Drawing For Your Painting

White Ibis Strolling by the Bay

A white ibis greeted me early this morning, as we welcomed another beautiful Tampa day. Eager to sketch her later for the kids' art series I'm working on, I pointed, shot, and moved on.

Island birds are the next, and final, series for my children's gallery on Fine Art America.

The shells series was finished today. They're simple shells that kids pickup in the water and on the beaches around Tampa Bay.

Island Shells Series 1 of 4

The children's series are on 6x6" gallery wrap canvas but created as 3x3" watercolors as a concept. They were first rendered as pencil drawings, then painted freely with watercolor.

It's a terrific feeling to take a blank sheet of paper and a pencil and flesh out imagery of any sort. Ingres was my favorite master of drawing for his simply rendered portraits. Though I seldom take pencil in-hand for my larger paintings, I do make a very rough sketch in brown or blue acrylic paints in beginning all acrylic and oil paintings.

There's a Metropolitan Museum drawing exhibition worthy of note “Dürer and Beyond: Central European Drawings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1400-1700,”
You can read about it at the Times Met Drawing Exhibit.  Really beautiful and inspirational drawings from several masters to get your creative juices going.

Storm Clouds Moving In

Listening to the radio as I painted on the beach today, I felt like a country girl in the city. Terry Gross was interviewing Levon Helm. Love those country harmonies even without knowing the music.  Levon Helm Interview  He certainly leaves us a wonderful body of work.

Rains are moving in for the weekend here, so it's computer time for me. Found some great art marketing sites to share in a future post as I explore various venues. Lots of "free" information out there to Google for your own use.



Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too.

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:

Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com  my Fine Art America gallery
Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent
www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
Gail Kent Studio Notes  my Tumblr blog site
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios 

Google+ Profile link
Gail Kent

Fine Art America Gallery Page Link for seascape art prints:
seascape paintings

 

Google Blogger Problem Resolution

This morning I joined the Blogger Group  Blogger Forum 

Objectives:  

• need to view my photos which I can't see anywhere in Plus,
• need my posts showing in searches,
• need my Etsy widget to carry over to daily posts                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Shell Game Finding Your Answer

All, repeat, all posts stopped showing in searches and photos are invisible to me since the transition to Plus.
Let's see, how long ago was that?
I'm marketing art online and I'm dead in the water!

Since I went into the forum as a new member, I'm totally reassured that I made the right decision in deciding to hire a consultant before moving on to my own domain site gallery based on a Wordpress template. Wordpress users also have Plus problems yet to be resolved.

I'm certain a pro can fix my Blogger issues in a matter of minutes, as I'm pretty sure I did something I shouldn't have in signing on to Plus. It's taken me many hours, too many to count, to realize I cannot resolve the issues myself. But I've got a few rainy days coming up and, unable to paint, I'll try one more time.

Typical postings on the forum today express absolute user anguish. Students have lost assignments. Bloggers cannot reply to comments. Posts are not being posted. Accounts are closed. URL's renamed. Yep, I definitely need professional help if the younger user cannot find resolution and begs for help.

• OMG, where are my posts? put them back, class assignments!
• Can't reply to my comments, why not?
• Why has my blog gone? Where's my site?

Fellow Blogger Group Members: You are not likely to find problem resolution in the help forum. Your Blogger commiserators don't know how You quite possibly got yourself into your Blogger jam. Play around with the issues and if you can't fix the problems, hire a pro, or barter one, whatever. I didn't see any magical fixes from fellow bloggers on the help site. As for a list of problems that Google is aware of, follow the fix is all you can do, if and when they offer one.

Picnic Island, Tampa, Florida at Low Tide

My pain is that for six months I've painted in one location to capture the essence of that location and cannot even get my art in front of my own Tampa friends and neighbors. If I put in half a dozen search terms, a little something may surface. And that's after hiring my new SE best friend optimizer.

Time for me to get on with it and stop hoping that Google has provided a resolution. Google has not provided me with an answer to my questions.

Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too.

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:

Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com  my Fine Art America gallery
Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent
www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
Gail Kent Studio Notes  my Tumblr blog site
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios 

Google+ Profile link
Gail Kent

Fine Art America Gallery Page Link for abstract art prints:

abstract prints

The Artist as a Brand

Winter Morning Canvas Print

What I've learned about investing in an online art presence, building my brand, selling my art:

• Art is fun
• Art marketing in multiple venues is not fun
• Selling art is fun
• Pricing, billing, collecting and shipping art are not fun
• Self-representing myself in online galleries is fun
• Working half a day on artist's websites, editing to assorted formats, then uploading art is not fun

• Note to Self: Don't worry be happy, paint, hire an intern!

Island Butterfly Series -3/6

Well, perhaps only extraordinarily successful painters hire interns or other assistants who help with everything but the painting. But we can dream. We paint because we enjoy painting and perform as best we can in all the work that supports our brand--our service of delivering our best product.

I've worked hard for six months setting-up my websites and painting a little over 100 small acrylic paintings and studies and 3 medium-sized oils. With the children's gallery that I've started, I'll begin with maybe 30 images and then move on to larger works for the GailKentStudio.com domain site.

Before taking the domain gallery live,  a consultant will get all the websites performing the social networking plan functions I began with. A few major kinks with Google's Plus changes have to be smoothed out.

I've used PayPal with my Etsy shop, and been pleased with performance there. Easy for the buyer to know they will get the product they paid for, easy for me to ship out my art knowing I'm being paid.

With my Fine Art America site, I have nothing to do but upload the art. They format, print, ship, and collect and pay me through PayPal. Wonderful!

The brand is established and now must be maintained. I've met interesting artists through my online presence and we've supported one another with concerns, endeavors, and pats-on-the-back. Contacts, customers and potential customers also contribute to the brand when they comment or share information and links about an artist's work. It's a sense of accomplishment. 

All in all, online art marketing has been a learning experience and will continue to present challenges, growth, and rewards as I expand my art activities. It was a decision without regrets because I started with a plan. I posted about that in this link Set up Online Gallery

Now, to get on with a promotions plan and creating lots of little canvases to fill the children's gallery.



Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too.

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:

Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com  my Fine Art America gallery
Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent
www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
Gail Kent Studio Notes  my Tumblr blog site
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios 

Fine Art America Gallery Page Sponsor
minimalism prints

Nature Art for Older Kids

Island Floers Series : 1 of 6

Choosing decorative art for children after they've outgrown Mickey and Little Ponies, but before they've discovered zombies or vampires makes for a challenge.

I'm working on several island nature series for my Fine Art America young people's gallery with the originals now offered on Etsy as affordable art as each series is completed. Island Flowers Great paintings for the young-at-heart, too!

Six series in total in the works: butterflies, flowers, fish, shells, seabirds, and trees. Each is a series of 4-6 acrylic paintings on 6x6x1-1/2" canvas executed in a very spontaneous watercolor style.

Butterflies Series : 2 of 6

These paintings, not graphic art, are all about nature--bright colors and peaceful settings. All images, except the soon to be listed tropical fish, are from the island where I paint regularly.

Girly girl flowers painted in pinks and purples and golden yellows are balanced with boyish tans for moths, butterflies and shells.

The very bright tropical fish series is for the youngest art aficionados. The trees series will feature some great climbing trees and more delicate ones, too, for girls and boys. All are being listed on Etsy as they are completed, then will be available as similar prints in a variety of sizes and formats on Fine Art America.

Island Flowers Series : 2 of 6

Island Flowers 2 of 6  is a beautiful little painting suitable for all ages.

All of these paintings convey the peace and tranquility of nature's gentle movement in an island estuary. 

These images, also very attractive as greeting cards will be  offered at Fine Art America as completed in multiple formatting choices.


Comments are always encouraged.
If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too.

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:

Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com  my Fine Art America gallery
Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent
www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
Gail Kent Studio Notes  my Tumblr blog site
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios