Stress Artist

http://paintboxcafe.blogspot.gr/p/my-first-aceos.html

Well here I am again. What a few weeks. It was going so well. And then the Law of Sod took hold. My hard drive failed taking with it weeks and weeks of work that hadn't yet been backed up. The circuit board is currently en route to the other side of the world where some clever chaps reckon they can put the right chip onto the right new board and send it back to me so I can talk to my life again. All this going on with temperatures in the high 30s/90s which doesn't turn anyone in my house into a saint believe me.

I've also been researching like crazy to try to make the right decisions about how to sell my work, I'm extremely serious about it at this point in my life and on a mission. Things are pretty bad in Greece. About the only hope is to look to overseas customers and artwork is a perfect product from a country whose greatest gift is beauty.

But what a nightmare jungle it all is. Ebay? Etsy? Half a dozen other sites? Or just rely on my site, good SEO and social networking to build the traffic? I am sorely tempted by the latter I really am. I am trying to keep in mind that I am starting out and it might all get to be easier and faster but honestly I feel like I will never be liberated from filling in forms and reading dense rules and regulations not to mention having to serve rookie time virtually giving work away on these sites in order to get established. Trouble is for an artist like me is that I don't do things by halves. I take time and really want to make a product that is a joy to hold in your hands let alone look at. I also don't do cutesy which seems to be the style with the Wow Factor that attracts the collectors but I wonder if I am right about this. Will collectors like my work too?

All the same, meanwhile I have been painting furiously making these great little miniature ACEOs...I've taken to it like a duck to water. I like painting big and loose but there is almost a whole separate stream of my art consciousness that really gets off on tiny brushes and intricacy.  I've been loving it and finding the tiny format oddly liberating. I'm very happy with the results too, I'm dying to do more.

But what to do to sell them? These painted pieces are worth I think at least £40 each. I've never done an Ebay auction and the whole idea fills me with terror to be honest.

I've put a page of them up My First ACEOs. I wonder what other people think.