Experimentation, Take Two

Green Pitcher and Peppers / 6x6 / Oil on Cradled Panel

One of my main goals for writing this blog was to give myself permission to experiment. Today's experiment was to paint looser and faster, (a real stretch for me.) I'm pretty happy with my results above, and it only took an hour! :-)

I finished the smARTist telesummit on Friday, and besides learning more than I can get my head around at the moment, everyone was friending each other on Facebook and Tweeting away all day long. I'm just getting started on those two sites, and am already finding them worthwhile for the connections with other artists. We'll see if it leads to increased sales, but my goal right now is to learn how to use it and build relationships.

I'll go through all my notes and handouts and pick out some juicy tidbits for a later post this week, so stay tuned.

A Busy Week!

Chinese Water Pot and Peonies / Oil on Linen Panel / 16x20

I've decided to work on two important art goals for this year.

The first is doing a better job of promoting my art work. In that vein, I've started this blog (which I have found to be way more fun than I ever thought,) and I signed up for the smARTist telesummit. The telesummit started last Thursday and goes through this Friday. I really cannot recommend this enough. One of today's speakers was Peter Riley (www.artstaxinfo.com) and I picked up some very valuable tax tips. Upcoming speakers are sharing ideas/techniques on using social media for marketing, writing marketing plans, creating a portfolio, etc. If you don't connect with this resource this year, it will come again in 2010, so bookmark the website for future use.

My other goal is building a new studio space. Construction is starting tomorrow, and I'm more excited than the Christmas Eve when you're five. I've spent lots of time this past week making final decisions on cabinets, lighting, work surfaces, etc., so consequently I haven't posted in a few days. (I've also spent time drooling over the Hughes easels website--I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there's enough $$ at the end of construction for one of those...)

I'll keep you posted on the studio progress, and if anyone out there has suggestions for creating a great space I'd love to hear them!