This is the conundrum; when I am lining up jobs, I am not producing work. When I am producing work,I am not lining up jobs. I know it is a time management issue, and it is an issue I have had trouble juggling for a very long time. Add to it the fact that I really just want to stay at the board, it makes those of us who are not natural born "salesmen" put the selling/marketing aspect of the business off for as long as possible. Guilty.

This is why my newsletter is so sporadic. I do have a schedule for marketing that I have every intention of sticking to, but I ignore like a new year's resolution. It seems more important to me to get the work done that I have promised, which feeds into my comfort zone of just doing the art. So I will try, yet again, to stick to the schedule... After I create yet another schedule to stick to.

Anyway, here's where things stand: I am finishing up 8 Magic the Gathering paintings on the back of proof cards (all Shivan Dragons) along with a large painting of Shivan Dragon. I was able to sneak in 2 pencil sketches on proof card backs during the drying times for the oils. A Shivan Dragon on one, showing the hand dropping a lantern, which is out of the frame in the card art, and a portrait of Half Dane on the other.

I enjoy doing the oils, but I really like doing the pencil sketches. They don't take any prep work and are more spontaneous. The oil paintings are more time consuming because of the prep and drying times that are needed, and I am not a miniatures artist. Painting that small is a real challenge for me, whereas drawing in pencil that size is very comfy.

This is, of course, in addition to the designing I do for my print on demand shops which do not all feature Magic stuff. The one that has Magic and other gaming art is "Nightmare Artist". The others are an interior design shop called "Ranting Centaur", a shop with Pagan themes in the "That Pagan Artist" shop, and "Fat boy Fossils" which features trilobites and ammonites. These are Zazzle shops. There is also "Fine Art America" with a little bit of everything, and "Eclectic Artisans" which is also a Pagan shop. (There. I've done my marketing for the day, whew!) The painting a day blog on blogspot gets attention when I am not fulfilling jobs. I did extra art so that I'd have a backlog to pull from for it, but that hasn't worked out as planned, so that page needs some love right now too.

So this is why it seems like I fall of the face of the earth every now and then and all you hear from me is crickets. OK, I'm off to do that schedule... well, maybe after I do a little more on those Shivan cards, they seem dry enough... Oh look, Facebook...