I have been writing this blog for a little over two years. Every week since August 16 2020, with the exception of a few weeks when I took a break and “recycled” a few older posts, I have come up with a page or so about some topic I hoped readers would find interesting. Most of these were related to art, although I did occasionally use the blog to express my opinion about some important news event or to vent about something that had recently irked me. It takes me anywhere between two and four hours to write each blog, not including the time I spend coming up with ideas for my next blog. That is time I could be spending doing something else. But generally I find it enjoyable and worth doing, so I don’t really mind. Or do I? As almost no one ever leaves a comment, I don’t actually know if anyone reads or cares about my blog, and that’s OK too. As I wrote in one blog, I enjoy the fact that writing the blog forces me to stop and think about how I feel about a topic. It sometimes forces me to do a little research before I start giving my opinion, which is certainly not a bad thing. More people should do that. But I digress. Lately, I have been considering reducing the frequency of new blog entries. At the beginning of last summer, I changed my newsletter from once a week to once every two weeks. I know that means that the news is not as fresh, but I have had no complaints from my subscribers, and I have to admit it relieves quite a bit of pressure for me. I like to think the newsletter is better because of it. I want to do the same with my blog. So, unless I hear massive protests from you, dear reader, although I will still post a blog each week, I will now alternate between a new blog and a re-post of an old blog (which probably most of you either haven’t read or don’t remember). I like to write, so this new schedule will give me an opportunity to do so every week, one week for the blog, and the next week for the newsletter, and I will use the extra time to work on my art! Let me know what you think in the comments. Thank you.
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This week I want to talk to you about a couple of art shows coming up. These are in addition to the current show at the Centre d’arts visuels de Magog, which runs until June 26. One of the upcoming shows is in July, which in my mind seems very far away, but really isn’t considering all that will be happening between now and then! This will be my first really big show, lasting the entire weekend of July 9 and 10, in Lyster, Quebec. It is a juried show, meaning that not everyone who applies gets in. I had been accepted for the 2020 show, which of course was cancelled, then for the 2021 show which almost took place, and now all signs point toward the event happening for real this year (although up to this date last year we all thought the 2021 edition would happen, so I haven’t started packing just yet!). It should be a wonderful experience, because it is an established show and people have missed it! The other show is happening next week (June 10-11), and is put on by members of the Lennoxville Art Group. This is the very first art group that I ever joined, so it has a special significance for me. It is with this group that I exhibited my work for the very first time in 2018 (photo above)! Usually they have a show every year at this time, coinciding with the “Friendship Day” celebration in the borough of Lennoxville, and hold another smaller show at Christmas time in the local library. But of course Covid put pretty much everything on pause for the past two years, so many members were eager to finally do a show again this year. It will be slightly different as not everyone is participating, and the usually well attended Friday night “vernissage” will be simpler this time, with no food being served because of current restrictions on gatherings. The traditional spread offered by the members was quite a draw, so we will learn this year how many “fans” came for the art versus the food! Another thing different this year will be the addition of a “Studio Sale” table. Many members used the Covid time for painting, and with few occasions available to display and sell their work over the past 2 years, many find themselves with a surplus of completed pieces that need to find “forever homes”. Some may be a bit older pieces, some may not be framed, but all will be offered at very reasonable prices (not to imply that our prices are not already reasonable!). Some things have not changed. Each participating member will have their dedicated wall space showing recent pieces, and we will also have our usual “minis” table, which has smaller works at, you guessed it, very reasonable prices! There will also be a raffle of a lovely professionally framed watercolor painted by member Muriel Fitzsimmons, with proceeds going to the Lennoxville Library who has been such a valuable partner of the art group over the past few years. I hope you can come to visit this show, as well as the one in Lyster. Details on times and locations are on my website. A few weeks ago, I explained why I felt everyone should own at least one piece of original art. You can read that here. This week’s week topic may seem to be contradictory, but I don’t think it is. Read on and decide for yourself! So what, you may ask, is a derivative? If you google derivative, you will likely find an incomprehensible description of some financial contract. That is not what I am talking about. The definition I was looking for I found under “derivative work” in Wikipedia and reads “is an expressive creation that includes major copyrightable elements of an original, previously created first work”. Still not very clear, so I will give you my own definition: “a product which is decorated with a reproduction of an original piece of art”. So, a cushion, a cup, a towel, a wall hanging (canvas, wood, paper), etc., on which an image of original artwork has been applied by some mechanical means. Definitely NOT an original. You may or may not know that, in addition to original artwork, I offer derivatives, also known as print-on-demand products through my website. Although I really do want everyone to own at least one piece of original art, there are several reasons for this apparent contradiction:
You can probably think of others, but those are some of the reasons why you might want to consider getting a “derivative” rather than an original. The “magic” of the original is obviously not present in the copy, but sometimes practicality surpasses magic! I will be taking a few weeks off starting next week, and I will be sharing some of my older blog posts for the next few weeks. I hope you and your loved ones have a very happy, peaceful, healthy, and restful Christmas season. I will return with new and hopefully interesting topics to share with you in 2022! Suggestions are always appreciated! Unless you are younger than about 35, there is a good chance you heard Ethel Merman’s voice booming out when you were reading that title! She was never one of my favorites, but she sure made that song famous! I prefer Harry Connick Jr’s version myself. Check them both out on Youtube. Once you finish reading this blog, of course! This seems to be the season of Art Shows! At the moment, I have art hanging in three different locations, and I will be adding another today, another next week, as well as another temporary show on the weekend. Last week I received the awesome news that a small painting of mine that was part of one of the ongoing shows was sold! I think that is the first time I have sold art without actually being there! What a thrill! Later today I will be attending a vernissage at a cultural center that I joined this year. One of my five-year goals is to have a solo show in a local gallery or museum. This one is a small cultural center, located in a beautiful spot on the river, in an area that used to be a manufacturing, blue-collar town and which is now part of the larger city near where I live. It is a relatively new building and houses some very nice exhibition spaces. It is not well known and is working hard to change that. The show which starts today is of works by members of the cultural center. It is titled “Noir et Blanc”. I just about fell out of my chair when I saw the call for submissions a few months ago, as I was in the process of preparing a submission for a solo show and, you guessed it, that was the exact title and theme I was working on! I was devastated! All that work preparing first the concept, then the art, then the submission documents, down the drain! And of course, even though I am fascinated with back and white and have painted several pieces in various media, now I wouldn’t be able to present a similarly themed exhibition anywhere in this area for several years without being considered a copycat. Even if I had the idea first! Thankfully, I had also been working on an “alternate project” (that was actually its name at the time) so I forgot about the Black & White project and worked on the other one. Unfortunately, the “alternate project” was rejected when I submitted it, but I am not done with that one! I believe it is a great project, and it would have really been well suited for this particular location. It is original, and fun, and I will find a venue for it, just give me time! I am anxious to see the artwork in this Noir et Blanc exhibition. It should be interesting to see how different artists, using different media, have interpreted the Black and White theme. I will also be making an effort to network with local artists. This will be the first chance for me to put into practice a lot of the networking techniques I have been reading about during Covid lockdowns. I am not a naturally outgoing person, so it isn’t easy for me. I much prefer to communicate in writing; it is so easy, you can pause and think or look up just the right word, or go back and edit something that came out wrong. But I have learned a lot about the importance and value of connecting face to face with people, and hopefully, some of it will manifest itself at the right time! This weekend is another show I have been preparing for a few weeks now. It is a Christmas Market so there will be lots of vendors that are not artists. It is my first such participation so I have low expectations. I just hope I will come back with fewer items than I brought and that more people will know that I exist! And you never know who you will meet! This week I am going in a different direction with my blog. I will be talking about the contest I am running for the next two weeks. As you may know, I have been working pretty hard on my art marketing. Normally I get to do two or three art shows during the year where people get to view my art in person, but you don’t need me to tell you that 2020 wasn’t exactly a good year for art shows! So I have been looking into other ways of getting my art out to potential collectors, specifically through Social Media, and in the process have been following advice from a number of marketing experts, trying a variety of strategies that have not all met with equal success!! A few weeks ago, and thanks to the help of one of those experts, James Wedmore, a bunch of loose threads finally crossed in my brain, and I came up with the idea of running a contest where the prize would be a small watercolor, but not just any watercolor, one that would be especially significant to the winner, by basing it on one of their own photos. If you are like most people, you probably have dozens if not hundreds of photos on your phone, that no one but you will ever see. Worse, one day you might wake up to find your phone just doesn’t work, or worse yet to not find your phone at all, and unless you backed them up, your photos might be gone forever! While I can't help you with back-ups, I thought, I can help with preserving memories! I have done a number of commissions from photographs, of all kinds of subjects, and there’s nothing like the smile, or in some cases tears, on the face of the collector when they first see their new painting! Although they come with a bit of pressure, I really enjoy doing commissions, so I thought that would be the perfect prize for a giveaway! While not all photos we take are memorable, we all have one of that special place, or that special person, that deserves to be seen more often and would make a great painting. And unlike some piece of art we may have picked up in a decorating store, this very personal painting could be cherished for a long time not only by ourselves, but by our children and even their children! You might think that your photo isn’t good enough, but the beauty of painting is that reality can be “tweaked”. A telephone pole or mailbox (even a person!) can be removed, backgrounds can be cleared of rubbish, and flower beds can be magically weeded and all be flowering at the same time! Even with flowers that don’t grow there!! So don’t let that stop you from entering a “less than perfect” photo! I will work with the winning person, like I do for all my commissions, to make sure they get a memorable painting. So I am giving everyone (well everyone from Canada anyway) the chance to win a small watercolor painting of their own special memory. I had to limit it to people with a Canadian mailing address because I will be absorbing the cost of mailing, and international mailing is simply too costly. The promotion starts today (April 1st) but lasts only until April 15, 2021 at noon EDT. So dig in your photos and go on over to my Facebook page (Claire Bureau Artiste) and look for the Official Promotion Post. It will be pinned to the top of the page right after my announcement event on Facebook Live (also on my page) today at 5:15 pm (EDT). I do hope you participate! Good luck! As an artist, it's important for me to be able to reach collectors to inform them about new work completed, or events or promotions that may be coming up. Some day, we will be back to holding exhibitions, and I want to be able to let people know when and where they are. So part of my time is spent collecting the names and emails of people who like my art. Most businesses offer some kind of “reward” in exchange for your email. This might be a “Top 10 secrets to…..” or a “Free gift with purchase” or a “XX% off” coupon. Most of these “gifts” don’t really apply to what I offer, so I spent quite a bit of time coming up with something that would fit and also give potential collectors something of real value to them. This is how I came up with my “Buyback Guarantee”, which is only available to my email list subscribers. I realize that a lot of people are hesitant about spending money on art, especially now when art shows are non-existent and people may not really have had the opportunity to see the artwork properly. I want my art to make my collectors happy. The buyback guarantee seemed to me the perfect solution all around, as it takes out any risk on your part as the buyer, and it assures me that you will only be keeping the art if you really like it. Now I am pretty confident that you will like my art and won’t have to use the guarantee, but it is reassuring to know the option is there if you need to, because above all I want you to be happy with your selection!! And this is a great way to reward you for being an email subscriber! So how does it work? If you are one of my email subscribers and you buy any of my framed, non-commissioned paintings worth more than $100, I will give you a full year to live with it in your home or office to make sure you like it. If, before the year is up, you decide that you don’t, or you’re tired of it, etc., just contact me and we will arrange to get the painting back to me (at your cost if applicable) and I will refund you your purchase price. It’s almost that simple. The only condition I have is that the painting and its frame must be in the same condition as when you bought it. That means you have to have taken care of it (no direct sunlight, no excessive moisture, smoke or other dirt). Basically I have to be able to put it back on the market as is. This applies only to framed paintings because these are properly protected when I hand them over to you, and I can’t guarantee that one you buy unframed and then frame yourself will be. Also, I can’t buy back commissioned or custom work, because that painting was made to order just for that collector, and probably wouldn’t be meaningful to someone else. So do subscribe to my email list so you too can enjoy acquiring one of my paintings risk free! As a subscriber, you will also receive one email every Sunday letting you know what’s going on in the studio and any news of coming events. I promise I never will spam you or sell your information. And of course you can unsubscribe at any time, and although you would then lose the privilege of my buyback guarantee for future purchases, you would still be covered for qualifying purchases made while you were still a subscriber. 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! For the past couple of months, I have been watching Eric Rhoads every day at noon on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/eric.rhoads) . He is an art marketer, publisher of art magazines and organizer of art conferences. With the Covid-19 pandemic shutting down pretty much all of his upcoming conferences, he turned to doing these live broadcasts every day at noon. He is a wealth of marketing knowledge, specifically applied to artists. A few weeks ago he was talking about art competitions. I have entered a few, but never got very far. As they don't give you feedback other than the standard "Thank you for your submission but..." I am always wondering if my art is good enough...
Anyway, Eric was recommending that we enter all the competitions that we could, even resubmitting the same work to the same competition year after year, as the judges would likely change and you never know what one might see that the others didn't. What really got my attention was when he said the entry fee (participation is rarely free) was basically part of your marketing budget. I had never thought of it that way, so I decided to try participating in more competitions, starting off with two that very week. I even made a nice spreadsheet to keep track of my efforts! You guessed it, I received a message from the first one, which is an international online exhibition, informing me that I had been selected!! It is called Exhibizone Summer 2020, and it will run from August 20 to September 20, 2020 ! I will post a link to it when it opens! Maybe I will have a virtual vernissage? ..... Which gives me an idea for an upcoming blog post! See you then! UPDATE: Here is the link: https://www.biafarin.com/p/exhibizone2020summer.html |
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