My Secret Image Transfer Technique

I never thought it would be hard to write about some special "skill" you have or thing you've figure out that probably no one else knows, but I guess it's kind of like having a secret recipe. You want to have the best pie in the world and not have anyone else be able to duplicate it.

Well, I started this blog with the purpose of maybe helping other artists become better by teaching them what I've learned so maybe they don't have to waste a bunch of time trying a million things out. So I will share my "secret" technique.

Initially I looked all over the web for the best way to transfer an image onto a painting. None of the explanations of how to do it were good enough. They all kind of made sense but they were missing a step, so it never completely came out right. So I decided to try my own technique.

1. Print out the image you want on tracing paper and let the ink completely dry. You have to be pretty careful because the ink will smudge very easily. You may have to reprint it if the printer smudges the ink.

2. Put a thin, even layer of gloss gel (I use medium gel brilliant, Liquitex brand).

3. Slowly lay the image on top of it and press out the wrinkles as best as possible. You have to be very careful on this part so you don't smear the ink from your image.

4. Once you've pasted your image on, spray the top of the image with a varnish. I use an acrylic/oil/alkyd varnish - Winsor & Newton brand.

5. After that's dry, you can paint over it, paste over it, put a gloss gel over it, etc. and the ink won't smear. The image will be translucent and you can blend it in with the painting very well.

"Seattle" painting

This was my largest painting yet! It's acrylic on 36x24 canvas. The awesome thing was it sold before I was even finished with it!

It's based off of an amazing photo my husband took from the ferry going across Seattle bay. Let me know what you think!

Birthday Wishes

My birthday is coming up, October 11th. I have a bit of a wish list, if anyone has any interest in getting me anything. I'm not ASKING for anything, but if anyone WANTS to get me something, here's the list :)

1. Buy any of my art. A print, an original, etc. It all helps me to continue my art: http://meartist.storenvy.com/

2. Come to one of my art shows :)

3. Donate to my art show: http://www.indiegogo.com/Debut-Art-Show

4. Donate to my team in training page for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society: http://pages.teamintraining.org/sd/carlsbad11/meibenigzw

Not a huge list, but all very important to me :)

Art Shows Coming Up

I have two art shows coming up. The first is in Los Angeles on October 9th at 7pm. It is at Kesspro Studios, 435 S. Molino St. Los Angeles, CA. Entry is free and there will most likely be a live band playing at the end of the night.

The second one is in San Diego at @Spacebar, 7454 University Ave, Suite A
La Mesa, ca 91941, on November 13th at 7pm. There will also be a live band playing at the end of this one and there is no cover charge.

Please pass this on to everyone, I hope to get a lot of people to each show!!!

Latest Mixed Media Paintings

I've been doing a lot of mixed media paintings recently, and have actually started a series called "Art Love." Here are the first couple.

Experimentation

I've been doing a lot of experimenting lately, mainly with promotion and with various mediums.

Experiment #1: How to get fans on my facebook page more active. I tried doing a couple different "contests", the first being if anyone made any comment on my page at all, they'd be entered into a drawing to get a free 8x10 print of one of my art works. This wasn't very productive, only 6 people (out of my 184 fans) participated. I did the drawing anyway and my friend J.M. won a print.

Next I posted another "contest" where people had to post an idea of what they would like to see more of on my page and I would do another drawing for an 8x10 print. This was very ineffective, no one posted anything.

I did, however, also start just posting a whole bunch of pictures. Sketches I had done, pictures of the painting I'm working on, etc. and I've been asking for feedback and ideas on how to do certain things, and I started getting a lot more participation in my page from more people, so I guess that's really the key. They simply want to see my art and be a part of it.

Experiment #2: How to use prismacolor pencils. I still haven't figured this one out, but I went to the art store last Wednesday and picked some up. While I was there I also got some watercolor pencils, which looked cool, and a couple drawing pads. A friend of mine, D.S., had told me about the prismacolor. He mentioned they were a lot easier to blend than regular colored pencils and they can come out looking more like a painting, sort of.

So I tried them out and I didn't really see the appeal. They seemed like regular colored pencils to me. So I posted my first couple sketches and I got a whole bunch of feedback on them with about 100 different tips, including coloring 1 small area at a time, using the colorless blender, using various types of paper, blending the colors before even applying them to the paper, and someone mentioned something involving an iron. So I have a whole lot of experiments to do with that.

The watercolor pencils, on the other hand, I think are amazing! I've been wanting to get back into watercolor painting for a while (I haven't done it in over 10 years), so this is the perfect way to do it. With the pencils I can draw a pretty detailed picture, or a general scenic picture, and then just add a little water and it becomes a water color painting. I've done two sketches so far with these pencils and I love them! I do need to get the appropriate paper for it, since I've been just using regular drawing paper, which doesn't do so well when you add water.

I will update this posting by tonight with the pictures of the sketches I've been doing.

IndieGoGo Fundraiser for my art show

Hey, check this out and pass it on please! If you can help out with anything, that would be awesome!

Mixed media painting

ERRRGGG. I just got this back from the printer and as I'm picking it up I take a look at it. It's not done at all! What was I thinking? There's so much more I want to do with it before I even show it to other people (though I'll leave this picture up so there will be a before and after pic). Well, that was a waste of money! (having it scanned, I mean).

I will be working on it more tonight and tomorrow to possibly finish it and hopefully within the next week I will post a new, completed picture of it. Stay tuned!

Here are 2 of the pics I promised

Here are the scans of 2 of my more recent paintings, I will have one more within the next couple days after I pick it up from the printer.

Paintings are starting to flow...

I just finished my second mixed media painting yesterday, I think it looks pretty awesome. I wish I had taken a picture of it to post before I took it to the printer but I was in a hurry. I will be picking it up in a couple days and will be able to post a picture of it then.

I also picked up my 2 other paintings yesterday that I had taken to the printer, but I didn't have time to put the photos on my computer, so I'll have to do that tonight when I get home and I will post those as well.

Currently I have 2 originals for sale! This is pretty exciting. I also started my first portrait painting last night. I have a beautiful neighbor and I quickly snapped some photos of her yesterday, printed one out and started painting it. I'm using oil paint, because that's the easiest medium for me at this point. I really just got started on the outlines/basics, but I like it a lot so far and think it will come out pretty well!

I haven't sold anything on my Storenvy sight yet, but I'm getting a lot of views on it and I will now have one original to put up for sale, plus another print. Then in a couple days when I get the other painting back from the printers, I will have two originals up on there for sale. After I get a bit more posted on there for sale I will start promoting it even more heavily.

So that's what's going on for now, I will be posting some more art soon!

Finished the oil painting

I finished the oil painting I was talking about earlier. It's at the printers being scanned but here is a photograph of it. Let me know what you think!

Worked on my next mixed media tonight

I started a mixed media painting a while ago but from the start it wasn't going how I wanted. So I thought it was going to have to scrap it and start over (it's wood so I was going to sand it down), but then I decided what the heck, I can fix it and make it awesome. And I've been doing just that.

It's based off of a photograph I took somewhere in Orange County of an awesome building with some American flags on it and a pretty sky in the background. The painting will only vaguely resemble the same building, but it's still pretty cool.

Additionally, by the end of this next week I should have TWO original paintings to post for sale in my store, which is pretty awesome. I'll have to try to get them to the printers to be scanned on Wednesday and pick them up on Saturday. Very exciting stuff!

New page on my website

I put a new page on my website where I can feature other artists. I wanted to do this to help promote other artists and, who knows, maybe some day it will just become kind of a one-stop shop to buy art from multiple artists. For now it's just for promotional purposes. I already posted the amazing art work of my friend, Drew, feel free to check it out!

If you haven't had a chance to check out my website yet, please do so (www.meartist.com) and let me know what you think. The new page is under "other artists," for obvious reasons.

I just set up an awesome on-line store!

Thanks to Sheika Lugtu, I learned about storenvy.com. It's just like etsy or ebay but.....it's FREE! And you can customize it a lot more than you can customize and etsy store. The biggest thing for me is that it's free, but I love that people can go to my storenvy store and there is a link to my website, my blog, my facebook page, and my twitter account.

I've put up two prints so far with more to come! The plan is to get some originals up soon. I'm so excited!

On another note, I am setting up an art show for October. So far I have 5 awesome artists collaborating on it, so it's going to be amazing! I am still trying to figure out the best location for it, which will be done within a month. Then 2 months of HEAVY promoting so we have a ton of people there. I want to have at least 100 people show up, but hopefully closer to 200.

Additionally, I have decided to start trying to paint portraits. So I have 4 people lined up so far to do a small photo shoot with me, then I will be painting pictures based off of the photos taken. I am also super excited about this. I love broadening my range of art. I've also been inspired recently to take up watercolor painting again. So more of that to come....

My new on-line store is http://meartist.storenvy.com/. Please check it out and let me know what you think! As it stands, I haven't decided if I'm ditching Etsy yet, but I'm pretty sure I will be. I'll let you guys know :)

Meet the sexy Miss Libby!

My latest portrait of a beautiful friend, Libby. Done with pencil on drawing paper.

Quick update

I did work more on that painting I've been mentioning. I fixed what I had messed up, but even after that I still feel it's not complete. So I have to figure out what to do with it to make it complete. I will post a picture of it as soon as I figure it out.

Otherwise I have been working on my website a lot, updating it and adding all of my art work. I think it looks GREAT so far, much better than in did even 2 weeks ago. I'm having a lot of fun experimenting with it and sprucing it up.

Etsy

I almost forgot to mention, I posted my first Etsy listing yesterday for one of my prints. This will be a "test run" so I can figure out the best way to showcase and sell things on Etsy. Once I figure it out I will report back on my findings so that others can hopefully be able to get started selling their art pretty easily. Here is the link for the listing, if anyone would check it out and give me any feedback on it (any info I should include that I didn't, etc.) that would be great: http://www.etsy.com/listing/49026775/orange-print.

Eventually I will also document the levels of workability between selling my art on facebook, my website and Etsy (the 3 ways I can figure to sell art on-line - besides craigslist and I'm not going there). So far none of these methods have worked, but I am just getting started.

One last point before I write off on this post, I have been extremely successful with my art at my work place. I haven't even been trying, just placing it at my desk and people come by and buy it. Then someone else will see it on my friends desk and ask how they get some of my art, etc. I have been selling my prints basically at cost and sometimes giving them away as birthday presents, etc. because it's great promotion.

I need to confront my painting

Do you know how when you begin something and it doesn't go quite as planned, it's sometimes hard following through with it? That's how it is with my most recent painting. It started out REALLY well, I LOVED how it looked and was very excited about it. There was only one other touch I needed to put on the painting...and I messed it up somehow. That finishing touch did not come out at all as I envisioned.

This was about 3 weeks ago and I have not touched the painting since. I really don't think it will be that difficult to fix, I just need to confront it and do it. I will do my best to confront it tonight and finish it, and try to post pictures tomorrow if I do. It will be awesome when it's actually completed.

Portraits, anyone?

Wow! I can't believe it's been about 1 1/2 weeks since my last post. To be honest, I've been completely focused on my upcoming marathon this weekend and haven't been paying much attention to my art, or at least so I thought.

I have been drawing a lot at work. I don't know why but earlier this week I was suddenly inspired to draw. I looked around for something to draw and decided to just draw my hand. A co-worker saw me and asked if I could draw a picture of her. That sounded like a great idea, so I did a fairly brief sketch of her. As always, I surprise myself and it came out better than I thought it would.

Another co-worker saw me drawing the 1st co-worker, and asked if I could do a picture of him, which I proceeded to do. The next day I drew a 3rd co-worker. I spent a lot of time on the 3rd, so it was more of an actual portrait as opposed to just a sketch. It wasn't perfect, but I was quite pleased with the results.

I now have had quite a few of my co-workers asking for "portraits." This could actually work in my favor, though the first few were free, I could easily start to charge for these, even if it's just $10. Plus, they are a lot of fun to do and help occupy and time I'm bored at work.

I guess this counts as art?

I just made a website for my sister for a new preschool she is opening. She saw the website I had made for myself (www.meartist.com) and loved it so asked me to make one for her (much cheaper than hiring someone to do it). I readily agreed because I think it's fun. I was also curious to see if I could do it basically from scratch and make it look appropriate for a preschool and professional.

She was very happy with the results (it's still pretty basic but I only had limited info to work with) and I was fairly happy as well. I've now taken on the project of helping her promote the preschool, so I created a twitter account and a facebook page as well. Now I have to figure out how to get people interested in the product, from scratch. This should be interesting....

Her new website is www.littleacornsgrow.net. If you could check it out and let me know what you think, I would really appreciate it. Thanks!

Disappointed

I was trying to finish my painting last night and I had, for now, just one more thing I wanted to do to it. I wanted to add a translucent white over the moon in the painting, but somehow I messed it up and now it looks kind of bad. I have to think of a way to fix it tonight, but I haven't come up with any ideas yet. The problem is that it didn't come out translucent enough and there's no way I can re-paint the background over it....so I'll have to figure it out tonight, hopefully.

As soon as I figure it out and fix it I will post it. I also have another mixed media painting I started on and messed up (since I'm a beginner at this method it's expected). I'm not sure how to fix that one either, but I think the best way would be to sand it down maybe, or just try to paint over it. Maybe I'll paint over it first, and if that doesn't work I'll sand it down...that's a good idea.

New painting coming soon

I finally got some more time in to paint last night. I took another old painting that I wasn't really satisfied with and started working on it. So far I LOVE how it looks (a lot better than the original painting).

It's an acrylic, which isn't really my thing but I really like that it dries so much faster than oil. I have an oil painting I finished about 3 or 3 1/2 weeks ago and it's still not dry in some spots.

I'm also learning how to use acrylic in fun ways to make the painting look how I want. I love that I can mix the paint with a varnish to thin it out and make it kind of translucent. I still have a lot of experimenting to do, but I'm getting better at it and, like I said, it dries a lot faster than oil.

I should finish it tonight and I'll post a picture as soon as I can :)

How to throw your own art show

On the note of how to get your art shown, if you would like to have your own art show or an auction for your art (I have done both) here are some useful tips:

1. Pick the date and time you want to have your show. I would start planning about 4-6 months in advance from this date. Saturday nights usually work best so you don't have to contend with people's work schedule and Sunday family activities as much.

2. Find a space to borrow or rent for the amount of time you want. I recommend allotting 2 hours for the show, with an additional 1-2 hours for set-up/break-down. I would pick a studio type setting - a big empty space, usually with hardwood or cement floor, track lighting or otherwise good lighting, a way to play music and ample space to display everything you want. For my first couple art shows I rented a space for a day for $200 a pop. I recruited a few other artists who wanted to show their work and we all chipped in. For my auction I got the space donated.

I would recommend getting a few other local artists to do the show with you. That way it's cheaper and you get more promotion out of it (5 artists each bring 20 friends = 100 people. One artist = 20-40 people usually). But of course you can do a one-man show as well, you just have to work harder on promotion.

3. If you are attached to you art as I am, get everything scanned beforehand so you can keep them digitally forever and make prints if you want.

4. Decide if you want to charge for the show or not. I usually charge a $5 entry to my art shows and am charging a $10 entry fee for my auction, which is all going to charity. The entry fee will cover the food and some of your costs of renting a space (or if you're lucky it can cover all of your costs for the food and the space).

5. Plan your menu. I have always catered my own and I usually keep it pretty simple with finger sandwiches (tuna, egg salad, cream cheese and cucumber), fruit and vegetable platters, cheese and cracker platter, and some sort of desert (cookies or eclairs). I usually also have wine, champagne, juice and water. This is the most cost effective, but if you won't have the time you could always have it catered.

6. About 1 1/2 months in advance make or have made invitations and pass them out to your friends. Create an event page on facebook. Promote on twitter. Send out an evite to your email list. You can also post a free listing on craigslist in the community section (I haven't tried this before but I plan to do it for the next show). The biggest thing will be word of mouth, so get your friends and family to help promote you to their friends. You could also look into putting a posting in a local newspaper or magazine (I also haven't done this so am not sure how that would work).

7. Recruit a couple friends or family members to help you at the event. If you're charging you'll need a person at the door selling tickets. You'll also want to have another person in charge of the music, making sure the food is stocked, and any other random details. You want to leave yourself free to be the host and roam so you can answer any questions about your art as needed. You may also want to recruit someone to take photos, which you can then post on your blog, website, facebook page, etc.

8. Set up about 1-2 hours before hand (depending on how much art you have to set up). Make sure art work is fashionably shown, evenly spaced, at a good height if it's on the walls, and well lit. Put your price tags next to each piece (it's a good idea to have a master list already made with each piece of art work and the price listed so you can keep track). It is also a good idea to write a biography for yourself with a picture and post it next to your art. If you have business cards lay them out on the various tables. Set up food table in a logical location. Set up a play list for music or pick a good set of CDs to play and get the music rolling.

9. Greet your guests and have fun!

Letting go is hard...

Tomorrow night I will be having a silent auction as a fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I will mainly be auctioning off my art work, though I have some other items, including art donated by another artist, a starbucks gift basket, gift certificates, etc.

I will be auctioning off every single original I have at the moment. I guess it's a pretty good sign that I don't have any in my possession. I have either sold or given away the rest as gifts (and I have actually sold quite a few, I didn't even realize it).

There are a couple of the ones I currently have that I REALLY like, specifically my first mixed media painting "Travel" and my 3 panel oil "Sunset." I love it when I do a painting I'm really proud of and don't mind showing off, but I hate the fact that I will now be selling them tomorrow. I already have a $100 bid on "Sunset."

The sad thing is I don't even have time to get all of the latest pictures scanned so at least I can have the digital version and can make prints if I want. I did get "Travel" scanned, so I'm happy about that. I hope whoever wins "Sunset" won't mind if I borrow it back later to get it scanned :)

Problem #2 - How to get a website made without breaking the bank

This is one I've been working on for a while as well. I looked into having someone make a website for me, but they seem to start at about $300 and go up from there. I'm a "starving artist," I don't have that kind of money! I wish I had a friend that made websites who could cut me a deal but I don't know of any such person, unfortunately.

So I braved it alone. First I went with Google Websites. This was great! It was free and very easy to use. This satisfied me for a couple months. While Google Websites is free and easy to use, it is also VERY limited and there were a lot of things I wanted to do with my website that I couldn't.

I did some more research and asked around. My friend Tim told me about Wix. I checked them out and I have definitely found what I am looking for. I am in no way, shape or form and computer tech person (websites for dummies would be too complicated for me) but I was able to figure it out fairly easily. The whole website operates in flash, so I can do a lot more with it than with Google. I wanted to like my domain name to it, so while it is free to make the site, you do have to pay to be able to link your domain name to it. Not much, if you pay for a year or 2 it's about $8 a month I think. Very doable.

They also have the option to upgrade so that you can actually have it be a commerce website as well, with a cart and the ability to recieve credit card payments, etc. This is about $15 a month if you pay for a year or 2 at a time. I will be doing this eventually, but I'm not up to that point yet.

By the way, I got my domain name from godaddy.com and linked it to my Wix website. Also, I went on-line before purchasing the domain and before upgrading my Wix websites and I found discount codes for both, so I got the Wix upgrade free for a month and my domain name for a year for about $6. Very affordable!

My new website is www.meartist.com. Let me know what you think!

What exactly qualifies as an official print or a "limited edition" print?

Still a little stuck on the whole aspect of having prints made of my work. I am very happy with the prints I have and the quality of them, but just a couple days ago I had someone who was interested it one ask me if they were numbered and signed. Ummmm.....no......They are "signed" because the original pieces are signed, but other than that....

So now I feel like I have to go back to the drawing board a bit. But honestly, I'm not sure I even want to get into that. Really, I love the way my prints look and they're affordable for me to make and for others to buy. That's really what I'm going for at this moment. I think maybe later when I am able to dedicate more time to my art and work on some bigger canvases, I will then look into making limited edition prints that will be worth more. For now, I'm happy with what I have.

latest latest painting

This is another painting I did several years ago, probably about 2 1/2 years ago when I was first experimenting with acrylics. I was practicing what I call the "bleeding colors" method, where I bleed certain colors together with water (which obviously wouldn't work on oil paint!).

The picture was never a big hit and I never really liked it either. It was ok...just not enough color and life. It's fine if a painting is dark, but it has to have life. So I added a good deal of color to it as well as some beautiful pressed flowers, then I "bled" the painting again with red and black paint. It came out very interesting. I haven't completely decided if it's done or not, but I definitely like it a lot better than the original.

Latest painting

Oil and acrylic on canvas. This is a painting I actually did quite some time ago, probably almost 2 years ago. I have shown it at a couple art shows, but have never been satisfied with it; it always seemed kind of dull and lifeless to me. So I took it and "edited" it to my liking. I added more color and life to it, including a bit more depth and detail. I am finally satisfied with it and will now actually feel good about showing it and about selling it.

No painting today....

Unfortunately too tired! I will definitely get some done tomorrow though.

I have three paintings to complete by the 15th, for my silent auction. Luckily I will just be working with acrylics on these (two are mostly oil but I will finish them with acrylic) because it dries a lot faster than oil.

In reality, I have to finish them by Wednesday the 12th, if I want to have time to take them to the printer and have them scanned to have on file for prints or whatever later.

Soon I will blog about problem #2 (making a website without paying a ton of money) because I think I finally got this one down (not perfectly, but satisfactorily for the moment).

Oh! I forgot to mention, I finally got some business cards made. I had to finish the website first, which I did, so that I could have it on my business cards. I will write a little about this in the next blog as well.

For now....off to bed :)

Latest oil painting

Latest oil painting. I will try to upload a better picture later, but let me know what you think. It was done on 3 canvas panels and each individual panel could stand alone, but obviously they are made to go together as one piece. I particularly love the color; I love when there are many vibrant colors, even if they don't seem to "make sense." This is a painting I'm really proud of and will hate to part with.

Running into trouble painting for a couple days

I've been super busy and haven't painted in a couple days. I had a very long run this morning, which I had to prep for last night and go to bed early for. Not painting bums me out!

I will definitely paint tonight. I have two oil paintings which I want to finish (I need to finish them this weekend so they're dry in time for the silent auction), and then I have two acrylics I want to finish, which I will get done over the next couple days.

Seems like I still have issues with problem #0, finding time to paint! At least I'm doing my best. I will post pics tomorrow of what I get done tonight :)

First mixed media painting

Problem #1 - How to get prints made of your art

I've been tackling this one for several months now, so I thought I would document my findings so far. I still have a lot of research to do because I eventually want to make my own prints, but that requires space and more expensive equipment, so that's on hold for now.

First of all, when I set out to get prints made I thought I would be able to easily google it and find a good place within about 5 minutes. I was shocked. Google has always been my friend but not this time. All it would come up with was what the various types of prints are but no real good way to go about acquiring them and certainly no list of local printers skilled in this area.

My next solution was to ask various artists I knew how they got prints made. This also put me at quite the dead end. A couple made their own prints. Some didn't make any prints. And one gave me the name and phone number of her printer in China Town in LA.

So I called this guy up and made an appointment with him. I then drive all the way up to LA, baby, paintings and all, to meet this guy. It takes me about 30 minutes to find parking, then I have to go to a gas station to get change since the parking is $2.00 per hour there. I manage to get this done, get the baby and my paintings out, and search out this guys studio, which was in a back alley in between some buildings.

He shows up about 30 minutes late. I finally get inside and sit down with him. We begin discussing what I want and the pricing. His pricing is astronomical in my eyes. He would be charging about $120 to get 3 paintings/drawings scanned, and then the actual prints were anywhere from about $40 and up. I had 7 pictures. Added all up...about $600. Not possible, I haven't won the lottery yet.

Very disappointed, I continue in my search. Finally I get another referral from a friend here in San Diego for a place called Chrome Printing. I check out their website, they seem pretty good with reasonable prices. I gather all of my work up and head out to their office.

I walk in, am greeted kindly. I show them what I want and ask for help on how to go about doing it. They help me pick out the right kind of paper and inform me of their amazing pricing. The charge $25 to scan anything 16" by 20" or above, and $15 for anything smaller than that. I only had one 16" by 20" and the rest were smaller, so that came out to $115. The prints I wanted were to all roughly be around 12" by 16," and those were only about $13 a piece! So all in all, I spent about $200, compared to $600. And just to note, the prints and scans came out amazing!

The moral of the story, SHOP AROUND. And secondly, unfortunately, you must know someone who knows someone, in my experience. Thirdly, it should be a simple and relatively inexpensive process. I had a friend who offered to hook me up with a photographer who could digitize (hopefully the right word) my pictures and then I could take them to a printer for the prints. This was a nice offer, but way to complicated and time consuming. I wanted an all-in-one location and I found it.

If anyone needs help with this process, let me know. I do know a lot of artists and am willing to either get your art and take it to Chrome Printing for you, or do research for you and help you find a good printer.

Pic of the latest painting

I will try to get a higher quality picture soon :) Let me know what you think!

Finally getting in some time to paint!

I went this morning and got some new paints. I wanted some more acrylic paints, because I want to experiment more with them and I'm so used to just using oil paints. I was specifically looking for something to use as an adhesive on an acrylic painting, and I was hoping to get some wood panels to paint on (inspired by artist Clara Berta!).

I did buy something called Crafter's Pick, The Ultimate, which is a non-toxic, water-based glue that will adhere to metals, plastics, glass, etc. Is supposedly dries clear. I don't know if it will work or not, but I will try it out and let you know. I unfortunately didn't find my wood panels, so I'll have to order some on-line or have some made by someone (I will check some more local art stores in hopes of finding them).

So without my wood panel, I was forced to simply use a canvas for my painting tonight. Not bad but I was really excited to try using wood panels. I did and acrylic painting, staring out with the main color I wanted to use (purple). I expanded on that and used almost every single color, including purple, orange, red, yellow, blue, white and black. I painted a very colorful, relatively abstract, picture of an angel. I think it came out quite well. I love all of the various colors on it.

Tomorrow I will decide if it's complete or not and either post pictures or finish it and post pictures. I always like to give myself a day to see if I still like it :)

Documenting my progress as an artist

This blog will be completely devoted to my art and everything involving my art. I will be documenting my work, my struggles to figure out how to get myself out there, my ideas and solutions to artist problems, etc. Maybe this blog will be able to help other artists, or just be something I can come back and refer to if I forget what I wrote.

Problem #1: How do you get prints made of your art? I have this one pretty much solved, I will go into detail on a separate blog.

Problem #2: How to get a good website without paying a month's salary for it. This is what I'm working on currently.

Problem #3: How to promote yourself, make your work known. Also working on this one.

Problem #4: How to get your art in galleries, have art shows, and have your art displayed. Also working on this one.

Problem #5. How to actually make money from your art and hopefully transition it into a full time job (if that's what you want). I figure this one will hopefully fall into place after I figure out the first 4.

There are obviously other situations that artists run into, which I will go into as they come up. My most recent issue has been finding the time to paint after my baby was born. We have a tiny, tiny, I mean TINY apartment with no storage space and only 1 bedroom. We also have two cats. There is really no space to paint, and no safe place to put a painting to dry. But a couple days ago I threw all that out the window and began painting a picture at our coffee table after the baby went to sleep. The picture in now on the cleaned off dresser, and I just hope one of the cats doesn't jump on it!

So this is what this blog is about. If this blog helps even just one other artist besides myself, then I will consider it a success.