The Artist

Six Months on Facebook and…..

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I know a lot of artists are wondering if getting on a social networking site like Facebook is worth it. They know they “ought” to, but see it as just another time suck when they can’t get everything done that needs doing anyway.

I decided to test drive it as part of my low (as in “no”) budget marketing plan. Here’s what’s happened since January:

After starting with a few people I knew in high school and art school, the number of friends I have has exploded to 173, mostly artists, some nationally known. But there are also local friends, some of whom are also gardeners, and people involved in animal welfare/rescue issues. So there I already have two groups that are potential buyers, except I don’t really think of them that way anymore.  Another friend is the editor of a major national art magazine, one writes every month for another art magazine and one is a gallery owner.

People are always posting about their work, interesting links, the shows they’re doing, the trips they’re taking, the new studio they’ve just moved into or an award they’ve won. Their friends hit the “Like” button or leave supportive comments. So if you feel isolated as an artist, Facebook is a great way to get connected and become part of a worldwide community of other artists. We cheer each other on, send virtual chocolate, flowers and sunshine to congratulate or commiserate and just generally enjoy each other’s “company”.

I “Share” my new blog posts and my Ebay auctions each week and I can see the spike in traffic on my blog and the click-throughs to my website after I’ve done so. When I post an image of a new painting, I get lots of strokes and compliments, which I really appreciate and which make the day a little brighter.

I’ve had one sale so far from a Facebook listing. The buyer was a fellow artist, who I originally connected with because we both have and love rough collies. She saw my eBay auction listing, bid and won.

I have friends in 18 countries, besides the USA. Most of them are fellow artists and it’s fun to see what’s going on elsewhere. Yesterday a new friend liked a painting of mine so much that she shared it on her Wall. She is from Argentina and now 59 of her friends, none of whom I know, will see my work. I was very please and flattered.

The countries I currently have friends in are: Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Argentina, Costa Rica, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, South Africa, Kenya, Italy, France, Spain, England and Scotland (UK), Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, India and Mongolia. Plus two friends who don’t list where they live.

Honestly, what other way is there to make those kinds of connections for free? And I get so much more than just an marketing opportunity out of it. That, it turns out, was really only a starting point.

I have set limits on how I participate. I don’t get involved in any of the on-going games. I only use a few of the apps, either to send a “gift” to someone or when participating benefits a good cause like the Surfrider Foundation, bed nets for malaria prevention or saving the Rainforest. I do give in on some of the fun, silly quizzes, finding out that my aura is red, that I would be in Ravenclaw and that if I was a Star Trek character it would be Capt. Picard.

I get the feeds from sources as diverse as the White House (yes, THAT White House) and The Onion.

I have joined a variety of art-related groups, which I haven’t participated in as much as I would like. There also seem to be “fan” pages for just about every artist who ever lived that anyone has heard of. I’m a fan of, among others, Mucha, Sorolla and Waterhouse. These pages do post show and other information about the artists, along with images of their work.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, I’m a fan of Facebook. I believe that we are rapidly approaching the point where having a presence on a social networking site will be every bit as necessary as having a phone and a website. Oh, and I’m now on Twitter at http://twitter.com/s_fox too. Still working on what the best use of that will be for me, but I invite you come follow along!

———

I’m just about a month away from Mongolia and this (I hope)….

Argali rams at Ikh Nartiin Chuluu Nature Reserve, Sept. 2008
Argali rams at Ikh Nartiin Chuluu Nature Reserve, Sept. 2008

Memorial Day Miscellany

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First, I want to honor and express my appreciation for all the men and women who serve and have served in our armed forces.  I’ve read a lot of history and it’s true- Freedom isn’t free. But, America should never go to war except as a last resort and should never risk our soldiers lives without a compelling reason. My thoughts are with the families whose loved ones have died in service to our country.

———————–

Besides coming down with a cold a couple of days ago, I sat down on Friday to start sketching and got diverted by re-arranging my corner workspace. So not much in the way of sketches or materials info. yet, but I am thrilled to have my wonderful old oak drawing table back in action. Shifting it 90 degrees lets me use the iMac so I can draw from it the same as with the easel. Here’s a couple of pics of the new arrangement. The Rocky Mountain mule deer head was a flea market find. There are also images from Bob Kuhn and Robert Bateman for inspiration. And my favorite 1960’s psychedelic poster, The Green Lady by Mouse and Kelly.

Eowyn inspecting the new set-up
Eowyn inspecting the new set-up
Easel is on the right
Easel is to the right

It’s time to start to pull it together for the upcoming Expedition. One part of it will be keeping a journal, which is provided by the AFC (Artists for Conservation). It’s bound in Italian leather and comes with its own bag. Nothing like a little intimidation.

journal 1Yup, I’ll be hauling this puppy all over central Mongolia for three weeks. I need to do a title page and a map Real Soon Now, but how to face the terror of the blank page? The thought of making a mess is paralyzing, but it must be overcome. I know, I’ll start at the very back-

journal 2So I used an argali image from the trip last year that is representative of what I hope to see and sketch. I’m experimenting with ways to add color. This is Pelikan pan gouache used as a watercolor wash. The paper has a nice tooth and isn’t too soft, but I wanted to see how different drawing options worked, so that’s what’s on the bottom. The Wolff’s carbon pencil didn’t flow and the General’s charcoal pencil was too soft (for my purposes). A mechanical pencil with an HB lead and the Sanford draughting pencil worked well, as did the Pentel pen. I’ve got two kinds of Derwent watercolor pencils that I’ll experiment with next, along with a couple of other things.

Accepted Into “Art and the Animal”!

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I just found out that “Done for the Day”, a painting of bactrian camels that I photographed in Mongolia at Arburd Sands last September has been accepted into the Society of Animal Artists jured show “Art and the Animal”. In the animal art world, this is the most prestigious show and entries come in from all over the world. I have been entering and not getting in for five or so years, so success is sweet indeed. Here’s the painting:

Done for the Day 17x30 oil on canvasboard
Done for the Day 17x30 oil on canvasboard

More later.

It’s Official! I’m Going Back to Mongolia!

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portrait

{Address}

Visit the AFC site here

Mongolia Monday- Excerpt from My 2006 Trip Journal- Ikh Nartiin Chuluu Nature Reserve

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Travelers get attached to a particular place for a variety of reasons. Maybe it was stunningly beautiful or irresistibly peculiar. Maybe it was somewhere they’d wanted to go to since childhood, finally made it and it was everything they’d dreamed of and more. Maybe something special happened while they were there. Maybe they went for one reason and discovered something unanticipated but compelling. The latter probably most applies to why Ikh Nartiin Chuluu Nature Reserve has become one of my most favorite places on the planet.

This seems unlikely to me since I’ve never been a “desert” person. That would have been my mom, who found the area around Hemet, California (the landscape, not the trashy sprawl) quite to her taste. I like my landscapes green. With trees. Preferably redwoods. Like these at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, about 30 minutes from our house. I spent my childhood getting to camp out at places like this. Pretty darn lucky, I’d say.

prairie-creek

But Mongolia got to me. Except for the northern part of the country, which is the southern edge of the boreal forest, trees are not what Mongolia is about. It’s the ultimate wide-open-spaces destination. I went to Ikh Nartiin Chuluu for an Earthwatch project and found a place so special that I plan to go back until I can’t travel anymore. I returned in 2006 for a short visit, just a couple of days. Here’s what happened the first day.


October 6, 2006

Woke up and 6:30, out the door in less than 10 minutes to walk down the valley. Too early for good light, but saw a couple of argali dash up the hill from the stream over 100 yds. away so no photos.

ikh-nartiin-chuluu-valley

Valley where research camp is located

ikh-nartiin-chuluu-sunrise-rocks

First sun on the rocks

Came back for 7:30 am breakfast. Baaska (my guide), driver and master’s student still asleep, so headed out on my own about 8:30 am. Found my favorite huge rock! Windy but not cold. No argali or ibex. Stopped to rest and have a snack and realized that not only was the wind getting much stronger, but that the distant rocks were getting hazy with dust, just like when I was out with Rich (Dr. Richard Reading, the Earthwatch project’s Principal Investigator, and I walked back to camp in an on-coming dust storm in 2005 after the team had walked a 4km argali survey). Decided it was time to go directly back to camp since no one knew where I was, just that I would be back at 1pm for lunch. Got out the GPS, punched “Go To” POI #1 (camp) and got back just fine.

ikh-nartiin-chuluu-fav-rock

This rock turned out, from another angle, to be three formations that were overlapping, but I still like it! It’s about the size of an aircraft carrier.

ikh-nartiin-chuluu-nestCinereous vulture nest

Since I’ve never been here at this time of year and there really isn’t anyone to ask until Amgaa gets here or maybe Jed (two of the other scientists), it seemed sensible to play it safe. Maybe after lunch will be a good time to go out in the van and check out the Tibetan writings and see if we can spot any argali. The Mongolians, Baaska, student, driver, ranger are all yakking away in the kitchen ger. I’ve never known people who could sit down together, never having met before and just roll along talking like the Mongolians. It feels from the outside like the continuation of an ageless oral culture which hasn’t been undermined by tv. Yet.

ikh-nartiin-chuluu-skull2Argali skull

I hope this wind dies down. Being out in Ikh Nart again, just me and the rocks was really great.

5:15 pm- Went out in our van with the ranger at 1:30. He needed to do some telemetry and was willing to find inscriptions. We found five, but no luck at all finding the one Rich took me to last time. Saw and photographed a large herd of  ewes with, it looked like, one ram and a smaller group a few minutes later. It has really stayed windy and cold. I’m in the ger with the stove going.

ikh-nartiin-chuluu-inscription

Tibetan inscription

ikh-nartiin-chuluu-argali

Herd of argali sheep

I’m Now A Member of Lost Coast Daily Painters!

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As some of you may remember, I blogged a for a few weeks on marketing and  two items I discussed were “spend as little money to market your work as possible” and “strength in numbers”.

Today I’m proud to announce that Lost Coast Daily Painters is up and running and listing paintings on eBay. Here’s the press release that went out yesterday:

HUMBOLDT PAINTERS GET CREATIVE ABOUT SELLING ART BEYOND THE REDWOOD CURTAIN

If the economic slowdown has a bright side for artists, it is this: the opportunity to explore new ways to create and sell art. “My paintings range in size from quite large to very small, and for a long time I’ve wanted to find a format for showing and selling my small pieces.” said Eureka oil painter Kathy O’Leary. “This is a good time to take some chances and try something new.”

A group of five Humboldt County artists have joined together to take part in a growing international trend called daily painting. Painters complete one small work every day, post it on their blog, and sell it on eBay. The top-selling daily painters have cultivated large audiences and built a steady income selling paintings online.

Eureka author Amy Stewart is a student of oil painter Linda Mitchell. Last summer she went to Santa Fe to take a workshop from one of the most successful daily painters, Carol Marine. “Painting is really just a pastime for me,” Stewart said, “but I’m very interested in seeing what artists can do with technology and social networking. I’ve been blogging for years, and I was intrigued by the idea of selling paintings online and building an audience that way.” At the workshop she learned techniques for composing and finishing small, quick paintings, as well as eBay selling tips.

Now Stewart, Mitchell, and O’Leary have joined together with Dow’s Prairie artist Susan Fox and Eureka oil painter Rachel Schlueter to sell their paintings online through a group blog, Lost Coast Daily Painters. New paintings will go online every day, with bidding starting as low as $25 on eBay. A “Buy It Now” page lists paintings that are available for a fixed price directly from the artist.

Like most professional artists who participate in daily painting blogs, Mitchell plans to continue showing her work in galleries. “I’ll sell small paintings online, and work that I’ve shown before,” she said. “My larger paintings will continue to go to galleries. Most people want to see a larger piece in person before they buy it, and galleries are the place to go for that.”

Schlueter looks forward to the challenge of posting smaller works every week. “The idea is to do something fresh and spontaneous and put it out there, and then just move on to the next painting,” she said. “And it’s nice to be part of a group blog. That makes it easier to have something new up every day.”

Connecting with artists and art lovers around the world is another attraction, according to Fox. “I’ve been selling small paintings on eBay as an individual,” she said, “but I’m really looking forward to marketing my work with four of my colleagues and friends. Daily paintings are a great way to buy a single special piece or start a collection very affordably.”

Visit lostcoastdailypainters.blogspot.com for new work by each artist and links to other daily painting sites around the world.

—————–

I still have two paintings listed, but time is running short. Scroll down to find them and click to bid.

Here’s a preview of one of two paintings that I’ll be listing on Monday. There are five of us and we each took one weekday, so there are new listings Monday through Friday. We’ve already had sales before the official publicity kick-off, which is very encouraging. I have multiple bids in on “Pismo Beach Sunrise” and “Wyoming Cottonwoods” is being watched.

Without further ado, here is “Morning Near Goose Lake”-

Morning Near Goose Lake oil 8"x6"
Morning Near Goose Lake oil 8"x6"

Paintings that don’t sell will move to our “Buy It Now” page and will be available for a set price.

UPDATE 3-4-10: Life brings change and I am no longer a member of Lost Coast Daily Painters. My career is taking a different path since last year and I find that I must concentrate on that. Three new artists have now joined the group and I encourage you to click on over and take a look at their work.

Marketing Our Art During the Financial Meltdown, Part 4 (That’s It For Now); New Paintings!

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Alex "helping"
Alex "helping"

Take Care of Yourself!

Even in the best of times, and this ain’t them, it takes energy and decent health to put in the hours needed to paint and take care of all the other parts of having a career. It’s also easy to get down, if not depressed. You know you have to nurture your art, but you also have to nurture yourself. And that’s a guy thing, too.

I’ve learned this the hard way having dealt with chronic sinusitis for ten years. It manifests in a low grade fever that leaves me too fatigued to do much of anything. I generally have it under control, but always need to be vigilant about getting quality sleep, eating right and exercising. I also get a massage every three weeks to keep me tuned up. I accept that I’m going to have to work at staying healthy and that it is as much a part of my routine as getting to the studio in the morning.

Exercise is really important, especially if you sit or stand all day at an easel. “Studies have shown” that the two most effective forms of exercise are walking and gardening, so you don’t have to join a gym or run marathons. We walk our dog 30-40 minutes every morning unless it’s pouring rain. Longer walks on the weekend. Nighttime walks too, which are fun because sometimes a couple of the cats come along (Fortunately, we’re on a dead end street with very little traffic).

I do like to garden. I just planted some primroses, pansies and tigridia bulbs. This year we plan to do a serious vegetable garden and see how much of our own food we can grow. (Wish we could grow our own peanuts. What will they recall next?)

You need to find what works for you. But being physically active will make you feel less tired.

I do yoga at home, too. It feels so good to stretch, especially my shoulders.

Eating well seems challenging sometimes, but try to have good quality, quick to fix food around. Maybe popcorn for a snack instead of chips. We keep sugar-free pudding cups, Laughing Cow cheese, string cheese and nuts on hand. I have half a protein or energy bar in mid-morning and afternoon so I don’t crash. My evening treat is a few squares of 80% very dark chocolate. We usually have a glass of red wine with dinner. I stay low on the glycemic index to keep my blood sugar stable. We just made our first soup stock from a chicken carcass (new Joy of Cooking) and added wild rice, celery, mushrooms and carrots. We’re still putting raspberries and blueberries on our cereal from what we picked last year and put in the freezer and there are still three bags of apples in the frig for Waldorf salad, cobbler and just eating. As with exercise, see what will work for you.

Even if you don’t have space for regular vegetable garden, you might try salad greens on a sunny window sill or blueberry bushes in containers.

Feel free to post comments to share your own ideas and thoughts and what works for you.

NEW PAINTINGS!

Drawing and painting animals has come relatively easily for me. It’s what I seem to have a knack for, not that I haven’t put in a lot of work at it. But landscape, now that’s a whole other challenge. I finally decided that I was going to get this “tree thing” down. I’ve been hacking away for the last few months doing small studies of trees in interesting light with cast shadows and I believe there has been progress. More next week.

Dubois Cottonwoods oil 8"x6"
Dubois Cottonwoods oil 8"x6"
Wyoming Creekside oil 10"x8"
Wyoming Creekside oil 10"x8"
Wyoming Cottonwoods oil 8"x6'
Wyoming Cottonwoods oil 8"x6'


Marketing Our Art During the Financial Meltdown, Part 2; A Work In Progress And…. Cute Cat Alert!

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CONTINUING FROM LAST FRIDAY-

Strength in Numbers! If you think about it, one could say that the ability to be alone and self-motivate are prerequisites for being a working artist. In a sense, painting is a “solitary vice”. So, it may take some conscious effort, in planning the marketing of your work, to consider the multiplier effect of joining with others. This hit me two years ago when I was offered the opportunity to have a solo show at a financial management company. (I should note that where I live there are really no commercial galleries as the term is generally understood. Most spaces, some of which are very nice, are “piggybacked” on another business. However, the community is very supportive of its artists and finding a place to show art publicly is pretty easy. Sales are uncommon, but, boy, do we get fussed over.) I’ve had a few solo shows here and have always gotten a gratifying turnout. But it occurred to me that if I invited some of my animal/nature artist friends, it would not only be more fun, but that then their “fan base” would see my art, too.

I invited four colleagues and they all said “yes”. The reception was packed, I sold two giclees, another artist sold one and a good enough time was had by all that we decided to do it again. Last year we added a couple of new artists and moved to a different venue. We also invited the local wildlife care center folks to attend with a couple of their birds as an added attraction. Once again, a great turnout, both for the reception and during the month that the show was up.

The next show, Wild Visions 3, will be in October and we will have a nationally known wildlife artist as our Special Guest (more later). While, in a sense, it’s “my” show, we all pitch in with ideas (one of the other artists came up with the name) and work the reception. We’re exploring various ideas for “growing” the show.

Should you consider finding a small group to show with whose work is complementary to yours? With the right people it really is “the more, the merrier”.

What’s Your Story? There’s a lot of artists out there. Good ones, too. How do you make your work stand out? One way is your Story. What is it that sets you apart? If you’re going to successfully get local or national editorial coverage (back to last week’s “spend no money”), you have to have a hook to get the attention of a reporter or editor. Not to mention collectors. They are buying your story along with your art.

Now, you can’t just make something up out of whole canvas, so to speak. And you don’t need to.  You’re an artist. That gives you a leg up already since people in general are really interested in what artists do and get a kick out of knowing one. Find something particular that you do and why, test drive it and see what the response is.

I like to travel and it’s a necessary part of creating my art. I happen to really like Mongolia, which has a certain cachet as a destination. So, for me, it’s kind of a no-brainer. My story is my travels to Mongolia and the paintings and drawings that are the result.

Filtering how you present yourself and your art this way can simplify your choices, too, since there’s never enough time to do everything you want/need to do.

To be continued…

NEW WORK IN PROGRESS!

I’ve been fighting off a sinus infection for the past three weeks and haven’t gotten in much easel time, but I have made progress on this new painting from reference that I shot year before last down near Cambria, California. There is a huge elephant seal colony right on the beach next to Highway 1 and they really put on a show. Lots of male posturing.

Young male elephant seals
Young male elephant seals

NEW CAT UPDATE!

Just for fun, here’s a few photos of Alexander, who’s doing great. He’s gotten nose to nose greetings now from two of the three other cats and one is now willing to play with him.

Alexander, first day outside
Alexander, first day allowed outside
Alex in one of David's desk drawers
Alex in one of David's desk drawers
Alex in a new favorite place
Alex in a new favorite place




Marketing Our Art During A Financial Meltdown, Part 1; EBay; And This Just In: Andrew Wyeth Has Passed Away

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Alexander, Relaxed
Alexander, Relaxed

Alex jumped up on the sofa next to me last night and flopped down. I grabbed my sketchbook and had about three minutes to do this sketch. He’s doing great. The other three are pretty much through the cat version of the five stages of grief. In their case it seems to be: Shock, Outrage, Hissy Fits, Observation and Indifference or, in Eowyn’s case, “Hummm, he might have his uses”.

Andrew Wyeth, son of legendary illustrator N.C. Wyeth has died. You can read about it here .  We did go see the Helga paintings, along with about half the population of the country.  I personally didn’t connect with them emotionally, but was awed by a really incredible body of work carried out at the highest level. With luck, he will have been one of the last prominent American painters whose representational work was dismissed as “mere illustration”. Since I trained as an illustrator and would have been perfectly happy to have had a career as one, all I’ll say to that is “don’t get me started”.

TREADING WATER AS OBAMA PADDLES LIKE MAD TO KEEP US ALL FROM GOING DOWN THE DRAIN

So here we are in the middle (at least I hope we’ve gotten to the middle) of a legendary financial meltdown. I was talking yesterday with the FedEx guy who was delivering  two paintings that were just in a Society of Animal Artists “Small Works, Big Impressions” show at The Wildlife Experience near Denver, Colorado. The delivery guys can read the pattern of their jobs like tea leaves. First there’s lots of paperwork, followed by lots of boxes. At this point, the paperwork flow has dried up. The boxes are going out. The quantity is starting to drop as business activity slooows down.

He also observed that huge amounts of recycled paper go to China for reprocessing. The paper is just sitting now, piling up. This will have a ripple effect on recycling. Had you heard about that one? I hadn’t.

The only good news I’ve seen recently, money-wise, is that that I can now get over 1300 Mongolian tugrig for a dollar instead of the 1140 I got last year. So the next trip (post to come) should be a little cheaper.

What to do? What to do? I’m fortunate in that we don’t rely on my income for living expenses. I’ve reached the point where the business has paid for itself the last couple of years and was hoping to move to the next level this year. Instead, my goal is to hold the line and make sure I’m ready for when the turnaround comes, which I think (and the FedEx guy believes) is around 18 months away. It’s gonna be a long slog. The good news is that the feckless idiot, otherwise known as “Dubya”, who caused this is FINALLY gone in four days. Don’t let the door hit your butt on the way out, loser.

HERE’S WHAT I’M GOING TO DO, PART ONE

Spend nothing unless it’s absolutely necessary. I just bought some RayMar canvas panels, but only what I know I’ll use soon,  nothing “just in case”. I’ve done some art festivals the past two years at a net loss, but figured they would pay off in the long run. And I find that I enjoy them. Festivals are out. I haven’t done any of them enough to build up a following and can’t afford the up to $1000 cost (entry fees, gas, lodging, food) with next to no chance of even breaking even. There’s one I pulled out of reluctantly and hope that it will make sense to do next year. New music from iTunes? Santy Claus brought me 10 albums, so that will do for awhile.

Update my marketing plan. There are so many ways to promote oneself and it can be hard to figure out what’s best. Well, THAT  just got simpler. I’m goin’ with the ones that either don’t cost money or make direct contact with people I know to be interested in what I do, like a newsletter. If you don’t have a marketing plan, creating one should be at the top of your To Do List for early 2009. Haven’t got a clue how to go about it? Visit Alyson Stanfield’s site at www.artbizcoach.com and find out. Buy her book, which I think meets the above “absolutely necessary” threshold, “I’d Rather Be In The Studio: The Artist’s No-Excuse Guide to Self-Promotion”.

I had sending packets to a bunch of galleries on the “must do” list. Not anymore. There’s a shakeout coming and I don’t want to have original art at a gallery in East Frogmarch and find out they’ve gone under. Who knows at this point which ones will survive? If you’ve got an established relationship with a gallery you trust, that’s one thing. But to be the new kid? Nope. Victoria Wilson-Schultz (see the link to the right) told me a cautionary tale about going over to a local gallery to check on a friend’s work and finding the place closed and a pile of art in the dumpster out back. She pulled out and returned what she could. Her advice to me, and this was before the meltdown, was to only sign on with a gallery that either one can drop into oneself or you have a trustworthy friend who would do the same. Now? I think that goes double.

Julie Chapman will be blogging about marketing too. I’m hoping that we can get some synergy going that will be beneficial to us all.

More next Friday unless something really timely comes up.

USING EBAY

Regular readers know that I’ve started to list small “Studio Studies” and giclees on EBay to see if I can get a revenue stream going and some work out the door.

Those of you who have wandered over from Julie’s blog will have to be patient. There’s between 2 and 3 hours left (at 11:40am PST) on all but one of the current auctions, but I want to get this post, uh, posted. Two bids on two pieces so far. One painting and one on the giclee of the Jack Russell Terrier. I’ll let you know what happens.

Here’s what I said over at Julie’s about how it’s gone so far:

“I sold one 5″x7″ and two 6″x8″ canvas on board pieces for $30 each, so they went for the minimum bid. I have carefully described them in the listing description as “Studio Studies” or older pieces, so I don’t screw up my pricing structure. They are mostly quick studies that I’ve gone back to and repainted as I’ve seen what I should have done. -)

The listing fee ran between $1 to $1.50 for each one. The sales fee under $2.50. I had packing materials laying around and postage through the US mail for one piece was under $3.00 (I sold two to one person, so postage was more).

So I netted around $20-$25 each. Not a lot, but I also now have original work in Missouri and Virginia that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

I’m don’t know that I’ll make a lot of money at this, but it feels good to DO something to create selling opportunities.”

What I left out, of course, was the cost of the listings that didn’t sell. There were seven and I sold three. I decided to just get a bunch of listings up there, see what happened, run the numbers and then decide whether or not it made sense. To me it does, but I’ve bumped my opening bid prices up $5 to cover costs better and spread the listing fees of the ones that didn’t sell. I can re-list them at no cost and will do that with some.

TO BE CONTINUED….

Clouds Along Goodall's Cutoff, Idaho oil 6"x8"
Clouds Along Goodall's Cutoff, Idaho oil 6"x8"

A recent study from reference shot on my way back from Yellowstone last October. With cruise control on a long straightaway and no traffic, I got lots of great shots without even really slowing down. (I don’t do this if anyone else is in the car.)