New Painting and First Etsy Sale!

What a surprise to find someone bought a painting from my etsy shop today.  I have only had paintings listed since June 3rd, and this particular painting I listed only six days ago.  I have heard from other sellers how long it can take to sell the first item from a new store that I wasn't expecting much at this point.  I was focused on tweaking my titles, tags, and other SEO factors, interacting with the etsy community, and getting this blog going.  So having someone actually buy a painting was a total surprise, but very very welcome!  Yay!

I started a new 30x40 painting as a gift for my daughter, who is moving out this summer, for her new apartment.  She found a photo online she loves and I'm painting it just for her, but I'd like to share my progress as I go.  Here is the first day's work, from last weekend.

This is mainly the underpainting, which goes over the pencil sketch I started with.  I paint a loose, thinned coat over the entire painting.  Sometimes I do this in one color, with lighter and darker values to define the areas.  But on this one I used the deeper tones of each color.  I worked on the sky and distant land and water after finishing the underpainting.  I generally work back to front on landscapes but it's not a hard and fast rule.  

I worked on the painting for a while this afternoon, and this is the progress I made:

After more work on the clouds, I spent time on defining the horse and the stone fence in a rudimentary way.  I plan to paint this weekend for at lease several more hours so the painting will change a lot I'm sure.  Sunday night I plan to make another blog post and will have new photos to update my progress.  

Best wishes for a wonderful weekend!
 

Post-Storm Post

I want to share part of a newsletter I receive from a successful artist, Robert Genn.  He writes about many aspects of being an artist and I always find his letters valuable.  


Today his letter was contrasting the proliferation of digital photography in the art world versus painting.  I'm not sure I agree with some of the points made, but I did find these paragraphs thought provoking:

Paintings are handmade. Unlike the old Kodak ad, "You press the button, we do the rest," paintings take hours or even days of contemplation and hard-won private process. The art of painting can be an "event" that is felt by the viewer. 

Paintings are distinguished by texture. Texture is a mark of integrity and passion that the digital world has not yet mastered. Fine artists abandon texture at their peril.

Paintings are tangible. They don't float in clouds. Paintings have pride of place in prestigious museums and noble homes. Framed for strategic walls and inner sanctums, paintings become the love-objects of our lives.

Paintings, like bars of gold, are assets of investment and hoarding; a treasury that may span generations. "Artists," noted Salvador Dali, "are manufacturers of wealth."

Unlike the grinning and contrived poses snapped at barbeques, or the mug-shot of an uncle whose schnoz is memorable but whose name you've forgotten, paintings are true connections with a singular and real person. That person is you. When people collect art, they also collect the maker.

I'm still thinking about what he said here. 

On another note, Tropical Storm Debby is moving away from us today.  We still have wind gusts and an occasional rainstorm that passes by at 35 mph or so, but nothing like Sunday's deluge.  And in this area we were lucky to have no damage or flooding.  It was much worse in other areas and will be some time to clean up.  I hope everyone will stay safe as it crosses Florida and moves away.  I was sad to hear of a young mother who died in a tornado while holding her baby safely in her arms.  Also a mother manatee that was found on Bayshore Blvd in Tampa which was flooded.  I'm grateful for the many people who spent today trying to move sea turtle eggs to higher ground as the high tide washed the sand away from nests.  I hope tomorrow will be a better day for everyone affected.

Tropical Storm Debby...in my yard

Tropical Storm Debby parked off shore of Florida's west coast today, and is dumping buckets of rain on us!  Wind gusts and flooding and some tornadoes passing through in bands.  As long as it stays stalled out there we'll have these conditions continuing, probably the next day or two anyway, they are saying right now.  

I spent the afternoon in my studio corner, watching the storms pass through from our Florida room windows.  On and off we had a lake in our backyard.  We've had between 12 and 20 inches of rain already according to the weather news.  I took a few photos of our backyard I'll post here.

 Yes, it's really wet out there.  We are fortunate to be on high ground and not prone to flooding in our neighborhood.  However many areas do flood, so I'm not looking forward to driving in to work early tomorrow morning!  

I spent most of the afternoon starting a new painting, a 30x40 inch canvas, that is a commission/gift for my daughter.  She chose an image she found online; no idea who took the photo so I can't credit anyone, but it's just for her and I won't be making prints of it.  But I'll share my progress with you as I go along.  I'll try to get a photo of it up tomorrow.

Hope everyone's week will be great...stay dry if you can!