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I took a few days off to spend the end of Spring Break with Kayleb, my almost 15 year old son, husband Bob and my friend from Ringling, Dave Anderson.
Dave graduated as an illustrator and has recently worked with Bob on a few projects. So it's great to be reconnected again. Dave lives down in Cape Coral near Ft. Myers. We initially wanted to stay on Sanibel Island, but after reviewing the hotels expenses, we decided that Ft. Myers beach looked just as nice and much more cost effective. So we stayed fronting the Gulf and enjoyed the nice weather and the sound of the waves.
While Bob and Kayleb played on the beach. I did a few little paintings. It was very relaxing and enjoyable.
I'm not really into laying around in the sun. But this was a perfect opportunity to take some photos and do sketches for my up-coming shows. The next one is in West Palm Beach, SunFest, and the Hampton's Art Festival, in New York. Both are on the ocean and it will be nice to have landscape paintings that remind buyers of their neighborhood.
I'll be painting more plein air, I really enjoyed working on these paintings and have just joined the Plein Air Florida and will be participating in the "The Treasure Hunt" for MCA and Shasta here in Marion County.
Here are some additional photos from our hotel room, it was a great hotel and beautiful weather.
In spite of very wet weather, this was a wonderful show for me. Not only was one of my paintings chosen for the poster art, advertising, program art and promoting me as the featured artist. But I had my first WIN in a prestigious juried art festival. A new piece, "SUNLIT FOREST", won first in the painting category, which is a welcome success for me. I won $1,000 in prize money, a blue ribbon, but better than all that, I won an opportunity to be a part of "The Masters" at Disney. "The Masters" is a very distinguished accomplishment for many artists, and a personal goal since I began dedicating my career to painting. A goal I knew might be difficult and take some time on the circuit to achieve. So to have this opportunity with only 3 shows under my belt, well, I can't be happier.
Celebration is an oasis in Orlando. The entire community is landscaped, meticulously taken care of and are very involved in putting on a first class art show. The Patron's party was double from the previous year, I was told. And every volunteer was helpful, cheerful, and made a point to stop in making sure every artist was doing as well as they could.
This was my biggest show to date in terms of sales. And I think if the weather had been better, sales would have been much stronger. On Saturday, the rain started at 3:30 and at times were very strong, but Sunday rain started around 2:00 and never stopped. Around 4:00 we packed it in, as the rest of the show did. But I will be back and hopefully we'll have nothing but cool breezes and sunshine.
This week-end is the long awaited Celebration Arts Festival near Walt Disney World, in Orlando. I have been feverishly making prints, ordering small goodies to sell and making sure I am completely ready. I signed to be able to accept credit cards, which is a huge relief from going through PayPal and sending invoices at the end of the show.
As the featured artist this week-end, I'm looking forward to some "special" treatment. Friday night is the Patrons Party, and I will have my booth set up (they tell me in the BEST spot), and will be allowed to have my work previewed. Of course I am hoping for some good sales. I know from past experience, that this kind of promotion is truly valuable. So I am really looking forward to this show.
My time has been spent not only looking for show venues, but Gallery Partnerships as well. I am very lucky to have found a local Gallery in Ocala that I think has the potential to both promote my work and produce significant sales. EMPTY WALL GALLERY, is headed up by Monica and James Jo. They are located at2461 SW 27th Ave, next to the new Staples and Best Buy. Stop in and say hi, they have a good variety of art and have been in the business for quite some time.
I'll give an up-date after Celebration and hope to see at least a few of you there.
I took a few days off to spend the end of Spring Break with Kayleb, my almost 15 year old son, husband Bob and my friend from Ringling, Dave Anderson.
