One Artist's Journey

Michel Nolan and I having a chat at the Loose Caboose in Crestline

I just got back from an interview with Michel Nolan, an old friend and a reporter at the Sun newspaper. They are going to do a story about this 100 paintings in 100 days challenge! I am stoked. The article will come out on Friday, January 1st – New Years Day. The day after the challenge is over.

Taking a picture for the newspaper article

I have about 25 paintings to do in the next 3 days. That is 8 a day!!! I have to make it. I am interested to see what happens. Will my creativity run out or will it get pushed to the edge because of the time limit? Will I discover a new side of me as the deadline gets closer? Will I produce junk or great art? I don’t know. Let’s see…

This is very cool. A friend turned me on to Animoto, a video creation and sharing service. It is very cool! this is the first thing I did. You can do a 30-second video for free on their site. You need to pay to be able to do longer videos. Anyway, I used my paintings in the video. They turned out great. Check it out.

Would you like to win one of the paintings I do during the “100 paintings in 100 Days” challenge? Well, you can. All you need to do is tweet me the title and link of your favorite painting I have painted during the 100 day challenge and you may win that painting on New Years Day.

How to win an original painting in seven easy steps!

1) Visit http://oneartistsjourney.com/ or http://shaunellsworth.com/ (Make sure you look at the “100 paintings in 100 days” gallery on shaunellsworth.com) and pick your favorite paintings
2) Then go to http://oneartistsjourney.com/
3) Click on the “Twitter” link in the top right corner of the home page.
4) It will take you to Twitter.com. If you have an account, great. If you don’t, set one up. It is free.
5) You should land on my Twitter page for “shaunartist.” If you don’t, go to http://twitter.com/shaunartist
6) In the top left, just under my picture, is a “follow” button. Click on it.
7) Next, hit “home” and make a post under “What are you doing?” Tell us which of my paintings you like. Include a link to the page with the photo of the painting you like. Get the link by clicking on your favorite painting and then copying the address in the browser window.

It should look something like this:

I like Shaun Ellsworth’s painting “Fields.” You can see it at http://oneartistsjourney.com/2009/10/one-month-is-past/

(Remember, you have 140 characters to get your message across, so you may need to adjust what you say. Twitter will probably shorten the link part for you.)

And now you are entered to win your favorite painting! Once you “follow” me, I will “follow” you and all your tweets of all your favorite paintings will be entered in the drawing.

You can enter as many times as you want, but only one per painting title per day.

Answers to all your questions

What are you doing?
I am painting 100 paintings in 100 days. This challenge will end on New Years Eve, 2009. I would love to give away a painting to a fan to celebrate the end of the challenge.  If you are reading this, I hope you are a fan – and I hope you win a painting.

The winner of the contest will win an original painting, ready to be framed. This isn’t a print or reproduction of any kind. The winner will get the real deal. And it will be ready for you to pick out your favorite frame at Aaron Bros. or Michael’s.

Is there a Catch?
Of course there is a catch! I want to start some online buzz by having people tweet about my art. That is where you come in. You tweet about my art and tell the world about your favorite painting and that tweet counts as one entry in the contest.

But that is the ONLY catch, I am even going to pay for shipping inside the US. If you are out of the US, you will need to pay the difference between what it will cost to ship domestic and international.

What are the Rules?
In order for the contest to be valid, at least 100 people must “follow” me and post at least one “favorite painting” tweet. You can find out how many people are following me by going to my Twitter page at: http://twitter.com/shaunartist

It would benefit you to tell your friends about this contest so we make sure and reach the 100 followers number. I purposefully set the number low so I can give away a painting.

Your tweet must follow the format. “1) I like/love/adore/dream of owning, etc. 2) Shaun Ellsworth’s painting, (Painting Title). 3) Link (url) of page with the picture on it. The link should be from either from http://oneartistsjourney.com or http://shaunellsworth.com . You can just copy the link from the address bar in your browser when you are on the page of your favorite painting.

Check the websites often because I will be posting new paintings weekly. You might change your mind and want a newer painting. Tweet about the newer painting and it will become another entry for you. Then if you change your mind and an old tweet of yours wins, you can still get the latest favorite painting that you tweeted about – if it is available.

I say “If it is available” because I am constantly entering these paintings in exhibitions, trying to sell them. So if one that you want sells before the end of the contest, I am sorry, but you will need to pick another painting.

EXCITING REFERRAL BONUS
If you tell a person about this contest and that person wins, you can also win a painting. So if you have a blog and talk about this contest and someone who reads your blog wins, you can also win a painting. Because I have no way to track this, the only thing I can do is ask the winner how they heard about the contest. We will have to go by what they say to award the second painting. The REFERRER must also have entered the contest to be eligible to win the second painting.

IMPORTANT
Remember, this is a contest. ONE person WILL win. YOU might not win. If you really love a painting, don’t wait to win it. Please buy it. And then if you win, you can win another painting and have a set. Good idea, huh?

Questions
If you have any questions, please contact me by leaving a comment under this post. That way, when I answer your question, it will become part of my “Frequently Asked Questions” and perhaps will help someone else. I will also email you a personal answer if you leave your email address.

Small Print
As always, contest rules subject to change at any time.

I have 43 paintings done and 60 days left in the challenge. I really need to make an effort to paint at least one painting a day until New Years Eve. Gotta, gotta, gotta.

Submitted five paintings to the Riverside Art Alliances fund raiser, “Off The Wall.” they say they make 50,000 for the museum each year. That is impressive. So I submitted five of my earlier works, By earlier, I mean last month. I put in 3 “Dwellings” pieces and 2 “Abstracts.”

the are cheap too. If you liked those, you should probably go down and check them out. They are framed and going for $200. Half of that goes to the museum. One of the dwellings is going for $100. That is the deal. If you submit more than three paintings, one of them has to be for $100.

The “Artists Reception” is next week. That will be fun to go to.

Spent the morning getting all my new paintings posted to my fine art blog. Can I just share the steps it takes to get a photo online?

1) Create the art

2) Take a picture of it

3) Download the photo from the camera to my wife’s computer. there are invariably family pictures on the camera and she is keeping track of them on her machine.

4) Choose the best photos (straightest, best color, etc.) and put them on a thumb drive.

5) Transfer the photos to my computer.

6) Open the photos in Photoshop, crop the photo and make sure it is straight. Then optimize the color and contrast and change the size and export for the web.

7) Make sure the images go into the right folder. Drag the optimized photos into iPhoto

8)Drag the photos from iPhoto into iWEb where I have created my galleries for http:/www.shaunellsworth.com.

9) Import the photos into Wordpress (where I have my blog at http://www.oneartistsjourney.com) and then import the image into a blog post.

10) Double check everything. Make sure I didn’t forget or leave one out. Whew… done.

Now I am done. Time for lunch and then down to the studio for some “fun and natural” painting before the boys get home. And no, I don’t paint in the nude.

Abstract #9 - 12” x 12” Acrylic on Masonite - $200

I have been trying to so some fine art photography of my images so I can post them online. Posting them on the blog is not a big deal because the fine art images don’t have to be that big. However, I found a site called Imagekind, where they will do fine art prints from my photographs. As we say in the graphic design industry, “Garbage in, garbage out.” If I send them trashy images, people will get trashy prints.

So, today I went outside on the back deck, set up a sheet as a reflector so I could get more light and took high resolution photographs of my paintings and drawings.

Sorrow - 9” x 9” Acrylic on the rough side of Masonite - $200

Later, when I tried to color correct the images in Photoshop, I got close, but it still wasn’t perfect. Then I learned that my camera has a custom white balance feature. What that means is I can tell my camera what “white” is. I take a sheet of white paper out where I am shooting the images. I tell the camera that the paper is white and it resets itself so the colors should be more true to real life, based on the lighting conditions at that time.

It shouldn’t matter if it is morning, afternoon, or there is a yellow tinge because there is smoke in the air, whatever. I am going to res shoot everything tomorrow and see if I can get closer so i don’t have to do a bunch of corrective work in the computer.

I joined the Internet Art Database today in an effort to get a little more exposure. They gave me a button to put up on my site, so here it is:

Cool, huh?

My new web site. Check it out!

Today I put together a long-term web site where I can post my galleries. A blog is a blog and a web site is a web site. Blogs have increasingly been used as web sites. I think they will do in a pinch, but I like having a web site.

Anyway, I used iWeb, Macintosh’s (Go Mac!) web site builder. I can build a site from scratch, but using Mac’s templates is so brain dead simple, I couldn’t help myself.

I think it turned out well. You can see it at www.ShaunEllsworth.com. I know, who gets their name as a domain name, right? Well, I figured as a professional artist, I am my brand, so why not.