Yes, it has been a while since my last post, apart from my previous bid to get organised post - but that's the downside of travelling I guess. Once we return home too after such a long stint away, its always a little hard to get back into the swing of things.

Whilst we were on the road though, I did manage to keep up a sketch journal, which I am currently finishing. It is hard to sketch and be sociable at the same time, and I do have some blank pages to fill, but I'm working on it!  A small sample of some sketches below....

Part of my time away was my special Art Retreat on the lovely Greek island of Skiathos.  Here, I did actually 'work' very hard, along with cooling off in the pool, and spending time eating and chatting with Yvonne.  The two of us painted very harmoniously in her studio, and I managed to complete quite a few small paintings, with other larger ones underway. It was wonderful to actually paint with someone again after all these years, and surprisingly, we were quiet most of the time too! 

Now its time to buckle under and work on getting my portfolio updated with lots of new paintings.......

Well here we are, its smack bang mid summer, and we've returned from all our travels to settle back down into Koroni, yet we have to share it with all and sundry... holiday makers from everywhere seem to have descended upon the place. Still, can't complain, by early September things should have settled down, and its great for the local economy.

As usually seems to be the case when we get back after an extended time away, I'm floundering about the place, missing painting but somehow never quite able to get back into it.  My painting table is piled high with everything 'creative' that has been unpacked and somehow landed on it, and even the urge to get it cleared and organised just doesn't seem to be enough to tackle it. I have so many 'projects' in my head, that I'd love to get started on, but it somehow never quite happens.  It has been incredibly hot, so I can blame the heat, and after all it is mid summer and holiday time, so I can blame that too.

So whilst I'm waiting for the inspiration to come back, I've been doing lots of reading of other people's blogs, looking at websites, downloading manuals in the hope that it will give me the gee up I need. I think its slowly working, and its great to be able to formulate some of my lurking ideas.

I'm trying to identify exactly what I need to be able successfully produce and sell my paintings on-line. It seems that so far I've been heading in the right direction, ie a website, a blogsite (well 2 actually!) and an on-line shop. It has hit home to me that apart from needing these things to be able to show my works and to sell them, just how wonderful they are to be able to share and communicate with other artists. The more you interact with others, the more people you get to regularly chat with and discuss those things you would normally do perhaps in a workshop or class. Now that I've realised this, I feel very lucky that this is what has been developing over the years without me realising it - ever better!

Another direction I've been keen to take for some time, is to sell prints of my paintings. I've always been keen but the whole copyright thing sort of overwhelmed me, but now I understand that the artist always maintains copyright of her sold paintings unless that has been signed over at the time of the sale. Obviously I would never run off masses of prints of a painting that I sold, but it is good to know where I stand.  So to this end, I've joined up with Fine Art America where I am gradually uploading paintings which can be sold as prints of various sizes, canvases, and cards to anyone who orders them.  As far as I'm concerned, why not!  I'm still loading images, but this is the link if you're interested.  All comments most welcome! http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/jackie-sherwood.html 
 

Well, its a start anyway and I'll keep you updated on how things go.............