Fur In The Paint

I hit a new record 5 lenses in 5 days. I was feeling pretty dang proud of myself until I was in the forum and read that one lensmaster has set a goal of 1000 in 4 years. Suddenly my goal of 50 lenses in 2 years seem a little pale. At any rate here they are.

The Draft Horse Art Of Wild Faces Gallery Because I am constantly making more horse paintings my previous lens The Horse Paintings Of Wild Faces Gallery was getting a bit long. So I removed the drafts from it and created a new lens specifically for draft horse art. Not much in the way of new stuff here for my bloggy folk. But thought I’d list it anyway. Plus it was recently awarded a purple star which is kind like a “job well done” medal.

Music For The Art Of Creating This lens was created as a challenge lens. This is the first time I have ever created a lens specifically to meet a squidoo criteria in this case music. Though I love music I don’t really follow anyone in particular. But since I do love various worldly music I decided to make a lens about the music I play while creating art. Because much like a well lit, quiet comfortable space is needed to tap into your creative so does the right music. Anybody else listen to these (or any other) artists?

Create Your Own Holiday Or Christmas Art Cards (Excerpt from intro for this lens.really says it all.)When I was younger it was a local tradition with my family and friends that every year for the holidays we’d all create a new Christmas ornament and then gift them to each other. The result was a lovely tree filled with lots of memories. Unfortunately as my art business took off I had very little time left for creating ornaments. But still wanting to keep up the tradition I started making a new unique holiday card design to send to friends and families.

I know when I get handmade cards from people I always cherish them and keep them. So I thought I’d share a few of the various way you can make your own one of a kind Christmas cards. One of the best things about making these kinds of cards is that they are suitable to be kept as a keepsake for can be framed when the holiday is past.

The World Percheron Congress. At the moment this lens is really a factoid about the breed with a breif roster of what you might expect to see when visiting the event. After I go to it, I will do a massive update to the lens. But I just couldn’t see putting off publishing until the end of October. Why not make a little money on it now.

And Finally, A Debate Lens

Is Declawing Cats Cruel and should it be banned in the US. Since I was a vet tech I have an intimite knowledge of what all goes into the actual surgery. It’s was my least favorite to assist with. And yet I think making it illegal would eventually cause more trouble to a nation that is already over burdened with feral and abandoned cats. What do you think? Visit the lens and voice your opinion. But play nice. Bad behavior will not be tolerated.

So thats all of them. I think I will address the horse slaughter issue in another debate lens. And other than that I will once again take a lenswriting break until the next time Mike leaves for his massage classes. (Because I have access to all computers all the time when he’s gone. Not just briefly in the morning and before I fall into bed.)

Once again anyone with a facebook account OR a squidoo account can comment and rate the lenses.

Since I mentioned in yesterdays post about this lens I thought today I’d talk about it a little. And to be honest I’m kinda phoning it in.

I am packing to leave for this weekend’s event and the gallery work hasn’t let up lately so I’ve not got a lot of time to devote to making this an outstanding post. You’ll just have to settle for an informative post that points you to an outstanding lens on the subject. So here’s my latest Squidoo lens. It’s about preparing art fair slides and digital images for the art fair jury..

Quality images of your work are the single most important determining factor that gets you in the event. In this day and age you really need to be as professional as you can in order to compete for the limited number of booth spaces available for any particular event. I read somewhere that Cherry Creek had over 2000 applications for 200 booths. (Yeah I know right? How do you think you’d stack up in that kind of competition? Well here’s a few of the basic pointers on how your slides. Refer to the lens for more in depth information as well as a bit about Zapplication and how to maximize your images with it. As with the post the word slide and image are used synonymously.

What constitutes a good quality image.
1. Clarity. No fuzziness or blurry areas. Also no shadows or glare.
2. Color is true to the original. Too light or dark is not acceptable.
3. Image Only. No framing, matting, glazing, or fingers, grass, carpeting. You get the idea.The nice thing about digital files is this is easy to crop out.
4. No Distractions As mentioned #3 the focus should always the artwork. In a like manner the background color should be neutral and muted. Bright White or Very Dark backgrounds should be used cautiously.
5. Image is square. This means the image is not crooked or fading off into the distance on one end.
6.Your best work only. You will be judged on your weakest work guaranteed. Most applications take 3-4 images. If you have 3 outstanding pieces and one so-so piece. It is the so-so piece that will determine your entrance into the event.

The lens also discusses the importance of a good quality booth slide. There was a time when the booth slide was simply meant to be used to show the scale of the work. More and more though the booth image has become a factor in the actual jurying process.

What Makes A Good Booth Slide/Image
* Your slide should contain no banners or obvious things that indicate who the artist is.
* No people in the booth including yourself or customers.
* Just like in your actual booth at the event, no items on the ground (ever.)
* It should not be overcrowded with work.
* A good idea to create a new booth image every year.

So if you are entering art or craft fairs and want to learn a little more on what a jury is looking for be sure to visit my preparing art fair slides and digital images for the art fair jury lens. Also for those of you on facebook can now vote on liking a lens.

So here they are in all their glorious splendiferous color. FedEx brought me this little bundle of artsy joy the other day. They are those Neocolor II water soluble wax pastels that I have been planning on buying forever and just not gotten around to it. 84 sumptuous colors. Now they do have a set of 126 colors but it was $100 more which I would have done except 10 of them were metallics (which I never use) so it would have been an extra $100 for essentially 30 more colors. So I passed. If however I fall in love with them (which I think I will) I will buy the larger set anyhow.

As you know my Summer has been hectic as usual so I’ve not spent any time writing new Squidoo lenses or tending the ones I have already created. But I just had a few days all to myself and there is no art event happening for the next 3 weeks so I’m going to pop out a couple. The first being this one about (dah, dah da dah!) Neocolor Water Soluble Wax Pastels Lens

Squidoo How I Love Thee, Let Me Count The Ways (or rather dollars)
My squidoo earnings started out pretty slowly (as in non-existent) But they are currently depositing a nice little chunk o’ cash in my account each month. (despite my lack of attention the payment last month was $95) Now while the work I’ve put into them has been worth far more than the monies earned from them. Once a lens is created it needs some but in general very little tending. After I create over 50 lenses I will also receive a rank bump which should help increase earnings.

I have heard you can earn more money with hub pages, but at least for the moment squidoo is where I’ll stay. I really like the community here.

Oh and yes I did buy my new Neocolor ll off of one of my lenses. I looked at Cheap Joes and a couple of other places but when shipping got included (at the time of my purchase) an amazon affiliate was the best price.

Since the art fair season is upon us, I created one more squidoo lens about art fairs. This page highlights soime (as in the most important) factors I use to determine whether ot not to do a particular art fair venue. Biggest tip is of course to visit the event prior to signing up and talk to the artists there.

So here’ my latest art fair lens How To Choose The Right Art Fair.

And since the season IS upon us (my first event is less than a week away) here’s the other art fair lens I’ve created so far.

Art Fair Gear & Equipment Lenses
Art Fair Tents & Canopies
Artist Display Panels & Displays
Art Fair Equipment Essentials
Directors Chair Resource

General Art Fair Lenses
20 Things I’ve Learned From 20 Years Of Doing Art Fairs
An Art Fair Primer
All Good Things Come From Art Fairs

Note: I had spent much of yesterday trying to figuring why my blog was viewing all wonky like. Eventually I had to put my husband on the job since I couldn’t find my problem. Turns out there was just some random glitch in my last post. Good news, it’s fixed. Bad news no post yesterday.

So since Mike was gone this weekend I’ve been finishing up a couple of work in progress lenses as well as my giraffe painting. Giraffe photo coming soon. Just a bit more tweaking.

Here’s the latest
As a kid I always loved her books. Recently as an adult I’ve started collecting some of them. Picking them up at flea markets and rummage sales. What actually drew me back to these books as an adult was the art. Marguerite Henry teamed up with artist/illustrator Wesley Dennis for almost 20 years. Between them they wrote and illustrated most of the horse story classics of my youth. To find out more visit my latest lens The Classic Horse Books Of Marguerite Henry

And For Facebook Folk
One of the other latest things squidoo has done has opened up ranking/liking a lens to facebook users. In theory this should help draw a wider audience but it also means facebook fans can help lenrank their favorite writers which before only squidoo members could do. So if anybodies feeling kind feel free to like me. (yeah, I’m not above asking.)

Image from inside cover of King Of The Wind by Marguerite henry.

After having been to the MN Horse Expo recently I now have a small mountain of photo requiring organization. It got me to thinking about a couple of lenses that I created regarding collecting and organizing your reference photos. The previous post dealt with why you should take your own reference photos. And this post highlights a few of the ways that i go about collecting reference photos.

1. Take LOTS of Pictures
Yeah okay that seems pretty self explanatory but seriously most of the time I have no idea what will be og use to me possibly years in the future. I try not to over think my photos and keep them spontaneous. Again I’m not a photographer I’m a painter. I don’t need to set up the shot in order to get a painting out of it. sometimes a painting doesn’t emerge form a photo collection until years later. My tastes change and my medium and styles change and when if I edit too many photos out as not usable, I may be throwing away a great future painting.

2. When Collecting Reference Images Take Photos From Every Angle (and i do mean every angle) Keep taking photos until you can’t think up with a new way to view this object.

3.Try New Angles Whenever I photograph a subject I try to go all the way around them. Also, often I get down on my knees to try new angles. Yup, even in public places. I usually don’t mind humiliation when on a quest for new images to paint.

4. But Be Sure To Avoid Photographic Distortion (you know bulgy eyes, tiny little body) The best way to avoid distortion is to not be too close to your object of interest.

5.Take Detail shots The other thing I do when collecting painting reference photos is I take loads of detail shots. Close up or macro images of eyes, ears noses anything that I deem significant at the time. While these will probably never be the whole completed painting they provide information that might be lost of the wider shots.

6. Be aware Of Your Lighting. When taking photos outdoors I have found that the best light occurs in the mornings and evenings.

Both mornings and evenings the light is warmer in color and often with a yellow cast. Also the side lighting allows for greater drama with lights and shadows.

For more information on collecting your own reference photographs and how to organzie them please visit these lenses.

How To Build Your Own Reference Library
Organizing Your Photo Reference Library

I had recently run up to the MN Horse Expo and as is my way took a few hundred photos for painting reference. This got me to thinking a bit about why it is so important to collect my own reference photos in light of the fact that there are plenty of sights allowing you to use their images (though usually for a price.)

So in case your asking yourself why should you go to all this trouble, well here’s 4 good reasons why.
I. Connects you with your work
2. Avoids Legal Troubles
3. Professionalism
4.There’s nothing that beats that “being there” experience

Collecting your own reference photos will definitely aid in your ability to connect with your art. And if you connect with it chances are, collectors will also.

But if you’re still not convinced collecting your own images is worth the hassle, well then you need to familiarize yourself with the terms for using the work of others for your reference materials.It is good to be able to understand the difference between royalty free and copyright free. According to Wikipedia

Royalty Free is:
Royalty-free is a term employed in negotiating the right to use creative content, such as photographs, video, or music. The term royalty-free means that once the content is licensed under a set of guidelines, the licensee is normally free to use it in perpetuity without paying additional royalty charges.

While Copyright is
Copyright is the set of exclusive rights granted to the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work. These rights can be licensed, transferred and/or assigned.

So Copyright Free is:
Copyright-free is a conventional expression extensively used in Japan by authors whose works can be used freely regardless of copyright. It is distinguished from public domain.

And Finally Public Domain
Works are in the public domain if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all, if the intellectual property rights have expired,[1] and/or if the intellectual property rights are forfeited or unclaimed.

The defining characteristic of copyright infringement is if the average viewer when looking at the two works see a similarity. The copying need not be exact.

Seriously, isn’t it just easier to go out and get your own?

For more information on collecting your own reference photographs and how to organize them please visit these lenses.

How To Build Your Own Reference Library
Organizing Your Photo Reference Library

Front Of License

I have been a greeter on Squidoo now for a little while. Which means I look at all the newly published pages (in my selected areas of interest) and offer encouragement and positive feedback where it’s warranted. A couple of days back I ran across this lens for Poetic License created by Squidoo user Greekgeek which I thought was too funny and I told her she needed to make one for Artistic License . . . and she did.

This is a free template you can download and create your own with your picture or that of an artsy friend. As soon as I get a few minutes I’m going play with this idea. Very very clever. And how wonderful for her to share.

Just visit this lens: Make an “Artistic License” — Free Photoshop Template! This is where the images are from as well.

Back Of License

Yay I have photo upload capabilities again. (whoohoo!) I am still tweaking those darn giraffes so you may be getting another wip of it after all.

I finally launched the Remarques lens which was inspired by a post I wrote on the subject of Remarques a few weeks back. In the Remarques Lens I also a talked a little about how to draw remarques as well as why.

Remarque-able
So the good news about launching this lens is that I now have done a little art in the past week or so. It has been forever since I sat down and did a couple of pencil sketches so I really enjoyed doing some of the illustration for the latest squidoo lens. I plan to add more as soon as time allows. The gallery is shockingly busy (Another Yay!) but it makes for long days and very little creative juju is left. Still it’s good (and incredibly scary) that my first art fair is less than a month away. Thaaaat’s right.

Please Note: These drawings are actually displayed larger than life. They were quick 5 minute sketches about 2″ square or so. No erasing was allowed.

So I never realized how much I like to illustrate my blog post until now that I can’t. Sigh.

So I decided to pull out a post that I had been saving for the art fair season. But since I just published a lens with very much the same information to be used as a resource and checklist for packing for the upcoming art fair season I’ll go ahead and post this now. If you want to check out my new lens Art Fair Equipment essentials click here.

Indoor Events
1. Lights This has to do with the “S Rule” (Shiny Stuff Sells) The more light the better.
2. Extension cords
3. Tables with cloths and covers
4. A rug for the floor is a really nice touch.

Outdoor events
1.Weights and stakes
2 Tie downs
3.Tarps
4. Ice and something cold to drink
5. Snacks
6. Hats
7. Clip on umbrellas
8. Sunscreen

For Either
1 Calculators (at least 2 preferably 3) Heat and cold will fry them.
2. Change this includes bills. I usually take around $400 worth of 1, 5’s and 10’s.
3. Totes (for storage)
4. Pens, receipt books and bags.
5. Comfortable chairs
6. Guest book to collect names for mailing list.
7. Breath mints
8. Comfortable Shoes
9. Display Units, baskets etc.
10. Shop Towels
11. Plenty of Inventory. Nothing torks me off more than running out of something.

A Few Things That Are Nice To Have But Are Not Essential
1.Small broom for sweeping outdoor booth space
2. Blankets
3. Extra tarps
4.Tool Kit complete with zip ties
5. Shims for uneven or not level surfaces