How Do You Sign Your Name?

 I've seen a few paintings that don't have any signature at all.  The last time a Monet exhibit was in St. Louis, I learned that the family signed for him.  I thought those signatures looked too perfect (they were a stamp)!  When I began doing my colored pencil work and framing them for the gallery I signed my whole name:

                           
                                                  Three In A Jar 6 x 6 Buy this painting on Etsy

Lately, I've been playing around with my signature.  I looked at a lot of other artists - wow, what an array of styles!  Initials only, last name only, first name only, you name it (sorry for that).  I thought about a qr code:

                                                 
How cool would that be?  But I finally decided on using my initials:

                                                 Blue Butterfly 8 x 8 Buy this painting on Etsy

How do you sign your name?

Blue Butterfly And Other Things

I went to the Missouri botanical garden's butterfly house last week because it's March Morpho month.  They had 3000 blue Morpho butterflies!  It really was spectacular, they were everywhere.  I had a hard time taking photos of them - none wanted to land for the perfect shot.  I did manage to get enough photos to begin a new painting filled with shadow, light and bold color:

Busy month, actually.  I'm getting ready to give a workshop on colored pencil technique to the Greater St. Louis Art Association this week.  I'm getting some pieces ready to hang at the Daniel Boone Library in Ellisville, MO. for the month of April.  One of my favorite paintings, Dancing Peppers was accepted into the Art St. Louis exhibit "Food Glorious Food":

I don't want to forget to show you my dining room!

 It's finished and I love it.  Don't mind the paint cans.

Selling Art Online Is An Art

     I spent the whole day Saturday creating my first power point presentation.  It didn't take very long to put together, but I lingered looking at the various ways I could make things flash and zoom.  The fonts!  The clip art!  I'm giving a presentation to the Greater St. Louis Art Association later this month.  I'll be talking about my colored pencil process and how I sell art online.  I have an hour to fill, so I thought I'd talk for 30 minutes about  colored pencil technique and use the rest of my time for art marketing.
     When I think about all the internet sites I've shown my paintings this past year, I'm amazed.  A year ago I didn't even know what Pinterest was (was Pinterest around a year ago?).  I'm going to encourage the audience to consider, if they haven't, the importance of having a website.  I have a terrific website created lovingly by my computer savvy daughter.  It has the main ingredients: home page, bio, artist statement, contact and link information.  She added a page for me about commissions.  We tweak it from time to time.
    I thought about calling my presentation, "Twelve Ways To Sell Art In 2012."  I have an Etsy Shop where I sell original paintings, prints and note cards.  I also have a shop on DailyPaintWorks where I can set up affordable auctions.  It's sort of like Ebay except it's all original art.  I'll tell them all I know (listen to me, now I'm a know-it-all) about social media, since I have a Facebook page, Twitter account, Flickr page, StumbleUpon page and - oh yeah - a Pinterest account!  If anyone wants to know about my newsletter, I'll tell them I use Mad Mimi.  (if you'd like to sign up for my free monthly newsletter, you can do it from this blog - upper right hand corner, just takes a minute).   I'll tell them about my blog and all the nice people I've met.  I think that's only nine ways I'm selling my art online, but it's still a lot.

Original mini canvas painting, 3" x 3" colored pencil by Susie Tenzer Buy it on Etsy $25

When Creating Art Sometimes You Have To Just Walk Away

I learned this from golf:  when you're in the middle of a swing and it just doesn't feel right, stop and start over.  It's hard to do.  Recently I posted a painting with two ducks and some fish  that I spent three weeks working on.  Last week, though, I stepped back from my drafting board to check the tonal values and I knew it was time to quit. One of the ducks looked stiff to me.  The water wasn't showing any movement.  I couldn't get the fish to disappear underneath the water.  I realized I'd used the more textured side of the Stonehenge paper. So, even though I invested three weeks of my precious art life in this painting, I'm glad I quit.  I learned I love the smooth side of Stonehenge because of the way it takes color.  I was trying to change the photo too much and it just didn't work for me. I just finished a new painting and I love the reflection of the grapes in the silver bowl.

Grape Reflection by Susie Tenzer, 8" x 10" colored pencil (all rights reserved)  Buy this painting

I'm participating in a blog hop this week.  What's that?  It's a fun activity where you can visit a lot of wonderful blogs.  Click on the Blog Love Therapy below & start hopping!  See you in a couple of weeks, I'll be out of town visiting my adorable grandkids.

Top Five Food Blogs

I have a new found love of food.  I didn't always love food.  For many years, due to a chronic illness, I had to limit salt.  My cooking was bland, my food life was blah.  Now that I'm able to eat normally, I'm becoming a bit adventurous.  Have you noticed that I paint a lot of food?  I love the colors, shapes and textures of food.

Here's one of my food photos, a set up for a new painting.

Here's the painting, "Two Scoops".  I'll be posting this painting and more small works on Etsy

 I recently discovered the world of food blogs.  Some of these blogs have the most amazing photos of food you'll ever see!  Here are my top five favorite food blogs:
1.  Smitten Kitchen  Written in an easy, breezy style by Deb Perelman, this food blog is about classic comfort food.  No fancy food ingredients, here!  Just good food & amazing photos.
2.  101 Cookbooks  This one is by Heidi Swenson.  She features wholesome, vegetarian recipes along with fabulous photos.  The food reflects her world travels.  I want to try the Baked Quinoa Patties.
3.  Seven Spoons  This blog has lovely photos and great writing by Tara O'Grady.  She makes each recipe look and sound delicious!
4. TasteSpotting  Talk about beautiful photos!  Folks submit food photos, you click on the photo and are taken to the recipe.  You can search by various categories.
5.  Foodgawker  This is the same idea as TasteSpotting.  I could spend hours looking at these photos and I've tried several of the recipes.  There's a "gawkerverse": dwellinggawker, weddinggawker and  craftgawker.

Do you look at food blogs?  Any favorites?