Field of Daffodils

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"Field of Daffodils"

Oil, 11" x 14" on canvas panel.

$700.00 framed.

I kind of went "outside of the box" on this one today and painted a very different subject matter than usual. But it's the new year, and time to try different things every once in a while. It was fun, but I will probably be back to painting boats very soon, so no worries!

For all of you artists out there, I have decided to periodically share my marketing and organization ideas. One of the problems I face with my art business is trying to keep track of upcoming juried competitions and entry deadlines. It seems that I somehow let some critical dates pass and I miss entering my paintings in to some of the better competitions. Recently I created a system that is finally helping me keep track of art competitions. All you need is twelve file folders. Go to http://www.vertex42.com/calendars/printable-calendars.html and download twelve monthly calendars for 2010. Print them on cardstock and then staple each one to the front of a file folder. Label the folders with each month. They should look like this:

Next you need to know which shows are upcoming and when the deadlines for entries occur. I have yet to find one place that lists all of the monthly exhibitions so I periodically go to the following sites:

http://www.cac.ca.gov/artistcall/index.php?sort=deadline

http://www.artshow.com/juriedshows/index.html

http://www.theartlist.com/index.php

http://artdeadlineslist.com/

I have also signed up for periodic emails that send updates about upcoming shows. Whenever I see a competition that sounds interesting, I print the prospectus, enter the submit deadline on the calendar and put the backup information inside the file. I put the current calendar in a file so it stands up on my desk (and stares at me all day)! Every week I go through the files for the current and following month and put post it notes with the names of the paintings that I intend to enter. I also keep track of paintings that I need to finish for upcoming exhibitions. When I send off the entries I check them off on the calendar and then add the notification date to the calendar.

I would love any other suggestions or "improvements" to my system. I hope this is helpful to some of you!