Recent Works in Progress

One of the most important (and most interesting) parts of attempting to sell paintings is making the paintings. So instead of regaling you with more of my titillating money/debt/hopeless and misguided promotional method talk, I thought I would share some works in progress. I tend to work on multiple paintings at a time, so at any given time I can have 10-20 things partly done.

A few things I'm currently in the middle of:















This one may actually be done.






I hope to have these done within the next few days. maybe I'll have some completed shots up soon.

Far More Effort Required

I feel like I haven't putting nearly enough effort into my work and the promotion of it lately. I really don't know how anyone can balance a full-time job, making art regularly, doing the millions of online and real life things that are required to garner interest, attempting to have a social life, and still have time to bathe and eat. I do feel, however, that if I were to really put the effort in and start making some sales, it would be kind of a domino effect and it would be somewhat easier to make the sales.

Things I am doing that I wasn't doing before:

• Updating my twitter with a painting of the day
• Updating my facebook with a painting of the day
• Trying to be more active on the Etsy forums and reading/contributing to the daily blog post.

It does seem like I've been getting a few more hits this way, but nowhere near what I need. I'm wondering if I should be adding some of the roosters to my deviantart account. I really haven't used it for a couple years and when I did use it, I didn't really think there were a lot of people there interested in buying work.

I might start looking into advertising, but I'm not sure I'm able to do anything like that yet. The restaurant industry slows down in the summer and I am noticing a drop in income already. Grahh.

In other news, I've decided that when I do get my shit together and lose the debt, I'm pretty sure I would like to get my Master's and teach art at college level.

What online stuff do you do that helps with selling your work?

Starting Point: May

I'm going to try to always have an entry early in the month documenting what progress I've made with my debts.

April was a decent month, debt-wise. I pulled a little money out of savings to pay off the balance on my highest interest credit card, and that made me feel better. I have two cards left: one is my lowest interest card, and one doesn't accumulate any interest below $250 (and I only have about $175 left to pay on that one.)

May 1 Tally:

Credit Card Debt: $1184 (Down from over $3000 on January 1st)
Auto Loan Debt: $4133 (Down from about $4800 on January 1st)

Paintings sold in April: 0 (Wooo!)

I had a few unexpected bills towards the end of last month. I have a student loan that isn't bundled with all my other loans, and the payment just started this month. (It's only a quarterly payment, but I thought it was starting next month.) Plus, I had a car repair that was twice as much as I thought. I had some money saved and I didn't end up needing to use my credit cards, but I ended up using up a big part of what I had saved (which, honestly, is not much). I think , for May, I'm going to concentrate on building up savings. I know this will set me back a little bit as far as paying off the debt, but I think that if my long-term goal is pay off the debt AND eventually move out, having a decent amount of money saved up is a very important part of that. It will also be good, art-wise, to have some money to be able to pay the entrance fees for various shows.

Another art note: I decided not to participate in the community art fair in June. I just found out about it too late and wasn't prepared. You need to send in a photo of your display system, and I don't have a display system. I researched some professional craft fair display setups, and I found one for $175 and the rest were $500-$1000. Ugh. If I know about this earlier, I think I could have built something respectable. It was also a bad time, for various reasons, but I'm still kind of disappointed. I guess this is a lesson that I need to be actively seeking out these opportunities so I know about them way before I need to take action.

That's all. Also, this blog is boring and lame and I need to work on SPICING UP the writing. I can write, but I wonder if I can make interesting writing about money?