a plea for advice

Hi, we've had friends visiting! :) It's been so fun; we had lots of beach time, swimming, playing cricket on the beach, going for long walks, racing our sunglasses as they sailed along the sand in strong wind, picnics, and even a trip to the circus! Have I mentioned how fun it was?

Now my office/studio room has morphed back to it's old self after doubling as a guest room. I'm catching up, and thinking about what's next...


For a while now my Etsy store has been a dark cave of inactivity. There's just nothing happening there, and it's so disheartening watching my items expire, my cupboards are filling with unwanted stuff. So I'm asking your advice:

Do you have an Etsy store? What have you learnt? How do you make it work? What do people like buying? Are you an Etsy shopper? What do you look for? How do you find the items you buy? Do you have a budget when you set out to shop?

I've tried listing one item a day or week to try and keep further up in the listings, but eventually I run out of things to list, and sink further and further down the lists. I'm about to have some new prints made to freshen things up a bit, and am also thinking of cards maybe???

I don't know... What advice would you give me?
If you were me, what would you do?

fresh choice

My interest in the boundary lines blurring between art and illustration continue to deepen. Last weekend I went to see the Archibald Prize: an annual nation wide portrait painting competition. It’s a very popular exhibition and if you make it into the show you’ve pretty much made it from then on. This year it seemed that almost every painting was a different subject painted by the same group of artists that have been selected in previous years. Thick, loose, dripping brushstrokes seem to be what’s in at the moment, and although I envy this type of painting skill, and love looking at it, I wonder why it’s the same each year.

Therefore I was beyond impressed, and surprised to see an intricate painting by Kathryn Del Barton! I love her work (it’s very hard to find on the internet). But my delight wasn’t only about seeing one of her works large and in the flesh, it was that I’ve always considered her work to lean more on the side of illustration than art.

I realise I’m not defining what I interpret the differences to be very clearly. I think it maybe has something to do with what I was, and was not, allowed to hand in while I was at art school - if I wanted to pass, that is. (Funnily enough she and I went to the same college only a few years apart. I wonder if she did similar work back then?)

Anyway, back to Kathryn. Her work is so wonderful, and I stood by her painting for a while, listening to people comment that it was their favourite. It really stood out from the rest, and was a fresh choice for that exhibition. One I’m excited about.

research

A question for you...

Lets say, hypothetically, that you wanted to buy a print of an illustration online (not mine, just one in general), would you prefer to pay a little more to have a fully archival giclee quality print? Or would you rather spend less and get a non-archival print?

please help...

casing the joint

As if I wasn't spoilt enought last week Mr You got me my very first digital camera for my birthday (before that I had been using his). It's sooooo cool and the perfect size to carry around in my bag, exactly what I have wanted for ages. Spoilt!!!

Then, just by chance, some other gear I'd had on order arrived last week too. It's all very exciting at my house, so many new toys to play with. One of them is a scanner. Some of you may know I've been researching different types for ages now and I eventually decided on one. Thank-you to those who patiently answered my questions about the various scanners you use, much more helpful than the nonchalant sale assistants, I can assure you.

Anyway, hopefully this new stuff will help me in the process of having some of my illo's printed. I did a test run today on some thank-you cards I have made to send to the friends who came to my party. Ironically the 'thank-you's' are in the style of my 'sorry' illo from last week. I'm sure they'll get a kick out of them considering how much hillarity the original photo created.

I don't have any experience with printing, so if anyone has tips on printing watercolours please bring lay 'em on me. Especially the issue of printing paper texture; do you print the paper texture onto smooth stock, or textured stock? Does printed texture on top of paper texture look weird? Also, I'm getting slight shadows on the edges of of my scans from where the paper has wrinkled a bit (no matter how much I press or iron the paper flat first). Ideally I'd love to print back out on textured paper, I guess I just have to do some tests.