Thursday, April 29, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
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.
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!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
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 :)
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 :)
Monday, April 26, 2010
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)