Portrait of Edith Brown

Taking a break from the hectic schedule of my 1 cent ebay auctions, I finished a portrait I have been working on. It is acrylic on panel and is an 8" x 10". It is a portrait of the mother of my friend, Mr. Joe. His mother is 96 now, but as you may have noticed, this is painted from a photo when she was in her early 20's. That would be around  the years 1936 -38 is my guess. She is a very sweet lady.

Edith Brown

Studio Clean Out Time!

I am a collector. A collector of art before it's made. Meaning I have a LOT of stuff in my studio that I have not been able to part with because it has the potential of becoming a fabulous art piece. I have decided I am going to clean up, get rid of the things that I don't need or don't inspire me, and release the art that I have laying around that either needs to be sold or given away.

Southern Utah 5"x7" oil pastel on panel now on ebay!

I think I will be able to combine the two solutions just mentioned and find my art a good home.
I hope you don't mind, but I am going to tell you exactly how I am going to do it! A little history first... I have sold on ebay since September 11th 2001. I worked all that evening to get my first auction ready on a very slow computer and a free dial-up connection. By the time my auction actually posted it was just a few minutes past midnight, so I guess the 12th really is my start date. As you can imagine the news of the day was my constant companion that evening.

I have had a lot of modest success over the years with ebay. Recently a friend sent me an article about how to sell on ebay. I thought it was interesting and found a lot of the information shared there to be true. I decided since I had a bunch of work that I would like to have find a new home, I would try this guy's method. Here's the link in case you are interested in reading the article *but finish reading my blog entry first!*:

http://faso.com/fineartviews/31888/whats-up-with-e-bay

Anyhoo, I am going to start my auctions at 1 cent. Maybe they will get bid up and maybe they won't.  As you can see it will result in either my work selling or I will give it away and the buyer will pay to have me send it to them. :-)

Over the years I have created art just for the joy of it. I have a lot of different kinds of art - some more traditional and some very whimsical. So as I clean out my studio, I will be putting up a wide variety of things. Now part of the reason for starting so low is that it puts your work at the top of the auction pages where the potential buyers are searching the lowest prices first. That hopefully translates into a wider audience of people looking at my work - and buyers for it. That in turn can result in multiple bids. Anyway that's the idea.

So there you have it - a brief explanation of why I would start my auctions at the crazy price of 1 cent. I hope YOU will take a look at my auctions and if you feel inspired to bid, you might just end up with a nice piece for not much money. That is my way of ensuring my art goes to a good home regardless of the price. I end up happy because I will have a cleaner, less cluttered studio and maybe have a little money to show for it.

Girl of Many Flowers 8 x 8 watercolor on panel with acrylic finish

Now on ebay!

Back To Blogging!

As previously mentioned, I have been a fulltime grandma tending my grand-kidlets. Although I have managed to fit in making art between my tending duties, I haven't been very good about blogging. So I am here to repent!
Here's a picture of Lily Rain so you can see for yourself that all is well with my world.

So what kind of art have I been working on? I am in the midst of a project with my boys. We are making apps for smart phones. I am doing the illustrations and my boys are doing the technical stuff. It has been a lot of fun working with them. We are creating several apps right now, but one is a story I wrote and illustrated years ago called Jorky Finds A Snorp. We are focusing on making apps for children.

 To do the illustrations for the apps I am learning how to paint in Photoshop CS5, big learning curve, but I am learning slowly but surely. Here's the first rendition of Jorky (see below) which I painted in Photoshop. We have decided I need to make some changes because a smart phone screen is so small and also to animate him I need to make some adjustments. I originally drew Jorky way back in High School and worked from that. He hasn't aged at all! 

I have also been developing a new line of art that I will be selling soon at art festivals as well as online. I will be previewing it in the next week or so as I get some made and have photos to post.
I hope to be blogging again on a regular basis. :-)