First Steps Back

This starting back doing art and selling art is a real challenge.  It's been two years since I've done much with PayPal, eBay, or my website, so I've forgotten much of what I used to know.  I suppose over time things will come back.

The drawing and painting seems to have come back fairly quickly.  I've started on an oil painting of a mountain chickadee, which I should finish tomorrow.  I've got the drawing for a short-eared owl, also in oil.  And I'm in the planning/drawing stages for a western grebe in watercolor.  The painting has gone well, although my biggest challenge is the tubes of oils are dried shut.  I almost totally mashed one using pliers to get it open and at least two colors are totally dry.  Guess I don't really need burnt umber!

One big adjustment is that hubby is home.  Before, he was out driving a truck and I was all by myself.  While I know this is my own paranoia, I feel like he's watching me and trying to figure out if I'm working hard enough.  After all, this is a big gamble since I'm not substitute teaching (which is 'sure' money) and have gone back to doing art (which is not 'sure' money).  The effect so far is that I'm working harder.  In theory, he should be able to take over some of the cooking and cleaning chores so I will have more time to do art.

Another big adjustment is my cats.  Last time I was doing art, I had 4 cats.  And now, I have 9, including one who is on fluids 3 times a week and one who needs to be hand-fed.  Overall, they don't create problems, except that I want to spend some time each day playing with each one or brushing them or just lounging around with them.  The only other problem is Robbie has decided my studio is his favorite room so he's moved in.  All my paintings will be easily identified -- his cat hair goes straight to wet oils!

I'm actually fairly happy with how things are going.  It also feels so good to be back painting.

And now, off to finish the grebe drawing....

Rethinking My Web Site

Hey, I'm doing better. It's only been 5 days since I last wrote. That's better than my week or more off at least. I really do need to write daily as I see from my web site stats, this blog does get people to look at my web site.

That is another thing I need to work on -- my web site. I've been trying to figure out what exactly I should do with my site when it comes to sold work. I mean, if I do paintings daily and I sell them regularly on eBay, do I want extra pages on my site for unavailable work? And what should the relationship be between my web site and my eBay store?

Thanks to a couple people on various artist boards, I think I have answers. I don't know if they are THE answers, but they make sense.

Basically, my web site has three parts, so there's three different plans:

1. The Learning Center -- The purpose of this section is to pass on some of what I have learned. Maybe help some new artists. This section does come up very high in various searches. I probably will add some affiliate banners and maybe Google ads in the hope of getting a bit of revenue. I'll just keep adding to this section and nothing will be removed.
   
2. The Portraits -- Since portraits are sold on past work and not on available work, I'll pick out 8-10 of the best in each medium, plus 1 or 2 recent ones. The rest will be removed. The reason to include the recent ones is that people do like to see their portrait on the Internet. (I also need to get back to featuring them on the home page.) Having about 10 excellent examples should be enough for anyone to decide.
   
3. The Non-Portrait Art -- This is the section which is a problem. While having lots of sold work is nice because various things come up in search engines and hopefully people visit the rest of my site, I feel the for-sale art is being lost. There's some much sold work that the few pieces which are available are hard to find. So, I'm going to be watching the web stats and check out my Google rankings, and then remove those pages for sold items which get few if any hits. Eventually, I may get down to only available artwork plus 2 or 3 excellent, but sold examples. I can always use the sold pieces in various places across my site.

Now, the one problem I have is with the botanical watercolors. I think of them more as plant portraits, so do I treat them like the other portraits? If I got decorators to come to my site, would they like to see the range of my botanicals or would they just be interested in the available pieces? I wonder if I called a couple decorators if they would talk to me about this?

I'm thinking my site should have a lot more background and info on me and my portraits, plus few exclusive pieces, as opposed to my eBay store. The store will be the main sales location and I will have some links from my site to eBay and any other web sites that I have artwork on. This makes sense, but I'm not totally clear or convinced that I like this. I need to think about this more. (Besides, I'm still trying to figure out how to get my web site back on my computer so I can actually update it!)

In the meantime, I have been working, even though I haven't posted stuff here. This weekend, I finished two pieces.

This is Clara, a cute bulldog. It's oil portrait on canvas and goes to one of a wonderful client. She was VERY patient with me as I struggled with this portrait. Basically the problem was, she took the photo with a flash which washes out colors, gives the dog red-eye, and creates bizarre shadows. So, after doing it once (actually twice because I first screwed up the proportions), I didn't like it because of the shadows and I redid it. They say three's a charm and in this case it was. She loves it! And I'm relieved. In any case, I have to think of some way to make the delay up to her.

This is a marsh wren in acrylics on canvas. I did it as part of the PAAO Theme Week Contest, and the theme was "W-Z" animals. I think it came out fine, although I almost quit on it half way thru it. I didn't like the cattails, in part because there was a big white hole for where the wren was going to go. I kept working on it and then finally put the wren in and, like magic, it all worked. What people don't realize is that the background took about twice as long as the bird, and yet the background is not really important unless it detracts from the bird. It's kind of annoying! Anyway, it's up on auction until Friday, so take a look and bid!

And now, I had better go get back to work! I still have 5 commissions to do plus new stuff for my eBay store.

Just About Had It!!!

I can't believe the last 3+ weeks. Between computer meltdowns and hubby's truck problems, I'm just about ready to give up and go flip burgers!

Here's my last 3+ weeks:

• computer 'smells' -- get new power supply and hard-drive. Small bill.
• hubby's truck has no turn signals, sometimes -- his truck has intermittent problems with turn signals so he stops and has it worked on for a day. BIG bill.
• computer stops working -- 2 days out for the shop, the computer decides it doesn't have an operating system, so back to the shop. Tech guy saves most of data, but not my emails, when he reformats the hard-drive. Small bill.
• hubby's truck still has no turn signals, again -- 50 miles from the repair place, they go out again. Owner says he can't do anything else, so take it to a truck dealer. Stops at dealer and they have no clue either! Medium bill.
• computer refuses to send or receive photos -- my ISP claims it's software and Microsoft says it's ISP. Take it back to Tech guy and he reformats hard-drive again. I get to install all the software again. Small bill.
• hubby's truck has no turn signals (while driving in L.A.) and now has a power drain -- he comes home. Truck refuses to start so we charge the batteries (4 of them) with my motorcycle battery charger. Get it started and we take it to our local diesel mechanic. Was in the shop for 3 days -- warns us he's not sure if he fixed it. HUGE bill and, because of a bank problem, we have to pay by check not credit card.
• computer works fine, but ISP doesn't -- for some reason the ISP keeps not recognizing my dial-up number. Finally, after 2 hours on the phone, my computer doesn't think I'm calling a new number everytime I connect to the internet. No bill.
• hubby's truck smells -- he gets up one morning to find a battery leaking. Gets a new one ($200+ if you want to know) and everything seems fine. Small bill.
• computer works, but web site missing -- a friend emails that my site is down. That was on Friday and it's still down. So I spent the weekend moving all my eBay store photos to an independent server and then revising all the listings to point to the new photos. No bill, but 3 days of work!

Now, haven't I had fun? All totalled, these two electron problems cost us about $3000, a week of driving for hubby, and 2 weeks of working time for me.

And somewhere in all this process, I'm suppose to be creating wonderful art, finishing up some portraits, doing some sculptures, and planting fruit trees. Well, the trees aren't going to get planted since I don't have the money to buy them. The sculptures are going to have to wait because I don't have time. The people waiting for the portraits are already pissed at me, so what's a bit longer? And I did do a nice burrowing owl, somehow. (Now if everyone bids huge amounts, maybe it'll pay off the bills from the last 3 weeks?)

Burrowing Owl auction

To say that I'm tired is an understatement of huge proportions! I'm mentally and emotionally exhausted. This is why, despite everything I'm suppose to be doing, I have been taking time out to draw leaves (very meditative activity) and read. I'll get thru this somehow -- I always do -- but I relly would like to take a week off and go pound on a rock.

Instead, I need to go list something else on eBay.