And other things to be inadvertently avoided.
Yes, today’s title has a tagline. Because, well it’s needed.
And yes. I am still avoiding something by sitting down to write this. But first. The cool thing is that the wasps are gone and I’m sitting on my balcony enjoying some “fresh” air and sunshine, and sweating on my keyboard, while I write this.
As you may have read a few weeks ago, I’ve opened an online fine arts print store for my art. As part of the marketing for it I’m supposed to do a giveaway of a piece of art. Technically I was supposed to do it right away once the store went live. However, as I didn’t have many pieces to start with, I have been holding off while trying to get more art posted. I recently posted my 10th piece and have decided it’s time to do the giveaway. Except.
You knew there would be a catch, right?
When I started the site and the technicians called to help get everything setup I wasn’t really prepared. I needed a picture of myself, and some biographical type of information. For the picture, I texted my sister in consternation, and she had an immediate answer. She sent a photo from our trip to Paris. And while it is a good shot, it isn’t my favorite, because of me. But that’s a whole other story.
For the biographical information I came up with something as best I could for the moment. The thing is what they were asking for I had never really thought about. I just make the art that needs to be made at that moment.
One of the services I added when I signed up for my sight was logo creation. As I’ve said before, I’ve tried for years to create my own logo and I get all caught up in the minutia of me and what I want it to represent and what is and isn’t accurate. So, it never gets done. By having a third party create it I hoped I’d get something more to my liking, and that I could not only live with, but I could also live up to. And that is what I got. I love my logo.
And now I have a new “problem”. My page with the photo and biographical information, not to mention the profile pictures on all my social media, don’t match my new logo. I’m not changing my logo. I love my logo. Which means I now need to make everything else match my logo.
My sister solved the profile picture problem for me while we were in Savannah for the Doobie Brothers concert. She took a bunch of great pictures for me to choose from. And I’ve already changed out the profile picture, nearly everywhere. I have one more to change but that one is a different project. With the picture problem solved, it’s time to move on to the biographical information and one other piece.
And now we get to the writing assignments. The assignments are the three sections on my ‘About the Artist’ page on my store, the story of the piece of art I am giving away, and this blog post. Not too bad, right? I had every intention of having the three sections completed by the end of this last weekend. I had one written, well maybe two. I’m still working on the third one, in my head while I write this. I know. Please, don’t look in there, it’s got a lot going on. I’ve also got the story of the piece of art complete. Or I think I do. I’m going to send them all off to someone for a bit of input and then get the About page updated tomorrow.
See what I decided to do, when I realized I needed and wanted to revamp what I had for my store front, is to use the giveaway as a ‘Grand Opening’. I’ve had the soft open, and now I’m ready to really announce it and focus on it because not only is it something I really want to do, it’s also something I can live up to and I think that makes a big difference.
And if you are wondering about what I was doing to avoid my writing assignments and what I am now avoiding while working on them, it’s my office. As you might know, or not, my day job transitioned to remote work on March 18, 2020. It started as a test to see if the whole company could work remote in the face of work from home and lock down recommendations. We were successful and essentially never went back. Sort of. There’s more to the story but it’s not relevant for this. Because of that, I have been working from my home. And the room I use is the room that already had my personal computer as well as books and such. At one point it also had my art stuff, but that changed earlier this summer.
I’ve had issues with the room over the years that have included the way I had it laid out, the amount of stuff in it, the temperature as it can get quite toasty in the summer months, and the lighting, it’s dark in there. Or was.
Yep. You guessed it. My avoidance project for the weekend and first part of the week was repainting the office. You’d think this wouldn’t be a big deal. It’s just four walls. Right. See the mention of the amount of stuff in the room. Yeah. I’ve said before, I have so, so much stuff. And it had to be moved out in order to move the bookcases away from the walls so the walls could be painted. Just moving enough stuff out to get started took half a day. The good news is that the painting is done. I went from two walls painted rocket purple and two walls painted a Charlie Brown sky blue to now having four walls of a gentle “Apple Slice” green. Talk about a change! The room is so much brighter and lighter feeling.
Now, what I’m avoiding by working on my writing assignments is the tedious task of dealing with all the stuff that I pulled out of the office. I was going to say ‘putting it all back’ except that’s not quite what will happen. Oh, a lot of it will go back. Some of it, it turns out, won’t. As I was taking stuff out, I found there were things that I was ready to let go of. So, hopefully, the task of returning stuff to the office will also involve some letting go of things that I no longer want or need. But yes, I’m writing to avoid doing that. Later, you will probably find me working on a painting just to avoid tackling the disaster sitting in the floor of my living room.
So, what else is going on?
Well, the giveaway to launch the grand opening of my art site will be going live this week. If you are interested or have friends that are interested in getting in on the giveaway, sign up on my store(susanmichelleartist.com) with your email or send it to me and let me know you want me to add you. I know the marketing sends out emails periodically, so you’ll get notices for things on my store as well.
I’m working on getting back to playing more guitar. My sister has sent me the set list for the holiday season. She sent the Christmas songs she is working on learning on the cello so that I can learn an accompaniment to them on guitar. A couple will require transposing for me as the key she’s playing in isn’t the key I have them in. Though, I need to do a little research there, that might not actually need be the case.
And of course, I am working on more art pieces for my store. I have a lovely flower on the desk right now and several other pieces lined up and in mind. And I’m finally going to try something I’ve been wanting to do but haven’t had the courage to try yet. I have some great pictures of water, particularly ocean. I love the colors, and some of the waves. I’ve been wanting to paint them but have let the idea intimidate me. I finally sat down and started the sketch in of the shapes and I’m going to give it a go. I also got some larger paper to work on.
Oh, that leads me to possibly solving a small problem I’ve had. To get my art on the store I have to have a digital file of it. I have a scanner that will handle the sizes I’ve been working in so far. However, for some pieces I’d like to be able to work a little larger, but I haven’t worked on those because of needing to find a way to get a good quality digital image of it to go on the store. Thanks to my friend Shan, who is an amazing artist and who has a bit of experience with getting good quality images of her art for prints. When I reached out to her to find out what she did, and where she found someone to do the work, she graciously responded right away even though she was headed out the door to dinner. Shan you rock!
With her information I was able to do a little online research, and then place a call to get some information. And the result is that I think I have found a place that can get images of larger artwork for prints, as well as high quality digital images for a variety of things. I haven’t used them yet. I don’t have anything ready at the moment. The process will require a bit more organization and planning on my part. And that’s ok. That’s all part of figuring out how to make this work, and work well. Now, I think I’ve finished this writing assignment. I’ve got one more to go before I have to find a new thing to do to avoid my office and messy living room. Cheers!