Thursday Photo Challenge - Nature
Topic: Art

Visiting my favorite blog, OutsideIn, tonight, I learned of the Thursday Photo Challenge, topic - Nature. Vicki, who with her family is going through quite a challenge of another nature, posted a photo that is an homage to her parents' relationship with nature. To me it brought up the question of 'can there really be a line between Nature and non-Nature?' or, 'what really does Nature mean?', or, just what is a Nature photogragh? To take a photo with Nature as the subject we use a camera. A photo of a Nature subject, by its very existence means the presence of a mechanical object (that took the photo). Well you get the picture.

I visited the challenge site and looked up some of the photos. And so decided to participate as well. This was the first photo of a 'Nature' subject that I came across fishing through my photo folders. I think this river is called Back River and it is in Friendship, Maine. I believe the tide was coming in. At lowtide clamdiggers can be seen in the mudflats stooped over their baskets raking up any clams they can find. This past summer was a desparate summer for the clamdiggers (who earn much of their living this way) because many of Maine's clam flats were closed due to Red Tide, a toxic algae that strikes periodically.

Great Practice Paper and a Hopper Painting
Topic: Watercolor Class

I left a comment tonight on Karen Winters' lovely visual blog about my favorite paper for practicing brush strokes and sketching. Its called "Multi-Purpose" paper, by Georgia Pacific. Its a grade above copier paper and not to be confused with copier paper. You can find it in the office supply section of WalMart. A ream of 500 sheets costs about $3.50. It takes paint beautifully, but, being thin it buckles once wet. One can actually do a painting beyond just practice strokes on this Multi-Purpose paper. I did this copy of Edward Hopper's painting "Bill Latham's House" several years ago on it. (You can compare to Hopper's painting here...)

More samples:Read More...

Mardi Gras - Fat Tuesday - Carnivale
Topic: Seasonal/Holiday

Here's is my part in the festivities. I've never taken that much notice of it until this year because of all the news about New Orleans and Katrina. Paint a mask yourself - its fun, you can go wild. What are those masks with the big beaks anyway? You'll find  interesting Mardi Gras history and traditions at Novareinna.com.

Update: I now have Mardi Gras Coloring Pages. Have fun! 

I get my first official website customer
Topic: Putting up a website

I finally got my first official live customer to/from my website last week - someone in search of Maine notecards. Someone not looking for my work by artist name. She had had to make an effort to find what she was looking for. She and her husband had been to Maine this fall with inlaws and fell in love with it. They are from Kansas City. She was looking for special notecards to give the inlaws. She told me she'd found me by googling 'midcoast maine notecards'. I tried the search and saw my site didn't show up til the fourth page of results. There was nothing really relevant before my listing though. I knew my site wouldn't have shown up anywhere close with the search 'Maine notecards'. When I finally confessed to her that she was my first who came via a search for content without knowing of my work, how thrilled I was, and that I was lucky she hadn't tried 'Maine notecards', she told me she had indeed tried that search as well. (See my Maine notecards here.) And here I am even more thrilled - she said there had been plenty of nice notecards that reminded her of the area but nothing was quite what she was looking for, until she finally found mine. What a special endorsement. She also told me yes, she'd be sure to visit my blog. I only hope she doesn't visit the blog right away because of what I just put up there.

In all my excitement about getting her order I felt prompted to investigate further what is involved with taking payments online via PayPal. I've seen where people have this set up to even take donations. So decided I'd start small and just set it up for donations. (Later note: updated Make a donation page.) I did that and then made a blog entry about it, basically an appeal. Now I've been worrying whether that is just too crass, and thinking I must put a little story on top of the donation entry to hide it a bit! I set up my website as a contact point for people, hardly expecting to get orders from it. It had to start somewhere. And now I've taken the PayPal step I will have to figure out how to integrate it with how my products are already set up here. I know this is a patchwork site, but then so is life. There is nothing really wrong with that as long as it works in whatever capacity. Well, several hours later and I've added a crude order/feedback form to my site. The best I can do right now with the PayPal is to have it as an option to pay with once an order comes through. We shall see. You can take a look at my Maine notecards order form and see what you think.

Now Accepting Donations
Topic: Life
I've signed up for PayPal. I haven't yet set it up to take orders but I did set it up for donations! If anyone would like to help me bring my art into the world or contribute to the expense of maintaining my teaching studio, I would greatly appreciate it. An unforeseen expense is that I must find a new living space. My new landlords have realized they cannot make the improvements they want with the apartment occupied. By contributing you will be helping me find a new apartment, continue to offer art classes, and make my art available. To make a donation use the PayPal link at the following page.Thank You!