Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Cold Snap


Well, it's hardly news that we've been hit by a cold snap. So has everybody else in about 90% of the country. We got a good bit of snow over the past two days - about 4" total, and right now the temperature is about 17 degrees outside. Brrrrrr! I took the opportunity to stay home and work on some business aspects of the studio, mostly marketing. Some highlights:
- I created a FaceBook page for the studio. This should provide a way to reach more people, and to allow those who are on FB a lot to get updates more easily. So if you're on Facebook, check it out, and if you like it, then please "like" it.

- For the Christmas season, I decided to highlight my Forest Nymph photos. They've been well received over the years whenever they've been shown. I'm running a special on them right now, with both a reduced price and free shipping over the holidays. I added some PayPal "Buy It Now" buttons onto my web site to facilitate sales. Yes, it's crass commercialism creeping into my web presence. But I already know what the answer is if I don't do it (no sales), so this is an experiment in keeping the studio financially afloat.

- I also wrote up my sorta-regular studio newsletter. That took a bit of time, since as I wrote it, I kept getting ideas for other things (like modifications to the web site) that had to be investigated or implemented or whatnot. But the newsletter went out successfully last night. And, of course, I immediately thought of something else that should've been in it. Ah, well, next time ... maybe.

A while back, I made a snarky comment about how all these time-saving gizmos are taking up my time. All the above (plus a bit more) took up the better part of two days. How much painting did I get done in that time? Zip!

So this afternoon it was back to the studio. With outside temperatures in the mid-20's, and with all the (nonexistent) insulation in our century-old building, my heater was blazing away constantly. So tomorrow, I'll get some supplies from Lowe's and put plastic up over the windows to halt the draft. For today, though, I worked on the painting of the girl in the red dress. It's almost done now, I think. Another painting is in the works. This one is Janis' Christmas present, so it's going to be quite a bit different than my normal splatterings. And it's gonna be a fun painting. Can't wait to get it going!

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