One Artist's Journey

Fontana Library

I submitted some more art to the Redlands Art Association. They are changing out the art for the Holiday show. I submitted ceramics this time so I took a lot longer than I expected.

After that, I ran over to Fontana to meet a patron and sell one of my paintings. We met at the brand new Fontana Library. (Well, it is brand new since I have been in town.) It is awesome. Tons of computers, and cool art everywhere. The whole facade is covered with a design that looks like a polynesian quilt. I don’t get the connection with Fontana, but it is beautiful.

My buyer is a good friend from High School. We haven’t seen each other for over 25 years! Thanks Facebook! We had a wonderful time talking about the library, work, art, travel and family. I had a great time. Thanks Janice!

Janice bought “Kimono #1″

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.

Pricing is HARD.

On the one hand you want to make as much money as you can, right? So you want to price your artwork high. I also want to brand myself as a serious artist and serious artists charge high prices for their art. You see a $300 price tag and think, “Oh, it is a hobbiest painter.” You see a $5,000 pricetag and you take that artist seriously, whether they are any good or not. If they aren’t good, you wonder what you are missing, right?

On the other hand, if you don’t price your work so your audience can buy it, then you won’t sell anything… and 0% of 0 is still 0.

I am new, my work is still fairly small and I want to sell what I am making. All signs point to lower price. So I brought myself to mark it at $297. I guess I could go to $247. But much lower than that, and it is kind of like, “What’s the point?” Except that I love to paint. hmmm….

This is the Redlands Art Association's Art Gallery on State Street in Redlands, California.

I joined the Redlands Art Association last week. They have a member show every 5 or 6 weeks. Today we submitted art to hang. It isn’t a juried show, so it doesn’t really go on the list, but my art is going to hang in public. Woohoo.

This is how it works at our gallery: We can submit two hanging pieces. They should both hang. We pay $5 for that and sign up to sit in the gallery for two 3 1/2 hour shifts. I will need to come earlier next time because most of the morning shifts were already taken.

I need to get some “table pieces” done for the next show. Those are glass and ceramic pieces, glazed tiles, gourd art, etc. You can submit 10 of those for the same price.

Kanji #4 - 12” x 12” Acrylic on Masonite - This is the painting that sold.

I am so excited!!!

Today I reached a milestone. I sold my first painting on ebay. I told you I posted 5 paintings online about a week ago. There was a free deal where I could post 5 things for free. So I did.

I posted 5 of the kanji series. This morning, I was reading my email and got the news from eBay that the auction was over. And I didn’t sell the painting – do I want to relist? I got 4 of those, but then the 5th one said “Your eBay item sold! Contemporary Abstract Asian Kanji Acrylic Painting” How cool is that!?

So what did I do? I went out and spent 3 times what I made in supplies! Go figure!

The Mission Inn in Riverside. Photo courtesy www.simplycreate.files.wordpress.com

PAINTINGS COMPLETED TODAY: 0
PAINTINGS COMPLETED TO DATE: 38

After a week off, I am back to work. I am excited to paint. But of course, I spent the morning online paying bills and looking for local art organizations.

I am on to step 2 of my master plan. I have built a small body of work over the past several weeks and now it is time to tell people about what I am doing. I plan to write press releases and join organizations for artists.

We have a local artists group, the “Mountain Artists Network” that I will probably join, mainly to support the local art scene. There are several artists that are listed on their site that I think it would be beneficial to get to know. Like minded artists anywhere are an asset.
http://www.mountainartsnetwork.org/

Then there is an art association in Redlands, a nice city down the hill from here. It is a classy city and is doing a good job to support the local artists. I visited the web site and they have a “hanging-day” for members every six weeks. You bring your art and can hang two pieces and then you work for 8 hours in exchange. Sounds like a fair deal. I will probably drop by tomorrow and sign up for that group and start exhibiting.
http://www.redlandsartassociation.org

Then I found the web site for the Riverside Art Alliance. http://www.riversideartalliance.org/index.htm

Riverside is the biggest town around here with any kind of art scene. They are working hard to develop the arts in this area and I would love to support that. I read something on the web site that I can’t find now, that said  major cities are judged by their support of the arts. I think they are doing good things, so I am excited about joining them too.

They are having an “Off the Wall” fundraiser. Artists can submit up to 5 pieces of art. Everything is priced below $300 and it is a 50/50 split with the association. They are raising money for the Riverside Museum. They have done it for 6 years, so I guess it is successful. The entries are at the end of this month and you don’t even need to be a member to participate!

Talk about good timing. I usually hear about great opportunities right after they happen and then I have to wait for a year for it to come around again. Not this time. I will let you know how it goes, but right now it looks like I may join 3 art associations. Talk about busy!!

Finally got around to setting up accounts on some online art galleries. I had to look around for some free ones – which I eventually found.

Oh, and I posted 5 paintings on Ebay last night too. They are cheap on ebay. If you are interested, I put the five Kanji paintings up for $47 each. See link below.

Here is a list of the online art galleries I am now a part of:

My Zatista online gallery: http://store.zatista.com/shaunellsworth

My d’Art online gallery: http://www.fine-art.com/shaun-artist

My “About Me” page on Ebay:
http://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=shaunartist

My Artbreak gallery (Be careful. Even with the adult filter ON, some gets by. Sorry): http://www.artbreak.com/shaunartist

I realize I have a problem if I want to be a professional artist. I don’t think I like selling my paintings (my babies). Painting/creating is such a personal matter that I think it is hard for me to sell my creations.

If that is the case, then I am going to have a difficult time being a professional artist. So, I need to come up with a mind game that helps me to be able to sell my paintings.

I could use the money – yes.
I like it when other people appreciate what I create – yes.
I want my paintings to have a good home – yes.
There is no way in the world I can display all my paintings myself – yes.
If my house burned down, all my art would go with it. If I sell it, I am spreading out the risk so that something would survive – yes. (Don’t laugh, I think the weirdest little concept is what will do it for me!)

If any of you reading this have an answer to my problem, please let me know in the comments on this page. I read all the comments you send, even if I don’t reply back.

Please don’t let this post discourage anyone from buying a piece of art from me. Perhaps you can be part of the cure.

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.