The Graduate

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Birthday Boat #24

Our oldest son will be graduating from high school later today. It is a funny time. I am trying not to be emotional but when I think of him heading off to college in the fall ... it is tough. We are so excited for him ... he is going to swim for Stanford ... so we know he will have an amazing four years! But the thought of our tall son (he is 6'7") leaving home ... it seems like yesterday he was heading off to kindergarten!

On another note, I held the drawing for my first painting giveaway and I am pleased to announce that Pam Holnback, who comments a lot on my blog won the painting. She was featured in my June newsletter also! Here is the painting she won.

Thank You Clint

Pin It A funny story ...

Every few days I visit my website to monitor the traffic and see how many "hits" I have received. Usually I average about fifty or so a week. You can imagine my surprise when I checked it last night and I had received almost 100 hits in a day. I spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out what had happened. My first explanation was that since I had donated a painting to a fundraiser over the weekend and left some of my business cards to display ... perhaps that was it? But it hardly made sense that 25 business cards could lead to so many hits.

Thanks to Marian Fortunati I finally figured it out. But a little history first ...

The idea for my new newsletter was based on a daily email I receive from Clint Watson at Fine Art Studio Online. I have mentioned him before and if you are an artist and you don't receive his newsletter, sign up now! He offers amazing ideas and suggestions on how to build your business and sell your art. First and foremost he suggests that artists create a mailing list and send out a monthly newsletter. So I did that on May 1st. After I experienced immediate sales from my first newsletter I sent a thank you email to Clint. He kindly responded asking for permission to reprint my email. Then he posted my thank you on his blog and included a link to check out my art! Hence the 100 hits in one day.

So ... of course I sent him another thank you email. He responded saying they were going to feature my email tomorrow in their newsletter. And he thought I could expect even more visitors to my website!

Clint has said over and over in his newsletter that you should always take the time to say thank you. He suggests you show appreciation to your customers/collectors and hand write thank you notes as often as you can. So I spent 45 minutes this afternoon looking for Clint's mailing address so I could send him a hand written thank you note as well. It is so easy to get caught up with email ... so I suggest you all take the time to send a handwritten thank you note today!

I had to mention one more thing. Clint is a great writer and really funny. My favorite line on his site is: "If you liked today's newsletter, please forward it to a friend, if you didn't like it, feel free to forward it to your enemies ;-)". Finally, thank you to Marian for mentioning today that she saw my name on Clint's blog!

A Great Response

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Waiting For Christmas, Oil 14" x 11"

I want to thank all of you for such an amazing response to my newsletter. There have been so many wonderful comments from many of you and I appreciate the wonderful feedback. The good news is ... it worked ... as I have already sold three paintings since the newsletter went out three days ago. And they are all new collectors of my art! I also know that 61% of the people I sent the newsletter to actually opened it and another 58% have gone back to look at it more than once. And please don't think I calculated these statistics ... they are readily available with the newsletter program I am using (Constant Contact)! It is still not too late to sign up for the newsletter if you are interested.
I spent some time painting this weekend once I tore myself away from my computer and finished this one yesterday. They are fun colors and I didn't even think about the red and green until after it was done!

One a Day

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One A Day, Oil, 8" x 6"

Sometimes you need to just change things around a bit. So I tried a still life painting and used some different colors. It was fun but I still like boats better! Sorry!

Thank you for all of your encouraging comments about my Monthly Free Painting Giveaway. I think it will be fun! Just sign up for my newsletter and/or make a comment on my blog for multiple chances to win!

A Colorful Day

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Street Scene, Oil 8" x 6"

I just finished this painting a few minutes ago. I photographed it with a bright lamp and tried to make it look decent. I might need to re-take the photo tomorrow when it is light outside ... although I think it is supposed to rain so the light might not be much better.
I am thinking about starting a newsletter and I would love any input and suggestions. It is time to reach out to potential collectors and contacts and it would be fun to do this once a month. I would like to include info. about my art but also feature other artists, as I have found so many favorites through my blog (you know who you are!). Anyway, if any of you have had success with a newsletter, I would love some tips!