My Etsy Treasury

I have had a shop at Etsy for several months now. Etsy is very busy, large and growing larger all the time, so it is important to promote your shop so people (buyers) will see your work and, hopefully, buy something from your shop. One method of promotion at Etsy is through the Treasuries. But the idea behind the treasuries is to promote other artists that you like in the treasury. A showcase of your own favorites or members of your 'teams'. It is, however, a challenge to get a treasury(that would take a whole post to explain how to get one and to create it). I've only made 2 treasuries since I opened shop. This is a snapshot of the one that I made last night. It features some colorful pieces from some of my favorites from 'team' members of the 'Mud Team' (clay artists), and a few from Arkansas artists, and some from online forums that I have gotten to know over the years that have recently opened new Etsy shops. Some of the new shops that have been opened are Cindy Haase, Paula Pertile, and Fannie Narte. They are very talented and friendly artists who have been kind to me and I wanted to show them my appreciation by helping to promote their shops. So I hope you will drop by their shops and see what beautiful things that they have been creating!

Another week of school done and I'm beginning to get caught up and ready to start working on some things of my own. I have some clay tiles and some smaller pieces that I need to glaze and fire to add to my Etsy shop. I hope to do that soon. Here is one of the tiles I'm working on before it was fired. I will post an update as soon as I glaze fire it.

Getting Framed...

School started 3 weeks ago and I've been busy with work and no energy left at the end of the day to post or create. But hopefully things will start to settle down with school and I won't have as much work to bring home soon. I do have a few clay tiles that have been drying and waiting to be fired, so I hope to get to that soon.

I will be in a group show beginning around the end of this month, so I've gotten a couple of my most recent colored pencil paintings framed. The show is the Memphis Chapter of CPSA that I belong to. Their annual show will be held September through October at the Bartlett Performing Arts Center in Bartlett, Tennessee.

One of my colored pencil paintings is my 'Tree Scribbles' that I worked on in the last year. It is a collage of colored pencil on stonehenge pieces, glued to a black stonehenge background. The Colors extend onto the black stonehenge, which is hard to see in the photo. You can see a better image of the drawing unframed here. I've been debating on the title for awhile, but I think I've decided on "Colors of the Seasons".

This was another loose piece that I enjoyed working on lately. As soon as things slow down at work, I hope to do some more colored pencils pieces using these loose textural strokes.

Another piece that I will show is my latest cp piece, "Stars, Stripes, and Stichtes". Here it is framed. I think it turned out very nice in the frame. I ordered the frame and mat online, but the mat came slightly too large for the image, so I had to go back and add a quarter inch around the edges so it would fit, and I like the way it turned out. You can see a better unframed image of this one here.

"Stars, Stripes & Stitches"

Beth S. Macre © 2008

One Week Down...

I survived the dreaded first week of school with the kiddos. Its always so exhausting. With all of the new lesson plans, teaching the rules, seating charts, schedule changes, and being on my feet all day long. I haven't had much energy at the end of each day for creating anything new. I'm hoping to begin to feel creative soon. I start to feel useless if I'm not working on something! That feeling is beginning to creep up on me...and I don't like it!

Fun Painting!

I am known for how slowly I work on my art. Colored pencils, pen and ink are both very slow processes for me, but I have much better control over those materials. So I think that is why I am 'drawn' to them. But on the other hand, I really admire loose paintings and loose drawings, for that matter. I 'want' to work more loosely! My daughter tells me that "I 'try' too hard, Want it to be 'too perfect'. " So, as I said earlier, she just moved into an apartment, and needed art for her walls. Well after she took some of my art off my walls, she still needed more! So she showed me some styles and subjects that she liked and I said that I would try to paint something for her. Well

I ran out of time before she moved, so I took my acrylic paints with me when we moved her, but even then I just didn't have enough to time to come up with a painting that 'she' could visualize that I could also visualize. So I gave up on creating paintings for her. So when I returned home, I started moving some of my art supplies into her empty bedroom (specifically my paints). So last weekend, I felt especially creative so I went into her room and painted both of these paintings that day! And they are very large paintings, for me. 24"x36" each! But I enjoyed choosing my own color combinations, subject, and slapping some paint here and there, adding some textural medium and really enjoyed the whole process. I managed to break out of that perfectionist mode for the day. I hope to do some more paintings using this style. So right now these paintings are hanging on my previously empty wall (she took another painting that I had done earlier in the same style) and I am really liking the way they look on that wall. But I have listed them in my Etsy shop, so if someone else loves them as much as I do, then I will part with them. If they don't get purchased, I have a feeling that they may disappear when my daughter comes home to visit her empty bedroom! Guess I need to go buy a bed!

Close up of One of the "Flowers in the Vases"
Pair of 2 Large canvases.
Beth S. Macre © 2008

Starts, Stripes & Stitches II

"Stars, Stripes & Stitches"

Beth S. Macre © 2008

15" x 7 1/4"

Colored Pencils on Watercolor Paper

Earlier I did a smaller version of this as a practice piece. I decided that I did want to enlarge it and I just finished it. The earlier version is posted here. This one will be framed and hang in a show in a few months. Now on to start a new project.

Back to School...

My summer break is already over! Teacher in-service started yesterday. Students come back in a week and a half! Where does the summer go? I am grateful to have June and July off, but it sure does go by quickly! Especially if you take any trips or have alot going on. Since I started the summer with the trip to France and ended the summer by moving my daughter, it just seems like it only lasted a few weeks!

I had hoped to get more accomplished with my art, but I did not have as much time as I would have liked. I did do alot of promotion and setting up of my new Etsy shop, so now I hope to start adding some more pieces to my shop. This year will be testing the waters as far as sales go. There are tons of blogs that give wonderful advice on selling, especially for the holidays. I will have to spend some time reading through some of them. Of course, that is more time out of the studio and I really need to spend time this weekend in the studio.