A Studio Detour

Chatham
9x12 Water Soluble Oils on Stretched Canvas
©BEDeuel Bronson Hill Arts 2014-15

Caught up in so many other "details" of everyday life & other such distractions, I have to force myself to go up the stairs & visit my own studio. 

Realizing that I still haven't done any new pieces (Grrrr!!!), I thought it'd be nice to bring you along on the visit.

When hubby & I designed the house layout, we had his 3 young girls staying with us regularly. We opted to make it a 4 bedroom house. And, in the process, we wound up having an enclosed loft area on the 2nd floor. After the girls moved on into adulthood, we also found that we have 2 oversized spare rooms upstairs.

Somehow, I've managed to fill almost 2/3rds of the entire upper floor with art materials & work areas. 

The loft holds a work table used for mat & paper cutting, an old artist table with a computer & paint supplies for glass painting. In between are rolling carts & Yaffe squares full of supplies & goodies.

The framed picture on the one rolling cart is a print hubby made for me for one Christmas that showcases our original logo design for Bronson Hill Arts! He is my best fan & supporter.

There are 2 large windows that look out over our backyard. This is the best spot for the drafting/painting table. Again, the table is surrounded by carts & tables. If I want to keep something on the tilted table, I attach some rubber feet to the bottom & that generally works. I've been using a small cosmetics holder for tubes of watercolor paints with the sticky feet keeping it nice and steady!

I've got several fluorescent lamps around the area which helps to give me better lighting at night for working & for quick photos.

My favorite part is the easel area, though. I have a large wooden easel on one side & a small metal easel. In between is an old desktop computer table that is great for storing oil paints, brushes, water buckets, & as a working area with its "keyboard" pull-out. 

The next room over is for storage & photographing paintings. After 4+ years of doing this, I'm still struggling with taking a good photograph of a painting. But, I think we're gaining on it! This set up seems to be working better than any other I've tried to date.

So, now that I've taken a solid look at all the fun to be had in these rooms, I have to force myself to enjoy it!

Hope you have a ton of fun, too, this week!

Finding an Effective Platform

Silhouette in Field
6x8" Acrylic on Canvas Panel
©BEDeuel Bronson Hill Arts 2010

As artists, the most difficult things are to get enough studio time in our everyday lives and finding a way to get our creations out to the rest of the world.

We can look at other artists' works and truly appreciate all the time, effort, and love that is applied to our artworks. We can realize the value of everything done by any other artist, and are grateful for the reciprocal realization.

But how do we find the audience beyond our (not-so-) little cloister that can also grasp the value of our passion? Especially an audience willing to compensate us for it.

Don't misunderstand me: I'd do this even if I never made a penny on it. I wouldn't trade the tranquility I experience in the studio for the proverbial million dollars. But, it would be nice to make a bit to supplement the income, or even enough to not have to work at the "day job". 

Cardinal
3.5x3.5" Water Soluble Paints on Canvas
©BEDeuel Bronson Hill Arts 2014

There are the Etsys, the Fine Arts Americas, the Zazzles. And a few hundred thousand other artisans on the sites. What I've noticed is that the truly successful shops & sites have the investment of scads of time in both the marketing and the production of items. 

That, unfortunately, is not a commodity that most of us are able to lavish. I learned this the frantic way around the holiday season.

It was so exciting to receive my first orders from the Etsy shop! And, to boot, it was for note cards that would help Another Chance Pet Rescue! Then a couple of more orders followed for large & multiple pieces. Wow!

Kitty Minions
5x7 Watercolor on 140# Canson Paper
©BEDeuel Bronson Hill Arts 2014

And, then reality hit hard: between full shifts at the "day job", I needed to print, assemble, and package the orders. And while I had done some prep work on the items, I just wasn't satisfied with the templates. So of course, I had to redo them. It took the full 3 days to get things done and shipped. And shipping packaging presented a challenge, too: do you have something to ship a flat 16x20" matted print right in your house or studio? I sure didn't! Never even crossed my mind. It's the little things that make you stumble at times. And stumbling can be exhausting.

Kayaks
Digital Photography
©Mike Deuel Bronson Hill Arts 2013

Throw all this together, job & art business, with the holiday season, and try not to feel very overwhelmed. 

Happy Holidays
Digital Drawing
©BEDeuel Bronson Hill Arts 2014

I decided at that moment that it was time to go with a POD (print-on-demand) site. I just couldn't keep pace, especially since sites like Etsy are very demanding in regards to timelines. I also realized once the payments hit the bank, the money didn't come close to covering the costs involved. Etsy is in business, too, and knows how to make a profit. Being a newbie, I was naive in how I set things up. POD seemed so much easier since you only need to upload your images, add your margin & their cut to the base price, and they would do all the heavy-lifting. Yea... no. Not only would the cost to the customer be exorbitant for an "unknown" artist, the process of uploading the images would require reshooting all artwork and trying to guess what sizes your work would be printed based on the large number of required pixels. 

What exactly is an 8x5.73" print? Who will want that? I cropped it to a 7x5". And I can print a 7x5". Back to the starting point!

The odd thing is that of the orders I received, only 1 was through Etsy directly. The rest were from connections on Facebook (which is a whole other issue of late!).

So, why am I on Etsy, then? Why am I paying fees to them for minimal exposure & for me to do all the work? Yes, the name of Etsy is a "be-all/end-all" of online markets, but, it's a huge pond with a few large fish and a whole lot of little fish. Pretty sure that I'm just plankton right now.

After a good amount of reading, and contemplation, & consultation with my marketing cohort, I've come up with a plan on how to do this. Will it work any better? I don't know. But, it should create some extra time & money so that I can get back into the studio. 

Which was the whole point of all of this anyway!

What are your experiences with sites like Etsy and PODs? I'd be interested to hear about it.

Covered Bridge
4x6" Water Soluble Pencil on 140# Strathmore Paper
©BEDeuel Bronson Hill Arts 2011

Halloween Greetings

Pumpkin Kitty (inspired by a Photo posted on ACPR FB Page)
Note Card Design for Another Chance Pet Rescue
Digital
©BEDeuel Bronson Hill Arts

All Souls' Eve. All Hallow's Eve. All Saints' Eve. Or Halloween. 

While I am frustrated by the retail rush of the various holidays (as are a lot of other people), I do love when Halloween is here. It is the start of the family-time of the year.

It always seems to make Halloween a little more spooky when it falls on a Friday, as it does this year. Maybe it's just a way to extend the fun for a few extra days.

The sky is gray and a bit murky today, hanging cobweb clouds over the valley. Most of the trees are reduced to skeletons made of branches, twigs and trunks acting as spines. The dropped leaves look like blankets keeping the shriveled brown-tinged grasses warm against the drizzle.

Perhaps it is not comfortable weather for the all the little goblins, princesses (even all those from "Frozen"), devil impersonators, & wily witches to be running about collecting their treats. But, with a couple extra days to count, sort & devour their prizes, the chills of the cold & fright of Friday night should start them dreaming about next Halloween!

For those of us not dressing up to scare our neighbors, there is always the joy of hot chocolate, football & pets wanting to share our fuzzy throws. And that sounds like a fantastic way to spend a late autumn weekend. Or a Halloween weekend in which to recover from running about with all our trick-or-treaters. 

So, here's to an enjoyable, even relaxing weekend! That certainly is how my Baby & Buddy are planning on spending the time. 

But, even more so, happy Halloween, everyone from all of us!

Baby & Buddy
Note Card Des5ign for Keller's Kats
5x7 Watercolor on 140# Paper
©2014 BEDeuel Bronson Hill Arts

Celebrating Discovery

It's a PuzzleAll Art Shown Done by
©BEDeuel Bronson Hill Arts 2014

In working to develop various marketing sites, there are 2 topics that have completely stumped me: my niche, audience, or market (whichever term you prefer) and defining my artistic style.

I can't even begin to find the first without knowing the second!

With such an emphasis on keywords, tags, phrases & SEO in online marketing, it's almost impossible to avoid the need for the singular description of something that is so intimately emotional.

For expediency, I'd used the term casual representative. This is one of the disadvantages of not having completed a formal art education. I knew that there had to be an universally accepted term for whatever my style has become.

After hours of reading art marketing articles, I was still stymied.

Then I struck the proverbial jackpot: Painterly. Breaking it down in order to visualize that term are the words Expressive Realism. It feels right. The definition I'd found of the title made it right:

"...it's not a style of painting where the end result is intended to look smooth & glossy...

"It's a style which (and here's the word that brings it home for me- BED) celebrates & shows off the materials made to create it: paint & a brush.

"The result is something only a painter could produce." (Italics added by me.)

Celebrates. Celebrates the beauty of paint and brush. Celebrates the painter's view; perhaps, even the painter's soul.

I could not have found a more perfect statement to convey how I feel about creating artwork.

Now, let's see what Google thinks of the term! To be continued...

After reading the articles that I've linked here, visit our Etsy shop and let me know if you agree or disagree with my selection of Expressive Realism.

How would you describe your artistic style? Leave a comment if you'd like!

Journey
6x9 Watercolor on 140# Cold Press Paper
©BEDeuel Bronson Hill Arts 2011