My Art Day Job

In my effort to continue pursuing the artist's life, I decided that with my decision to improve as an artist (see previous blog entry) that I want to make what I sell online in venues such as etsy to be quite different from my work that I will do while studying and practising to be a better artist.

So after thinking and thinking I came up with a plan. I really enjoy mixed media and collage and since my focus of study will be drawing and painting, I thought my online sales would be mixed media. I also wanted to use something different than canvas and watercolor paper for my foundation so I chose foam to be the first element of my mixed media art.

As I began to work with the foam, I started to have all kinds of ideas of things I could do with it. I told my daughter some of my ideas and that I was going to make this art specifically for etsy. Her response was that I needed to do it for longer than a couple of weeks! I tend to try something new and then if it doesn't sell like hotcakes the first couple of weeks I have been known to abandon the idea. It kind of becomes little orphan annie art.

SO.... I had this really brilliant idea- I am going to spend this entire year making mixed media with a foam foundation for my online sales. No more abandoned little orphan annie art! I am going to stick with it for a whole year. I think it will be a creative challenge to see all the things I can do with it. Of course I will post my creations here, need you ask?

I started with a basic idea for my first few pieces. I thought it would be fun to create some whimisical people and rather than do them on a rectangle or square piece of foam I got out my scroll saw and cut out shapes. I posted the first three pieces I made.

Allow me to introduce to you my first mixed media ladies; The lady holding the cat is titled 'Dancing with Cats', the second one is 'Motherhood is Sweet', and the last one is 'Love Messenger'. They are all currently on etsy.

Why don't I just paint one style for my art studies, galleries and online sales? Because my art study is to be uninhibited by any pressure to create art to sell. I want to paint without the pressure of thinking this needs to be good enough to enter a juried show. That's why I want it to be different from my online sales art. Does that make sense to anyone besides me?