The ACEO experiment

It is day 7 of the ACEO experiment. For those of you who haven't read my previous post, I decided to make one ACEO a day for 365 days starting January 1st, 2010. ACEO stands for Art Cards Editions and Originals. They are collectible little pieces of art that are always two and one-half inches by three and one-half inches, which is the size of a standard sports trading card. I decided on the size because this seemed less intimidating than a larger format. I figured making a piece of art the size of a trading card was definitely doable and would achieve my goal of making art every day for the year 2010.

So far I have made 6 graphite drawings (today's, day 7, has yet to be made) that were then covered in wax at a later date (I don't have my wax materials and tools at home so I had to wait until I was in my studio). The actual drawings are done on the day that my art piece is "due" which is by midnight at the end of each day so that I could still fill my daily requirement. I usually make these drawing after dinner while I am sitting with my sweetie watching TV. I find that, for me, this time is relaxing and conducive to drawing. Plus, I like the background noise of the television while I work. It also makes me feel less guilty about rotting my brain for three hours a day on senseless, yet entertaining, programming. After 6 days, I have to say that I am really enjoying this! I am practicing my drawing skills and can already see that I am getting better at it. These pieces don't take very long and when I'm done I often find myself wanting to make another. I haven't decided if I'm going to allow myself to make more than one a day. I don't want this to take over my regular art making and I can see myself using these extra ones as an excuse to miss a day of making one later on.

Do I forsee any problems? Uh, Yeah. I'm wondering how this will work on days that I am traveling and away from home. I'm thinking it will be easy enough to bring supplies, like a pencil and the ACEO paper, but will I be motivated to draw when I want to be out having fun? I am going to Southern California for the upcoming three day weekend (which also happens to be my birthday and 1 year anniversary weekend) so I guess I will soon know how that turns out.

I also haven't listed these on ebay or Etsy yet. Although I have sold two already just by showing them to some friends who wanted to see what I was working on, I read in Jack White's article "Making it on eBay" (Dec/ Jan issue of Art Calendar) that colorful artwork attracts attention. Oils sell the best, while black and white pencil drawings sell the worse. So far I have been doing nothing but graphite drawings and covering them in wax. I'm not sure how much attention these will attract from people who don't know my work. I may go with color later and do some encaustic pattern pieces that I've been wanting to experiment with...which is another good thing about ACEOs. You can experiment freely with these without feeling like you are wasting a lot of materials. But for the work I have done so far, I'm not sure how the public will respond to them. I guess I should just post them and find out.

The other problem I see with these is trying to keep up with posting them on eBay and Etsy. Taking photos, writing descriptions, keeping track of inventory, sales, shipping, etc...It's a lot of work! I may have to quit my day job sooner if this takes off or get an assistant. Hehehe, wouldn't that be nice!

An Art Piece a Day Keeps the Blues Away...

I am starting to get extremely nervous about the fact that I will not have a steady income come June 2010, when the school year ends. One would think that this would get me working in double time but instead it has paralyzed me. In the past two weeks I have managed to get into the studio twice and I didn't stay very long. At first I thought I was just not feeling inspired to paint, that if I did my usual things that would usually inspired me (see previous blog post for the complete list), I would get right back on that art horse and get busy. Then I started to get that tingly feeling in my gut when I started to think about painting full-time and trying to make a living out of it. The nauseous feeling started to take hold and I became paralyzed with fear, which meant no artwork being produced, which lead to more anxiety, which lead to no artwork being produced, then more anxiety...I'm sure you get the picture. It was a bad cycle that I could see myself drowning in.

So what did I decide to do? Did I wallow in my misery and beg my principal to let me have my job back? NO! (And don't think I haven't thought about it more than once, too!) I decided to take a more proactive approach. I have set a goal of doing an ACEO a day for the year 2010.

What is an ACEO, you may ask? Well, it stands for "Art Cards Editions and Originals". They are original pieces of work that are 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" in size. Think art trading cards and you'll get the idea. Here's my thinking...I have a TON of antique photos that I have either already used in paintings or aren't clear/interesting/large enough for me to replicate in a painting. I wasn't sure what I could do with them so I was thinking that I could do ACEO collages and drawings with them. Just simple, quick pieces art pieces using these photographs and anythings else I could find. This would help me in two ways.

1. I would be making a piece of art EVERYDAY, no matter what. This would help keep the "Oh my god I quit my job and will be homeless/starving soon and the fear is paralyzing me so I can't paint" blues away. As long as I did something, even if it wasn't a large painting, I would keep my creative juices flowing which usually keeps the anxiety away.

2. Etsy and Ebay both have a pretty good market for selling ACEOs. While I won't be making a ton of money per piece (think between $1- $20), I will be making something which will, once again, keep the anxiety about starving and being homeless away. I read an article on Art Calendar where a couple made a pretty good living off of selling artwork (mostly ACEOs) on Ebay. If they can do it, why can't I? Right? Right!

I figured these small pieces won't take too much time to create so it won't get in the way of my other paintings. If it can bring in an income, no matter how small, AND keep me from freaking out, AND keep me creating, then how can this be bad? Now, the question is...Can I do 365 ACEOs? Not all of the pieces will be purchase worthy, but visit my etsy store to see what I have done http://www.etsy.com/shop/jhinaalvarado or check out Ebay to see what I post. I should be posting them by the end of this week. I haven't figured out how I'm going to distribute the pieces between Etsy and Ebay yet, but once I do, I will post that information here. (You can always check my Etsy store for pieces that I have on sale. I tend to place the older pieces from my inventory there for SUPER cheap prices!)

Inspiring the Uninspired

It's the end of December and the major holiday flurry has passed us by. With this, I am finding that it is hard for me to get motivated to get into the studio. Last week I had the excuse of holiday shopping and preparations so I didn't get to paint much, but now I really don't have much of an excuse. I find that as the days get shorter and it's darker earlier, I am less motivated to go into the studio. It's cold out and staying home underneath a warm blanket really sounds much better than shivering while trying to paint, right? So what do you do when you aren't motivated to paint? Here's my list...

1. If I'm going to stay home, I may as well get the admin side of art done. Things like updating my website, writing my next blog post, emailing galleries, and cataloging my paintings for my own records are good things to get done since I can do those things on my couch, underneath my warm blanket, while watching some seriously bad television. Currently I am watching the "Wendy Show" as I write this (Who is Wendy and why does she have a talk show????).

2. Organize and go through your "box" of inspiration. For me, that is going through all of the old photographs that I got for Christmas and deciding what would make good paintings. Before I started working on this series, I would go online and look at other artist's websites and see what they were painting. I also have many art books to look at. A few hours of this usually gets me revved up to start a new painting.

3. Visit a gallery, museum, or interesting retail stores. My favorite is Paxton Gate, a taxidermy/garden/weird curiosity store or Pearl's Art Store. Who doesn't get excited around new art supplies? Okay, maybe that's just me. Julia Cameron, author of "The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity", calls these art dates. This is time that you spend by yourself looking at things that inspire you or finding things that can inspire you. Going to see art always inspires me, whether it's cause I see something great and I want to emulate that, or I see something that isn't as great and I think I can do better than that. Sometimes just walking around to different stores gives me ideas and I find interesting supplies to use. Now this means I would have to leave the house and go out in the cold, but sometimes that's the price you have to pay for inspiration.

4. Make a date with a fellow artist. Sometimes just talking about art with another person is all I need. Getting excited about what you are doing or listening to someone else talk about what they are doing and getting excited about it is contagious. Talking to other artists gives you a sounding board to bounce ideas off each other or work out problems you may be having with a painting. Having support from a fellow artist is extremely important to my art making process.

So there you have it! Now I am done writing this blog, I'm going to go organize some photos before meeting up with my writer friend, William.

Image: "Doug", 12" x 12", oil and encaustic on wood panel. This is a commissioned painting I did before Christmas.

Things I've learned...

We recently had our holiday art sale and I have come to some conclusions for shows like this. Here is my list (I seem to be really into the list format of writing lately...):

1. Small and REALLY affordable (meaning under $150) sells. Is this a result of the declining economy or do people just like smaller works? It's hard to tell. San Francisco homes tend to be on the smaller side and wall space is sparse. While most galleries want to see larger paintings from artists, the average home in this area can't accommodate paintings larger than 24" x 24" so it would make sense that smaller paintings sells easier. My average painting sizes are 30" x 30" but I try to do a bunch of smaller pieces, usually 8" x 8", at lower prices for open studios and sales like this. These smaller pieces are usually the first to sell. They are affordable and gosh darn people like them.

2. Place refreshments inside your area, close to your work. My studio space is in a giant warehouse and our spaces are more like cubicles. During the Fall Open Studios I set up my drinks and snacks outside of my space so that it wouldn't get in the way of people seeing my art. The area looked nice but some people would walk straight to the snacks, eat, and then keep walking without so much as a glance at my work. Now the snacks and drinks weren't that expensive so it's not a money issue, but would it hurt to take a look at the art of the artist that is so graciously feeding you? Just a look, that's all I ask. They don't have to buy anything, just look at the art. This time, I placed the snacks in my "booth" and people had to walk in and, hopefully, see the art in order to eat. I got a lot more people commenting on the work and "appreciating" what I do.

3. Having a painting in progress enables people to see your process and this enables them to understand your work easier. For the Fall OS, people were constantly asking me how I got my photographs so big and how did I transfer the images onto the wood panels. Now, while it is flattering that people think my paintings look good enough to be photographs, they are in fact oil paintings. When I would explain the process of how I uses old photographs as references, draw the images, and then paint them, I got some skeptical looks and some people just didn't believe that I actually painted the images. I had a work in progress this time so people were able to see that yes, I do paint the images. It answered the question of whether I paint the eyes of each figure and then block them out (yes, I do) or do I just start off with blocked eyes since only one of the three figures were completed. People were also able to see what my paintings looked like pre-wax layer.

4. I need to work on my people skills still. I find that I am still shy when approaching people and talking about myself or my work. If I'm going to do this full time, I need to be able to feel comfortable with talking to people. I need to have my 30 second elevator speech perfected and ready to go. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a 30 second explanation of who you are and what you do as an artist. During one of Jeff Schaller's presentations he talked about the importance of this and how you should be able to explain your work in that amount of time. I've got mine down pretty good but it still needs work. Another thing added to my list of things to do.

This is it. Thanks to those of you who were able to stop by!

It has begun...!

"Three Swimmers", 30" x 30", oil and encaustic on wood panel

As you know, this past year I have been seriously contemplating becoming a full-time artist and have been trying to figure out how to go about doing that. I have talked to a few fellow artists and have gotten their advice. I have also been discussing this with my significant other to get his thoughts and feedback since, if I fail, and I don't plan to, he would be supporting the both of us. After all of this talking, I've come to the realization that I was never going to take the plunge since I still had the safety net of my day job. It's easy to talk about quitting and just painting in theory and do little to nothing about it when I had a steady paycheck coming in. So yesterday, I finally got the nerve to do something about it. I walked into my Principal's office and told him I was quitting at the end of this school year! It was terrifying and thrilling all at once. I was tired of thinking "what if I fail...?" and other such similar thoughts that kept my dream from becoming a reality. I am now ready to take the plunge.

Now granted, quitting my job in June isn't as scary as quitting it now, but I have a plan. I have figured out how much it would cost to pay my bills for a whole year (in order to be safe, I did not take into account Ben's paycheck contributions or potential art sales and just figured out what was needed as a household to survive year one). This is the amount of money I have to at least have saved by the time my last paycheck comes in, in August. I subtracted the amount from what I already have saved and divided it by the number of months I have left until that dreaded last check. Once I took a look at that amount, it did not seem as overwhelming. I figured I could worry about year two another time.

Next was to come up with some monthly goals that were easily attainable. This is a working list that I will be adding things too as I come up with them. For now, here are my goals/ list of things to do EVERY month:
1. Research and email 5 galleries a month that I think would be a good fit. I have a compiled list of galleries to contact that keeps growing but have yet to email them. 5 seemed like a workable number to contact and not feel overwhelmed.

2. Write and post on my blog at least twice a month. I haven't been very good about chronicling my adventures into artworldom partly because, a) I haven't been doing much to promote my career, and b) I kind of felt like I had to write a masterpiece each time. I've decided that I should just write. Yes, keep the information useful, but write about as much as I can regarding what I am doing with my art. I promise to never write about what I ate or about what movie I watched unless it is revelant to my art career!

3. Go to as many gallery openings as possible. There's nothing like networking to get your career going, and getting inspired by other artist is nice too. While I am at it, I should also get on the mailing list for these galleries and also on the lists of artists whose work I like.

4. PAINT, PAINT, PAINT. With my full-time job I realize that I can't paint as much as I'd like to but I should paint a minimum of 15 hours a week. 20 hours would be preferable.

So far, this is it. It seems very doable and I am excited to actually be starting the path to becoming a full-time artist! I'll keep you posted on my adventures, I'm sure.

Ask Amber George...

The first time I saw Amber George's beautiful encaustic paintings was two years ago when I was doing a random search of encaustic artists. I stumbled upon her work and fell in love with her paintings depicting leaves, intricate patterns, and lovely textures immediately. What can I say, I like twigs and leaves, as is apparent in my previous series, and Amber does nature extremely well. We became Facebook friends (I guess it really is good for networking) and she has been a tremendous source of information in my quest to become a full-time artist, even though we have never met in person.

I had a ton of questions for Amber and she was nice enough to answer them and give me some sound advice. Here is a summary of what she said:

1. Before quiting your day job, get your money stuff squared away - pay off what ever you can and save up as much money as possible.

2. Figure out what you'll do for health insurance since you won't have a full-time job that pays for benefits anymore.

3. Consider either going part time or plan on teaching a couple of workshops or one-on-one sessions to transition into quiting your day job. This helps on the months that nothing or little sells. It's piece of mind to know that you have some income that is steady and it helps you continue to network and be social.

4. Look at galleries across the country to represent your work and do your homework. Is your work a fit? Do they represent only abstract when you paint figuratively? Do they represent emerging artists?

5. The key ingredient is the work. Make sure what you send them is a good representation of your work. If they like the work, it could take up to a year before a gallery decides to represent you, so be patient. If not, nothing you do will change the fact that the work is not a fit.

6. Talk with artists about which galleries to work with. How do they treat their artist? Do they pay on time? Are you comfortable with their policies? Not all galleries will have what you need. Just because a gallery wants to represent you, doesn't mean it's a good fit for YOU.

7. When submitting, look at the website and see if they have a submission policy and follow it. Nothings annoys a gallery more than an artist who doesn't follow instructions and wastes their time. If the gallery has no submission guidelines, then send a brief e-mail with a small jpeg or two of paintings, a link to your site and a 2-3 sentence abbreviated statement. State that you'd be happy to send any additional information per their request and apologize in advance if this is not their preferred method of submission.

8. Market the hell out of your work. Send e-mails, cards, packets to galleries anything you can do to get it out there.

Great advice Amber! Thanks again for answering my thousands of questions! To see more of Amber's work, visit www.ambergeorge.com .

Image by Amber George: "Sewing Strips", 18x18 inches, encaustic, sewing pattern paper, auto repair manual, thread, 2009. Courtesy Julie Nester Gallery.

Open Studios

Ben Morse standing next to his macro photos.

Every year San Francisco holds it's open studios in October that is sponsored by Artspan. This having been my eighth one that I've participated in, having visited MANY studios during the years, and having recently read a lot of articles on what makes a good open studios, I've come up with some suggestions that have helped me have a successful event.

Rosemarie Hughes-Croucher and Larry Vassan showing off work in their studios.

1. Research which galleries you would like to show at and see if they are a right fit. If they are, send them an invite at least two weeks in advance. You never know when one will stop by and it's a good excuse to get your name out there.

2. If you have a home studio and it's convenient, find a local artist space where they can rent you some space for the event. Having open studios in a space like this allows you to benefit from other artists' contact lists who will also be invited. You are also more likely to get a larger group of people visiting since people like to go to fewer locations with more artists. Seeing many artists in one space is a lot less intimidating to the average person than going to a person's home studio. In addition, it's just a lot more fun for you and you can see other people's art and get some feedback from other artists also showing.

3. Advertise on social networking sites. Sites like Facebook usually charge a minimal amount for advertising and we know there are a lot of people on those sites. Twitter about it. Update your status and write about the upcoming event. Write about the event as you are there. take pictures and post them. If your open studios is for more than one day, as San Francisco is, you may get someone who reads and sees your posts that may just want to come out and see what all the hub bub is about.

4. Clean your space. No one wants to climb over panels or feel cramped cause there is no place to stand. A clean studio may not be something that you're used to, but it's all about how you present your work. Also, don't serve snacks next to any sort of painting supplies, like turpentine or adhesives. You'd be surprised...

5. Display your work nicely. This means hang your artwork straight on a wall that is preferably white. Have clear labels or a price list. I find it intimidating to talk about prices and I know a lot of people hate asking how much something is in these situations so make life easier. Have your prices available.

6. Make sure your artist statement is in view, along with your resume. People like to see that you have a reason for what you do and that your work is worth investing in. Be ready to answer questions about your process and your reasoning behind what you do.

7. Don't be afraid to have an "Open Studios Only" sale. I usually mark my work 20% off. People like knowing they are getting a special deal. Everyone loves a "bargain". Just be sure that if you are represented by a gallery, don't price below your prices there. They really don't like it when you undercut them and they will find out.

8. During the event, make sure you make eye contact and acknowledge everyone who stops by. There's nothing worse than an artist who looks like he's too busy to talk to you. Reading a book or talking on the phone is not inviting. Don't spend all of your time talking to your friends. You can see them anytime. Use this time to make new contacts and possibly some sales. Be friendly and positive. Nobody likes a sourpuss.

9. Make sure you have postcards, business cards, and a mailing list readily available. Snacks are good too. I find peanut butter filled pretzels a big hit.

10. Thank everyone for stopping by, even if they just walked by without really looking and just ate your food. Being polite goes a long way.

Melisa Philips in her studio.

Rebekah Goldstein and studio visitors.