30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 4 - Purple Dalmatian

Another entry for Leslie Saeta's 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge. Actually used a little paint on this one, in the brief time I had this morning. I haven't got a finished artwork ready to go for tomorrow. I'm considering cutting back a bit, and challenge myself to creating a bit each day without worrying about whether I have a finished artwork or not. I want to have a portolio of artwork at the end of this month that I can actually be proud of. 

On the other hand, maybe I shouldn't focus so hard on what I'm creating during January, but rather the process of building habits and trying things. I've already experimented a little during this challenge, maybe that's a good thing. Even if the experiments didn't result in artwork that I'd be pleased to show off. 

I may even go back after the month is finished and work more on the artworks I think aren't quite finished. Teaching myself that it's okay to rework things might be good for me.

"Dobby the Whippet" - Colourful, Contemporary Acrylic Paint Pet Portrait

This charming little fellow is a whippet I've called Dobby (because of the big, floppy ears, of course). He's the first in a series of small pet portraits I've been working on. I've been wanting to get more into representational painting since I had some success on Austin. I also wanted to see how much water my sketchbook paper can withstand without warping (turns out, very little, but it can be mushed back into shape with a heavy book, so that's nice). 

"Dobby the Whippet", Pet Portrait, Acrylic Paint on Paper, 6x6

I intended to have a bit more purple when I started, but I quite like the bright primary colours together. It's a bit Fauvist. At least, I think that's what the Fauvist movement was about. I was never that into art history, personally. A quick Google images search shows me that I can't be too far off.

I have a bunch of sketches of different animals - dogs, cats, cows, ducks, bunnies, llamas, etc - so expect more animal portraits in the near future, hopefully as delightfully brightly coloured and cheery as this one. 

Corgis

One thing I anticipate about starting up a blog and a business selling art is that the beginning will be fairly quiet. The internet is a big place, and content doesn't come up in a search necessarily because it's what you're searching for. What I've learned about Search Engine Optimization so far indicates that there are a lot of little rules to follow if you ever want anyone to find you. Apparently having a free blog rather than a paid website and domain name is a bad start for SEO purposes. Links from other websites (particularly high traffic ones) boost web search ranking. Frequently updating content can apparently help. 

But despite the tiny amount of SEO tips I've learned, I figure I'm still going to have to be pretty patient. Every time I see a new page view on my blog or Etsy shop, I get a little bit excited. It means that a person, even a single person, maybe only for a brief moment, has seen what I've created and acknowledged it in some small way. They might not even like it, but that's not the point. At least someone else in the world knows that it exists.

It's weirdly validating for your efforts to be seen. I could draw every day and keep my art in a box in my bedroom if I wanted to. But I want to share it, as scary as that is. It's like sending a tiny, vulnerable piece of yourself out into the world. Hopefully one day soon I can share my art with more people.

This happy corgi design is one of my favourite papers so far. I need to draw more dog papers.

If you want to see more of my papers or purchase this one, head to Sixth Floor Studio on Etsy. Thanks for looking. :)