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.