Back to our regularly scheduled programming:

Business blogs:

What is the one thing you do every week to get more clients?   Check out what other people said here.

ArtBizBlog’s Alyson B. Stanfield is interviewed here.

Loads of interesting articles here.

Ever miss a great opportunity?

Improve your art sales w/ these seven selling points

Tomorrow I will announce the winner of the give away. You have until midnight tonight to post a comment for entry!

For my very first give-away your prize will be my oversized wall calendar. This way you get many lovely images (if I do say so myself, and you know I do) and you get something for the new year.

Now for the rules.

First answer this question (in the comments, not just in your head):   If you could own any painting which one would it be and why? If you would post a link that would be even better. Although it won’t help your chances of winning it will make it much more enjoyable for us all .

How this works: I will put the number of comments into a random number generator, whichever number that baby spits out will be the winner (if I can’t figure out how those work then I will have The Man pick a number between 1 and the yet to be seen number of comments, not fancy but it works).  I will then ship the calendar to you.

I will most likely do a top 5 comments as well. You won’t win anything, but it’s an extra way for me to thank you all for participating.

I will start, I would love to be able to look at this Pasini every single day.  It has that quality that just makes me sigh. Everything is in place and it all seems to hum together. Don’t even get me started on the gorgeous spot of teal. In real life it is lovely.

The winner will be announced next Wednesday! Good luck!

(p.s. I’m so excited.)

(p.p.s. Sept. and Nov. will have full size images by next Wednesday)

Just for fun:

Fresh baked chocolate chip cookies in a minute and a half? Sign me up, please.

http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/oatmeal-chocolate-chip-waffle.aspx

Marketing:

http://emptyeasel.com/2007/04/30/7-tips-for-selling-art-online-how-to-help-buyers-find-your-artwork/

(Katie, Sharon, lurking Artists at large, et al ^^^^check this site out^^^^,  on the home page you can submit your art for review, i.e. publicity.)

http://joannemattera.blogspot.com/2009/11/marketing-mondays-youve-been-asked-to.html

Contests:

http://artistsonline.biz/wordpress/?p=61

Art:

http://danidraws.com/2009/11/09/why-i-share/#more-2110 (blog)

http://www.dailypainters.com/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00p4gq5 (So You Think You Can Make Art?)

With out further ado and in no particular order:

Ginny Stiles has some pretty good tips and I like to look at her sketchbook pages.

• http://ginnystiles.blogspot.com/

Myrna Wacknov is always trying something new and I love her ideas. It’s fun to watch her process.

• http://myrnawacknov.blogspot.com/

I like the look of Donna Zagotta’s blog and she has interesting things to say.

• http://donnazagotta.com/blog/

I love looking at Errezart’s work. I found this blog on Illustration Friday.

• http://errezart.blogspot.com/

Another blog from Illustration Friday. I really love the illustrations here. They are so simple, yet perfect.

• http://gellatinouslaser.blogspot.com/

A fellow AAART Allumus

• http://www.jasonseilerillustration.blogspot.com/

One more IF discovery.

• http://joebluhm.blogspot.com/

Finally two business blogs:

A recommendation from Sharon of ArtBySAW

• http://www.bootstrappingblog.com/

I don’t remember how I found this one…

• http://ittybiz.com/

Week 2 I decided to change things up a bit, out of necessity and to try something different. I love Sharon’s style so I decided to take a small tip from her work. While Sharon does do the full figure, I wanted to work as fast as she does. I was very distracted this week with getting a new blog (thanks to Nick for helping me figure it out) and a few minor house hold issues that took a lot of time.  I also have been very curious about the differences between how illustrators work as opposed to fine artists.  The first 4 days I just concentrated on getting a line of action and trying to express the movement. I think doing fast, stick-figure drawings really helped me see a bit of the difference in the approach. I loved seeing the motion and the movement. It helped me get a sense of the slight weight adjustments the body makes.  By the 5th day I was bored with the stick-figures. They are very fun and I will most likely go back to them, maybe start to develope them a bit more as I get faster. To keep myself interested in the project though I went and bought another reference book by Mark Edward Smith. This is The Nude Figure: A Visual Reference for the Artist. I will try to add a link on the side bar.

I remember once in a class I was in where there was an illustrator w/ a bunch of fine artists, the question came up what’s the difference between the two and is there a difference? The disappointing point was that the illustrator wouldn’t participate. She would say we were wrong about something but not actually give her reasons.  I think that there are and there are not differences. It’s also a question that will  most likely never be answered or could be answered.  I also understand her frustration at having to defend her art for what was probably the millionth time, but I was more interested in hearing her discuss it than actually figuring out if illustration was the same as fine art.  Any thoughts?