New Art during the Art Crawl

Last weekend I took the chance to paint while I did my time at our 60th Art Crawl for downtown Waukesha. I took down several paintings that I was showing and taped up a piece of paper to create some new art. Pastel dust flew, and viola, three hours later this is what we got.

Original Acrylic Artwork- Sea Churn

This painting was inspired by my trip to Hawaii last year. I took several photos from the ship as we skimmed along the ocean. The foam along with the aquamarine color of the ocean was awesome. So I took a fragment of the water and created this painting.

16x20- Acrylic.

Portraiture Art- Adrianne Drawing

This is the beginning stage of my new portrait painting of my daughter, Adrianne. Many hours are spent drawing and refining the head. The painting part is fairly straight forward if the drawing is accurate. Drawing is done in charcoal in preparation for the oil work to follow.

Portraiture and other artwork

I've been working on a new portrait of my daughter. This is the biggest portrait painting I've tackled to date; 40x30 in oil. I've also been contacted by a local animal cruelty prevention group asking me to donate time for a pet portraiture during an upcoming event. Sounds like fun and I said yes. Even offered to paint the portrait on site during the event. Also have a chance to put some artwork up in the local public TV Channel 10/36 auction. They have a separate fine artwork area where locals can actually view paintings, portraits, etc. Hope to hear more on this event soon.

Just finished a new abstract acrylic, with hopes of doing two more before the next Art Crawl, March 3rd.

Opportunity

Yesterday presented two new opportunities for me and my artwork. I met with the pastor of a large local church. He apparently had received a grant or donation of $3k to have some original art produced for the church. The project looks interesting and can offer a chance at some PR for me. The space is about 10x7 and will get plenty of eyeballs as you have to go past this wall to enter the worship area. Praise be to God.

I also had someone contact me regarding support for a local animal cruelty prevention gathering. I love animals and have done a couple pet/animal portraits, so this could be another great opportunity to get in front of other pet lovers for possible future commission work. Stay tuned on both these new projects.

Slow start

I just finished my first piece of 2010; abstract acrylic. I'll get the photo up shortly. I've got a portrait of my daughter on the easel, where it's been on and off for two weeks. It's a bit intimidating...the biggest canvas I've ever worked on...and a 3/4 figure with hands, which is always a bit tougher. I have to get over the thought if I screw it up it's a bust. Fact is I can just gesso it and start over.

Hope to get some paint down soon.

New Year. New Art Goals

So here we go again. Last year turned out to be a good year for me and my artwork. I was the highest gross sales exhibiting artist at the gallery I'm in. That was for original work off the wall sold. Another guy who sells portraits exclusively by commission, I know did better.

That's one of my goals this year: do more commissioned portraits. Kids and pets have to be the ticket. So I'm starting a big piece of my daughter and will be hitting some vet clinics to see if I can hang examples. Another friend of mine sells organic pet foods at the big chains and said he'd hand out flyers. So I've got to get some marketing going or it's going to be another pipe dream.

Have to finish my eBook on teaching kids via after-school program I've been running. That could really be a good revenue stream...but again, I'll never know unless I get it done and put in online for sale.

Sold more artwork last year than any other year in my life. Would like to increase that amount by 500%....which would put me in the 10k range. Surely not enough to live on, but helps supplement my other habits; like fishing and boating.