Monster squirrels!

I'm starting to paint on slightly bigger canvases, as I've mentioned before. The Monster Squirrel above was done a 6" x 6" canvas board. I'm gradually doing real-life paintings of my Little Nightmare series. I like the idea of testing out ideas digitally in Corel Painter first to fiddle with colours and composition, then attempt them with real paints and a canvas.



I've been pretty busy lately, but I find that my acrylics painting helps keep me from getting too stressed...one more reason I'm not taking commissions, at least not yet. Right now it's pure FUN. I keep some of the paintings but there isn't room in my office for most of them, so then I post them for sale in my Etsy shop. I've sold 34 paintings through and outside of Etsy so far.

I learn as I go. Thanks for the encouragement and interest in my art, everyone! I've also just discovered WetCanvas, an online community for artists. I'm mainly interested in the acrylics board and the "general art business" board. All my experience has been in freelance writing so far, and I still feel pretty ignorant about art sales. Some fascinating discussions, and highly informative.

I'm also thinking offering some of my paintings with pre-cut matteboards (am I using that term correctly?) to fit, like this one:



My local art store doesn't seem to have pre-cut matte boards for square paintings, so I might have to order those online.

I also love the 4" x 4" x 1.5" canvases that Jeff picked up for me. Here's my first attempt ("Perchance To Dream"):



Because the sides are so thick, the paintings can stand up by themselves -- making them easier to display and also extending the canvas space I have to work with:



Anyway, the paintings above are or were all for sale in my Etsy shop; you can click on any of the images above to see the Etsy page for that item. I'm also getting into the habit of lowering the price on one or two items a week.

The line-ups at the post office are getting long, so I'm only going to be shipping orders that are placed by December 14th (this Friday). Any orders placed after that will be shipped after January 3rd. Sorry, but I -hate- line-ups and will happily sacrifice potential sales later this month to avoid them.

I'll be posting another small batch of paintings in a day or two after I finish some touch-ups.



Above: layering gesso over a painting that didn't turn out. I was experimenting with doing portraits of some of my nephews and nieces, but the portraits turned out horribly. Yet another reason to avoid commissions for now! In Corel Painter, it's easier to fix mistakes, plus I'm finding it way more fun to draw cartoon portraits than realistic.

I just bought a tube of Liquitex modelling paste and tried it out for the first time on the weekend, tinting it with acrylic colour. It's smelly but REALLY fun to work with. I'll post some photos of my first experiment soon.



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