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| Handpainted print of Lemons & Garlic |
To tell the truth, like a lot of artists the very idea of selling my work makes me want to go to bed for a month. It's downright scary. 'I have spread my dreams under your feet...' just about sums it up. It's also massively time-consuming getting it altogether so one can give people enough assurance that they feel able to order a piece from someone they have never met.
I didn't realise how much it all meant to me, the months I have spent putting my online shop together until I got an email from a happy customer in Texas on the other side of the world the other day and I burst into tears!! I did something a little bit extra for her, I hand-painted one of her prints - something struck me as I was putting the pieces together. She wrote this to me:
"Thank you so much!!! I cannot believe you did that! The painting is beautiful and I feel so honored. I cannot wait to get them framed and hung in my house. You are a very sweet person for doing that....I cannot imagine anyone else doing the same. Thank you again! I am so excited!"
Isn't that lovely? I'm so happy to be really selling through all this. We are all a bit terrified here in Greece with one thing and another, it's a bit alarming to be trying to kickstart a new business in this economic climate. But on the other hand I just feel that somehow this venture has a glow about it, maybe I just want it that much.
So finally after much deliberation I am now offering hand-painted prints on the websites, not of all the images, some are not suitable for the technique. It's sort of a halfway house between a giclee artist print and a fully original painting and a very affordable way of hanging a real painting on your wall. The print is made on very good quality premium silk canvas (it's lovely). But there is no doubt that the canvas tends to absorb some of the colour. Some of the images, especially my more classic paintings like Kyperoussa, Island and Agios Antonios, come out fine but I do think that people looking at my site and purchasing one are probably a bit taken with the vivid colour. I can get it on the top of the range Ilford Galerie gloss paper but the canvas is a bit subdued. However - wow! What a solution painting over turns out to be. I had been a sceptic having seen some pretty awful travesties - cheap canvas, plonked on cheap paint...no no NO! But over a weekend painting into my Lemons & Garlic I became converted and the end product was fantastic. It was a nice job to do too.
Above is a picture of the finished handpainted print before it was packed away for sending - I photographed it hanging on a kitchen cupboard and it has come out slightly wonky but it was actually rectangular!!
If you would like one too you can order from here. I'll soon be offering handpainted ACEOs of this piece as well.
