The Society of Feline Artists - Annual Exhibition 4th - 23rd September

"Sitting Pretty" by Gayle Mason
coloured pencil on drafting film

I've been a bit busy recently with getting ready for exhibitions which include my work - here's the first. The Annual Exhibition of the Society of Feline Artists (S.O.F.A) at the Llewellyn Alexander Gallery starts tomorrow and continues until 23rd September. It's always a super exhibition with a huge range in terms of cat breeds and styles and anybody who likes cats and cat art who can get to it should go - you won't be disappointed!

I've exhibited with SOFA before and even managed to get in the window of the gallery last time! I've posted the pieces I'm exhibiting this year at the end of this post.

This year my good friend Gayle Mason is also exhibiting - but this is her first time with SOFA. I've included one of the two pieces she's showing at the top of this post. Gayle focuses entirely on producing animal art. She's a very popular feline artist but didn't always draw cats. Here's what she has to say about her art and how it's developed over time.

I never consciously thought about being an artist. I was always a scientist throughout school and University although I do remember there being a lot of animals walking and running in the margins of my lecture notes.

My art started from my love of animals. I breed and show pedigree rough collies. One day I decided to have a go at drawing one of them and I've not looked back since - for the past five years I’ve never really stopped drawing and painting. My own collies still find their way onto much of my artwork by fair means or foul and I tell their stories on my blog 'Fur in the Paint'. Now I don’t think I will ever put the pencil or the dog brush down as I'm completely hooked on art - the fur in the paint is here to stay.

I’m completely self taught but have received endless amounts of help and encouragement from cyber friends on various art forums. I am certainly not a purist in any particular medium; I like to mix them to get the effect I want. However all my art has one thing in common, it is based around animals and falls into two distinct strands. I started with the ‘up close and personal’ headshots of cats and dogs. I now also do larger works featuring animals within a background context, showing a moment in their life or some aspect of their relationship with each other. I'm currently working a lot more on wild animals and have just exhibited in the 8th annual exhibition of the largest wildlife art society in Europe - MIWAS.

I get a great deal of pleasure seeing an animal come to life under my pencil or brush. I always start with the eyes as I truly believe them to be the window to the soul, and if they do not sparkle with life I do not carry on with the picture. I must be doing something right because my prints have proved to be popular.

I usually use coloured pencil with touches of acrylic, pastel or graphite. The graphite is more for my own pleasure as colour proves to be more popular with my clients. I have recently discovered the pleasure of working with coloured pencil on drafting film; it is perfect for my way of working. I like to indicate every detail and this is possible with the ultra smooth surface.

In terms of selling, initially I produced 'collie' art. This proved immensely popular and I now have collectors who wait for each new collie print. Each year, I donate a collie print to the charity Collie Rescue for raffle at Crufts and this raises large sums of money. I have also done commissions in the past but now tend to limit these. Latterly I've also been doing fewer dogs and more cats and wild animals.

My main focus recently has been on selling limited edition giclee prints through my print publisher and on e-bay. Many of these feature cats and the cat prints do extremely well. In fact, they're currently being used by the K2 gallery as publicity for their stand at this year's Autumn Fair at the NEC in Birmingham. At last year's Autumn Fair, one of my cat prints was their best selling print - so I have my fingers crossed for this year.

I'm really pleased to have my work accepted into the SOFA exhibition, I feel this is a great honour.

Gayle's art work can be seen:

• on her website www.gaylemasonfineart.com - prints can be purchased direct from Gayle using Paypal.
  
• on e-bay - Gayle uses the name 'Glenspey'
• on her blog - "Fur in the Paint"
  

"Just a Little Bit Higher" and "Yin and Yang" by Katherine Tyrrell
coloured pencil drawings on drafting vellum

Links:

• Society of Feline Artists
• Llewellyn Alexander Gallery
• Gayle Mason Fine Art
• Gayle Mason cat galleries: cat art, cat 2, cat 3
• Katherine Tyrrell: catnapping
  

From ACEOs to powerseller

At the end of June I wrote about my friend Maggie in "Maggie Stiefvater - two of everything".

Following on from my posts over the weekend, I'm going to make a quick reference to one of Maggie's posts on her own blog yesterday "More power to you" in which she announces she's just become formally designated a powerseller on e-bay.

Just a quick recap for anybody who didn't read about Maggie in June. She started about a year ago selling ACEOs. Those are those tiny little cards which people like to collect. She has an amazing talent for these. It's not just the level of detail she manages to achieve but she also has an uncanny eye for quirky compositions which work terrifically well at this size (2.5" x 3.5" - think baseball/football cards).........and in no time at all she had collectors.

In March this year she gave up her part-time job and went full time as an artist. I should mention that at this stage she also had two children under the age of two to look after as a 'full-time' mum. Well she still has the children - it's just there a bit older! Will had his first birthday in June and now wants to help Mum type on the computer.

Soon after, she started selling larger sizes on e-bay and at horse shows and art fairs - focusing mainly on her equestrian art...........and generated yet more collectors. Then started producing bright acrylic paintings of streetscenes as well.............and acquired yet another set of collectors.

She's now sold over 100 pieces of art, is generating a very respectable income and enjoys the total respect and support of her No 1 fan - her husband Ed. She's completely businesslike, has got absolute belief in her ability to succeed, the drive and determination which only certain 24 year olds can have (beats where I was at at 24!) and unstoppable "stickability". As she said in the comment on my previous post - she kissed all those frogs!

Oh - and she forgot to mention that having generated all those sales she has now become a gallery represented artist - with a very respectable gallery in Virginia.

Not bad for a year. It shows it is possible to succeed and generate respectable income as an artists - if you are prepared to work hard at it. If you want to know what I mean by 'work hard' go read her post - it's very illuminating!

Link:

• Smiling Horse Art: "More Power to You"
• What is a powerseller?
  

Technorati tags: art, art business, powerseller

The "stickability' factor

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!"a very old adage - for a good reason

Yesterday, in my post "Will you be a success if you blog your paintings daily?" I suggested a number of factors which I think help artists to sell their work online - independently of online galleries or auction type websites.

Today, I want to emphasise one more factor - the "stickability" factor.

The reason for emphasising it is I think maybe too little attention has been paid to the fact that a lot of the people who are now enjoying success with sales associated with their daily painting blogs - or other art projects - didn't necessarily achieve success straight away.

As is common in a number of walks of life, people's stories about how they achieved success tend to focus on what they did or what tools they used to become successful but skip the 'grind' that very often accompanies the use of those tools and which also preceded success. That 'grind' for artists is about hard work, practice and refinement. It's about 'doing' again and again and again until you get it right. Which means getting it wrong quite a lot of the time too.

So how do you get to cope with the 'grind'?

I think it's about 'stickability'. What is 'stickability'? It's still slang (I think) but the various ways in which it is defined include

• a positive mental attitude
• staying power
• perseverance
• commitment
• to stick with something until you perfect it

People who have 'stickability' are able to:

• finish things they start
• turn up every day
• stick with a task in order to achieve success
• suffer lots of failures before they achieve success
• resist being discouraged when they don't get instant results
• continue with the task despite failures / the lack of positive results
• follow through and complete a task - even if it takes a long time
• do what it takes to get to where they want to be
• etc, etc

It's the reverse of "quitter's disease" - people who expect to get what they want right away and give up if they don't get it or it's hard to achieve quickly. Like....

• giving up painting watercolours or oils because it's difficult 
• they can't paint like a master at the end of a two week painting holiday or draw perfectly after one class or workshop.

Personally, when I need to prod my own personal 'stickability' ingredient into action, I always try and remember an amusing metaphor I once read. A girl believed that she had to kiss 100 frogs before she would meet her prince. Her attitude was that every frog kissed was an achievement as it was one step nearer her quest. I find it makes it a lot easier to stick with a task if I remember that a failure is always just one more step on the path to learning how to be successful at what I'm trying to do.

You might not be a quitter - but do you have 'stickability'?

And can you be a successful artist without 'stickability'?


Link: Making a Mark - Will you be a success if you blog your paintings daily?

Will you be a success if you blog your paintings daily?

Yet more coverage yesterday for blogs which feature "a painting a day". This is the link to the New York Times article "Everyday scenes painted every day" in the New York Times on 31st August.

This time the reporter from the New York Times is asking

Will the painting-a-day frenzy last? Or is it merely the fleeting symptom of a new Internet trend?

I think it's possibly more likely that this reporter needed to find a new 'line' given the amount of exposure 'painting a day' blogs and associated marketing has been getting recently in various media. For what it's worth, here's my take on it.

Although it's entirely possible that the 'daily painting' thing is the latest e-bay type fad which has transferred off e-bay into the hands of individual artists, we should perhaps look at the bigger picture.

More and more artists are finding a way to market their work independently of organised institutions (eg traditional gallery; on-line art gallery). Some artists seem to be doing very well while others languish. However, the good news is that there's no need to go down the 'daily painting' route to do this.

Here are some of the things that I know or notice about people who seem to do well:

• they produce good quality and original work
• they have a business-like approach to their art business
• they present their artwork well - using good quality images and good design
• they have a consistent style - making their work very collectable
  
• they use an appropriate medium and channel to allow people to buy at least some of their work at reasonable prices (some sell small works; some sell prints etc)
  
• they post their work on a regular basis - on a blog/website/e-bay site
• they communicate well - they explain what they're doing / say something about their work / say something about their life and how it relates to their art
  
• they build up a personal relationship with their customers - many of whom go on to become repeat buyers
• they make paying for a piece of art really easy
• work is well-packaged and arrives promptly due to the use of a reliable service - and generates few, if any, complaints about this aspect of business
  
• all complaints are attended to promptly and positively
• selling direct means they (rather than a gallery) get the names and addresses of buyers which can potentially enable the marketing of other artwork through the development of a customer database.

It's good to see:

• artists getting business-like and getting their art out there
  
• artists being rewarded for their hard work at marketing their art as well as all the effort that goes into producing it.
  

It's less good to hear about (and the grapevine works very fast):

• sloppy and/or poor quality paintings being marketed
  
• artists who are unbusinesslike and/or provide poor service to their customers

Bottom-line generating good sales both now and in the future means producing good quality work on a consistent basis, having good quality relationships with buyers and demonstrable and consistent performance on deliveries. Good art without being businesslike does not work. Being businesslike and producing sloppy or second rate art on an ad hoc basis does not work in the long run. In other words, competent artists who get serious about their marketing can start earning serious income from their art irrespective of coverage by the New York Times or sales from 'bricks and mortar' galleries.

We should respect people who generate art business and sales largely from their own efforts. The easier it is for people to buy good quality art, the more this will trickle through to the art economy as a whole. Those who have dipped their toes into the £100 painting art market will find it easier to move on to higher priced paintings. I hear many artists complaining that sales through galleries have been slow this year. Maybe the 'painting a day' people and other successful on-line artists will eventually help 'bricks and mortar' galleries get back on their feet?

Whatever the future holds for the "a painting a day" blogs, congratulations to all those who were featured by in the New York Times article:

• Nick Janischigg - http://www.nickjainschigg.org (I loved the animation and sounds before I even got to Nick's paintings - and it was really nice to see a bit more text alonsgide the paintings)
• Randal Plowman - http://acollageaday.blogspot.com (very refreshing to see a new slant on the artwork a day - this time using collage)
  
• Jan Blencowe - http://paintingadayproject.blogspot.com (Jan has a number of other blogs and her work can also be seen regularly in the Artwork from Life and Plein Air Forums of www.wetcanvas.com)
  
• Elin Pendleton - http://www.dailypaintings.com (Elin's images are not showing up at present - maybe a case of bandwidth being exceeded by interest in her site! You can also see her work at website - seee below for link)
  

It's interesting to note that these are all artists who do a lot more than just 'a painting a day' type of blog - all have serious websites too (see links at the bottom of this page).

And if you'd like to see some more of these type of blogs, I note Jeff Hayes has been thinking hard about marketing and has come up with a neat marketing twist. His Squidoo lens "A Painting a Day" lists a number of different artists who are producing daily paintings - as well as featuring his own daily effort!

Links:

• Nick Jainschigg
• Randal Plowman
  
• Jan Blencowe
• Elin Pendleton

Technorati tags: art, art business, art marketing, painting a day

My Squidoo lens made the top 100!

This post is my blogging equivalent of getting out a small horn and giving it a small toot - as I'm celebrating one of my Squidoo lens making the top 100 lens on Squidoo.

Coloured Pencils - Resources for Artists is now no. 79 in the top 100 of all Squidoo lens as of today and has had a steadily climbing number of visitors for a little while now.

If you're contemplating making a Squidoo lens (and they're great for keeping all your bookmarks well organised - particularly those which will also be of interest to others) don't even think about starting until you've downloaded the Squidoo widget from Mozilla Firefox. Adding a bookmark becomes so easy when you've got that - so long as you're logged into Squidoo.

My suite of lens which are resources for artists with similar interests to me are growing all the time as I add new links. My other Squidoo lens are:

• Drawing and Sketching - Resources for Artists (ranked no. 112)
  
• Pastels - Resources for Artists (no. 178)
  
• The Art Business - Resources for Artists (no 530 - published only a week ago, this lens has climbed more than 14, 568 places in one week!)
  

You can also check out the top 100 squidoo lens tagged 'arts' which now contains all of my published lens. They haven't yet got a Sqidoo category for "Art and Design" or "Art and Illustration" so that you might want to skip a few of these! ;)

Having just had a big 7-10 days of framing stuff to deal with (of which more anon) I think my next one might just be about framing!

Links:
Squidoo was introduced by Seth Godin who's a well known 'man about blogging' and internet communication. You can read about the progress of squidoo on the Squidblog.