The Chosen Few Pt 2

Well, that was hardly soon, but I am back! As usual, way more to tell you than I probably have time for, but I'll try and squeeze in as much as I can!

OK, so first to deal with those topics I mentioned in my last post. First I'll wrap up this whole "chosen few" thing. So, yeah, basically, this is something I'm discovering about the art world, and I think it's kind of a rubbish thing. It just feels like the art world is a pretty elitist, snobby and unfriendly place, where those lucky few at the top who get all the attention/commissions/prizes/exhibitions whatever, are very reluctant to help or even interact with those further down the pecking order. A recent example; an artist I just discovered on Saatchi Art, whose work I think is AMAZING, but also very much like mine except in paint, and is very successful, didn't bother to reply to my very effusive email or the friend request I sent her on that website. Just a small thing, but it kind of bugged me, and I do remember thinking to myself after I looked at their website "Wow, they've had loads of exhibitions, I bet they won't get back in touch with me, they're so successful!". And my pessimism was correct. Anyway, that's a small thing compared to my next complaint. As I think I mentioned before, I went to a talk by a successful London based art curator, who has been responsible for putting on loads of big shows and working with lots of famous artists. Her advice about approaching galleries? Well, it was pretty depressing. I don't think she meant to do this, I really think she was trying to be helpful, but the basic message she sent out was "Curators are busy people, artists are always trying to get to meet them, you're really kind of an annoyance, so don't bug them too much". OK, I'm exaggerating for effect, but that really was the effect what she said had on me. Let's examine a fews key things she said:

1.Don't just send in work unsolicited to galleries, you need to build up a personal relationship with a curator if you want them to show your work.
2. On the other hand, don't expect curators to have time to talk to you at opening evenings, they are there to promote that artist's work, not talk to aspiring artists.
3. When an curator gives a talk, that's a good time to go and introduce yourself, perhaps by dropping into the conversation that the work they were talking about inspires you. (Yeah, I thought. Go join the line of all the other desperate aspiring artists all keen to compliment your talk, as it is the only opportunity they will have to meet you, and you only do it every few months.)
3. Most of the artist's they work with are people they've worked with before, or have been recommended to them by those artists or other curators.

So basically, she built up this picture of a really closed circle of elite artists and curators who all work with each other, and who don't want to be disturbed by us mere mortals, because, y'know, they're really busy doing ART! This talk kind of depressed me, as you can probably tell. Also, in my mind at least, confirming this theory, I didn't get into the Open West show. I sent in £42 entrance fee just to be considered, so these guys are happy taking money of us mere mortals, just not showing our work. (Incidently, I partly did this because the curator said you must enter shows, because even if your work isn't selected, at least it gets seen by a curator. Great. £42 well spent then.)

So, as you can tell, I'm a little fed up. But I'm not gonna let that stop me! I know I've had a problem in the past about getting one rejection and then going home and feeling like setting fire to all my work, because it must be all rubbish, and I know that to survive in this business, I need to get more resilient. And you know what? Like I said before, I am honest with myself, and I really do feel, deep down, that my work is good, so that makes me stronger. Now I just have to figure out how to convince all those people at the top of the food chain about that!

Right, well I am actually off out to go see some art now, in the form of the "Diagrams" show at the Holden Gallery, so I have to dash. Actually, when I first conceived of this blog I intended it to be a lot more about going to see other artist's work as well as my own ups and downs, and actually I have recently gone to see several really cool things, but as usual, it will have to wait until next time!

Ok, in the meantime, as a counterpoint to all that doom and gloom, here's something new I've been working on. It was initially in response for a request for work for an exhibition on the theme of "Speculative Futures", which I may or may not still enter - the deadline is tomorrow.
My inspiration, as a Sci Fi geek, was the question that's been on my mind a lot lately, about whether we will ever colonise Mars. (There was an awesome programme about this on the BBC recently, plus the "Mars" trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, that deals exactly with this issue, are some of my favourite ever books). I was thinking - would mankind at this moment make a good job of colonising Mars, or would we be destined to make all the same mistakes we do here on Earth? So this piece kind of came out of that. I made it from photos I took all within about a mile radius of my flat, so if it looks Mars like to you, I'll be pleased!

"Mars Future?"

Actually, this piece raises another issue I'm struggling with at the moment. Can something made entirely in a computer be hung on a gallery wall as "Art"? This piece does look a bit "Graphic Design-y" for want to a better expression. If I had more time, I might have printed it out and painted over it. I did make another version as a painting, which I'll maybe post next time. It's the first painting I've done in ages and I'm about 85% happy with it. But maybe splashing a bit of paint around is what my work is lacking at the moment, at least in the eyes of those that make decisions about these things....
OK, running late. More soon(isn)!

The Chosen Few Pt 1

Hello again!
Well, it's been another busy week or so since my last post, and I'm going to endeavour to get up to date on all the stuff I haven't mentioned that I've been doing up till now, so this might be a long one.

Ok, so first a few updates. I didn't get through to the next round of the Saatchi Art competition! I was disappointed, but not too surprised. I had a look at the 300 which did make it through to the next round, and I have no complaints really. There's some fantastic artworks there. Check it out for yourself if you are interested; here. Actually, I do kind of have a complaint. Hardly any photographic works! Which is obviously the reason mine didn't get chosen ; )
There were lots of abstract paintings, which I think my entry would have looked really good next to; that's one bit of comfort I take from not getting further, that I really do think my work was just as strong, and I like to think I'm honest with myself in these instances. If anything, I'm often pretty harsh on myself, so I think my judgement is sound. So, why didn't my picture go through? I dunno, could be lots of reasons; not being in that "inner circle" of artists whose name is already known, or not being established enough on Saatchi Art. (more on being one of the "chosen few" of the art world, later on). Also, I hope this isn't true, but maybe I'm picking up from the few photographic works in the final, that there is still a feeling in the art world that a photo can't be "Art" in the same way that a painting can. Saatchi Art prides itself on featuring a very modern kind of art, so that seems surprising. However, it does make me more than ever want to have a go at painting some of these images that I've been photographing, as I've recently discovered on Saatchi Art a couple of painters whose works that looks so much like mine, but in painted form rather than photographic;

"Day and Age" by David Frederik Mousallem

"Landmark" by Tracey Sweeney

You see, for me, my work is on a par with theirs, and actually has an extra layer of interest, because my images are of REAL things that I found, rather than things I created in my studio. But I guess, for some people, it's that act of creation that is the important bit. My work is partly about finding beauty in the world around us, so the photographic element is important, but I do feel like I maybe need to add some painted elements to put my stamp on what I'm doing. Maybe a collage mix of photographic and painted elements is the way forward... watch this space.

"Calligraffiti III" by Galen Cheney

Ok, because this will be a long post, let's break it up with some more lovely images. Here's a few of my favourite pictures that made it through to the next round of the "Showdown" competition:

"When I Close My Eyes" by Pien Van Der Beek

"High high" by Sunyoung Hwang

"MOD659" by Andrea De Ranieri

And just to prove I don't only like abstracts (although you begin to see what I mean about strong personal preferences in the last post!)...

"Jardin Du Luxembourg September, France" by Susanna Bark

Wow, some great work, and I could have picked another dozen I really liked. And, actually going back to see the things I voted for I see there was lots of other really great work that didn't make it into the top 300. So I'm not gutted at all. No. Not me. That's coming through really clearly, right?

So, to prove that I'm bouncing back from this rejection, I've entered some work for a big contemporary art show called the Open West. Of course, being me, I got my entry in at the last minute, but fingers crossed it should be before the deadline. Looking at work that has been selected in previous years, I (once again) think I have a pretty good chance. I paid a little bit more for entry so that I could put in 4 pictures instead of just two, as I think the more of my work you see the more it makes sense. So, here are the four pictures I entered, some more from the batch I recently processed from Budapest;

With the second here in particular you can see how the work I enter to show at art shows is a bit different from that which I print to sell commercially. I guess it's less about looking aesthetically pleasing and more about showing clearly what I'm about - the marks made by unseen hands, the layers and textures, perhaps the mash-up of text and graffiti that can be seen on your average urban wall, but is here given a bit of a twist. Anyway, I should know about whether I'm one of the lucky forty selected for the show by the 19th, so fingers once again crossed. Ok, as usual, it's time for me to go, and I STILL haven't got round to sharing all my news. So, for next time: more about "the chosen few" in the form of a workshop I attended at the weekend by a top London curator, plus a recent trip to a great art gallery I stumbled across by chance, plus my recent metamorphosis into a community artist! I'll try and get round to that tomorrow..or soon!   

Vote for Photo Abstracts!

Whew! It's been a while I know, but I can honestly say it's because I've been a busy, busy lady! I'm not sure exactly what all this running around has achieved, but run around I have. First things first. I've tidied up the blog a bit, as you can see. I think it was probably a bit too "busy" before, so I have decluttered a little. Hope you like it!

So, I guess the first and most exciting thing to tell you is that my art is now available to buy online, from two different third party sellers! They are Artfinder and Saatchi Art (formerly known as Saatchi Online.) I was kind of hoping this was going to lead to a flood of orders from around the world, but hey, whaddya know!?, that hasn't happened yet, but I'm hoping to be inundated any day now. I'm selling different work on each site as well, to see if that helps.

OK, so please do go check me out on these different sites. Both are good in their own way - I personally used artfinder to buy my husband a Christmas present (print of Hitchcock made up of all his film titles, as he's a big fan), and I think they were really good. Saatchi has the edge in terms of quality of artists signed up at the moment though, I would say. I could personally spend several thousand pounds on amazing artwork every single time I go there - I'll post some examples of some of my favourites soon. But first, me:

Artfinder: https://www.artfinder.com/hannah-cawthorne

Saatchi Art: http://www.saatchiart.com/profiles/portfolio/id/679404


I partly joined Saatchi Art as they currently have a competition running that I thought it would be good to enter, called Showdown. If you would be so kind to check out my entry and vote for it (only the top 300 as voted for by the public make it through to the next round), you can do so here. There are about 6500 entries in all, and you vote by grading them 1 (bad) to 5 (excellent). You can vote on as many as you have patience for, as once you have voted for mine (which you are going to, right?), they will just keep showing you new entries at random. The top 300 (I guess the one with the highest amounts of 5's) will then go through to the next round. It's actually pretty addictive, getting to pass judgement on loads of other artist's work. (Does that make me a bad person?) It's also just good to see what kind of work other artists are producing right now as well.
 The range of quality in the competition is pretty varied - there's lots of poor stuff, but there's equally loads of really wonderful stuff. I'm perfectly OK with the fact that I'm highly unlikely to make it through. I just hope some of my favourites get through to the next round. That's what keeps me voting, I want to have my say on as many entries as I can. And, I have to say, I think my picture holds its own, even against the best of the ones I've seen so far.


Here is my entry, one of the new batch of pictures that I have just finished editing, from my trip to Budapest last October.

That one just narrowly beat this one into second spot, and is one of several from this new batch that I'm really pleased with:

Of course, in situations like this, you might want to ask, "how do we judge a piece of art?" "Who are we to say that this work is "better" than that?" Well, give the voting a go and you'll soon get your own ideas about criteria. For me, I have my own unique mix of -  what probably aren't entirely objective, but I like to think they are so some extent -  criteria, and my own personal preferences. I'm looking for a good idea, well executed, with some original thought and creativity going into it. But for the top marks, I guess there's no denying my taste is going to come into it a lot, as I'm only giving 5's for things I really love; things I would happily hang on my wall and look at for minutes at a time. And I do have a particular brand of artwork I really like, and which might not be other's cups of tea at all. So I guess personal preference will always come into it when judging art, which makes these kind of competitions really hard to judge on, which is why I'm not too bothered that I won't win! (But maybe, just maybe....)

OK, as usual, so much more to say, but it's going to have to be another time once again! Now go check out that art competition!

New Exhibition, New Camera, New Pics!

Lots of new developments to tell you about! The main one is of course, the ongoing exhibition at Eccles Community Art Gallery. The first day that was open to the public was the Saturday just gone, so I went down there for the whole day to go and meet people and chat about my work. The gallery was pretty busy, I think mainly because one of the other artists exhibiting was a local man whose family has posthumously put on an exhibition of his work and invited down many other relatives and family friends. I chatted to several of these people, and sold a few prints to one of them, which was great! I also had a steady stream of other people who came and looked at my work over the course of the day, so as usual I had lots of nice chats about art with people, which I always enjoy. I also got interviewed by a journalist from Salford Online. I've just checked the website and it doesn't appear to be up yet - I will of course post a link to it from here when it comes online.
Ok, here's some photos of the gallery and me and my work hung in it:

The gallery as seen from the outside

The proud artist trying(and failing) to strike a natural looking pose

The work

The exhibition will be up until the 8th of February, and the gallery is open Tuesdays (10am - 3pm) and Saturdays (10am - 4pm) during that period. I will be there most Saturdays, probably just for a two hour time slot, so if you're in the area, do please come on down and say hello!

In other news…. I finally have a new camera! I haven't really mentioned it here much before, but ever since I have gone full time as an art photographer, ironically, I haven't had a camera! I dropped my beloved and much used old Minolta back in June, and as it was badly in need of replacing anyway (I'd had it for about 8 years, which in technology terms is about a century I guess), I didn't even try to get it fixed. Instead, I was planning to buy a new one myself when the sale of our house went through and we released some of the equity tied up in that. But, as regular readers will know, that isn't exactly going to plan, so luckily for me my lovely family clubbed together and bought me one as a Christmas/Birthday/You Owe Us Big Time present.
 I wasn't sure what to go for, so I bought a photography mag and scanned all the reviews, and then with a little research I found the shop in Manchester that seems to cater to professional photographers; a place called Calumet. So I went there and they were really helpful and gave me pretty good advice I think, and in the end I plumped for a Canon EOS 70D

It's not like a real serious professional photographer's camera, but I would say it's probably at the top end of the fairly ambitious hobby photographer's range, and I think that's as good as I need for the type of images I take. Because the photographs I take are pretty up close I also splashed out and got a fancy new Macro lens as well, which will hopefully add another dimension to my photography, so I'm really excited about that. I've only had it just over a week, and I haven't taken it for a good long photography session outside yet (hopefully soon!), but just in playing around with it and learning it's basic functions I've already seen how much better it is than my old camera, so I'm really excited about the kind of shots I should be able to get with it!

One of the jobs I've been doing so far this week, is editing and photoshopping the huge backlog of images I have , from way back when I went to Hungary in October. I borrowed my mother-in-law's Nikon on that trip, and took about 300 of my "Photo Abstract" images there, which I've only slowly begun to process, partly because I knew I already had such a large back catalogue of images to use for launching myself on the art scene. But I'm a big believer in keeping things fresh and challenging yourself to do new things, and now I have my new camera I can do that. So, I've made a deal with myself that I have to get these "old" photos processed before I can fully move onto the new stuff.

You don't always know until you do the Photoshop magic on them, which shots are going to turn out to be your best, and I'm not sure whether any of the ones I've processed yet are up there with my very best work, but here are some of the highlights of the 100 or so pictures I've done so far:

Maybe slightly different colour palettes than usual for me; I've noticed blue is a colour that seems to dominate my work a lot, I guess because of the nautical subject matter of some of them. Anyway, these are in warmer, and more pastel shades than is typical for me, which I like about them.
Drop me a line and let me know what you think of them if you like!

OK, there's loads more news to share, but in the name of brevity lets leave it there for now, and I'll be back soon with the rest of the updates.

New Year, New Adventures!

Hello everyone, and welcome to Photo Abstracts in 2014! The start of a whole new year! I have lots of plans for the coming 12 months, although still no over-arching "master plan". I guess it's early days yet, still. But for now, I have lots of ideas and projects to keep me busy! And so far, 2014 is looking promising!

Well, I think I can safely tell you now about one of the exciting things I was hinting at before the new year. I am going to be one of the exhibiting artists at Eccles Community Art Gallery from January 18th until February 8th! As I mentioned several posts ago, the lovely Karen, who is one of the ladies who runs the gallery, and I kept in touch after meeting at the Salford Arts Development evening, and she has booked me in as one of the artists for their first show of 2014! Yay!

 The gallery is a not-for-profit run place, whose chief aim is to bring art to the local community and to give local artists a platform to exhibit their work. As such, I'm not predicting huge volumes of sales from this event (which is probably the way to approach any exhibition anyway, in my experience so far), but I do think it should be an excellent way for me to build a local audience for my work, so it's really exciting for me!
The gallery is open 10-4pm on Saturdays, and 10-3pm on Tuesdays, and I am planning to be there all day on the opening day, Saturday the 18th of January, and for at least a part of each of the other days that the gallery will be open whilst my work is exhibited there. (That's Jan 21st,25th,28th and Feb.1st, 4th and 8th). So, of course, if you are anywhere near Eccles on any of those dates, you MUST pop in and say hello!.

Other exciting things that may come from this; I popped into the gallery yesterday to talk to Karen and meet Elaine, the other lady who runs the gallery, and they were telling me that they have good links with the local online news outlet,Salford online, so it might be possible to get a profile, and maybe even an interview up on their web page to coincide with the exhibition! Exciting opportunities indeed! Of course, if and when these things appear I shall post links to them here, but for now, here is the gallery's webpage and Facebook page.

In other news…. another little job I had on my "to do" list for the start of the year, was enter a Postcard for the International Postcard Show 2014, which is an annual exhibition run by the Surface Gallery in Nottingham, which sounds really interesting. I was going to explain how it works, but then realised they had already done it far better than I could hope to on their website, so I shall simply quote them;

"Surface Gallery is delighted to present our first exhibition of 2014, the International Postcard Show. This exciting exhibition is a highly popular event at Surface Gallery, with all entries accepted and included in the show. It will feature hundreds of original creations in an array of different media by established artists, students and newcomers from all over the world. Hundreds of postcard-sized artworks will be on sale during the exhibition at £15 each, so this is a fantastic chance for budding art collectors to snap up an original work of art at an affordable price.
Once again all participating artists will have the opportunity to exchange their postcard with another artist selected at random at the end of the exhibition. The aim of this remote exchange is to foster new connections and encourage ongoing communication amongst artists from diverse backgrounds and different parts of the world."

So, even if my postcard doesn't sell, I'll get an artwork back from another artist - I suspect that this is what will actually happen anyway, and I'm fine with that, as it sounds pretty exciting!

Anyway, I have mentioned before how I always leave things to the last minute, and this was no exception. The deadline is this Friday, and of course entries have to be mailed, so I rushed to get my entry completed yesterday morning before dashing to the post office in the pouring rain to get it sent. I only started it yesterday as well, so it was done in a bit of a hurry, but I am quite pleased with the result nonetheless. This is something I've been sort of experimenting with for a while, and want to do more of; using my photos to create collages. Ok, so enough yapping, here's my finished postcard:

The show runs from January 15th to February 8th - pretty much exactly the same as my exhibition in Eccles. But, if I can find the time, I'd quite like to go and have a look at it, as it seems like a really fun idea, and I'm curious to see what the other artists managed to squeeze onto their relatively small canvas! 

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Right, well I'm off to Hungary for Christmas with the in-laws tomorrow, so I thought I'd just pop by to wish all my blog readers a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!, and probably as I won't have time to update before then, a HAPPY NEW YEAR! as well. Thanks for taking an interest in what I've been up to in 2013! I'm hoping to have lots of exciting new projects and news to announce early in 2014, but nobody is really organising stuff at this time of year, so I've been left a bit in limbo on a few projects. We'll have to wait and see what January 1st brings!

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm feeling relatively upbeat about how the very early stages of my time as a full time artist has gone. I'm nowhere near making a living from it yet, but the more I investigate possibilities the more I see that there is a lot of opportunities out there for artists, as long as you can spare the time to work at things. And money. I keep seeing great courses and stuff advertised that would be really helpful, but I only have limited funds available, so some of those great sounding opportunities I have had to regretfully walk away from. That's the one dark cloud on the horizon. Running out of money. The house sale falling through has really messed up our plans for financial stability for next year. But…I guess I knew this was never going to be an easy choice, to pursue something that might be financially not very rewarding, especially at first. And I'm determined to weather the storm. Which doesn't mean I won't perhaps have to try and get a part time job sometime in the new year. I think, as long as it still leaves me with enough time and mental energy to pursue all these exciting arts opportunities, that might not be a bad thing. Anyway, the point is, it's gonna be tough, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, so I won't give up! And in the meantime, there's little nephews to play with, and delicious food to eat, and presents to dish out, and all that good stuff, so I'm going to put all that worry on hold for now and have fun! Here's hoping you, wherever you are, will be able to do the same! Very best wishes of the season to each and every one of you!

Oh, just time for a few more Pre-Christmas things:
I have started up my newsletter. I am still learning the software that enables me to manage it, but hopefully this is a place where you can subscribe, should you wish to:

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Also, remember that artist networking meeting I mentioned going to a few blog posts ago? I forgot to mention that someone was filming it, and they interviewed me! I just found out they posted the finished film online, and I made the final cut! Yay! I've never been interviewed "on screen" before, so I found the whole thing strangely exciting! (I'm also quite impressed with how coherent I sound. I remember thinking I'd said a load of rubbish. Must be the magic of editing!) Here's the video: And finally, how about a new picture, as we haven't had one of those for a while! Here's one of the ones I unearthed when looking for things to show to my repeat customer the other day. This is actually a photo I took a couple of years ago, that was just languishing on my computer until I dusted it off and did a little Photoshop magic on it a few days ago. I'm really quite fond of it now, although I was thinking of maybe correcting the tilt of the image so that the lines are horizontal. See what you think...

Right, well that's about all for now. Have yourselves a very Merry Christmas, and I'll be back in 2014!

Bad News/Good News

Well, that was a longer absence than planned. Two reasons, one is not arty related and depressing so we shan't dwell on it (house sale fell through - long and painful story so let's move on.) The second is rather nicer. I have my first bit of repeat business, from a nice lady who bought a picture from me at the Lancaster Art Market, and decided to buy another as a Christmas present! More on that later. First let's go back to last Sunday and look at the fine event that was the Liverpool Winter Arts Market.

The Magnificent main space at St.George's Hall, Liverpool

The vintage market in the music room

So, as you can see from the pictures, this is by far the biggest Arts Market that I have yet attended. It said on the flyer that there were 190 stalls, which I can well believe. There was the main space you can see above, and then a further three large rooms. I was in one of these rooms, although once a again I foolishly forgot to get a photo. Imagine a very posh room in a Georgian style country house (is that even a thing?), with really high ceilings, very light and airy, with large windows and cream painted walls and moulded plasterwork, and some huge paintings of Liverpudlian civic life on the walls. Then picture about 10 stalls dotted around the outside of the room looking inwards, including yours truly just opposite the door. I must say I was a bit disappointed to not be in the main room, as this was clearly where most of the action was, but we still got very good footfall in our room. The problem was sales! I didn't make nearly as much money as I did in Lancaster, and although I'm quickly realising I won't make much profit out of art markets alone, it's nice to at least cover your costs, which I didn't quite here. On the other hand, I had several almost sales, all of whom may come back to me (although with the hindsight of almost a week, nothing yet…). Plus, I handed out my card to lots of people, and spoke to many others about my work.

I guess in these early days I have to think of these events as being as much about raising my profile and getting my work known, and networking with other artists and designers and crafty folk, as about selling. Talking of networking, I did quite well on that front. I spoke to a lovely lady who makes jewellery out of old tools and such, who also has a shop in Liverpool. She was thinking of opening a shop in Manchester as well, and there may well be a role for me in that scheme…it's very early days yet, and it may come to nothing, but this could be a good opportunity for me. She also wanted me to help her find talented designer makers in Manchester who could also possibly get on board, so if you're reading this and it applies to you - get in touch with me right now!! Message me here or at my Facebook page.

Seeing as this was my last art fair before Christmas, I also treated myself and bought a few things. Not for others, as we are going to my husband's family for Christmas this year, and he has volunteered himself as being the main present buyer. Although I did keep my eye out in case I spotted the perfect thing for my mother-in-law or sister-in-law or my little nephews, nothing immediately jumped into view. I did, predictably, find plenty of things I would like to buy. The ones I treated myself to in the end were these:

The badge is by a company called Geek Cycled. Check out their website here. They do lots of great things with old comic books and retro toys and games, and the guy said they had done very well at the market, which I can well believe. This confirms my theory that practical objects, however decorative and fun, sell better than purely decorative ones like prints, something I hope to incorporate into my stock for next year! My item from them is actually a brooch in the shape of my home county of Devon. I guess it was originally a piece from a jigsaw puzzle, and judging by the charming little illustrations on it, I'd say 50's or 60's in age. There were lots of other cool brooches made from lego men and all sorts of other things, but how could I resist my home county? It was fate!

The ceramic piece was styled as a wall decoration, and I might use it as that in the future, but for now it's sitting as a decorative piece on the horizontal on my desk. I had vague ideas to use it as a coaster, but although the lady assured me it would stand up to that, now it comes to it I think it's too lovely to do that to. Unfortunately the maker didn't have any business cards, but I have signed up for her newsletter, so if I hear from her again I'll let you know her name. 

One of the lessons of the talk I went to at Wakefield on marketing yourself online was to have a newsletter, and at Lancaster and Liverpool I began collecting email addresses. I'm not sure that if you are a regular blog reader, there will be anything new for you in the newsletter, but I shall provide links somehow when I have created it. At the moment, that's still a project in my "to do" pile.

So, to my repeat customer. Having bought a framed print of the piece I call "Coral Reef"

she contacted me and said she would like to buy another piece as a Christmas present. I'm so thrilled about this, as it shows what another benefit of the art markets might be, of getting sales after the fact. I've had a few people asking about whether I have a webshop, and I think that has definitely got to be the way forward. It's just finding the money to pay for such a thing. Anyway, I digress. Having looked at the prints I had available on my Facebook page, none were quite what she wanted, so I have spent a fair bit of time this week going back through the many hundreds of photos I have in my back catalogue, after she told me which ones appealed to her, and I tried to find things that were similar. In the end, it was one that I was toying with getting printed already that she went for:

So, that is with the printers at the moment. There is a flat charge for using the printing press, so I've taken the opportunity to get some re-stocks of prints that sold well at the art markets so far, as well as printing some that sold well as cards but have not previously been larger prints. More news on that next week. Ok, that's enough for now I think! Lots of encouraging signs, and I'm going into the Christmas break feeling fairly positive about my first few months as a full time artist.