Business is Picking Up!

I am starting to have more art-related projects and tasks now. I just booked myself for at least one, possibly two shows downtown at "Emerging Artists" Capital City Public Market. These shows start in April and go until the end of the year. I will be having a show on June 21, then maybe one show in either April or May. I would book more Emerging Artist shows there if I could but they have it set up so that you are only guaranteed one show a year. They do that so that every artist in the area has a chance to participate. I also applied (a month ago) to be in the Capital City Public Market but I haven't heard from them yet. Seems strange to me because the market opens in a couple of weeks. I'm not holding my breath waiting for them to contact me. If I get in--great; if I don't, that's okay too.

This weekend I finished a rock animal that I was commissioned to do. It turned out real cute. I am doing a mural for a lady who owns her own hair salon and she also wanted a rock animal portrait of her dog, Barbie, who is a blonde cocker spaniel. This dog has beautiful long ears and reminds me of a canine version of Veronica Lake. What makes this portrait unusual is that the dog is wearing a pink T-shirt. This is the first animal portrait I have done where the animal is actually wearing clothing.

I am in the process of getting photos from people who have indicated to me that they want pet portraits. I received two photos this weekend from a lady by the name of Karen, whom I met at the Cat Show. She has two cats, both Cornish Rex cats, whose names are Sienna and Vevay. Sienna is the gray and white cat, Vevay is the orange and white cat. I have posted their photos above.

I have two more people who are in the process of getting photos of their pets and will contact me and probably email them to me. I have a list of about 8 people that I have emailed but haven't heard from yet about their pet portraits. So this week I think I will start calling them on the phone. I have learned the hard way that if you don't get the photos for portraits in a somewhat timely manner, you may not get them at all. So I think I may have to be somewhat persistant. I have never felt comfortable being pushy about stuff like this, but I have learned that there is a fine line between persistence and coming across like a pushy salesman.