My Etsy store is open!

I finally got my Etsy store open, and have some work available for purchase there. I have lots of pieces that I want to add soon, but I'm glad to have a decent start.

For those of you unfamiliar with Etsy, it is a website of hand-made items for sale by numerous artisans. Think Ebay for artists and crafters. Etsy also allows the sale of materials for crafts and vintage items.

My store's name is LisasArtwork, and I will be adding some pastel, acrylic and mixed-media work as I can. Mostly I was unsure how to handle postage and shipping of the artwork safely, so I took some time to browse other Etsy shops for policies and shipping information. Etsy also has a nice blog full of info on getting your store up and running, which was very helpful.

To make things a little easier, I am offering free shipping of my artwork to addresses in the US and Canada. As things progress with the store, I may post separate shipping charges, but thought that might be a little more streamlined for now.

So feel free to browse my shop! I'll be adding more items soon, as well as creating some artwork for local fairs for the holiday season.

Happiness

I've been doing some heavy thinking about happiness lately. You see I am somewhat successful at a day job where I am in a position of authority - an Art Director at a multimedia company, and I create some pretty cool stuff. I'm not even lying when I say that I'm good at what I do.

I'm one of those people you probably knew and despised in grade school. I loved to learn and work hard and prove it to the teachers. I thought that my value as a human being was based on how I performed and wanted tangible grades to show that I was Good Enough even if I was just a girl with artistic talent. I knew I wanted to be an artist but always felt that I had to show I was smart too.

So I started out as an illustrator, but quickly moved into animation and digital art, then multimedia and Actionscript programming. I love the way you can plan and create and make something start to finish that is both beautiful and functional. There's so much about Flash development that is satisfying - it's challenging and it blends an artistic sense with practical knowledge and usability. It allows me to use both parts of my brain. Awesome.

But there's all the other stuff that comes with the day job. You will have to compromise yourself and work past your disagreements and you won't always get satisfaction from this job no matter how hard you work. You can really burn out if this job is diametrically opposed to your core beliefs and needs.

I think one problem for me is that for years I have invested myself personally in the job I have been doing. Not just in that I want to be there fully and do great work, but that I am expecting a sense of fulfillment creatively from these projects. And maybe that's asking too much from the day job. There's a whole life full of things I want to experience. Over time I've become a person who values people and relationships, art and music, freedom and time to myself, being with friends and family well over that accomplishment from the day job. I don't think I ever really valued the day job more than these things, but have become more honest with myself about how much I want them, and how pursuing career benchmarks distract me from what brings me happiness.

I have been in a state of self-examination for quite a while, during which I've been practicing more fine art. It's very, very hard to separate my value (perceived value) from how much I make and my title at the day job. But I know that there's other aspects of my life that make me happy. That I want to focus on and enjoy while I'm here.

Penelope Trunk has a great blog on career advice, and I recently found this post on building a career as an artist. It's a bit of tough love on being an artist in general, but I really identify with her thoughts on work/life balance. If I'm lucky enough to create a name for myself as an artist, I'll feel much more freedom in my life in general. But if I do need to balance the fine art with the day job, I will not look for the job to provide my happiness. I'm looking for ways to open my life up to the joys of friends and family and taking time for the arts. This will mean valuing myself for the other things I am good at. Loving people. Being compassionate. Laughing and being silly with my husband. My goofball self-depreciating humor. Being this crazy person is more important than how many hours I spend at work. I don't want to wake up panicked in the middle of the night thinking I haven't lived my life the way I should have.

More mini-paintings

Landscape 2  3 1/2"x 2 1/4" acrylic

I finished the second mini-landscape. I like the bright blue of the sky in this one. It's also feels good to complete some work so quickly. The surface areas of these little paintings are so small that they come along pretty easily. I'm doing my best to keep the style loose and not whip out the 00 brush trying to make ridiculous details.

Landscape 3  3 1/2"x 2 1/4" acrylic

My wonderful husband just returned from a visit with family out in Las Vegas. While he was out there he kindly took many photos of the landscape. This mini-painting is based on some photos he took from Red Rock canyon. He also brought back some beautiful shots of exotic florals that I am dying to paint. I'm looking forward to painting some botanical studies of flowers from our garden. I have a large hydrangea on the desk right now, with a pastel about halfway complete. Now that the weather has cooled a bit it is much more enjoyable to paint in the studio. It's 80 degrees in here now, as opposed to the 99 degree heat I was working in last week.

So glad autumn is making an appearance!

Both of these paintings are available for purchase on my website:
http://www.lisakretchman.com/artpages/grass_and_sky1.html
http://www.lisakretchman.com/artpages/desert_landscape.html

Father's Day gift becomes a cool font

One of the newsletters I subscribe to is from the MyFonts website. It's a great resource if you are interested in typography. Their newsletter also interviews the people behind their fonts and gives you a sense of their training, history, creative influences and some samples of their work. I like that you get the story of the artist, and what made him or her interested in pursuing a career in typography.

This month's newsletter featured Alejandro Paul, and included a story behind his Mati font, digitized from a Father's day gift from his eleven year-old son. Enjoy!

Paintings from Vermont trip

Trees in Vermont  8 1/2"x11" pastel

I just had a wonderful opportunity to travel with my friend April, another artist, to Vermont for a few days. We spent time hiking, taking pictures of the beautiful scenery and making artwork. The painting above was the view out the back of the condo we stayed at in Stowe. I tried this one as a plein air work.

Cherries  5" x 6" pastel

This smaller still-life is one I created while my legs were recovering from a climb up Pinnacle Peak. We hiked 1.6 miles up a very steep slope - totally worth it to see the 360 degree view of the mountains and towns around. We also took a hiking tour of some waterfalls in the Stowe area, and a gondola ride up Mount Mansfield, the highest point in Vermont. I'm hoping with all of the photos we took that I'll be making some great landscapes soon. I just recently purchased a new Kodak digital camera, and discovered a few fun features while on this trip - there's a cool panoramic photo option that takes a series of three photos (the camera shows a slice of the previous photo so that you can line the next one up) and then stitches them together on the fly (!). Pretty nifty!

Both of these paintings are available for purchase through my website:
http://www.lisakretchman.com/artpages/trees_in_vermont.html
http://www.lisakretchman.com/artpages/cherries.html

Repurpose unexpected materials into mini paintings

Landscape 1 3" x 2" acrylic

Here's a little painting I created last night. I had some small pieces of card stock that came out of a business card holder that I bought a few months ago, and was wondering what to do with them. I felt like trying these out for mini acrylic paintings - something I could paint quickly and keep simple and loose. I like the idea of repurposing an item that would otherwise be thrown out (or at least thrown into the recycling bin) and making a work of art in an unexpected size.

Landscape 2  3" x 2" acrylic

Roger A. Kinnunen blogged the idea of making mini paintings on on baseball dummy cards a while back, and details his process as well. So far I have worked on these paintings with the cards flat on my desk. I gesso the cards to cover the slick surface, then add an underpainting, and build up detail. I have ten cards gessoed and ready to work with for this experiment.

Both of these paintings are available for purchase through my website:
http://www.lisakretchman.com/artpages/grass_and_sky1.html
http://www.lisakretchman.com/artpages/grass_and_sky2.html

New paintings

Boat at Menemsha  10" x 8" pastel

I happened by a gallery/store on my last visit to Putnam, CT with a friend. Silver Circle Studio is right on Main Street next to the community parking lot, and they had some space opening up for August 1st. So for the last few weeks I have been working on some pastel paintings to sell there. Saturday I brought three 8 x 10 framed landscapes and eight 4 x 4 framed mixed-media paintings inspired by the heart series.

Open  4" x 4" pastel

Shine  4" x 4" pastel

Carly, the owner of Silver Circle took in the paintings and got to work on hanging everything while Brian and I took a look about the Putnam area.

Silver Circle Studio

Just down the street we stopped in at Victoria Station Cafe for some fantastic coffee and baked goods. They have a great atmosphere with lots of couches and private nooks to sit back and read or surf the internet while you enjoy their food.

Inside Victoria Station Cafe

They also have a lovely patio out front which I'd like to come back and try out later. We also checked out some antique stores and the other artwork at Silver Circle and in town. There's some beautiful work there, and I'm excited at the opportunity to participate with the artistic community. Let's hope all goes well with these pieces.

Inside the hallway connecting Silver Circle and the other businesses on Main Street