment! What a busy day! I didn’t work on my painting today (other than remove a small fly that had committed suicide overnight by trying to fly through the foggy sky over the foggy sea). I was going through my “Pictures to Paint” folder last week and ran across this photo which I had already painted in watercolor. I sold that one as soon as I posted it, and I quite like the image, so I decided to try it in oil. Getting the foggy background and sea done was quite a treat in oil. It seemed the more paint I added the better it looked! Now the rocks are about half completed (I love painting rocks!) and I have added the structure of the taller figure in the foreground. Not sure if I will add the smaller figure or not. So it’s good that I took a break from it today so I can think about what to do next.
I worked on getting my inventory up in Square, so I can more easily sell cards and ACEOs. I hope it’s worth it cause it sure felt like I was back at work again! I managed to export all my creations from ArtMoi, then pruned out the unavailable items, then formatted it all to match the Square “Items” fields, and finally imported all that into Square. I had to figure out how to add optional frames and such for the ACEOs, and how to offer discounts on multiple card purchases. Now all I have to do is figure out the shipping! Oh, and of course figure out how to either integrate all this into my existing Weebly website (which you think would be a lot easier because Weebly was bought by Square 2 years ago…). I am so happy that I am computer literate! I can’t imagine a computer novice trying to navigate through this! No wonder so many people make money off of artists who are trying to learn how to sell their art online!! Yesterday I attended a free online webinar on “How do you know you are ready to sell your art?”. Well, of course it was only a ruse to get you to sign up for a $795 six week art marketing course, the modules of which sounded an awful lot like the book I am reading, which I won from Eric Rhoads’s daily talks. I try to watch all of these lunchtime videos, as they always provide something useful. Today’s artist was using water mixable oils and demonstrating painting reflections in water. I watched it while I was working on my Square inventory. No rest for the entrepreneur!! Hopefully you will soon see the results of my labors! These past few weeks have been quite busy for me artistically. I have completed two commissioned pieces and gotten a new commission, I have, for the moment at least, stopped waiting on new oil painting art supplies, as I think I finally have all that I need to properly explore this new medium (those Rosemary & Co brushes were a game changer!!) and I have completed my first “real” oil painting. I have one watercolor hanging in a local Café, along with works by other members of the Art Ayer’s Cliff group. I also started writing this blog, and am learning how to use social media to put my work “out there”. Oh, and I got word from the two international Art Competitions/Shows I had entered that I got selected! For both!!
It may seem silly, but seeing your work being recognised alongside other work that you think is frankly so much better than yours is quite a feeling. Maybe this means something, maybe it doesn’t, but this year especially, when I should have had a show in June with the Lennoxville Art Group, and when I should have been showing in July for the first time at an Art Fair in Lyster (Quebec), getting recognition, especially from art experts and people who are not your friends and family, well, it feels really really good. It makes you feel like the time and effort you have been putting into your “hobby” may have been worth it! Don't get me wrong, recognition from friends and family is great too, but you are never sure if it's like "friends" telling you you were great at Karaoke! 💃🎤 Of course I don’t paint for the recognition, and certainly not for the money (although the money does help me buy more art supplies! 😉 ). I paint things that appeal to me at that moment. If they also appeal to someone else, that’s great! It’s sharing something very human with another human, which doesn’t happen as much in 2020 as it used to “in the old days”.... So thank you to you my friends for letting me know when you like something I have done. I appreciate it very much. And of course, if you want to buy something before I get world famous and the prices go up, now is your chance! 😉 |
AuthorMy name is Claire Bureau. Archives
March 2023
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