Here is a photo of some Moo MiniCards that I ordered recently. I have never purchased anything from them before, but I have seen examples (Roz wrote a nice review). I wanted something to hand out with my web address and artwork on it, and I thought these were more fun than full size business cards. I am really happy with how they came out. They show the crisp details of my work and the printing is high quality. The only problem that arose was when I chose a crop using the edge of the image. In this case, there was a small white border on that side, so I will be sure to avoid this situation next time. Their website is very easy to use, but it doesn’t have an option to save your work midway through. I would advise selecting your images beforehand if you are uploading a lot of images. All said, I am happy with my cards and I’m thinking about getting my Christmas cards printed by them next year.
On another note, I also recently updated my Portfolio page. I think it looks a lot more professional that what I had before. I would have liked to incorporate a slide show feature, but I couldn’t get it display to my liking. For 2011, expanding my portfolio will be a major goal, so stay tuned.
Today is the last day of my month long projects of Art Every Day Month and NaNoDrawMo. I am happy to report that I have completed fifty drawings/paintings and have made artwork on the vast majority of days this month. I almost didn’t finish because I have caught my mother’s cold and was sick in bed yesterday and most of today. But I managed to make ten small ink drawings today to finish it off.
I am so thankful for all the kind and encouraging comments I’ve gotten throughout the month. It has been so incredibly successful for me that I am a little sad to see it end. I hope that my momentum will allow me to have a successful December and start of 2011.
My plans for December are to slow down with my posting (probably twice a week) but to maintain my same productivity. This will allow me to work on a few projects that I want to keep secret until after Christmas and also to build up a reserve of work for future posting. Michael Nobbs wrote an interesting post on this recently where he outlined his “catch-up” goals and how he plans to accomplish them. I’m not sure if I have the discipline to make this work, because I find that I make more when I put pressure on myself to post often. So this is a bit of an experiment for me as well.
I’ve been spending a lot of time in this room lately and I’ve gotten it cleaned out enough to show you all a picture. Like I said earlier, the purple walls aren’t my favorite, but I really didn’t feel like painting them right now. And I am so excited to have my own space at all that I’m not very picky.
I’ve never had my own room to do my artwork. I’ve always had to use some other part of the house, usually my bedroom and most recently, a large part of the dining room that I commandeered. I had a large table to work on, but it became cumbersome. For example, when we wanted to have Easter dinner at the table, I had to clear everything out. Also, I didn’t have a good place to store my materials and I was always trekking to other parts of the house to look for something. Now I have everything I need in one place, except for a sink. I also like the idea that I can close the door and be alone when I want.
…or at least it’s supposed to be a good time. July has been my worst month to date in terms of productivity. Everything, from my own sketchbooks to my posting frequency, has gone downhill, probably because I am very preoccupied with other matters. Whenever I start drawing something I seem to get distracted. I find this odd because I am not the type to have ADD or problems like that. I am expecting things to clear up again within the next one to two months, as I begin to rearrange my life somewhat. Until I can really spend a lot of time on single pieces, I’m going to just concentrate on making little sketches.
Another project that I’ve had going on lately is my organizational project. I have spent a lot of time organizing my flickr page and I still have more to do with that, but I have also started to organize my actual stuff. Yesterday I spent three hours organizing through boxes of stuff I have stored. I found a lot to get rid of and also a lot of books and such to donate. Looking through my old stuff has generated some ideas, which I will post later on this week.
The pictures which do not represent an intense interest cannot expect to create an intense interest. -Robert Henri in The Art Spirit
These are some tulips that I painted recently from a photo I took back in March. I haven’t painted flowers in ages and I sort of missed it. Plus it has been so hot these days that I haven’t even been going outside to sketch.
Organizing has been a big theme of mine this year. I felt like my blog was in need of a face lift so I changed things up a bit around here and redid my theme. I like how it turned out and I have a lot more flexibility now, without being too cluttered. I created a couple of different headers that change when you refresh the page. I also reorganized my categories and created subcategories. I put all of my colored pencil drawings under Painting because that is a more accurate description than drawing. I also created a new category for Mixed Media because I do a lot of pen and watercolor and pen and colored pencil pieces and I wanted a place just for them. One thing that I’m proud of is that I finally figured out how to create my own favicon (it’s a pear).
This weekend I’m planning on doing more organizing of my art area. It is really starting to get out of hand again (unfortunately). I saw this post recently at Art Biz Blog entitled Stop Handling Your Art Like It’s Homeless. It really inspired me to organize my artwork and art supplies in a better way. The video is pretty interesting as well.
This is the second part to this post, where I write about two separate one day (10 am – 4 pm) workshops I recently took.
This workshop was on the subject of Matting and Framing. I learned a lot of valuable info, even though I would have liked some things about the class to be a little different. The subject of displaying my artwork really intimidates me in general. I want to protect and display my work, but the expense of having it professionally done frightens me. Also, I never had the technical expertise to do it myself. After taking this class, I feel a lot more confident on this point.
The instructor, who was the same for my photography workshop, was really knowledgeable and he did a good job explaining the basics. I was surprised at how much I already knew about the materials just from my own prior experience and reading. The first part of the class focused on cutting the mat. When it came down to this part, however, I had a really hard time. I am just not strong enough to physically do it properly. And just like my colored pencil work, my elbow was killing me the next day. I actually do have a nice mat cutter that someone gave me, but I am afraid that I am not going to be the one to use it for now. My boyfriend kindly offered to learn to cut mats on my behalf though. Isn’t he sweet?
The second part of the class focused on constructing wooden frames. I could actually see myself doing this part myself, assuming that I had the proper setup. I grew up working around woodworkers and power tools, so nothing the instructor explained really seemed that far of a stretch for me. I actually do like metal frames though, so I might just go with those too.
One thing I really liked about the workshop was when the instructor took us through the faculty show that was on display and showed us lots of framing do’s and don’ts. He hung the show himself so he had some inside info on how the pieces were framed. I was really surprised that there were pieces that had hair and dust behind the glass. There were also other pieces that were framed with no mat and other various hodgepodge arrangements, like using blue painter’s tape to hinge the artwork, etc. He also showed us some examples of good framing, and how to tell the difference.
In all, I was happy I took the workshop, although there were some things that I would have done differently. It was a really long day and it would have been more beneficial to me if it were held on two separate days. The part of the class that I was most interested in was cutting the mats and this was also the part that was rushed the most. If it were spaced out more so I got to spend more time working with the instructor, I think it would have been even better. All in all though, I think it was a great class and very informative.
A note on the image: This was a 40 minute graphite sketch I made of one of my grandmother’s drinking glasses. If I wanted, I could have spent hours drawing all the details in this glass.
I have a lot going on in my life right now, but I am pleased that I had a chance to take some art classes this year. I’ve already told you about the acrylic painting class that I’m taking, but I also signed up for a couple of Saturday workshops. Last week I took a workshop on photographing artwork. I wanted to learn to take my own photographs because it can get very expensive to hire someone to take the photos and I don’t want any bad photos of my artwork showing up online or elsewhere. I often see artists blogs where the images are so bad (crooked, glare, blurry, etc) that I am a little embarrassed for them. The class was a great experience, and the instructor was really mellow and easily approachable. Here is some of what I learned:
Photography Basics.
I have taken some photography classes in the past, as well as a physics course that dealt with photography almost exclusively, but it has been years since I’ve thought of F stop or shutter speed. This was more of a refresher for me, but the concepts really “clicked” in my brain. This part of the class actually helped boost my confidence because none of it was confusing to me.
How to use my camera.
I don’t have the nicest camera, but it has served me well thus far for taking reference photos and snapshots. My camera does have manual settings, but I never knew how to use them, or even tried. I learned how to manually adjust the white balance, which makes such a huge difference. I also learned how to use the timer, which was something that I could never figure out on my camera. I was surprised how the instructor seemed so familiar where things would be even after the first time picking up my camera.
Equipment and Setup.
The instructor did a great job of breaking down what would be necessary for my basic needs, and what would be nice to have. I learned a lot about lights and bulbs, tripods, light meters, and what features to look for in my next camera purchase. In my current arrangement I don’t really have the space for a decent setup, but I took a lot of notes on how I would actually go about photographing my artwork in the future. For now I like using a scanner for the small pieces that I’ve been doing, but I would like to start working bigger and this info will definitely come in handy.
A note on the image: This small watercolor (5 x 7) is another iteration of my previous painting of the Deerfield River as seen in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. I made on a blank greeting card so someone I know will be getting it in the mail.
I barely turned on my computer all week, and I haven’t been doing much drawing because of the art classes that I’ve been taking. I know that I am making an investment in myself though, and already I feel that my knowledge has increased. Plus, I have been spending some time on the water, which has its own appeal. Once these classes finish up though, I have a lot of ideas for new things that I will try. I am also working on a review of last week’s workshop on photographing art, where I will explain some things that I learned. Stay tuned.
I put off posting earlier this week, not because I had nothing to say, but because I had so much other stuff going on. On Friday I had my first acrylic painting class (which I will write a separate post on). I have also been doing lots of other painting and drawing. Partly because I had a backlog of projects that I had to finish, and partly because I just felt inspired to work. I was looking through my calendar the other day, and I realized that we are almost at the halfway mark in the year. I didn’t have any hard and fast goals this year, but I did have a lot in the back of my mind that I wanted to do, and still want to do. I came across this post from Jeanette Jobson that really made me realize how much time I waste on a daily basis. Instead of making me feel bad though, I felt very inspired to pick up the pace.
Yesterday I undertook a project of massive proportions: I organized all my art stuff. It was one of my 2010 art goals, but I probably wouldn’t have done it so soon if we didn’t need the dining room table for Easter dinner. I spent over eight hours in total. First I sorted and found things to get rid of or give away. Then I used the extra space to find permanent homes for everything. I sorted all my supplies into multiple shoe boxes organized by medium. I was truly shocked at the number of pens I have – enough for a shoe box all their own.
I also made a small box of supplies to bring to my boyfriend’s house so that I would already have everything on hand without having to cart stuff along every time. This is what I included: a small sketchbook (about 7.5 x 6 inches); a ballpoint pen; kneaded eraser in a ziplock bag (so little pieces of lint don’t get stuck in it); a handheld pencil sharpener, graphite pencils (HB, B, 2B, 4B, ebony); Prismacolor colored pencils (black, sienna brown, crimson red, grass green, apple green, violet blue, and canary yellow); stabilo markers and fineliners; and sanguine, sepia and black Pitt pens. I might change up the pencil selection later.
After all this work yesterday, I feel like I have a clean slate in front of me. I spent today sketching various things (like Katie) and planning upcoming projects. Now that I really put things in order I am going to try my hardest to keep maintaining it. I am naturally prone to clutter, so it might be hard for me.
On a sadder note, I am sorry to hear about Danny Gregory’s wife Patti who died tragically last week. He put up a lovely tribute to her on his blog. Even though I loved art since I was a child, it was Danny’s online group Everyday Matters that originally got me into the daily sketching habit back in 2004. I know that a lot of other artists out there have a similar story, as many people have launched successful art careers since joining. I am keeping Danny and Jack in my prayers.
Here is a photo of some Moo MiniCards that I ordered recently. I have never purchased anything from them before, but I have seen examples (Roz wrote a nice review). I wanted something to hand out with my web address and artwork on it, and I thought these were more fun than full size business cards. I am really happy with how they came out. They show the crisp details of my work and the printing is high quality. The only problem that arose was when I chose a crop using the edge of the image. In this case, there was a small white border on that side, so I will be sure to avoid this situation next time. Their website is very easy to use, but it doesn’t have an option to save your work midway through. I would advise selecting your images beforehand if you are uploading a lot of images. All said, I am happy with my cards and I’m thinking about getting my Christmas cards printed by them next year.
