Imagine for a moment that you took down every piece of art in your home and lined it up in order of how much joy the piece gives to you. Joy might come in the form of great memories, hopes and dreams or warm feelings that the art evokes. It may remind you of something or someone. It might come from knowing the artist, from the increasing value of the artwork, from a message of deep meaning within the art or from the sheer beauty of the piece.

Now, in your mind, walk down the line starting from the “most joy” end.  At what point do you stop?  Have you outgrown the next pieces of art? Or were they never really joy-givers?  Do you even feel like putting them back up?

Back to real life, and this is important: you have permission to sell them,  to give them to charity or (best solution) to give them to someone to whom they will bring joy.

Now you have been freed to search for more of the art that will bring YOU joy.   If you love the culture, environment and scenery of the Texas Hill Country, maybe you will find some here on my website.  If not, start searching topics that connect with your heart. If you don’t have a budget for art collecting, ask your favorite artist about reproductions or small art.

Fast forward: imagine a package arriving at your door.  Inside is a treasure in the form of a unique piece of art that gives you joy... It won’t be hard to find a special place to hang it.

What was a piece of art that sprang to mind on the high end of your joy-giving list?  Present company excluded: I am not fishing for compliments, I really am interested in knowing what OTHER artist lights up your day.

Do you keep hearing about people binging on Netflix or ice cream due to COVID-stress?  Well, I have a confession to make... though it may already be obvious to anyone who is following me on Facebook or Instagram.

I have been binging on art topics.  For a while it was pink thistles, then sea creatures, especially jellyfish.  
There is an old Far Side cartoon that shows God rolling snakes out of clay like a little kid and saying, “Hey, this is easy!”  (Theologically unsound, but funny.)  I confess that I felt like that about jellyfish a couple of weeks ago.  I had never painted one and my first few were ok, but when I taught them in the Simple Watercolors workshop, I started picking up creative ideas from my students.  That really loosened me up and then I had even more ideas about how abstract and crazy those tendrils could get!  I painted a LOT of jellyfish.

I would probably still be painting jellyfish today (and thinking about changing my tag line from ‘Texas Hill Country Art’ to ‘Jellyfish Were Made for Watercolor’...) if someone had not said the words “bluebonnet landscape” to me.

Suddenly the jellyfish have been pushed out and my brain is reeling with new ideas on how to paint bluebonnets so that they look near, mid-distance and far away.  

Here is a 5x7 that I just finished painting.  I will probably add ink to it after it percolates in my head overnight.  It is from a photo that I took on the Willow City Loop just north of Fredericksburg. This lovely day was in early April and I had snuck out of quarantine for a little sanity time alone.
It may take me some time to work the bluebonnets out of my system, but I am pretty sure that some new artistic obsession is waiting around the corner for me.  And another one around the next corner...  And the next...

What have you been binging on?  Has it helped your sanity and inner peace?
Nan 

Have you been getting some conflicting advice lately?  Like my COVID favorite: eat healthy and get lots of fresh air and sunshine but don’t go to the grocery store or the park if you can possibly avoid it!

I have been getting very intentional about my art making and art marketing lately.  Let me tell you, there are a lot of videos and podcasts on both topics these days.  You could spend all day listening and learning and never implement anything.  But I am limiting my listening and taking pauses to implement. 

Two pieces of art marketing advice from trusted sources have me tied up in a knot: 1.) Create lots of art and get it out there for potential buyers to see.  2.) Post only your very best work and price it high enough for collectors to respect.   #2 sounds true, but I think that I know a lot more ‘potential buyers’ than ‘collectors’.    

In one sense, a collector is someone who has bought my art more than once.  But in another sense, they are the people who see art as an investment and that they always have room for more.  Sure, I would like to have them looking at my art.  Would they be put off by my Grand Opening collection of ACEOs at $8 each?

My new marketing experiment is to start separating my art offerings.  The ACEO collection will end tomorrow, as scheduled. (Discount Code ACEOFORABUCK will go away too.)  Future tiny art, studies and small class demos will be posted in my Etsy shop, where prices will stay low.  So I will follow advice #1 there and on Instagram/Facebook.  For advice #2, I plan to start making some larger pieces and the best will end up on the new website.  And maybe a few smaller ones that I really love...

What conflicting advice has been driving you up the wall?