New Watercolors from the Live Female Model

Our Thursday evening figure drawing group decided to work form two long poses last week, and I worked in watercolor on Aquaboard.  This time, I started sketching with watercolor pencils, then added watercolor washes over the drawings.

I like the gestures of her hands and the turn of her head.  The red drapery was beautiful and captured a lot of warmth.  This photo is not as dark as the original, but even so, I do need to go back and add some more color to the background.  I'll just add it to the pile of paintings that need to be finished!

I really liked this pose.  So simple, but with beautiful shadow shapes on her back.  It's almost an afterthought that she is nude.  It feels very natural, very peaceful.  I'm pretty happy with this painting as it is.  I worked back and forth painting with watercolor and drawing with watercolor pencils.

Ants on my Peony Flowers. I guess that's OK!

Three years ago I planted peonies in my back yard...hoping against my terrible track record in the garden that they would survive!   They are doing very well - last year they were covered in beautiful blooms, big pink and white flowers.

I noticed last year that ants were ALL over the buds! I thought for sure an ant colony was living in that flower bed. This year...they're back! We had about ten days of warm weather and the peonies shot up about 18 inches - and the ants are here!

I asked about this at my local nursery - what could I do to remove the ants from my peony buds? The gentleman recommended regular ant killer sprinkled around the base.  Then I mentioned the problem at my bunco group.  My neighbor nearly jumped out her chair and said "NO - it's ok! They are eating the sweet wax on the flower!"

Well, she's right! Apparently ants enjoy eating the sweet waxy coating over the buds.

So I have relented and allowed the ants to enjoy their buffet...and look forward to the beautiful blooms :)

New pastel drawings from the live model. Classic and modern.

Lucky, lucky me...I got to draw from a (new to me!) model on Wednesday evening.  Lovely model - she had beautiful hand gestures, great poses, wonderful "stage presence".  She also had quite a few tattoos, but I decided not to include those because I wanted to focus on her beautiful figure.

The lighting was wonderful - the light and shadows were very well defined.  Cast shadows were crisp and dark, shadows on her form were soft and deep.

The paper is a cool, light blue, and I had started with light purple and blues to define her over-all shape.  As I added more colors, I think it got cooler, not warmer.  The tricky thing was that I was in a dark corner and couldn't see my colors very well.  Now that I have it home, I think I will layer a bit more color over the drawing.

I loved this alternative view from the corner of the studio!  I was actually sitting on a corner staircase, slightly above the other artists, and again the lighting was strong and dynamic.  This is a mint colored paper, but not bright - kind of a cross between mint and grey.  I used only a couple of colors, focusing on capturing the beautiful, full shapes of her breasts, legs, and hips, not worrying if everything was to scale or drawn perfectly.

It feels fresh and modern, and I love the variety of drawing techniques I used to capture her figure.

You can see more drawings of the female nude model in my Fine Art on Etsy shop!

Does Paid On-line Advertising Work? My March experiment.

I have been selling my art on-line via Etsy for almost 2 years now.  I have been building this art blog, my presence on Twitter, and my Fan Page on Facebook.  I have tried selling in other venues such as 1000 Markets, but find that maintaining two stores is not easy nor managable with the time I have available to spend on the computer.

One of my main goals is to be able to spend more time creating and listing new items in my Etsy shop, and less time driving the traffic to my store.  So, I had a good sales for the month of January and February, and I took some of that money and invested in some on-line advertising for March.

First, I chose a smaller blog that I discovered on Twitter.  It cost $15 for a spot on the side of the blog, the image was probably 175 x 175 in size, and selected by the blog owner.  When I signed up for the campaign, I suggested that the owner look at my "sold" items, to get an idea of what people are buying in my shop.  (I would have picked a popular print or one of the nude drawings, both of which sell very very well).  I was a little surprised, and dissappointed, to see that they had selected one of my Angel paintings - not that I am not proud of them, but they do not best represent what is in my shop.

When I contacted the blog owner, they explained that they felt their "readers" would like that item the best.  When I asked if it could be changed, they said "no". 

For the month of March, my Google Annalytics show that 21 visits to my shop came from that blog.  Each visitor spent an average of 1:52 minutes on site and looked at 5 pages per visit.  I do not know if any sales directly resulted from those 21 visits (which is approximatly .0019% of the monthly viewers on the blog). 

My other experiment was with a very high-end, high traffic blog.  A 125 x 125 advertising spot on the side of the blog was $250 for the month.  This blog guaranteed a certain number of "impressions", or views, of my ad.  I believe my ad bought 1,100,000 impressions.  One thing the ad staff let me know, was that an industry standard "click thru" rate was about .1% (POINT one percent) So what is that...if I get the industry standard of click thru...1100 clicks.  But according to my Google Annalytics for the month of March, 226 visits came directly from the blog ad.

Again, I can't tell if any sales came directly from the ad.  About 31% of the visitors from the blog were new to my shop, a stat that surprised me. I was hoping that it would bring a lot more new visitors to my work.

So...what do I recommend to those testing the blog advertising waters for the first time?

*make sure you get to pick what item you want to promote.  You know your clients, you know what sells in your shop.  It's your money!

*have a great looking ad if you are going to invest money in the ad space.  I think I fell short in this category on the expensive blog...but unlike the smaller blog, the large blog was willing to change my ad from the first one I provided to a second one I created which looked better half way thru the month.

*pay attention to when you are getting sales and how people are getting to your shop - my biggest traffic sources are my blog, facebook and Twitter.  And I can always tell when I have been actively promoting on-line - because the sales follow shortly after.

I'm not sorry that I invested $265.00 in this advertising experiment.  I had the money to do it, and I wanted to know if it would work for me.  For now, it seems like I should keep doing what has worked best for me so far - keep making art, make sure I talk about it on my blog, and promote it to my fans and twitter followers.

(A note to my fellow Etsy sellers...I did not renew at all for the month of March.  I only listed new items or re-listed prints that sold. )

And a note about Karma...I was incredibly grateful that Etsy published my story about my success on Twitter in the Etsy Blog on March 10th.  It meant a HUGE boost of traffic to my shop, and it helped me to not sweat the fact that I had invested this money in advertising! I had a great month of sales on Etsy and I am so thankful for the exposure.

New watercolors from the live model. Trying out Aquaboard!

It's been one of those days! I tried to upload this post several times already, and either my computer wasn't working or someone spilled juice on the floor or taxi duty called...SO! I'm going to be brief...some new watercolors from last week! This top one is on 300 LB watercolor paper.

This is a progression on an Aquaboard, a primed masonite board (used to be called Clayboard, I believe) just for watercolor.  It absorbed quickly, but still allowed to "wash away" areas after they dried.

I was able to add several layers of color, and may even add more to the background.

This is just the beginning of this beautiful pose.  I thought I would stick with "antique" and subtle colors - soft browns, beiges and blues.  Luckily the model permitted me to take some references photos, so someday...I may even finish it :)

You can see more of my watercolors of the female model in my Fine Art on Etsy shop.

Beets and Chocolate Cupcakes? My kids ate their vegetables!!!

OK I didn't believe it at first, but these cupcakes are REALLY good! 

My little girl (*sniff*) turned 3 this week, which of course means cupcke time! And since we are trying to avoid the nastiness that is food coloring because of the negative effects it has on my son's behavior, I searched for a good recipe that would allow me to make yummy cupcakes, and even some pink frosting, but would be food-coloring FREE!

I found this yummy recipe for beet and chocolate cupcakes and follwed it with a few minor adjustments.

I used Nestle Dark chocolate morsels instead of the dark chocolate shown, and it worked fine - I melted the chips and butter together in the microwave (don't over-cook! stir for a little while right before they are completely melted).

I also used canned beets instead of cooking and prepping fresh ones.  I used a 15 oz can, juices and all, and just pure'ed (sp?) it in my blender.  I had also reserved a bit of the juice, thinking I would make home-made frosting and use it for pink color, but ran out of time!  (My only concern...although Beets are supposed to be rich in vitamins and nutrients, the label claimed 0% for most...does canning eliminate the good stuff?!?) The recipe suggests beet powder to color the frosting, which you'd probably have to hunt down WAY ahead of time!  Some day I will try making frosting with the juice.

I also added some dark chocolate chips into the batter for a bit of extra chocolate, and I loved it...although Ari picked each one out of her cupcake like a treasure hunt!  If I make these again, I may use an extra ounce of chocolate melted into the mix rather than the solid chips.

But - hey! - how did they taste?!?! Well almost every 3 yr old in Ari's class ate them up - with just a dallop of Cool Whip on top - no extra frosting! Jack ate the WHOLE thing, and my neighbors said they were the best they ever had - not too sweet!  Even my husband ate a beet chocolate cupcake...although now that he KNOWS what's in there, I may not be able to slide it by him again :)

Happy Birthday Ari! Love you :)

Creative Stay-at-home-moms and why we sell on Etsy!

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a journalist who was putting together an article about Women, preferably mothers, who sold their work on Etsy.  How did we discover the venue, why we do it, how many kids we have, etc.  I answered a few questions and today I got a note from Karina Ioffee and she finished her article!

"Crafty Stay-at-home moms turn to On-line Sales"  on http://uk.reuters.com/.

I thought it was a great peek into why we sell on Etsy, and why it's important for us to do something we love, as well as contribute to our Family's finances. 

Then I got to the last couple of paragraphs with my quotes and I laughed out loud...I swear that was not supposed to sound like that!!! And then I kept laughing for about 2 hours straight. When I read my quote to my sister she said "yup - that sounds like you!"

Rest assured, I KNOW that I am a very, very lucky person - to be able to watch my kids grow up, to be an active participant in their lives, and yet still be able to provide a couple of hours of school for them each day, and myself a few hours to create and sell my work.

As I said in the article - the Balance in my life, between being Mom and Artist, has never been better, and I owe it in part to selling on-line. 

Let me make one thing clear - simply posting your Art of Craft on-line is not enough, and there is a lot of work involved.  But when everything comes together and sales and creativity can co-incide with supplementing the Family's income, that's a great feeling.

I'd like to share the other Etsy shops that are featured in this article!

Estate and Old Hollywood Style Bridal Jewelry

by Lara Lewis

Handmade Leather Journals

by Julie Boyles

And of course my Fine Art on Etsy shop by Kristina Laurendi Havens!

There is also a site mentioned, http://www.craftmba.com/, a blog aimed at helping artisans market their products online, by Megan Auman.

If you are interested in learning more about Etsy Sellers who are making their shops a SUCCESS!

 Read this series "Quit Your Day Job" on Etsy's blog!