eBay University
Holy mackerel!!! I am completely swimming with information from today's seminars. Yesterday I didn't feel as if I learned very much, but I was enjoying myself and passing out business cards and enjoying the speakers and had some laffs. I wasn't thrilled, but wasn't disappointed, either.
Today was a different story altogether. This gal, Janelle Elms, was the speaker in my first class this morning and I realized that I had made a connection with someone who was going to teach me a tremendous amount about online marketing. My friend, Joanne, and I attended all 3 of the classes today that Janelle held and by the end of the day, I was less cocky and impressed with myself.
Before that, I felt like an old hand and most of the peeps that I spoke with were brand new to the eBay game and I felt as though I had learned a lot in the past 1 1/2 years with my eBay store. bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahhahaha. I have been missing out on some supremely important marketing tools, simply because I never took the time to investigate all those buttons and links on eBay because I was so busy commiserating with my fellow artists about our artwork and sluggish sales.
Duh. Obviously, they hadn't gone to eBay University, hadn't hear Janelle speak, or learned enough about marketing to make much difference. My sales may or may not boom rapidly as I begin to install some of these new found techniques, but I'm going to have a good time exploring my options and looking at some new products at the same time. I'm currently hooking up with some Powersellers on eBay and people who take their businesses very seriously and utilize all marketing avenues to pursue their financial goals. Those types of hook-ups are what I have been needing and now I can take what I have learned and am learning and help other artists in turn.
Not a bad deal at all.............
Halloween
This is the first image that I have created for my newest eBay artist group, Art Squared. This mixed media painting is 5" x 5" in size. An odd size, to be sure, but it's odd art....so...
Doodles 108
These mixed media ACEOs are also collages. I have affixed strips of my personal journal pages as part of the decorative border. I was using colored gel inks on black journal pages for a while, and when I shredded these journals it created some of the most marvelous packing paper and scrapbooking pieces that I have ever seen. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to incorporate these gorgeous little strips into some of my collage artwork!
Pink Floyd
Few music groups have created such profound music as this group that I first encountered back in the early 70's while being a hippie in Boulder, Colorado. I have been one of their biggest fans for many years, and while I don't know their songs by heart, I can recognize them when I am scanning up and down the radio band while I am driving. I always stop and listen....every single time.
I even own several of their CD's and play them often. This week, I have been playing Dark Side of the Moon over and over, since one of the collages/paintings that I am working on is named Brain Damage. From that album. If my history is correct, this song was written about one of Floyd's earlier band members who flipped out back in the 70's??? I don't have all of the exact history, and I could search and get that info, but I have too much artwork to do....not to mention marketing.
When I play my CD's and have the time, I like to read the words to the songs. The stories are fascinating to me. The music is otherworldly, and although it doesn't conjur up old drug-hazed memories for me (thank god), I enjoy their music on many levels. It can be disturbing and thought-provoking and still make you feel as if you are floating above the Urth. This is a good place to be in my humble opinion.
Doodles 104 & 105
Continuing along with the ACEO (art card) series and the Halloween theme. Actually, both of these images were created to align with other themes from a couple art groups in which I am a member. Puppets is one theme and Tarot is another. I knew that I could use both of these in a 'dark arts' genre and even use the word 'goth' in the titles of them on my eBay listings.
I was in the Twilight Zone when I created these two pieces and time simply flew by. I would look at the clock and hours would have passed. As I continue doing the more detailed drawings, I'm certain that the time factor will change and I will be able to finish them much faster. It doesn't look like much work when you look at it, but the detailing does require some time. The very experienced illustrators could probably bang these out in no time at all....and that's my goal.
Cross
This mixed media piece came out of nowhere this weekend. I had started in a completely different direction using a black, red and gold palette which I didn't like. Nothing about the piece was working for me a couple weeks back, so I put it aside. I have a small stack of those 'set asides' now..............
Experimental artwork is some of my 'favoritist' artwork and when one of them goes into the experimental phase, it usually runs the whole gamut of: 1) What can I try next? 2) Oh boy, that sucks 3) OMG, this is a complete and hopeless disaster and 4) Well, I can always cut or tear it up and use it on another collage in the future.
What happens on the 5th step, I don't really know because it will suddenly come together for me and it's like magic. Things are flowing and wonderful and I somehow fix the things that were completely screwed up and the piece becomes something that I am proud of. This one involved collaging, painting, scratching, removing, replacing, etc etc.
It's too bad that I don't have a series of photos to post in here to show you the various stages this piece went thru, because unless you are an experimental artist you probably wouldn't believe it.
Triptych
I was photographing another artwork this morning and decided to play around with some of my Florida canvas pieces. I put these 3 gallery wrapped 11 x 14" canvases together to see what they would look like. Not bad.
Up until now, I have had them stored vertically along with my other paintings and never bothered to look at how they might look hanging up together!
Florida 13
Another before and after of an earlier painting that I did in my Florida series. This is actually the third version of it, but I didn't save the first one to show here.
When I first began the redo on this one, I was going in a whole new direction with it....didn't like what was happening, and reversed my course of action. 95% of the texture in this painting doesn't show up in the photograph. So the viewer gets a lovely surprise when they see it up close.
Doodles 102
I recently joined an eBay artist group called Tarot ACEO and this was the first card we were asked to create as part of the Tarot series. Since I know NOTHING about Tarot, I didn't realize that The Fool had something to do with a cliff. Oh well.
I had my Tarot cards read once back in the 70's, and all that I can remember from that experience is that I thought the cards were cool looking. Being in this group of Tarot people and trying to read the discussions that they have is a bit like listening to people speak Latin. I don't understand that, either. But I still do like the Tarot cards!
Croc
This cute little fellow will be on his way to Alabama in the next day or two to join the hundreds of other ACEOs that are being created to commemorate Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter. Alabama Dave, an eBay artist of considerable talent, is organizing this fund raising event to donate money to one of Steve's favorite charities in Australia.
At this point we don't know how many ACEOs will be included in this auction, but it could be over 100. I had originally intended to make one of my famous tree frogs and have him wearing khaki shorts. I even checked with Ask.com to make sure they even had tree frogs in Australia...they do.
When it came time to begin the painting, I found myself with a Reptiles and Amphibians reference book in my hand. None of the frogs worked for me, but I found a delightful shot of Mr. Croc. Yes, I took a few liberties with the colors and his skin and even made the teeth look more friendly. But that is an artist's right and I like to utilize it to its full potential.
Once this auction is in place and listed on eBay, I will be posting the link here in the blog. I will also be sending out newsletters to my customers and will most likely make a vlog entry about the auction as well. This is going to be the biggest charity auction of ACEOs in history to date. Very, very exciting!
Back to Big
I get myself into ACEO mode, which means painting and drawing very small...2.5" x 3.5" and then I can't do the small anymore.
And out pops a biggie! Making large brush strokes and BOLD moves...yeah, that's it!It's nice to be able to pop back and forth as the mood strikes me.
My first Vlog !!!
Today I was successful in recording my very first video for my Youtube account. I have had this dream for nearly a year and finally accomplished what I set out to do last fall.
Things began to fall into place, finally, this summer when a friend of mine sent me an extra video camera that she had AND a youngster artist posted a link to her Vlog in one of my eBay artist groups. My son hooked up the camera for me and also downloaded the software that I would need to record videos.
It took me an extra month from the time that I purchased a mic (to make the sound portion of my videos)before I could even confront looking at the back of my computer to figure out how to hook up the mic. Once I did that, I could see that the mic plug was color-coded to match the proper plug in the back of my computer. I felt like an idiot then because I could have figured that out long before.
My son had already set me up a Youtube account and he said it would be easy for me to make a recording and download it into my Youtube account. Yeah, right. It was good that I had decided to make this video without showing my face, because then I would have had the whole brouhaha with the make-up to deal with. Getting the lighting set up properly to show the artwork was difficult enough!
I only had to change my clothes 3 times. It wasn't that I was showing much of the clothing, but when it did flash on the screen while I moved my artwork around...the bright colors from my Magic Painting Shirt and my debcoart pink t-shirt were throwing off the camera adjustments enough that the artwork wasn't being portrayed properly.
The air in my studio was blue this afternoon during the recording process. I had difficulties with the sound portion, I made many flubs in the patter that I wanted to use, and finally on the 33rd take I made a video that was worth showing to the public. I had used every swear word that I had ever heard in my entire lifetime during the recording process of this video.
And then it was time to download this video into Youtube. OMG... Fortunately, the creators of Youtube have made it exceptionally easy for us technical retards and wieners, and this task was accomplished more easily than any other part of the process. Within an hour of having this video in place, I had already had over 40 viewers!
Many of the other Youtubers have accounts that hit 20,000 & 30,000 views within a day of being published, and perhaps one day I will make it that big, too. For now, however, I am happy to have people looking at my video. I suppose if I mentioned Justin Timberlake in the title of my video, I would get a much greater amount of traffic, but I know nothing about the man...I think he had sex with Britney Spears years ago when she was still telling the world that she was a virgin. But that's the extent of my knowledge.
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Doodles 124
6:30 am on a Sunday??
Black & White image
Florida 59
Viacom vs Google
Tour de Chaos
Pet Video Contest #10
Klimt revisited
A lot to be grateful for....
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