NELVIA'SART.COM

 For a while now I have been trying to get back into the daily drawing mode (Joan T, you inspired me here!!).  I kind of gave up drawing that wasn't connected to something I was painting.  Drawing is a good skill to develop as it really helps your overall work. I have also wanted to do something that could give back  But I am not a patient person and don't think I'm "volunteer" material since I don't want to be committed or have to do things any more.  I have thought a bit about cartooning too, so thought using my artwork, might make people feel good and smile for a few seconds.  Well, I think I found a solution that combines both things.   Thought I'd start, at least several times a week, doing a sketch with some quote and then post to my Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/Nelvias-Fine-Arts-1394520027483120/ Being selfish, I am glad this gives me the pleasure of reading all the great things people have and do say.  Plus I can draw whatever I

                                                           The Lighthouse Keeper                                                                       15.5"x12"                                                                          Pastel This is the first picture that I have done on pastel mat.  I have been holding off trying it until I felt I was back with pastels.  Now that I have I am very pleased with the surface, for I think it is between velour and sanded paper, it has a velvety rough surface.  Now I know what everyone was raving about. I was drawn to this picture because I liked the dramatic moody twilight and all the shadows as well as the man's craggy face.  Neil Kingsbury always takes such dramatic shots.  Again most of this picture is done with pan pastels, on medium gray pastel mat, with the details being done with pencils.  I did play a little bit and added in some extra colors like magenta and some blues.  I have heard that we tend to see as nature

                                                                    The White Ghost                                                                             9"x12"                                                                             Pastel Trying to get out of my slump so have spent some time watching YouTube videos - now that can get your revved up.  People are so darn talented and try to many things!!  Couple that with the fabulous array of photos that so many talented photographers share on PaintMyPhoto, many thanks to Paul, one of my favorite wildlife photographers, and you just can't stay down for long.   Those fingers just start itching. So I saw a pan pastel video by Joanne Barby and decided to try an owl.  Reminds me of Harry Potter, as a matter of fact, an artist on PMP did a whole owl series on book pages!!  Anyway, they have the most fabulous eyes.  There is another that I have to do just because he has red eyes.  There was a huge assortment of

Red Rocks 16"x11" Acrylic This one has taken its good old time coming together.  I started with a recycled gallery wrapped canvas that I got at the thrift store.  It had a glicee on it that I had to sand off.  It came out rather spotty, so already I wasn't off to a good start and feared the paint might not want to stick.  I started with a photo that I had taken, but felt it was too sparse, so  I found another photo that had a more dramatic sky than what my photo had.    I think I am finally done playing with this one.   Still no go.  This is what I originally had, just the skinny center section.  But it looked too empty and the foreground was boring rock.  I also thought what I had done was way too detailed for as far away as the rock was, so time to look for a photo I could pick features to add from.  Enter Franklin's photo where I added more rock formations.  Also decided to use the scrubby  bushes as the foreground because I liked the dull greens agai

This is where it gets dicey, it's time to to have a real defined strategy for Pinterest.   But what?  Now I have access to analytics and can judge visitor reactions to try to capitalize on successful pins/art work and reproduce more of them.   Since I have decided to learn about Pinterest and posting more, things have already changed pretty dramatically, just the tip of the iceberg.   Consistently (means five minutes of pulling up analytics and looking at a graph)  measuring your activity on Pinterest can provide pretty instantaneous feedback about what types of content resonate best on this channel and with your specific audience. Which are the analytics to watch?   The number of followers is important, but doesn't tell the whole story of your success on Pinterest.     -       For instance, on February 3 I started playing around from doing nothing to posting a few things, analytics show for the timeframe last 14 days/last 7 days show : -  went from 0 average daily impres

                                                 Red Sky at Night, Sailors Delight                                                                        14"x11"                                                                   Mixed Media Just kind of dinking around trying to get my mojo back after completing a commission.  I always seem to have a downward spiral after a complicated picture.  Anything that seems to come after it I am never satisfied. But I started this one and by sheer discipline I am finishing it.  This is another mixed media piece that combines my own handmade support, pan pastels, a little watercolor and the foreground is mixed acrylic inks of red/blue/black.  I glued the paper onto a piece of mat board and had more trouble this time with it buckling and lifting off of the board.                           Also I still haven't figured out how to apply the acrylic inks.  I tried a styro peanut, a quill art pen, the quill end of a feather and st

What is Pinterest? First off the potential for subject matter is limitless, it can be about art , redecorating, health, recipes, fashion, fitness, etc.  anything that you like or think about, somebody has said something about it.  It's opinions with images. - It is an online board.  Your boards ( collections of like pins/repins ) hold and categorize things that interest you.  There is a personal or business account which provides you access to analytics about who's looking at your boards.  You can start with a personal account and covert to a business later on if you choose. - It is like a bookmarking site ( holding the posts, descriptions remind you why you liked, and with directions on how to get back there to read original subject matter again) - It is visual, as a  matter of fact you can't just post text, you always have to have an image to create a post. - Your post is called a pin. - If you save (like as in Facebook) someone else's pin it is called a rep

 Just finished my commission and it always leaves me a little discombobulated and disenchanted with anything I am working on.  So if the art muse is missing, the research muse decided to get active again.  I lightly started talking about Pinterest in a previous post, Target Customer Analytics, and as I have just tied my blog to Pinterest I thought I would expand a bit on why I am going to pursue Pinterest.  While Instagram has bit into Pinterest's bubble, there is still  much viability to this social media tool.  The good thing with Pinterest is you can really let your imagination run rampant on almost any subject and it works to your advantage. -  There are 100 million users that log onto Pinterest every day, 71-80% Females (depends on who you read) and 29% Male, with 60% of all users being in the US                                           Age Ranges:   18-29  34%                                                              30-49  28%                                

I am working through a quasi business plan (I pulled this from lazyowlboutique.com as it is slanted toward artists) and one of the first questions is where can I find my target customer.  I admit, my ego would like people to see what I am creating!!  I may never sell any more art but I find this fascinating ( maybe there is a little geek in there after all ). So, I am reading about, searching for and enjoying the gathering of target customer analytics from several locations.   I am in the "collecting it" phase, the easy part - the hard part, "analyzing it" is yet to come.  Also I wrote down a preliminary idea of who my customer is:  interests, gender, age, income and education -  conclusion was I thought they were kind of like me, is it true? I may be a bit behind the trendy aspects of social media in selecting Pinterest, but got to start somewhere.  So, why am I doing this:  60% of people use social media, in some way, each day!!  Do you have google analytics

                                                                 Fence Line                                                                    12"x9"                                                                Mixed Media Mixed Media, what does that mean.  There is a little of everything in this piece.  This is a quick landscape that I wanted to try to stay not mega detailed and try some different things, in other words just play.  It started off with my making my own support of clear gesso on watercolor paper, this leaves the front with a lightly sanded feel and holds the pastels well (I figured if it didn't work I didn't want to waste a good piece of sanded pastel paper).    Since I was going to add some wet to it I affixed it to a piece of mat board that I had (I do draw/paint on mat board, but this was pretty rough and wouldn't lend itself well due to the pattern, so not a waste to cover it) which gave it a firmer base and didn't allow it to bu

Still am working out the bugs and learning about what is free and what is not in Canva.com.  Do you suppose it would help if there were directions?  I am catching them on the fly but maybe I should look for a tutorial.  But slowly the light is turning on and I am learning how to edit and customize the templates.   I know they are still pretty simplistic, but, come on, it's a start.   This is a very simple landscape pastel study.  I took two different photos from PMP, one from Elizabeth Beveridge and Rodney Campbell, because I liked the wintery icy landscape, but didn't like the lighthouse that was there.  So I put in what is my idea of a lighthouse.  So not sure in the lighthouse world you can have this type of structure in this type of environment.  Since it was a dreary winter day I decided to pump it up a bit and so put in a different sky and then reflected some of the pink tones onto the ice.  This is pretty loose and not real detailed for me.  I kept my hands i

As most of you know I am one of the worst technology people around.  It takes me triple the time it does someone else to understand what the geek world tells you to do.  I am on a huge learning curve here so thought I'd start to share what I find.   Also you can't be on them all so my goal is to focus on a couple of things for 2017.   Today is an overview of what tools I am looking at. As you know I have changed from DailyPaintWorks to creating a website with FASO, http://nelviasart.com (Fine Art Studio Online).   Why did I change to them?            The first 30 days are free,            then the monthly cost was reasonable,            they host/maintain the website platform, their customer service folks are awesome!!            give you your url name annually as part of fee,            have newsletter capabilities,            super analytics even at lowest paid level,                       All benefits are cheaper than trying to do it yourself!!            Higher