A Day in the Life: Sewing

Here's the finished pillows made from the Spoonflower fabric printed from my paintings. I think they look really good, and they look a lot like the paintings. I'm going to order more fabric and make some to sell on Etsy!

A Day in the Life: Showcase

I've been photographing and scanning miniature paintings for the past couple of days, in preparation for my Etsy showcase. It's a 24-hour event, and started at midnight EST. This is my first showcase on Etsy, and I'm not sure which images will work best on the showcase page. You need to have images that catch the eye, because there's so much to see. You can view all 27 miniatures currently in my Etsy shop here.

A Day in the Life: Special Delivery

My Spoonflower fabrics arrived in the mail today, and they are fantastic! The color is dead on, and the resolution is pretty good, even though I used JPEG images instead of TIFFs. The fabric is a nice linen-cotton canvas, good for pillows or jackets. The picture below is how it looks on the back, and you can see the weave of the fabric.



I ordered fat quarters, which are 21" x 18". The designs are 18" x 18", and fit on a fat quarter with about 3/4" to spare for seam allowance.

You can see and order the two designs I've uploaded here. This is way too much fun! Think of the possibilities. Paintings turned into pillows, quilts, clothing . . . it's wild!

A Day in the Life: Photography

I've been photographing artwork all day for my Etsy shop. It's especially tricky to get the color right, and even when it looks good on my monitor, there's no telling how it will look on anyone else's monitor. That drives me crazy.

I bought a digital SLR camera a while back so I can photograph my own artwork. I'm the only one who really knows how it should look, and I'm the only one willing to put in the time to get it to look that way. I decided on the Nikon D60, a 10.2 megapixel camera with an 18mm - 135mm zoom lens. I love the camera, but the lens distorts too much. I can correct the distortion in Photoshop, but I'd rather not have to. I think I'll be better of with a straight 50mm lens for this purpose.

I never thought I would need to be a Photoshop expert, but I use it almost everyday, and I don't think I could get by without it!

A Day in the Life: Spoonflower

How cool is this? You can create images and have them printed on fabric using Spoonflower! I uploaded images of two of my camellia paintings, sized for 18-inch pillows. They offer several different fabrics including a linen-cotton canvas that sounds like it will be good for pillows. Eventually you'll be able to order my designs as well, but not until I receive my proofs and approve them. In the meantime, you can see the designs that I uploaded here. I'll let you know when they're available for purchase.

Spoonflower has lots of other interesting fabrics available from other designers on their Marketplace. What fun!

A Day in the Life: Packaged

The Valentine cards are mostly packaged and ready to go. I'm using Clear Bag plastic envelopes to protect them, but I'd really like to find a more eco-friendly alternative. Any ideas?

A Day in the Life: Packaging

It's all about packaging today! Making the cards is one thing, but then there's printing and cutting the labels and inserts, folding the inserts and the cards, putting everything into clear packages, and sealing the packages. They look really nice when they're done. Too bad I don't have any finished ones to show you yet!

In the meantime, you can purchase the cards from my Etsy shop. They're being featured at the New York International Gift Fair this weekend.

A Day in the Life: The Shed

I'm a prolific artist, and I create more work than I could ever dream of selling! Therefore I have a storage problem, but I'm not the only one with this problem. Most artists create more work than they sell.

I considered renting storage space, but it's expensive, and I didn't want to have to haul artwork back and forth to a storage space. So I bought a weatherproof shed, and it has worked out great. Except that whatever I need is inevitably in the back of the shed, and it's a pain to get to it.

That's what I was doing today. I had to pull out artwork for an ARTconnectsLA presentation at Children's Bureau, which meant that a lot of work in front had to come out of the shed. Ugh!

That's why I call my Etsy shop "Empty Shed," because my goal is to sell everything and have an empty shed!

A Day in the Life: It's in the Mail

I'm working on a mailing to art consultants and curators. I've been developing my mailing list for years, and I do a mailing three times a year, to update them on my work. A good place to start in developing your own mailing list is Caroll Michel's art consultant and curator mailing lists. The annotated art consultant list is particularly helpful in determining which art consultants might be interested in your work.

A Day in the Life: It's in the Cards

I had a brilliant idea last night to create some limited edition splatter paint Valentine's Day cards. I wish these ideas would come to me sooner, and not at the last minute! So today I was busy making cards. The weather has been damp and rainy, and it looks like it's going to take a while for them to dry. Hopefully they'll be ready before Valentine's Day.



My favorite card blanks are the Fabriano Medioevalis cards. They're an elegant off-white Italian watercolor paper with a beautiful deckle edge. Definitely worth the price.