Jana Botkin | Cabin Art

A California Artist's Show-and-Tell

Archive for July, 2009

Jul 29 2009

Big Announcement!

Published by under Events

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Jul 27 2009

Growth, part nine (In which I betray my pencil people)

http://www.artcalendar.com/home.asp Art Calendar is a very helpful business magazine. My favorite writer is Jack White, to whom I refer occasionally as my “guru”.   Three plus years ago the magazine carried an article by him that bluntly stated pencil was almost a guarantee of poverty and oil was the road to success. After I came to [...]

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Jul 24 2009

Getting ready

Published by under Events,Oil Paintings

In case you were wondering, I am still painting like a maniac. The Art Co-op grand opening on August 7 is fast approaching so I am making lots of new pictures for the occasion. See?This is layer #2.The top columbine is upside down because sometimes I mess up like that. When it dries, I will [...]

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Jul 23 2009

New Apple, Old Lemon

Published by under drawing,Lessons

This title isn’t the description of a good computer and a bad car; it is the title of a terrific colored pencil drawing by one of my drawing students! Look at this:   Char has been drawing with me for 3 (or 4 or 5? time flies!) years. She works in graphite, and has a [...]

6 responses so far

Jul 22 2009

Growth, part eight (A new curve)

The Road to Alta – oil on wrapped canvas – 8×10″ – $85 Because of the internet, keeping in touch and getting found is much more likely than in the “olden days”. About four years ago, I caved in to the pressure to keep up (who keeps moving that cheese??) and had a website designed [...]

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Jul 21 2009

Growth, part seven (The number one fear)

Did you know that public speaking is most people’s biggest fear, ahead of death? Wow! That isn’t my greatest fear; in fact, I enjoy speaking about my artwork. (Such a narcissistic person!) In the past few years I have been asked to speak for several different groups, most recently on Saturday.The Mineral King Preservation Society [...]

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Jul 20 2009

Growth, part six (Holing up at Home)

Published by under the business of art

  I LOVE working at my own address, but there are a certain drawbacks to having a business at one’s home. The temptation to do other things, the NEED to do other things (like laundry, watering, paying bills) is always in one’s face. There is no driving away from home and focusing on work.   [...]

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Jul 19 2009

Growth, part five (Facing Faces)

After about 9 years and on the fourth address for cabinart, it became apparent that notecards were fading fast, and the local market for house and cabin commissioned drawings was getting saturated. The next step? Portraits! I had skirted around this subject for years, refusing commissions, terrified of not being able to capture a likeness. This [...]

One response so far

Jul 18 2009

Growth, part four (Venturing into color)

  Just Picked – colored pencil – 18 x 21″ – $550 Just when I thought I “had it made” and was settling in to The One Way To Do An Art Business, several of my students wanted to learn colored pencil. In high school, my friend Lisa thought watercolors were for babies, and I had [...]

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Jul 17 2009

Growth, part three (Learning to teach)

The next step in the saga of growing an art business was teaching people how to draw. It has always been a very rewarding challenge to help people learn to see, to break down the process into manageable steps and to spend time with wonderful people that I might never have gotten the chance to know.  That [...]

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