Three cheers for daylight savings!

I've just realised how much work I have to get through before the end of year. I have two jewelry orders (pendants and a cat brooch) plus two for paintings (a donkey and a pop art Elvis painting) as well as trying to keep stock in the two shops and prepare for the Christmas sale at Creative Hastings. Thank goodness for St John's Wort pills- I can feel the little me in my head running around in panic mode but can't feel the stress anywhere else. I will just have to work more hours and so three cheers for daylight savings!

Fish and Abstracts

Whenever I receive a folder of work back from my tutor she photographs works that are too large to scan which proves very helpful. In the last folio I'd included a fish collage I had done(my first). The exercise was to find a magazine photo and break it down into basic colours and then paint pieces of paper to match. She has suggested I can develop this fishy theme in other aspects of my work including my jewellery.

The other work Irene featured was an abstract from an exercise earlier in my course. Recently we were taught to mount paintings on card and then frame them cheaply with corrugated cardboard so I decided to do this with the red painting. Funnily enough this work is a favourite of a visitor who has asked to buy it.

Otherwise I have been busy sending out the Spring issue of Loosely Speaking for the EDFNZ and revamping The Menagerie website. It was the first site I ever built way back in 1999 and is a good example of all the mistakes you first make when you start in web design. I am turning it into a basic bread and butter site with a clean look (I hope) and cohesive theme.

Unexpected Advertising

Two pieces of mail of interest arrived yesterday. Firstly "Country Scene" the free rural newspaper that is distributed throughout Hawkes Bay published a piece on Kim Priest and Waddle Inn in Otane. Good photo of her alpacas and also shows the shop where my work is being sold. Hopefully it will drum up alot of business for her.



Secondly "Paw Print" the newsletter of the Central Shetland Sheepdog Club must have got hold of a copy of the South Island newsletter that reprinted one of my articles. Embarrassingly they have given me a free advertisement with a link to one of my websites.

ATCs Versus ACEOs

I had no idea that there was some controversy over artists selling ATCs (Artists Trading Cards) as ACEOs (Art Cards Editions and Originals) on Ebay. These small cards are 2.5" by 3.5" in size and were originally conceived as small original works of art artists could swap with each other. However a few took it further and began selling them albeit under another name as ACEOs. It now seems a few ATC purists resent this and feel these artists are cashing in on the growing trend.

It's really sad when artists begin bashing each other, even saying that art should not be sold. How would the rest of us get on if we couldn't sell our work? I for one don't want to be a starving artist. A better overview of the situation can be found on Emily Dimov-Gottshall's blog.

I've sold a couple of ACEOs on Ebay and swapped a couple with artists on Zen After Hours which is one of my favourite Yahoo groups. I honestly feel people appreciate your art a lot more if they have to pay for it. Whenever I've given work away there's been either a deafening silence or else a luke warm reaction which is why I don't like doing it anymore. Plus I have to eat!

Bits and Pieces

Morning in town today. Had to find an old picture frame to decorate for my course. Went to a second hand trader who had quite a few pictures but they were quite highly priced. However when I went into another area of the shop I saw a good sized wooden frame hanging on the wall. Turquoise and covered with gold stars it was only priced at $5 so grabbed it. Then went to Mitre 10 and made the mistake of asking for Hi Build to plaster it with. One assistant was totally sceptical that there was any such thing but an older guy came out and suggested a similar product he had used called One Time which he feels will do the job.

Took two more cat brooches into the The Craftsman to replace those sold a fortnight ago and found the one remaining calico cat brooch had gone the day after my demonstration. Maureen felt that it may have been bought by someone who saw me paint that Sunday.

The mail this afternoon brought info about the 2006 Creative Hastings Christmas Sale. Can't believe it has come up so quickly. I have indicated what I would like to sell and will send the form back tomorrow. Very very busy time coming up.

Going back through my art records I found this pointillist drawing I did several years ago for The Young Theosophist magazine. Never received the original back so had to scan from a copy. I really enjoyed doing this drawing- donkey's have such character.