Affordable Art and Holidays

With the holidays fast approaching and with that, holiday art boutiques, I have been busy creating "affordable art". What is affordable art, you ask? Well, in this neck of the woods, it seems that the magic number for impulse buying is hanging right around the $30 and under bracket. So, in order to attempt to cash in on this trend, (every pun intended) I have been concentrating on small ticket items. It takes less time to physically make smaller art, but it seems that the prep time is the same whether you are painting in inches or feet! So, hopefully, all the time spent on small works will pay off, and I will be able to get back to bigger but not necessarily better pieces.

Speaking of holidays, Halloween is next week, and the stores are already filling aisles with Christmas merchandise. I mean, really. I love Christmas, I really do, but I still can't seem to be able to buy any Christmas items until after Thanksgiving. I tried it once. I ended up buying 3 times as much stuff, because I kept seeing presents for one of the kids, then I'd have to buy presents for the other kids to "make it even". Not a good strategy. The kids loved it, though. Husband, not so much. So I wait till after Thanksgiving, and NEVER on Black Friday, to do my shopping. Unless I shop online on Black Friday. But I spent too many years in retail to go into a store on the day after Thanksgiving. That's just the way I roll.

I started the commissioned painting for my brother and sister-in-law. It's large (24 x 48) and so far, I think it's coming along nicely. Of course I always love the painting on the canvas at this stage; there are so many possibilities and ways to create a masterpiece. As soon as the painting is delivered, I start having second doubts, and seeing small mistakes that I feel the need to fix! But I read somewhere that most artists feel this way, so I don't obsess over it. Too much. On with the next.

The weather is supposed to be absolutely fantastic this week, so I'm looking forward to spending mornings in the studio while Lexi is in Kindergarten. Maybe I'll even post photos of the progress of the commissioned piece. Depends on how much work I can get done on it. Stay tuned, you never know what might turn up!