2017 Art Year in Review

I spent a lot of time on my art this year - and accomplished a lot of cool things!

• Eight large format colored pencil drawings, five 8x10 drawings, and ten 5x7 drawings were on display at the Village Theater in Canton, Michigan throughout the month of November as part of a two-person exhibition "GRRRLS Like Us".

• I was commissioned to create eight custom watercolor bouquet paintings through this listing on Etsy, from people as far away as Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Washington D.C., and the United Kingdom. I also added a "Rush Order" option, which promises a finished custom painting at your doorstep in five days.

• I had artwork available for sale at the Paint Creek Center for the Arts in Rochester, Michigan all year - including original Michigan-themed watercolors, original floral colored pencil drawings, and lots of boxed notecard sets.

• My Great Lakes Notecards have been selling well on Etsy, with several orders places around the holiday season.

• I reached over 630 followers on Instagram (and received lots of great comments!) by posting pictures of artwork in progress.

• I was commissioned to create a large acrylic triptych (a painting on three separate canvases), which I'll be working on soon in early 2018. (More on that to come in future blog posts!)

• And I finished lots of exciting artwork (including the aforementioned colored pencil drawings and the custom watercolor bouquets)! Here are some of my favorite art pieces I completed this year:

"Anticipation" - 8"x10" Colored Pencil Drawing on Tan Paper (SOLD)

8"x10" Custom Watercolor Bouquet commissioned by Blake (SOLD) 

8"x10" Custom Watercolor Bouquet commissioned by Brent (SOLD)

"Great Lakes in Rainbow" - 8"x10" Watercolor Painting

"28 Years" - 22"x30" Colored Pencil Drawing on Black Paper

"Religion Bouquet (Stronger Together)" - 19"x25" Colored Pencil Drawing on Black Paper

"Shame" - 8"x10" Colored Pencil Drawing on Tan Paper

8"x10" Custom Watercolor Bouquet commissioned by Mark (SOLD)

"Great Lakes in Metallic Copper & Red" - 8"x10" Watercolor Painting

"Gender Bouquet (Stronger Together)" - 19"x25" Colored Pencil on Black Paper

8"x10" Custom Watercolor Bouquet commissioned by Michael (SOLD)

8"x10" Custom Watercolor Bouquet commissioned by Paul (SOLD)

"Sexuality Bouquet (Stronger Together)" - 19"x25" Colored Pencil Drawing on Black Paper

You can find many of these pieces for sale at my Etsy shop: etsy.com/shop/ArtworkbyAndreaArbit. I will be adding more inventory soon (including the items that didn't sell at the GRRRLS Like Us exhibition!) so definitely check back to see what new stuff gets added in 2018. :)

I hope you continue to follow me on this blog as well as my Twitter and Instagram accounts as I keep creating into 2018! Happy New Year, everyone!

2016 Art Year In Review

I got a lot accomplished this year with regards to my artwork!

• My watercolor "Silk Caution" (part of my 2010 thesis painting series) was featured in the Scarab Club exhibition "Blooms Beasts Bugs" in Detroit, MI in May.

• In June, I was invited to be a part of the Paint Creek Center for the Arts Spring Gallery Stroll. I displayed several watercolors, acrylic paintings, and colored pencil drawings in a "pop-up" one-night-only personal gallery in Smith Jewelers in downtown Rochester, MI - and even sold two drawings.

• My artwork was available for sale in the PCCA Art Market all year - including August, when I was given my own "featured artist" table.

• I scanned in many of my original paintings and drawings and created art print blank notecard sets, which have been selling moderately well at PCCA and through my Etsy store.

• I collected a lot of photographs to use for future art compositions - including photos of the colorful autumn leaves, a ton of pics from the Michigan Orchid Show in April, and many images of flowers and plants growing in my own backyard, the yards of my relatives, and public spaces like downtown Rochester and my local library.

• I gained new followers on Instagram and Twitter - and did my best to post an image of recent artwork on Instagram at least a few times a week to reach new people on social media.

• And I completed a LOT of cool art projects. Here are some of my favorites:

You can find many of these for sale at my Etsy shop: etsy.com/shop/ArtworkbyAndreaArbit

I hope you continue to follow me on this blog as well as my Twitter and Instagram accounts as I keep creating into 2017! Happy New Year, everyone!

Daily Blog Posts

So I mentioned this at the end of a blog post several days ago, but never really got into more detail. I started a new job a couple weeks ago, doing graphic design work for Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, the largest Reform Temple in North America. Four hours a day (9 am - 1 pm), I'm there working on flyers and brochures other marketing materials for upcoming events at the temple. :)

It doesn't seem like much time, but it adds up - especially when you consider the drive there and back (about 45 minutes in the morning and 35 minutes in the afternoon). I crate Ginny during that time (she's still at the "chewing everything out of boredom" stage; if she wasn't crated she would eat all of our furniture while I was gone) - so by the time I get home she's been crated for about 5.5 hours. She barely has room to stand and walk in a circle in her crate, so I try to get her exercise before I leave and after I come home. This means some playtime in the morning, and a walk in the afternoon, and a second walk in the evening. And even after her walk, she's still full of energy and excited to play, since she's been napping all morning.

Long story short, I have significantly less time to work on my story, or my artwork, or these blog posts. The best time to work on these projects are in the evenings, after dinner - but I don't have enough time in the evenings to do all of these things.

So I'm afraid this blog is going to have to fall off my list of biggest priorities. If I'm not working on my art or my story, I would have nothing to blog about anyway; my paintings and drawings and novel necessarily have to come first. I am hoping to still post an entry on here a couple times a week, and I will certainly continue posting a quick picture on Instagram (and sharing that pic to Twitter) every day. But I don't have time to also write a blog post every day any longer.

It takes a long time to 1) make the art I post, 2) take photos of the art, 3) adjust the photos and add my website information to the image, 4) upload the photos to this blog, and 5) write descriptions for the images. Furthermore, I don't have as many things I could post about, if I'm using time that I could be painting or drawing to instead write a blog post about painting and drawing.

My goal is to spend my evenings working on my art or novel, and then use the weekend to take any photos of the week's art and write and schedule a few blog posts for the following week. (I already schedule blog posts ahead of time, so this is nothing new. It's just that I will be writing fewer of them when I do.)

Maybe I'll find that I have more time than I think I do, once I figure out how to work with this schedule, but for now it's easier to not worry about daily blog posts. Please follow me on Instagram (@afrownfe) and/or Twitter (also @afrownfe) to see daily pictures. When I do post a blog entry, I'll try to remember to also put the link up on Twitter, so if you're following me there you should see notice of these blog posts, too.

Social Media

In the past, I have tried to have separate social media accounts for "business" and personal - so information about and pictures of the custom stationery designs I did through Invites by Andrea, and watercolor paintings or colored pencil illustrations I'd completed and was looking to sell, would be posted to or tweeted from a specific "Invites by Andrea" Facebook page or Twitter account. And all the other things I did that were not specifically art-related (like retweeting pictures of adorable puppies or awesome feminist zingers; or commenting on political articles my impassioned husband posted to his Facebook wall; or sharing photographs I'd taken on vacations), I did from my personal account.

Speaking of sharing photographs from travel, here's a pic of the view out the window when I went to Denver for an interview in May earlier this year :)

And maybe for some people that system works. And maybe that's the way it should work. Maybe I'm wrong now, in deciding to step away from that model. But (at the moment) I don't think so.

Artists and writers put their personalities into their work more than many other professionals do. When I create a story around a certain character, you better believe that protagonist has at least something in common with me, and has a story to tell that I relate to, or envy, or fantasize about, or actively fear. And when I paint or draw, even if it's something seemingly innocuous, like a teacup or a bouquet of flowers, you can bet the end result is influenced by my current mood, my past insecurities, my dreams for the future. It's not like I sit down and consciously decide I'm going to write a story about my high school friends, or create a watercolor emphasizing the pale lavender and bright yellow of my childhood bedroom decor, but personal details about me have a way of eking out of my pores and dripping into my work.

And if I can't keep myself out of my work, why should I keep myself out of the internet presence I'm putting out there about my work? And if I'm putting all of myself out there, why not use my real name, why not just use my personal accounts to also conduct my business? It's a hell of a lot easier for me to just manage one Facebook page, one Twitter handle, one Pinterest, than juggling multiples of each.

So here we are. This blog uses my real name (because that is the name I sign to my artwork). And if you want to find me on Twitter, or Instagram, or Pinterest, you can find me on my personal accounts: @afrownfe. (The name comes from the automatic email address I was given as a student at Eastern Michigan University - the first letter of my first name and the first seven letters of my maiden name.)

Twitter: https://twitter.com/afrownfe
Instagram: https://instagram.com/afrownfe/
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ArtworkByAndreaArbit
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/afrownfe/

Hope to see you soon on social media! :)