Blogging - What I Have Discovered, (so far)

Confessions of a Right Brainer

I thought about blogging for a long time. I knew it is important to post on a regular basis - at least that is what folks who are experts on blogging say. I worried (still do a bit) about how will I come up with stuff to write about that may be helpful.

Blogging is great for marketing.  - Well, I am focusing mostly on other licensed artist. I would think manufactures etc. would be the ones to purchase my art... Of course I never know who is reading my posts unless they comment.

Reading/writing and spelling were my worst subjects in school - I thank god every day for spell check! :-D

So why did I start blogging? I wanted to have a record. A way to look back at what has happened to me in the last year(s) in the world of art licensing. Yep, I was focused on me :-) I find that when I am feeling like I am getting no where fast, It is great to look back and see what I did accomplish. Sometimes I let the bad things out way the good. Crazy that we do that. (Did you notice I lumped you in with me? :-) I also thought some of my graphic design stuff might be useful to other artists.

What I discovered is that I need art friends! This blog has connected me with so many more creative people in 6 1/2 months, than I have had since my college art days. (I am pert near 50 years old). I love it! The emails, comments and social media connections are fabulous. It is great to get other points of view.

(Sorry all you tough guys out there...) This is a great BIG, fuzzy, gushy THANK YOU for your support and input.

Make my day and follow this blog! - Thanks in advance for commenting :-D

Artist Spotlight - Peggy Wilson

I recently met Peggy through this blog. I checked out her work and I am amazed with her use of several mediums AND her range of work! Be sure to click Peggy's website link at the end of this post.

Tell us a bit about yourself: Did you go to school for art? Are you self taught?
Mostly self taught, but come from a long line of artists, my Dad was my early teacher.
I have taken college classes in figure drawing and a couple watercolor classes, and recently have studied with a local retired art prof.

What inspires you / where do you get inspiration from?
Driving around in the beautiful countryside can inspire a landscape, or watching the antics of animals may inspire a cartoon drawing, but often my cartoons come directly out of my head and I usually don't have a clue what triggered them.

Do you work in just one medium? Several?
 I do work in several mediums, for landscapes and still life oils and acrylics.
For my cartoon images, I usually sketch them old school on paper with pencil, then scan them and color them in either Adobe photoshop or Corel Paint. Occasionally I draw on a Wacom Tablet.

What are you working on now?
Right now I am doing commissioned Xmas card designs, one of a sock monkey rock climbing and another of snow shoe rabbits both cartoon and realistic.

Anything else you want to tell everyone?
 I love the variety of working in various styles and mediums, maybe that makes me hard to "Brand" but that's how I work best.
 
Are you an early riser?, or night owl?
I'm an occasional insomniac so I may be up at night, reading or sketching, and if that's the case I'm not up early, I guess. I have an irregular schedule, but since I work at home this works for me. Love waking up and brewing strong coffee to get my motor running.

What is your favorite food?
 So many, its hard to narrow it down, my Mom was Danish and made the best breads, and crepes....so crepes with fresh peaches as filling.

Visit Peggy's website: http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/peggy-wilson.html
Contact: peggywilsonartist@yahoo.com

If you are interested in being spotlighted - email me: anntroe@cox.net
You might also like this post: (click) Glass Artists and Painter Anne Nye

Thanks so much for reading and posting your comments. MAKE my week and follow this blog :-D

Pottery Painting - VW Bug Bank

I post pottery that my daughter and I have painted for fun :-) We go to our local "paint your own pottery" place where they fired the painted piece.

This is a VW Bug Bank. Banks make great gifts and you could personalize it with the person's name. Fun Fact: It easily holds $50 in change!

Thanks so much for reading my blog. Make my day and follow this blog!

Creating Art for Licensing - Make it Easier on Yourself

The Skinny if you don't want to read more: Paint and scan the art in steps. Nuff said :-)

These are acrylic paint on cotton canvas panel. I only used one palette knife. The small square ones are 6" x 6" panel and the larger one with the two gold pears is 9"x 12" panel. These are part of an 'apples and pears' collection I am working on.

I paint small - so I can scan them it at a HIGH resolution. Normally If I were painting these to sell in a gallery or some place similar, I would block in the darks and work up to the light colors. I would have painted the background first over the stems and then paint the stems on top of the background, cuz that is easy.

BUT, for art licensing you are probably going to want just the pear/apple alone with no background. It is much easier to remove a white background in photoshop, THEN go back and paint in a background.

One more thought: If a manufacturer wants a different background - this may make that easier to accomplish. Especially if what I have shown them has the pear/apple on a separate layer already in photoshop (or illustrator).

I would LOVE! it if you would share how you handle art for licensing. If you don't want that to be public - shoot me an email anntroe@cox.net. Thanks so much for reading and sharing :-D

You might also like:
Palette Knife Pumpkins      Painting: Breaking the Rules      Changing Medium and Style

Make my day and follow this blog :-D - links in the right-hand column of each page.

THANK YOU Middleville Michigan

Waving hello and thanking my collector in Middleville MI for purchasing these two greeting cards. I really appreciate all of you for supporting my art. Buy it here:
http://pixels.com/profiles/ann-troe.html?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=85692

New Flip Book with Hyperlinks

Thrilled to be part of the Check Advantage Family!

This post has 2 parts.

Part 1. DOING the Happy Dance! Check Advantage licensed several of my images / designs! WOOP!

(To purchase Checks, Covers and Labels click an image in the flip book or click here: https://www.checkadvantage.com/ann-troe)

Part 2. You've been asking about how do I create hyperlinks in a flip book. I will give you the gist of how I did it using InDesign CS6 - note: if you use Microsoft Word - Go to Flipsnack's FAQ (http://www.flipsnack.com/faq/) for the work around - The PDF you generate from Word doesn't have web compatible colors and won't work.

Set up your pages in InDesign. Click on an image or text frame you want to ad a hyperlink to.
Go to the file menu at the top - under "Window" scroll down to "Interactive", choose "Hyperlinks".
Put in the URL you want it to link to. That's it! Here is a link to Adobe.com if you need a little more help or a visual http://help.adobe.com/en_US/indesign/cs/using

NOTE: The yellow square with FREE Shipping on each page is an interactive button that I set up in InDesign - they do not work in the flip book. If you know or figure out how to make that work - let me know! It may just be that it isn't compatible with Flipsnack. http://www.flipsnack.com/

WHY do I bother to set up a flip book when I could just link to a PDF file? I get more viewers, better SEO - and it's fun :-D Since June 30 2013, when I posted my flip book portfolio it has had 1,094  Unique viewers. That number is a combination of my website, blog & flipsnack page. 690 views are from the flipsnack page! With a paid flipbook - they submit it to search engines, pin it, etc.

You might also like this post about my Flip book Portfolio http://annietroe.blogspot.com/2013/07/flipbook-portfolio.html

THANKS for reading & commenting!

THANK YOU to a collector in Anchorage, AK!

Just a short post to send a shout out to a collector in Anchorage, Alaska. I really appreciate you purchasing a print of my Violet Poppies watercolor painting. Doing the happy dance!
Click here to purchase wrapped canvas, framed prints, metal prints, greeting cards and iPhone cases. http://pixels.com/profiles/ann-troe.htmlhttp://pixels.com/profiles/ann-troe.html