Tales from the Scratch Pad: One Show down, One Show to go

Hey there sports fans, Al here with the latest:

Well the BIG 500 show opened with a huge explosion of both creativity and innovation as well as the public turning out to buy and purchase a huge amount of work.

It was unlike anything I had seen before. Normally there are three galleries that are involved in selling this work and as art is bought and dwindles on the walls the work is collected and condensed into one galley by the end of the night.

But the gathering of work was shrunk into one gallery 3 hours before the show closed!

Now that might not sound like a big deal but I can say this that has never happened before in all the time I have been part of the show. A lot of my art buddies who were also showing said the same thing.

It was a tell sign that the economy is doing better to me. A good gauge. I hope and keep my fingers crossed that this will carry over into the new year.

Because there is a solo show coming up for the kid!

SCRATCHING THE SURFACE art show!

First Slingshot Show 2013

Second Slingshot Lounge Show for 2016

Now as I might have mentioned before this will be like traveling full circle for me since the Slingshot Lounge was my very first solo art show back in late 2013 in October. Before then I had always been part of a group show in one fashion or another. But since then I have had a couple solo show at least one solo show a year.

One Man Show Slingshot Lounge 2013

I count myself lucky. But now I find that the work that I am doing far better work than a have before. And a bit more expensive as well prints are new and that has changed the way I work these days. I have found that some my best work sells as a reproduction of the original. The originals still sell mind you but market of buying art work hasn't gotten to a point where everyone wants a original piece of art.
But as we speak of original art work did I mention..

NEXT YEAR ART SHOWS: THE SCRATCHING THE SURFACE!
(At least that is what I'm gonna call it!)

Things are speed up real quick and no rest for the the wicked as say. I know I ain't that wicked but that should have applied to artists as well. You can never do enough work when you are getting out there showcasing your work.
After watching my girlfriend go through the motions of self promotion and production of her work, she is one of the hardest working artists out there. She has taught me quiet a bit of marketing that I don't think I would have learned easily. If there is one person I'm thankful for, it would be her.

Day 2 of the poster design

ON TOP OF THAT-

There are a number of other things that I need to do. Namely get the comic books done and get tee shirts moving. And prints! Never forget the prints.

COMMISSIONS:

Now months ago I was commissioned by a couple I know here in PDX for two very different kind of images one of Bela Lugosi as Dracula and the other was a image of a Full Moon. What makes these different than other commissions of the past is that it was done on spec.

Now in the past I've been pretty much forward that I won't start a project without some kind of compensation to cover the cost of the materials. But it seems so freakin' hard to get people to pony up cash in something unseen.
So normally I won't do the work. But sometimes friends and circumstances push you as a artist to take on the project(s). Holidays are part of the issue.

But now that you have a piece done what do you charge? Its that age old question "what do I charge for this? I don't wanta rake ' em over the coals for the piece but...".
I'm sure if you're an artist you have had to deal with this. If anything you can always justify it by saying that you're giving them a "friend discount".

Again this was brought up recently with my girlfriend about setting that price and size for the piece ahead because you don't want to alienate someone because you wanted to make something bigger and better in your mind.

SO I GUESS word to the wise -set a price and and size so you both are clear about the work.

THE COMIX!
Well this is slightly embarrassing and just a tad obnoxious that the printing company that had been printing my comic books has yet to place Black Box Visual Arts and it's satellite company Black Box Comix up on their online store. It's kinda bugging me a bit because I have been waiting since Thanksgiving to get this stuff up and running. And it hasn't even got off the starting blocks yet. This is the frustrating part about printing. So nothing has been done to fix this and I know there are people who want the work.

Besides that there are a number of "new" books that have never been made available that I'm looking at printing. Corrax the Seeker is one of them. Corpse Cop is another.

As you can see there is really a lot for me to do an print. There are two other characters that need to be addressed Robot Monster and Richard Parker. And of course there is my adaptations of War of the Worlds 1938 radio broadcast and a musical song from Led Zeppelin "Kashmir".

The last one is a bit strange but after seeing the late great illustrator Gene Day illustrated the Rolling Stones " Sympathy for the Devil"in Heavy Metal.
After reading that I knew I wanted to do this and it's now that I can do this right.

But back to the story board for Richard Parker.

And as always there are places for you to check out as well.
Etsy

Big Cartel

Storenvy

And of course I still have my comics that I have worked on here at Indyplanet. I am still currently working on getting this link fix.