It's Nibblefest time again!

Nibblefest is a fun contest among ebay artists where all auctions start at .99 each. This month's theme is cows. I made a lovely cow doll. Her name is Missy Moo and she is a very pleasant cow with lots of personality (she was voted Miss Cowgeniality by her herd). If you are a cow person, seach NFAC on ebay for quite a cattlelog of wonderful cow art!

Opening Reception for My Show

Last Friday night was the opening reception for my show. I shared the evening with two other featured artists, a potter, Tori Miller and an artisan jeweler, Patty Street. It was a great night! I tried to get a picture of the main part of my show, but it's not a very good one. But you get an idea of what it looked like. Special thanks to all my dear friends who supported me! It was the highlight of my evening seeing each one of you.

Being an artist is certainly a journey. I am at a defining point in my career, I think. I mean, I have tried all kinds of things, experimented with styles etc. Maybe it's not so hard for some artists to define their style. My problem has been I have kind of a mixed bag of styles. So for this show I decided to paint what was in my brain rather then a more realistic approach. So that's what this show is about, letting my brain loose and seeing what comes of it. Pictured above is 'Tulip Girl', who went home with my darling friend Annette Vernon. Tulip girl is painted in acrylic on masonite and then I put a crackle finish on her with an antique glaze. I try to get a shot of all my paintings before I take them to the gallery, but didn't with this one, so I took a quick shot of her under gallery lights - which isn't the best lighting. Oh well.

If you live in Salt Lake I hope you will stop by and see the show!

Dancing With Dogs

This is a painting for my show at Local Colors. If you're in town I hope you will stop by on gallery stroll next Friday March 19th between 6 and 9 PM.

This is a large painting 3ft x 4ft. I used a lot of texture, some collage and it is painted in acrylic. Well I'm off to paint another one!

New Stuff

This past week I made some art dolls. It was fun and a new way to express creativity that 2D art does not provide. Of course I am still painting, I am the featured artist at Local Colors of Utah gallery, the opening is Friday, March 19th. So this week I am painting my socks off to get my show done.

My art dolls are on auction this week on ebay. http://stores.ebay.com/Pure-Art-Studio?_rdc=1
I hope you will take a peek!

BDAC Opening Reception

On Friday night I attended the opening reception of the Bountiful Davis Art Center's State-wide Show (boy that's a mouthful). As previously mentioned I had a piece accepted in it and so did a number of friends. I thought I would be the artful reporter and take pictures and report on the opening. However after 3 pictures the battery on my camera went dead. So much for artful reporting.

The first image is of Cara Koolmees, an award winning watercolor artist, known for her colorful splashy watercolors. Two of her paintings were accepted in the show. She is shown here with Dancing in the Rain, or was it Rain Dance? Gee am I a good reporter or what... I didn't take notes. Oh well. I really liked this painting.

The second image is of Pat Rivkind. This is the first juried show she has ever entered. She said it's my fault because I told her about the show a couple of weeks ago at the UWS miniature show opening. She does some nice work and she just needs to have confidence in it. I hope getting juried in this show helps! Great job Pat, and I love your black and white jacket with your painting - the truck on the bottom, a watercolor... didn't get the name on that one either...duh!

If you are from Salt Lake, you might be familiar with Tanner Frames, a high quality frame shop owned and operated by Travis Tanner. Did you know that he is a talented artist as well? This is his piece, an assemblage and beautifully framed, of course. Travis always gets juried into all the major shows here in Utah... Again I didn't get the title of the piece, but Travis does have cute dimples.

After my camera died, I hi-jacked my Mr. Joe's camera and got a few more pictures. If I can get them off his camera in the next few days, I will post them here.

Listen With Love

Today I painted another study for my show. This is a vast improvement for me. Not only am I NOT painting the day of the scheduled show but I am doing studies. That's good, right?

As an artist I am always questioning myself, or should I say my art(?). If you have read my blog much you would see that my art roams. Roams in style, that is! So as I think about these studies that I am doing, and I ask myself " is this what I want in my show in March?" I am like a fish out of water... flip, flop. I can't make up my mind what style I want to paint. So... I would appreciate any input from anyone who happens to read this: Should I be painting my more realistic paintings for my show or a series of these whimisical paintings, like this study which is titled: Is Auditor Per Dilago (She Listened With Love).

Either way, both styles would still be on the whimsy side, but I would surely appreciate comments and welcome your opinion!

Hot Flash!

The other day I was at a board meeting and the ladies who were present started talking about hot flashes. There were some pretty humorous stories that brought a smile to my face. So today as I thought about what I wanted to paint for a gallery show in March, I couldn't help but think about those ladies and their stories. I had already determined I wanted the theme of my show to be about women and everyday things that happen in their lives. So you guessed it, I painted a study for the show called Hot Flash. I am thinking I will do the whole show in my stylized women, instead of realistic ones.

Guess what? I got notice today that my 'Carpe Diem' painting was accepted into the show! Hooray!

Carpe Diem!

Well another show to enter... I can't help it, I like to enter shows! This one was a state-wide call for entries at the Bountiful Davis Art Center.

Not sure I liked what I entered, but since that's all I had painted, I entered it. It seemed ok yesterday, but now that I look at it, there are things I would fix if I had a little more time. But hey, it's titled 'Carpe Diem' and if you saw the Dead Poets Society, or maybe you just happen to be fluent in latin, you will know it means seize the day! That's the title of the painting. My son thought the girl in this painting was looking upward in a positive manner, like she was planning something good. But 'Planning Something Good' wasn't a very good title. So after some quick thinking (I was running out of time) I came up with the title! Now if the painting will just get juried into this show.... I will know it really was Carpe Diem-ing!

Award of Excellence - Yipppeee Skippeee!

Tonight was the reception for the Utah Watercolor Show. There was a lot of really good paintings there, a total of 110. It was a great evening, what could be better than mixing with dear friends who are also artists!

I was very excited to learn that my painting 'A Hypothetical Question' won an award of Excellence, which is next in line to the Best of Show. Yippeee Skippeeee! Best of Show went to Ian Ramsay. If you look back in my blog to October of last year, I had taken a workshop from him and had posted one of his paintings there. You can see what a truly fine artist he is.

There was a time when I would be blushing three shades of red to tell you about this award, but over the past few years - especially once I joined a gallery - I had to learn to talk about my art and do more than just mumble an embarrassed 'thank you' when someone paid a nice compliment. If you are an artist and want to market your work, you have to learn to talk about your art. I mean, would you have much confidence in an accountant if he shyly said he probably could do a good job on your taxes? No, he would tell you why he is qualified! So once I realized that being an artist was my profession and that I needed to have confidence in my work and talk about it, I don't blush quite so often anymore. I just say Yippeee Skippeee!

A month later, the ebay test

Over a month ago, I decided to see if I started my auctions at 9.99 if would bring more sales and more importantly with more views would the prices go up. Then I would report back on what happened.

Well, I mainly sold ornaments and the good news is that most everything sold. They didn't go as high as the ornaments that I sold before Christmas, but then it twas the season for ornaments then. I have had so many show deadlines this past month, that I didn't produce enough to really test it properly. I think I need to put more than ornaments on auction. One thing I really liked about starting auctions at the lower price is that my ebay fees have been immensly lower.

So would I continue starting at a lower price? I haven't totally decided if I will do it on a continuing basis. But for today, I thought I'd give it a shot with something other than ornaments - Today I put up an 10"x 8" oil painting titled 'Canine Thoughts'. Now on auction!

Happy Valentines Day!

It's a great day when everyone is thinking about love and the people they love. I hope everyone is have a lovely Valentine's day.

I made my first artsy doll, she was for a challenge on the cloth and clay doll group. It was to make a Queen of Hearts by Valentine Day. I made one, and she is delighted to make an appearance on my blog today. I guess I have never quite grown up, as I found she is as much fun to play with as she was to make.

My favorite subjects to paint are people and animals, so I am finding that making art dolls are a natural extension to that. I love the small format and look forward to exploring sculpting in paperclay and then using my hoard of odds and ends that I have kept around, hoping one day I would use it in my art. So really this is a theraputic de-junking exercise! :-)

Utah Watercolor Miniature Show

Well, if you have been following my blog, you will know I have a problem with painting for deadlines. Today the entries were due for the UWS miniature show, and I was kinda busy painting this morning! I was going to do two paintings but ran out of time since my car decided to have brake troubles ( I wasn't painting in my car though). I needed to address the brake issue and that took some time. Then my phone wasn't working again. Everytime it snows or rains it loses the dial tone. So I had to call the phone company AGAIN. Anyway I completed one painting and then decided to crop another existing painting that hadn't been in a show yet that I had painted in the past year. I think I may have posted the full version of it here before. I think it worked better cropped down. The call for entry said that the painting AND frame could not exceed twelve inches in any direction. So my images were approximately 5" x 7" and then framed were a total of 11" x 9". The titles are "A Hypothetical Question" and "Look!".

There were a lot of great entries in the show. It's going to be a good one. The opening reception is Wednesday, Feb. 17th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm at the Michael Berry Gallery, 163 East Broadway, Salt Lake City, UT.

I meant to post this on Saturday, and now it's actually early Sunday morning, but pretend it's still Saturday because I want to post a 'Happy Valentines Day' entry and I don't want you to think I'm a dork for posting twice on the same day.

Deja vu, I did a Monet!

If these two painting look familiar, it's because they are. Didn't Monet paint waterlilies over and over? Well I painted my zoo friends of last week again. This time in a different size from the color versions and they are done in grey scale.

This week I had a show entry deadline that was due yesterday. It was for the Eccles Black and White Competition. If you recall, one of my goals recently was to have a piece ready for a show earlier than the deadline date. With that in mind, I tried to think up something I would like to paint for this black and white show. My mind was blank (that was last Monday). The next day it was blank, and by Wednesday, blankety blank blank! I was getting a little frustrated. So I thought I ought to see if I had any frames around that might stir my imagination. (I tend to buy frames when they are on close-outs). I found two that I have had around for awhile but never felt inspired to paint anything for. They were heavy, nice black frames with a linen liner. I thought they looked like a jungle animal should be in them. So... I thought hmmm, what if I just took my giraffe and monkey drawings and resized them and painted them in black and white/grey)?

I spend quite a bit of time working on my compositions for paintings and always save my sketches and drawings. Anyhoo, I thought the giraffe and monkey would go very well in the black frames. They are a little different from the first ones. I wasn't out to paint them exactly alike. I gave the paintings different names than the color versions too. The giraffe one is 'Standing Taller' and the monkey one is titled 'An Unexpected Friendship'. I used charcoal, acrylic paints, watercolor markers and a crackle glaze.

Guess what? I even had them all finished by Thursday night and delivered them yesterday (Saturday). No last minute frenzied painting for me this week!

Now I have to wait and see if they get accepted because it is a juried show. Speaking of juried shows... I got one painting juried into the zoo show, the monkey one. The award reception is this coming Friday. I am crossing my fingers it wins an award. I will let you know ok? Well... I will let you know if I win something... if I don't, I probably won't say anything ;-)

To Friends!

This morning, my day began with an email from a dear friend who had lost her mother this past week. Then an hour later another very good friend dropped by to pick up some of her paintings that I had picked up for her at a show. She invited me to go get a hot chocolate (but I had this hot vanilla milk thing - yum!) and we visited for two hours! I love talking to artist friends. While we were visiting, another friend called to let me know his mother had passed away on Sunday. I couldn't help but shed a few tears for the second time today.

Friends are so precious! So as I went to work to create a little art today, I was thinking about all my wonderful friends, sharing good times and sad times with them. Sharing is what makes the best of friends. Do you ever get with an old friend and it seems like you could just talk for hours?

I made a little ornament with a piece of a collaged page from a 1937 book titled "Behave Yourself!". It is an etiquette book for young people. One of my favorite excerpts is where it talks about personal hygiene; "Plan on at least one bath a day, but don't limit yourself."I had to laugh because I have been lucky if some of my teenagers would take even one bath a day. There are alot of other fun tidbits that I am sure will make interesting collages on my art in the future.

Anyway back to the ornament I made, it's from Chapter 12 "The Gift of Gab" and it is dedicated to wonderful friends that can't stop talking to each other!

Hi Ho it's off to the Zoo!

Today was the annual call for entry for the Hogle Zoo World of the Wild Art Exhibition. As usual I put off painting my entries until the last minute. I had decided what I wanted to paint and had it sketched out on Friday, but with it being gallery stroll that night and having miscellaneous things to do, I didn't get them painted til today. So I got up early and watched (or I should say listened) to Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth (yes!) and painted. Naturally the paintings were due today, and I arrived 5 minutes before 4:00, just before the doors closed. Yup, I was the last one there.

I don't know why, but I am always a last minute painter. I know plenty of time ahead about these deadlines, but it always seem I wait til just before to start painting. After today's experience, I decided I would start on Monday to paint for these kind of things each day, whether it just be a painting for the galleries or an entry for a show. I tend to focus on ebay first and then do the other things last. So I am going to try to be a little more balanced.

I entered 3 paintings in the zoo show, but don't have a picture of the third since it was an older painting that was already framed. When entering a show, I usually am rushed and don't get a picture of whatever I just painted. But today I did! These pictures of the new ones aren't great but at least it will give you an idea what they looked like. They are titled 'True Love' (the giraffe and frog) and "Best Friends" (the monkey and toucan). Not great titles, but hey! I was lucky to have got them done.

Dolls Anyone?

Ever since I inherited my mother's bernina and babylock serger, I have felt I need to use these things in my art somehow. Once upon a time I used to sew all my kids clothes, but now all I would use a sewing machine for is repairs etc. Which would not be sufficient use for these lovely machines! So, I figured it would be fun to give dolls a try. Throughout the past year I have experimented and tried different ways to make dolls, but nothing that I felt satisfied me with a final product. Also I didn't want dolls to be my whole art experience as I love to paint paintings. I wanted a simplistic doll that I could paint!

I tried to make armatures and sculpt, but that didn't work for me. In fact I spent this whole last month researching and experimenting. Nothing that rang my bell... got a little frustrated several times in fact. Selling on ebay, you run into some really clever artists. One that I have long admired for her folk art paintings is Jane DesRosier. In the fall of 2008 she started making folk art dolls. I loved them for their simplicity and for Jane's creativity in them. She offered online classes but I purposely didn't take them, I didn't want to make a reproduction of something she designed. Something about the artist in me... wanting to create my own 'thing'. In reality, no artist creates their own thing, inspiration comes from other things and artists and we are just fortunate to give it our own twist.

I was about to give up on the whole art doll thing when last night I stumbled upon Jane's dolls again. She had recently started a ning group for clay and cloth dolls. Since the armature sculpting thing wasn't working for me, mainly because it was too time consuming. I thought, ok, I give up I will join Jane's group. I am still hesitating on taking a video workshop for reasons given above, but have very much appreciated the things she has shared on the group site. What the heck, I guess I will give it a try doing a version of the way she constructs her dolls. So today, I am going to try and make a doll Jane's way. Then I will have something I can paint and collage and sew on to my hearts content... I hope! So Kudos to Jane, a very creative, inovative artist.

I posted a pic of the corner of my studio. My studio is in an unfinished basement, but I like to call it home. On the shelf is three dolls, two are unfinished Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. Ann's hair is 3 quarters done and Andy is still bald. My mom started making them when I was like, 10 and never finished them and I waited forever for her to finish them! So I inherited those as well. I have had them for over a year and a half and haven't finished them either... they are still partially bald and naked. Oh well, maybe that is their heritage. But at least I have them now! The other doll is a cabbage patch kid "koosas" named Lovealot. I got that from my mom too. She collected cats, figurines etc. and she had to have that doll when it came out. As I write my blog, I am finding how much she influenced my art. Thanks Mom!

I will keep you posted on my latest doll venture.

I love working without interruption!

I really enjoy days when I don't have a meeting to go to or have to run any errands. I happily head to my studio and spend a creative fun filled day making art! I have been mainly focusing on art for my online sales, but now I need to get busy as new show deadlines are coming up as well as needing to take some new work to the galleries. So my brain is busy planning some new paintings.

I read an article in Art Calendar magazine the other day about selling on ebay. It was written by an artist named Jack White. The tips he listed for finding success on selling art on ebay I agreed with as I had found them to be true over my 9 years of selling there. One thing he suggested that I never tried though, was that he started all his auctions under $1! I have seen a lot of people do that, but never had the guts to do it myself. He stated that some paintings go for only that much, but for the most part, it often starts a bidding frenzy. He said that people like the excitement of bidding and that he did much better with a bidding auction than listing it as a 'buy it now' because of that. I have found that to be true, that bidding auctions have done much better then a fixed price auction for me over the years.

Ok, so I have been thinking about what he said on starting auctions below a $1. I don't think I want to start that low! Maybe $9.99 as a starting bid, then you at least cover your supply costs and listing fees. Interestingly enough, I found this past month that starting auctions at $9.99 was very successful and profitable for me. I only listed the ornaments that I have been making and every one sold, the highest reaching $41, and many averaging in the $20 range. There were several benefits that I found starting auctions at this price; Most all of the ornaments sold first time around and there were very few that had to be relisted. This resulted in lesser ebay fees. The economy has had it's effect on my sales this past year and too often I had to list things several times before they sold. Because I was asking a higher starting bid, the fees were much higher per auction, so as you can imagine, my ebay fees for the month were building and with fewer sales to show for it. (Can you say frustrating?) It was very economical fee-wise to start at $9.99.

Another benefit of starting at a lower bid price is that there is a better chance that more people may see your auction as everyone is looking for a deal and will seach by lowest price first. This can build up a new customer base as most people are willing to bid on lower priced items. I have also found out through the years that items that get at least one bid draw more views. I think the reason for this is people want to see why that particular item is being bid on, are they going to miss something if they don't look?

So have I talked myself into starting my auctions at $9.99? Let me see... here are the possible benefits- lower ebay fees, less re-listings, more sales, new customers? Hmmmm seems like it would be worth looking into to. Oh, one more thing that Jack White said about selling on ebay, you have to be pretty prolific, if you take a week to paint a painting, you won't make any money.

Ok, this is what I have decided to do, I am going to list on ebay everything I make at the starting bid of $9.99 for one month. Then at the end of the month I will evaluate my sales and decide if this is going to work for me. I will report back here, so be sure to tune in then.... it's a date ok?

I am going to keep with my commitment I made yesterday about putting my contemporary folk art on ebay.

The painting featured today t is 'Love Angel' and you guessed it, it's on ebay at a starting bid of $9.99.

A New Year!

Ok, so I have neglected my blog dreadfully! I have been so busy with the holidays, but mostly I am guilty of neglect. One thing I have been doing is working on some new projects for ebay which has taken me longer than I expected. I hope to have something to show by the end of the week. I also took a little break between Christmas and New Years. Now I am doing ornaments as they make cute little Valentines. I hate to think that far ahead already, but they need to get done now if people want them for decorations a couple of weeks before the holiday.

I have often been torn between my more folk art work and my fine art work and what should I promote online. Yesterday I decided that I will feature my folk artsy stuff on ebay and my fine art work on etsy. At least that's the plan for today. I allow myself the option to change my mind, since it will probably happen anyway.

Today I am featuring an ornament that is currently up for auction on ebay - "I Love Ewe".

Glad It Didn't Snow Last Night

Tonight is very cold and snowing. The cool thing about snow when it's very cold, is that it looks like big white flakes of glitter on the ground. I love that!

Last night was Gallery Stroll in Salt Lake City, but I headed north to Ogden for the opening of the Intermountain Society of Artist's Member of Merit Show. It was held at the Eccles Community Art Center which is a fabulous Victorian mansion. The show was judged by Al Rounds, a wonderful watercolor artist. I won an Award of Honor!

The painting that won the award is of my Mom, I titled it 'Sandra Darling at Thanksgiving Point'. It brings back happy memories to me. One summer day my mom and I went to the small gardens behind Thanksgiving Point. I took this picture of her and I thought it would make a great watercolor. I painted it and framed it, and gave it to my mom. Now that she's gone, I have this painting to remind me of that fun day I shared with her and her fancy-dancy hat.

I'm glad it didn't snow last night, driving the roads wouldn't have been fun. Instead I got to think about my Mom and that she would be really happy she won an award!

Where Women Create

I have a new blog listing to the right there... see it? It's called Where Women Create. It's the blog of a wonderful magazine by the same name. Anyhoo they are doing a 12 Days of Christmas give- away. Check it out!

Tis the season to party! This ornament is called Party Cat and is on ebay.