Boxing Day Update

Happy Boxing Day!!!

I'm finally getting back into the swing of things, after hubby has left. While there was a holiday, I just kept plugging away, trying to get some portraits done. And getting new things for eBay. And beginning some new major projects. Besides, like I said last time, I'll celebrate Christmas when hubby gets home. Hopefully, I'll have his present finished by then!

One of the new projects I'm starting on is returning to sculpture. While I do enjoy most portraits and I have fun doing the little paintings for eBay, neither is artistically satisfying. They are great in terms of building skills, but not in terms of creating deep, meaningful work for different reasons.

The problem with the portraits is that I do them from photos that I don't take. If I was in charge of taking the photo and could do some non-traditional poses and I had total freedom on how the portrait was done,... well, I'd be getting $800 for a pencil portrait and not $80! As it is, I basically draw the photo. I hate to say this, but it's almost mechanical.

Then there's eBay. Since I'm getting a minimum return on eBay for my efforts, I can't really spend 3 or 4 days working on one piece. Don't get me wrong, eBay has been a blessing and I'm still planning on listing stuff almost daily, but it has limitations. And one limitation is that people want bargains and will not pay a fair price for most artwork. (This problem was created in part by the artists themselves.) So, if I do a wonderful piece that took me 4 days to do, I really can't list it at $250 and expect it to sell immediately. Maybe it will in a few months, or maybe it won't. With a few exceptions, most art sells for $20-60. Until I become one of those exceptions, I can't afford to spend days on one piece and get only $50 for it.

So, I'm going to keep doing the portraits and eBay, but I'm also going to work on some wood sculpture. Besides the fact that I enjoy carving, I settled on the sculpture because it's something that is not commonly seen either in galleries or in art shows. Painters are a dime a dozen, but wood sculptors are exceedingly rare, so my work should stand out and I should have it a bit easier getting into shows and galleries.

The only problem with my plan is that my garage is cold! I plan to do most of the carving out there, because of the dust, but it's unheated and I'm a weather wimp! So, until the weather warms up, I making sketches and planning pieces. I'm still not sure whether to do realistic or abstract pieces as I like both -- or even if I have to choose.

This means that I'll have even less time to do "other" stuff. Okay, it really means that I need to stop playing solitaire on this computer and stop lingering over my coffee in the morning. What I need is a personal assistant. Any volunteers?