Last Sketches for Hunt 58

This Scavenger Hunt 58 ended on October 12. I posted them on wetcanvas.com on time, but I am late posting them here. They are in the NY Sketchbook with a Micron 05 pen.



#5, Newest art supply. A new Micron 05 in the package. I'm thinking this is like the first one I used and the point will hold up a little better to my mad scribblings.


#6, Something with two languages on it. Back of the new pen package. 20 minutes.


#7, Your oldest art supply. This is my old Julian type easel sitting on the table. I probably have older supplies at home, but this is close to the oldest here. A very quick wonky sketch to get something done. 10 min.

Grandma's Fine Art Friends

I have always said, "Grandma was slow ... but she was old." Well, "Hello, grandma!"

Rose Welty invited me to join a small private group of artists for the purposes of critique, encouragement and humor. We formed the group and set up our blog for the artists on September 10. I am just now posting about the group and the fine artists that are included. And, as it turns out, I am the grandma of the group as well. Wouldn't you know it? The point I am making, however, is not that I am old, just that I am slow. :)

This is your chance to meet the members of the group and learn more about them on their blogs and websites. You will enjoy their work and enthusiasm.

Rose has always been interested in sketching and about a year ago decided to set some goals and sketch for 15 minutes a day. She started her blog in January, 2007. She is a dedicated 'student' and is constantly researching and practicing. She lives near Ft. Worth, Texas, so we may get to meet each other one of these days. You will be impressed by the work/time she invests in art while running her home and mothering small children. You can read about her thoughts in forming the group in this post.


Belinda Lindhardt is in Australia. She is the mother of two small boys so has her hands full raising a family, too. She works in colored pencil and is interested in trying other media. She has developed a unique tracking system for her artwork that might be of assistance to you artists. Her pencil drawings are very good and most are available in prints.

Kasie Sallee is and artist mom as well with two girls and lives in Oklahoma. She prefers working in colored pencil. You will be intrigued to follow along on her blog about how her work is completed.

Valerie Jones is from Oklahoma as well and works from home while raising two children. She has studied various methods and media and prefers colored pencil as well. She teaches beginning art to adults. She has no website or blog at this time. Hopefully she will let us share some of her work on our blogs .. or maybe she will bite the bullet and start a blog. :)

Humbled

In Robert Genn's clickback for today, Street Art, I found a smile. The fifth comment down, Keeping Artists Humble, by Clarinel Stamos, Villa Park, CA, USA, was great!

Happy Mountains
30 minute oil painting on canvas, 16 x 20 inches

When I'm asked how long it takes to paint a painting, I say, "Forty years and a couple of days." I have done some of the 30 minute paintings. They are great fun and make you think. I just don't use oils much anymore and it was more interesting to paint quickly with a huge brush and then take out your frustrations cleaning the brush. That is something Bob Ross taught me. :)

Making a Web Page

Geraniums
Computer drawing by Jo, drawn with the Mac program and Dabble with a mouse. Fun!

Bag Blog asked in a comment about starting a a place to have her art together and be able to browse through her watercolor paintings. I'm thinking a web page. Maybe this post will give her some ideas.

Why not start with a little history. When I started my web page, we had AOL for an internet provider and they host free space for their members. Their templates were for PCs and because I had a Mac, I could not take advantage of that. I had a small program that came with a printer, I think, called Adobe Page Mill. I started making my page per the directions with that program (which I still use) and put it on AOL. Then AOL up and changed my page to Frames with no warning. The web site name was very long as well, something like "homepage/aolhometown/jocastilloart.com or some such which I couldn't remember much less pass it on to others. I decided to plunge in and buy my domain name and go with another server.

I bought my domain name and started my page with Cedant. They have been so inexpensive and have much more technical help than I ever needed. I pay something like $7 a month by paying a year in advance. They have only been down once for a few hours that I remember in about 10 years. Pretty consistent. They also have templates and all sorts of advanced things that I don't use. If you do use them or need more space, the cost goes up, of course. You need some knowledge of html and how things work, but they will help you.

There are some free providers. Sitekreator is one. This internet provider is popular with artists on wetcanvas.com. José Carriho in Portugal is a good example. He has been happy with his web site.

Something I would recommend now, is Fine Art America. It does not require any knowledge of html or codes. I have a web page there for free. It is super easy to use. You can put up about 85 paintings or photos and a bio. You can scroll through them with comments and prices. You can list your events and have a blog. The blog part is new and doesn't offer the perks that Blogger has that I can see, I put up a post today, so I need to see if there were comments. They do have a discussion forum. They have started something new that I haven't looked into yet for selling prints of your work, called print on demand. With framing, the prints are more than my original painting, Ha. So I probably won't use that. There is a charge for that service. The advantage is, that it is promoted well to artists and galleries and now to public collectors. I think it will really grow and may help with sales. On your private control panel you can see where people are that look at your work and they can comment on each painting. Take a look. As an artist just starting a page, it looks great. No cost .. at least at the moment.

Fine Art Studio Online is a very good one, but it has charges. It is very easy to use, too. About $24 a month for a good size website. They do publicize more. I read their marketing newsletter and you can read it, too, free. Subscribe here. They are starting a new section for art collectors with a newsletter especially for them. Rebecca Neef, a great artist in Bastrop, has her page with them. You see she has her own domain name there. I have been thinking about this, the pages look great. Rebecca has sold from there when she was doing animal portraits, but I don't know about now. Maybe a trial run. :)

If you just want to put up photos of your work, you can use Picassa with Google (there is a link from Blogger) or one of the other services like Webshots or Flikr. You can have public or private storage for your work.

There are many ways to go and so many ideas out there. At this point, I am just hoping to streamline my page and make it a little easier to see my artwork. My page has grown almost out of control, don't you know?

Reminder Markie Cundy Glass Artist

A reminder that Markie will be at Art on the Bridge in Bastrop, Texas, this Saturday, October 13. I received this note from him today. Let's make it a great day for Markie.

"I would like to invite you to see me at Art on The Bridge on October 13th in historic downtown Bastrop. I will be in booth #2 next to the Blue Donkey booth. I will have an assortment of glass jewelry and nice fused glass sun catchers. Please stop by to say hello and to sign my guestbook."

Thanks

Markie Cundy
Glass Artist

Procrastinatin' Apple

I am going to paint a windmill today, so decided to warm up by sketching for Scavenger Hunt 58. I don't feel like sketching with pen or pencil (or painting and I have to do the windmill this week before we leave) so pulled out a 5 x 7 inch Pastelbord, green, and proceded with my soft pastels.


#3 Apple cut in half, #4 peel of a fruit. 35 minutes or so with some breaks not included in the time. The plate is a plastic foam plate from this house (I don't do Styrofoam) and it had a pastel rim with pink, purple, yellow, etc. I decided to make the plate white only when the shadows and edge became so confusing. Then, I smudged the edge of the plate and didn't notice until I saw the photo on the computer, but it is a sketch after all, so didn't retake the photo. Supposed to be a quick exercise, right?

Sketch, Towel for the Hunt

We have had company so our time has been spent doing "important" things like golf, swimming, eating, and visiting. I did manage another sketch today and a little work on my Chile Store painting. It is about done, I hope to post the progress tomorrow evening.


For Scavenger Hunt 58. This is #2, a folded blanket. I substituted a towel as I was too lazy to go find a blanket or to go sketch in the bedroom. This was interesting to try to get the different shades of color and design in just ink. It is dark and medium blue, with an almost black edge, white strips and some lime green palms. It is with a Micron 005 pen in the NY Sketchbook. It took about an hour with time out for a trip to the plaza in Old Mesilla to hear the jazz and have some wine at the Jazz Happening.