I Sold A Collage on Etsy Today

Outer Garments

Original collage painting on press board

Made 2/27/1983

SOLD 2/6/2013

Yes, yes, yes! Somebody liked this collage enough to buy it from my Etsy store. It's the second one I've sold. It's very exciting, especially as I have a goal to market more of my creative work online this year. Maybe this weekend I will add some more collages to the store. This one was a particular favorite.

"Original collage painting on press board is 10 x 15 inches. Image about 8 1/2 x 11 inches depending on how you want to crop it. Signed, dated, and titled at the bottom of the board, which, in my opinion might be cropped off or covered by a mat (Outer Garments, Sheryl Todd, 2-27/83). I wrote 'Crop here' with a line, so you can either crop it or use as part of the art to keep a very immediate feel.

"Cut paper from magazines and postcards, spray and acrylic paint. This was one of those passionate moments. Facades and masks. Target shooting at a human frame. Smiles and pain. Innocence. I can't seem to make an intense collage without a touch of comic relief somewhere. What do you think?

"Made in Corona, California, February 27, 1983."

Blogger changed the orientation.

My Web Page: Tapirback.com.

Four More

I've put four more collages in my Etsy Store over the past two days as well as putting more painted animal pins online. We sold a couple of hummingbird pins this morning, so maybe it's helping even though I didn't work on the hummingbirds directly.

As for the collages, I like the second one especially, the cow is funny, and I started to appreciate the one with the gorilla skull and the salmon again when I began making the notes for it on Etsy. They always mean something when I'm done with them, although I almost never plan anything because it rarely works. The fun is in seeing how random images, when put together, express something or lead me somewhere. I didn't dissect the collages, but I did find a few words to say about each in the blurb. It seems the '80s were productive years for collage-making (also the end of the '70s), and all of the collages above are from the 1980s.

I bought some new portfolios today, and tomorrow will begin organizing. Also, as the guy in the store termed it, "editing." That is, trash can for the ones that truly didn't work or aren't worth keeping.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Shaking Loose, Part 1

Something shook loose this week and I began to follow up on my mini-success with eBay by posting more things for sale online, and all in places other than eBay. Some of them I've posted before, but most  have been sitting around anywhere between years and decades waiting for me to do something with them. Amazing. I really do feel a new energy moving in my life. 

The trout above is one that Les left here on consignment. After all this time I finally figured out an easy way to put larger numbers of these painted pins in the store so people can get a good look at them and it doesn't take forever to put them up and then take them down again when they sell, as the quantity of these older designs may be from one to just a few pins of any design or paint style. One of the quick(er) ways I'd been putting them up looked nice, but they were not optimized well for Google, and that has become the Holy Grail of anything you put online these days. If the Big G can't find it, forget it. When each pin had its own page they optimized much better, but it was too cumbersome to make sense. If the pin happens to be an elephant, it may look the same each time, but if it's a trout it may come in more styles than you can count on two hands. I needed a way to post more of them quicker and not lose our great placement by switching to a new web store entirely. What I'm doing now is a hybrid system, and I think it should work.

I had to show you another unusual trout (above). I've loved these pins ever since I came across Les and his booth at the Seattle Gift Show one year. We do sell some pins right through the year, but not nearly as many as I'd like to. Hopefully that will be changing now, and my goal is to get several hundred more animal pins posted in time for Christmas sales! Think I can do it?

After I finished the trout I moved on to tropical fish. I especially love this beautiful triggerfish.

Next I did the frog page. I'm not sure what animal I'll work on tomorrow, maybe more sea life.

So much for the Tapir and Friends Store. I decided to do something with my own artwork finally. I've posted this collage (a different style for me, but funny) on this blog before, and I decided to get my feet wet the other day by making it the first item in my new Etsy store: TapirgalLovesArt. Corinna has been selling stuff she makes and making money for TPF donations for a number of years now and she recommended Etsy as a venue. So did a discussion Catherine sent me recommending Etsy over eBay for vintage and hand-made items.

A detail from my first Etsy posting.

Here's the second Etsy posting. Maybe a weird choice. I called it "Space Girl." It didn't have a name when I made it in 1980. I have so many pieces of artwork in unmanageable old portfolios that I took the first candidate that was going to photograph OK and looked interesting enough to use.

I sure wish Blogger would get the orientation right. Facebook and Blogger both had the same problem with another photo I posted a few days ago.

I didn't say anything about this one when I put it on the blog before. I guess the symbolism is whatever you want it to be. I made it in 1983 when I was living in Corona and feeling disconnected. It was my third Etsy post, so I moved from not personal at all through a sense of insecurity to intense feelings in this third one. I plan to put more up tomorrow, not sure what it will be yet.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.