Referral Program

I haven't had any time this week to work on my squirrel, or something new. But I hope to get something done over the weekend to post either on Sunday night or Monday. I'm posting tonight just to run a thought by you.

I'm thinking about starting a "Referral Program" to promote myself. I got the idea from Alyson Stanfield on ArtBizCoach.com, and I think it sounds like a great idea. I would let my close friends and family know that if they refer a client to me for a portrait commission, they would earn a certain percentage of what I make as a commission for each referral. They would be motivated to let people know about me and give people my website address. Especially in this economy, where so many people are looking to make an extra buck.

In fact...the sales woman that I bought my car from 8 years ago had the same strategy going. She told me that if I referred a customer to her, and they bought a new car from her, she would send me a check for $50. Trust me, I tried, but I couldn't find anybody who was in the market for a car at the time.

Of course there would have to be some type of "rules" set in place. For instance, you only get paid for your referral when the client completes the transaction. I think this would be a good promotional tool. What are your thoughts?

Work In Progress Update - Squirrel

As promised, I worked a bit more on my squirrel today. I have to be honest, I followed my reference for the squirrel, but when I look at the reference picture for the leaves, they all just kind of blend together and I don't know what I'm looking at anymore. So...I've just been kind of doing whatever I want. Putting leaves in wherever I feel like sticking one...in whatever color green I feel like using...so I'm just kind of winging it here. I can only hope that when it's done, it makes sense. lol.

I had wanted to work on something else today as well, to break up the squirrel posts, and give you something else to look at...but today was a really lazy day. I only worked on this on and off for about 3 hours...and that's it. I pretty much spent my day on the couch watching tv, and I dozed off a couple of times. But hopefully sometime this week, I can work on something different for my next post. See you then! :)

Hanging Out?

What do you think of "Hanging Out" as a title? I think that may be what I call it. He's kind of just hanging out on a branch of the tree. This was a very cute squirrel who seemed to be posing just for me. I got 2 shots of him...I'll draw the other one another time.

I worked on him a little bit today, so there isn't too much of a change from the last update, but I wanted to get a post in while I have time. My boyfriend's dad is visiting, so this weekend is going to be busy, but since they went fishing today and I stayed home, I had some time to work on this little guy.

The leaves are proving to be very tedious. I'm really forcing myself to move forward with this and not get lazy and close crop the squirrel just to avoid doing all the leaves! On the other picture I want to draw of him, I will do a closer crop without so many leaves. That's right, I'm taking the easy way out! lol.

I see a little bit of depth starting to emerge. I really hope I'm happy with this one when it's finished. I'd hate to throw it in the scrap pile. I may have some time on Monday to work on him, since I took the day off of work, so I may have another update Monday night.

If you haven't subscribed to the blog yet, now is a good time, what are you waiting for? ;)

Squirrel Update

I worked a little bit more on the squirrel this weekend. I was hoping to have more done when I posted, but I didn't get a chance to work on it at all today. I started to put in some leaves, and then realized how annoying that was...so then I just started to block in large areas of color. The green areas will be mostly leaves with very little sky showing through. then the white areas will be mostly sky with a few leaves drawn in here or there.

As you can see, I'm all over the place. I get bored working on one area at a time, so I move all over the place putting color wherever I feel like it. There are a couple of artists that I envy, that work one area at a time...and I do plan to try that eventually. I just don't think I'll have the patience to work that way. But I will try it and give it a chance, because you never know until you try.

I'm also having a little trouble with the tree trunk. It's not turning out "bark-like". lol. But it is still in the early stages, so I just need to be patient and keep going. It's kind of in what we like to call the "ugly stage". Most artwork goes through the "ugly stage". Although, there are some artists that I know of, who never see that stage...and I only hope to achieve that one day.

Virtual Sketch Date - January 2009

Today I worked on the reference picture for the Virtual Sketch Date. This is my first time participating in the VSD. The VSD is a blog set up by Rose Welty, Jeanette Jobson and Stacy Rowan. Once a month, they post a picture on the VSD blog, and you have one week to sketch, draw, or paint it in whatever medium you choose. Then you post it on your blog, and email the link to them so they can post it with links to all the other blogs of artists who have drawn from the same reference picture.

I found the reference picture to be appealing (lol, pun not intended), and not a usual subject for me. It was definately good practice. But I freaked a little when I came to the white skin pieces stuck to the orange....and I kinda just fudged it. lol. I had no idea what I was doing. Does it show?

I'm not that happy with how my sketch turned out. I only spent about one hour on it...so if I have some time, I may go back and redo it. It's Prismacolor Colored Pencils in my Strathmore 400 Series sketchbook. I don't really like the way my pencils blend (or don't blend) on this paper.

Tomorrow I will be back with an update on the squirrel, which is my entry for the CPSA 17th Annual Exhibition. See you then!

The First Piece of 2009!

Moving on to New Year Resolution # 2....completing a piece for the CPSA 17th Annual International Exhibition.

A few months ago, I joined the Colored Pencil Society of America. The deadline for their 17th Annual Exhibition is coming up March 31st. I had something in mind to work on for my entry, but I cropped my reference picture for something else, and accidentally saved over the original. Unfortunately, this happened sometime soon after I took the picture, and my back up cd's only have the cropped version of the picture...and the computer that I had back then is long gone....sooooo....I had to choose something else. After spending an entire weekend looking at the pictures on my computer over and over again, I finally decided on one. Sooo....here is what is currently on my easle. It is 16x20", Prismacolor colored pencils on burgandy Fabriano Tiziano pastel paper.

I'm being extremely brave showing this at such an early stage. I'm usually not very confident in the beginning...and like to wait til my work is much further along before I show it to anybody. Hopefully this blog will help me with that. So...fingers crossed that this doesn't turn out to be the first blooper of 2009!

Goal # 1 - Mission Accomplished!

Well here I am! New Year Resolution #1....create a blog and keep up with it. So that's it. Blog created. Check.

When thinking of my New Year Resolutions this year, I decided that I need to focus more on my artwork. Not just creating it, but doing something with it, for a change. So since I've noticed within the past few months that a lot of the artists that I admire have blogs (some of which can be seen in my sidebar), I decided to follow suit. This blog will hopefully help to keep me motivated to accomplish all my artistic goals (or as many as I realistically can).

In this blog, I plan to keep you updated on my artistic journey. I will keep you informed of anything art-related in my life. You'll see all my work in progress, including the bloopers. (Well, not if I'm creating the piece as a gift for someone...obviously, that will need to be kept secret until after the recipient is presented with the gift). So that's it. If you are interested in keeping up with me, you can subscribe to this blog in the sidebar, so that you receive email updates everytime I post, or you can click on "follow this blog" in the sidebar to follow along in Google Reader.

Since this is my first post, if you would like to see some of my work, you can visit my website at http://www.jennawhite.com/. So thanks for stopping by, and I hope you come around again :)