Brush in Hand, Paint in Hair

2008-05-13T06:45:00.000-07:00

His fur is finally done, phew! I finished it yesterday. I also did his undershirt, since it will need to be done before I add any clay details.
Today I will be working with the clay for his clothes and accessories. This will be the fun part!

2008-05-13T06:03:00.000-07:00

The weather hasn't been cooperating. It's been very chilly on the porch, too cold for painting. Finally it occurred to me to bring a little heater out! Viola!
So here he is after some more work on the fur. The fur is going to be the longest part to paint I think. The rest is much more simple. He looks a lot darker than he will be. He's going to be a red squirrel.
I was worried his tail would be too plain, it's a huge part of him and so far I hadn't come up with any design elements to add to it. So even though squirrels' tails don't really look like this, I love the pinwheel design.

2008-05-13T05:46:00.000-07:00

Here he is after the first 2 days of painting. Not much to really look at yet. I'm just trying to get some of the texture for the fur into the base coat.

2008-05-13T05:41:00.000-07:00

This is the sketch I submitted. The actual squirrel will look a bit different. After going over ideas from the sponsor and program director we came up with some pretty neat ideas for this project. I'll be adding a lot of details from Jimmy Buffet's songs.

Gettin' a Little Squirelly

2008-04-27T05:56:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited. Today I will start painting a squirrel. A giant fiberglass squirrel. So I will be posting work in progress photos of him. This is what the squirrels look like unpainted.

The city of Olean, NY is host to these cuties. The project is called Woodland in the City. You can see completed squirrels on their website. Aren't they neat?

Area sponsors signed up to "adopt a squirrel", local artists signed up to paint them. The project coordinator had the task of matching us all up, that had to be interesting.

My sponsor is the Prizel family of Prizel's Pharmacy. They chose a Jimmy Buffett theme. I couldn't of asked for a more fun idea. I sent out some sketches, and then we brainstormed for ideas. I've got to say the Prizel's are a very creative bunch with a great sense of humor. I don't want to give away any of the surprises, so just think "Jimmy Buffett", hum a few lines, and see if our squirrel delivers.

Little Jimmy arrived yesterday, he's a biggun'. He's now camping on my front porch where I will be working on him. When my family got home, they burst out laughing. All they have heard for weeks is my out of tune singing of, "I'm gettin' a squiiIIRRrrel, I'm gettin' a squiiIIRRrrel !". (Too bad you can't see the dance involved, It so completes the theme)

Ok, I'm done with my coffee and raring to go paint.

What a week!

2007-11-09T09:18:00.000-08:00

It has been such a busy week. I have been researching online marketing. So, I decided to buckle down and dedicate this entire week to promoting my art online. If anyone has ideas or tips to share with me on this topic please feel free, all comments are welcome.

Here's what I have so far...
I set up a store on Etsy
Then I created this Blog.
I set up a Myspace account.
Next I signed up for two more art sites. I have to wait for approval from them before I can post a link to my profile. The suspense is killing me! One of the sites allows the artist to have a website through them. So I will be working on this too.
Etsy is geared more towards crafts, so I will sell my crafts and smaller prints on there. One site is a very high end art site, I will sell original paintings on there. The third site does prints.
Then I will need to link all of these together and order some business cards etc. Once everything is set up and organized, my plan is to be able to check in and post updates to each of these sites quickly, and then get on with my day. Since everything is linked to my email I will find a little sound bite, (turn my speakers up loud) to notify me when I have new mail.
Finally after all of this is accomplished I can get back to painting! Phew!

Busy Little Elves

2007-11-05T13:08:00.000-08:00

Here's what I'm working on today, busy little elves. I finally bought some polymer clay to play with. Fun, fun! I haven't worked in clay since college. The clay is white, so it may be hard to see all of the details.
I accidentally broke the shorter one. He was holding a paintbrush. I wonder if that's fixable? They are baked and ready, next I have to paint them.

Day 1, Bit of Blog Stage Fright

2007-11-03T09:22:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog.
I am an artist. I love my job! My weak point is marketing. One of my goals for this year is to market my art online a little more than I have in the past. It does not come naturally for me. Quite honestly the entire concept of sales seems so alien. I would prefer to stay in my little studio space listening to my favorite tunes and paint all day! Which would be fine, but I would never be able to have my art be my career.
After much web surfing to research the topic, I have chosen a few marketing strategies that I think I would enjoy. A blog definitely sounded like a fun marketing tool.
In this blog I will post ideas, current works in progress, maybe try my hand at writing some how-to articles, share useful information I have found etc. I would really like to be able to network with other people with similar interests.