A Smile in the Making

Went down to Frederick Maryland this weekend with Kim Senior. We met up with some fellow painters, Lausanne Carpenter of Marsh Hawk Studio and Pat Strong of the Austin School of Faux Finishes, whom we have known from some of the online faux finish message boards.

While we were there, we saw some of the fabulous work of William Cochran along Carroll Creek.

Anamorphic angel at straight view.

This an excellent example of anamorphic art. As you can see the change in the next photo.

View of angel from the Delaplaine Art Center window.

Bridge view

Keep in mind, this whole bridge has been painted.

Medallion.

There are an incredible amount of trompe l'oeil (fool the eye - "trahmp loy") images painted amongst the stones. Note the tractor above the medallion. You can view more of the bridge in the links above.

It's a boy!

Illustration Friday topic this week is "excess".
I did a series of Number One Fan images when I was living in Green Bay. This one was inspired by a guy I saw walking into a bar on a Sunday morning wearing a Packer coat and Wisconsin Badger scarf and hat. When it comes to the diehard football fan -- Packer fans especially -- excess can only begin to describe them.

Check out my post about my trip to Frederick Maryland this past weekend.

Limestone Forest
Linda Dubin Garfield had forwarded along an opportunity to exhibit at the Louis L Redding Building in Wilmington, DE.
I will have 3 pieces in the show.

Details as follows.

Mid Atlantic Regional Exhibit
Redding Gallery
Louis L. Redding City/County Building
800 N. French St.
Wilmington, Delaware
Art on the Town December 7th, 2007
5:30 p.m.-8:00 p.m.
The exhibition opening will occur on the evening of December 7th from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. at 800 N. French St. in Wilmington Delaware. This will be a catered event free and open to the public with a performer. The “Art on the Town” shuttle will be making frequent stops at this location throughout the evening.

This month the buses leave from the Delaware Art Museum on Kentmere Parkway at 5:45 and return by 8:45 for the after party.

Shhh! Dont Wake The Baby!

Ilustration Friday topic this week is "Little Things". One thing my kids liked to do when they were babies is rub the satiny edge of a blanket when they slept. Just one of those little things you remember.

This painting is in my etsy shop.

The end of the year is just a few weeks away. I figure to soon finally post a review of how my resolution has progressed.

Linda Dubin Garfield is having an artists' reception Sunday, December 16, 2007 from 1 to 3 PM at the Old City Jewish Art Center, 119 N. 3rd Street, Philadelphia.

Stop in and talk to her about her recent exhibit at the Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem, Israel.

Last year a call was put out from Philly.com for citizen bloggers. I took a chance and was chosen. Started out with three of us. Justin was preparing for the Philadelphia marathon. Kris was turning 21 and finishing college. I dont know if they reached their goals, but they have stopped blogging awhile ago.

I DEFINITELY have spent way too much time on the computer. While I have increased my presence on the world wide web, I may have not used my time there efficiently. The Etsy shop has taken alot of time. Promoting and creating product. It can be addicting to be on the computer and watch for activity. I have seen success on that site for other sellers and an Etsy shop is very portable. Not knowing how long we will stay in this area, I think that is even more important to create something I can take anywhere.

Tried out Cafepress and Zazzle. But with the slim profit margins, it seems to be alot of work to promote without immediate reward. Also on Imagekind. Another site I need to promote.

Decided to upgrade on Trunkt which allows me to upload unlimited amounts of images. They do go through an approval process, which I think is a good thing as it at least ups the quality of the items on the site. They also advertise on several design blogs and have Martha Stewart as a sponsor.

InLiquid has been a valuable resource for information and opportunities in this area. I wish it wasnt way off in the Northern Liberties, but I do plan to submit my portfolio for the next deadline for membership. I have gotten alot of traffic to my website as a result of participating in their Pillow fundraiser and Art For the Cash Poor.

Modish shop has giveaways as an inexpensive way to promote your product. It was fun to watch the comments -- as that was part of the enter to win requirements. Cant say that it has resulted in any sales. Exposure I suppose -- for the price of making some notecards.

The Du Pont Country Club art & craft show was in October. I have been around the block and my first clue should have been the word craft. Not that there werent some fine art/artisan items there. But in those type of shows particularly, location is probably key. Not location of where the show is held, but booth location. Along exterior walls and at entry ways -- to the right side of either entering or the exit flow of traffic are probably the best spots.

Found Original Art for 99 on Craigslist. It is a new site and as always, success to being on line is being able to direct traffic to your site.

HGTV had a call for Delaware artists for That's Clever this spring. I applied thinking I am so close to Delaware and it is a small state. They filmed the episode the end of May. It should air sometime next year. Seems like a long time to wait. I should be able to find out my episode number soon. It will be up to me to watch for when it is scheduled. I think that this in conjuction with some local press releases may prove to be worthwhile.

Getting into galleries here in the east is not as easy as one would think. I did submit some images to a gallery or two and to a couple of art competitions. While I think there are more opportunities out here, there also are more artists competing for those same opportunities. Thanks to Linda Dubin Garfield forwarding some info, I am in a group exhibit at the Redding Gallery in the City Building in Wilmington.

Illustration Friday has been alot of fun to participate in. I think with more time, efforts will pay off. But they are enjoyable efforts. Definitely has brought visitors to this blog. Hopefully the powers that be like that.

Opened a website on Artspan. It is an easy to use site. I need to maintain it more. Did get an inquiry a while back regarding use of one of my images. Someone wanted to use it for the cover of their cookbook which they were self publishing and giving as Christmas gifts. I was quite surprised at the request -- mainly cause it was a painting I had been thinking about painting over! My "fee" was credit and a couple of the books -- which I am looking forward to giving to my kids for Christmas.

Next year I plan to work on generating traffic to my Etsy shop. I feel like they could be on the edge of the tipping point. Sales have jumped 30% on that site over last year. And just this weekend the NY Times had a nice long article on Etsy.

There have been more things like joining some art related social networking sites and getting together with other artists I have met on internet art sites. Indiepublic, Curbly, StumbleUpon, the Switchboards, Muralsplus and Wetcanvas are a few of these sites.

Did not figure it would be this much work to accomplish my resolution goals. I do know that being chosen a citizen blogger did provide the motivation in many instances and has definitely played a part in how far I have gotten, which looking back, does surprise me. I have a greater presence on the web than I did at this time last year. And looking back over the year, next year is definitely one that will need to focus on promotion. I am there, I just need to get the word out now.

Because of a wrong turn (which is easy to do here), my neighbor and I ended up stopping at Reflections, Etc in Kemblesville on New London Road (Hwy 896).

It is a nice little shop with antiques, regional consignments and market pieces. There was a nice variety of things that could appeal to most visitors. One of the owners is a weaver and had her table top loom set up with a project right next to several completed pieces.

I noted some printed gallery wrapped canvases. They had an old timey looking illustration with solid colored edges. Printed gallery wrapped canvases is something that I have been considering doing, but just never was sure how I would handle the edges. Would I photoshop the image to and extended size to accommodate the gallery wrap or just go with a solid color? The ones I saw looked just fine the way they were done.

The owner asked us to sign the guest book. He had a piece of carved graphite as a writing utensil. This one happened to be an eagle with its wings spread. He showed us some more carved graphite and we were surprised that they didnt leave any residue one's hand, tho you could write with any part of the graphite.

I didnt catch all the hours, but did briefly note the sign started with Wednesday as we left. Sounded like there are plans to extend the historic nature of Kemblesville in the future. The nice thing about the place was that it wasnt one of those "cinammon and butter rum candle" places -- you know, the kind that looked like they bought the whole package at the tradeshow. This place actually had some personality.

Got a Gocco machine for Christmas. I had purchased one several years ago, never used it and gave it away. Recently, it has become a very trendy art medium. Could kick myself.

For those of you who do not know, basically it is an all in one screenprinting machine.

It requires an image/design in a carbon based medium. Still trying to find out if the Epson UltraChrome inks contain carbon -- I could test, but the screens arent cheap -- so have been doing some google searches. A carbon based pen is included in the kit I received and I feel I can get started while I wait on the ink answer.

My plans at this point are to create images in photoshop and print out the background colors. Then create a gocco screen for printing outlines. I have seen gocco prints over text using pages from books and thought this might work. Have wanted a bit of a retro look, so I have been busy making background patterns.