Marketting Time

I've decided to be part of the Fairfield Market here in Chilliwack. I'm going to rent a table and set up my paintings.

I'm scared/nervous. Is it OK to admit that? I believe my art is worth it. I believe I am worth it. But I am still sending my babies out there to be judged, purchased, and pondered over. I am pimping my creativity. And I am doing this with an almost reckless abandon. My brain says I should think about it, but then I say "What the hell!" And I'm jumping into it!

See the lady who is setting this up, told me precisely what I needed to hear - What do I have to lose? If anything it will at least get my name and art out in front of the people.

Which is exactly it. Table rental is quite reasonable.

Some of the little things I need - I still have from the wedding, oddly enough wedding materials translate well into markets.

I know I need business cards made up and have been in contact (and procrastinating) for months with a good friend of mine who's been designing them.

So I know there are some things I need like: table cloth, backdrop perhaps, candy, cards with prices, float, and of course a sign. But is there anything I am missing? I am sure there's plenty.

What's your experience with local markets, trade shows, etc? How do you draw attention to your table/booth? And what should I expect from my first public event (basically) as Deirdre from Paintings by Deirdre?

Recycled Art and Deirdre the Downer

I've been on a rush, lately, of good vibes and power - but not it seems I am coming down.

I started an Etsy shop only a week ago, posting photos of my stock of paintings and pricing them out - figuring out shipping and so on. I had/have high hopes. Mostly to make up some of the money from the honeymoon/house fund we had to spend on bills after the Wedding.

But it's been a week (ok a week and one day) and no sales have come up yet. I know, I know. They say it takes about a month or longer for your first sale. But I keep hoping it will hurry up! Can't anyone see how talented I am?! Why is Oprah not noticing me by my small group of followers, and setting me up to make BAJILLIONS?!

Last  night, while I was still in my high of hopes, I finally finished my project painting on a recycled barn window. I was really excited about this, and if I had my own house, I would be putting this up in my own kitchen or living room. Alas we don't have the wall space in our own apartment. See! All the more reason I need to sell paintings, so we can buy a house and have room to put up the art I don't sell.



Live every moment... Laugh every day... Love beyond words.



I finished varnishing the recycled barn window this morning. The varnish makes the wood a bit darker but doesn't change the paint/glass. I am so happy that I did this. I'm going to try it on canvas on a sunnier day (since I'm doing it on my half covered deck)> Maybe try it on the Yoga triage that has yet to sell.

I think it's more frustrating then anything. For a bit I was full of tons of projects, and I didn't have the time to do them because of the wedding, and now - nothing.

Mostly I'm just whining because, damn it, I'm down today.

Today is one of those days I'm wallowing in my own self pity. Yesterday I was wallowing in my self rightous, I am awesome and everyone will love everything I make. Today not so much.

I know I'll get over this.

Tonight or maybe tomorrow I'll start my painting for Trees for Life. I have a plan for something deep and dark, but I keep switching ideas. Must settle quickly on my decision.

I'm already starting to get over my down mood.

It's frustrating waiting to be noticed, so instead I'm going to research how to get noticed and stop sitting on my ass and whining. In the meantime I'll bug my friends and family to either buy my stuff or forward it off to their own network, that's what friends are for, right?

Let me know what you think of the Live Laugh Love Recycled Barn Piece, I was thinking of doing more recycled pieces and wonder how they come across.

Painted Sunset with Painted Clouds

Inspiration hit this afternoon as I was high on cough medicine. Seems Andrew has strep-throat, which means so do I.

Anyway, inspiration struck. And so I came home to paint. I forewarned Andrew, who was sitting at home sick that I would be painting. He and my nieces cleaned up the craft room, which has been my main excuse for not painting. And I got to get to work!

The nieces chose to watch me paint instead of watch the Hockey game. Yeah we're not going to talk about the hockey game.


So a sunset painting it was. I love sunsets and sunrises - the sky, its so fun to paint. blending the colors, changing the feel of the painting with a different shade and detail.

So Start with the dark and work your way down. It's fun to blend. I tend to stick with the same mixing space and blend lighter or darker as I go.. so its a real blending.

Eventually it will come down to being blocks of color. But again, then you blend both up and down. bringing some of the darker sky down into the lighter, and alternating with bringing hints of the light up.

As you can still I still need to blend, but there are some places where the paint had dried, and when I brought the light up - it didn't blend. I'll end up needing to either blend farther by remixing dark paint, or just cover with a cloud - since it is sky, i have this option.

I decided that I needed to put some cloud in there. Clouds are something I love and hate. 

Here's a video my niece shot of me starting the clouds. There are a few shots of looking all over the place, and please forgive the pj's, but there are spots you can see how I do them. I am by no means a master.

When you see clouds, you notice they have layers. They aren't just white fluffy things (sometimes they are) but for the most part they have their own shading and different colors from the sky in there.

I added gold as a final detail to the clouds. I hadn't thought of it before, but it added that final warm detail that I wanted. It darkened and warmed the clouds.

And the final product:  The color is a bit off in this picture, not as vibrant as it is in person.

If you like this painting and want it for your home please contact me at deirdre.randall.puff@gmail.com
70 cm by 90 cm. Acrylic Sunset Painting.
Painting is $200 o.b.o.

The long awaited blog post

I've almost been married a month. It seems crazy. It also seems crazy that I haven't written a blog entry in nearly that long. I should have right away - with the high and memories so crisp and clear. Well they still are, but I am riding less of a wedding day high and have settled into married life (which to tell you the truth is much like normal life).

I still haven't gotten all of the pictures from the Wedding. I am currently making up a scrap book and can't decide if I should just post all of the pictures or Scan in the scrapbook pages so you can see everything in my creative wonder with little notes as to what was going on and who's who.

For those of you who are too impatient to wait for me to artistically display my wedding, well here is the photo bucket album with a partial amount of photos. Deirdre & Andrew's Wedding <- go there.

We still haven't even written our thank you cards. We're waiting for some of the (bound to be amazing) photos from Dad before we make a decision on which one we will use for the front of the thank you cards. We haven't forgotten though! So be patient!

So wedded life is good. it is normal. We just got our Marriage Certificate back and I will slowly but surely start changing over my name. I am still working on my signature. I had a hard time the first few days. My signature ended up looking like DRanuff, then moved to DPanuff now its finally getting down to DPuuuf... I'm still not used to a short last name... my hand just wants to keep signing away. I imagine by next month I'll have the new signature down.

Aside from recovering from the wedding life has been normal.

Well there have been some exceptions with my health. I went for a blood test last Saturday and it turns out I have a low thyroid count. So this whole time I've been moody, had a lower then normal sex drive and gaining weight and unable to loose no matter how hard I try (ok I only lost a bit, not as much as I thought I should have, being totally honest) and of course the messed up periods...was all because I have a messed up thyroid. Apparently this commonly happens in women after a pregnancy or miscarriage. Another side effect is depression - which makes sense as lately I have been quite depressed, but I would also tie that in with the weight gain.

So on Monday I see my regular doctor to start medication. My sister in law has the same problem and I am a bit worried as she said medication is expensive, and if I have low iron, the shots can be painful. The expensive part worries me more as neither Andrew or myself have any health coverage aside from what is standard in Canada.

So wedding, health, anything else new?

We rearranged our living room, made a mini shrine to the wedding on a wall and I did some planting on the deck to get some summer around us. I haven't painted, though I have been wanting to. Currently my painting room is storage for everything we moved out of the living room - So it is not a very comfortable place to let myself go.  I've also had a lack of initiative to do anything.

There is one thing I have initiative to do, however, and that is go camping! I have decided that Andrew and I definitely need to get our camp on this year. I wanted to go to Osoyoos, but the campsite there is already all booked up. There are a couple others, but my heart is now set on Green Lake. I haven't been there since I was a kid and I am going to attempt to get mom and aunts and cousin's together to relive the giant camping trip I remember as a kid. Granted it will be a bit off as half of the people (ie: half sister, dad, uncles) have divorced or disbanded, but I still think it would be great - some of us cousins are still close enough to pull it together. It also wont be as large, for me, as I don't have a camper or dad's budget ^.^ Eventually I hope we'll be able to have the kind of awesome camping trips I had in my childhood, but that takes hard work to get there.

Oh we have had some happy news though! Seems our wedding has spawned a slew of others. Andrew's little brother Joey and his g/f Alyshia are engaged! They don't have a date yet, but are looking for next year. My own older sister, Angie, is getting married to her b/f Randy. I am very happy for Angie, but personal issues from before pull me back a little. I worry that he will hurt her, but I hope that this commitment strengthens their relationship and solidifies it, and that he will never hurt her again. She deserves happiness - more then anyone I know. Rumor also has it that Andrew's cousin will start planning a wedding again, though she is going to deliver her 2nd baby, a boy this time, this year. I think it would be great! And give us an excuse to travel!

Well that's it for now. Will try to not let my times away be so far.