Leaves of change, cigars, spoon skull gift, and windchimes

Been a busy week around here.  The tourist season in Northern Arizona starts picking up in mid February, and then really kicks off in mid to late March, so I've been working hard to get ahead of orders, while continuing to paint every spare moment I can.

The new paintings are going really well.  Slowly, but really well.  Looks like I'm going to begin releasing the new paintings starting in the third week of March.  I'm working on some fun ways to help release the new works:  trivia contests, pondering a contest on helping me name the paintings, and several other ideas resulting in the giving away of free or discounted price prints, as a reward to fans for helping me spread the word about my new paintings with their friends.

Valentine's Day is a couple of weeks away!  I'm still thinking on what to give my Valentine this year, but I do know what I'll be giving my fans:

 I'll be discounting the wedding themed Day of the Dead prints at the Dizzybear Creations webstore up to 50% off (beginning February 1st), and 24 brave and awesome people will get a special treat in the form of a "Valentine's Day Gift Mystery Box".

At the time I'm writing this, there's still 23 Valentine's Day Gift Mystery Boxes left, but they will sell out QUICK when I take them to the gallery next week.

The webstore continues to baffle me.  It gets a lot of traffic, but there hasn't been as many sales as I expected.  One of the many things I've been doing, to try and change this, is posting all the new items I've been making on the webstore.  Often times up to two months before they hit the galleries and stores.

The webstore has built in tools that keep track of how many people visit, which pages they look at....  Everything get's looked at a lot, but still, not many sales.  It confuses me, because when I take the new items to the galleries and stores, they end up getting priced higher than what I sell the items for on the webstore, and they sell like crazy, often selling out, even at the higher price.

On the positive side, a large percentage of the customers I have had at the webstore, have become repeat customers, so I must be doing something right!  :-) I'll be sending out an email on Feb 9th to all the customers at the Dizzybear Creations webstore for a special, customers only Valentine's Day "Show the love" sale.

I've been spending a lot of time this past week crafting silverware windchimes.  Like I mentioned in last week's blog, I really like making the windchimes, especially the metal working.  I collect the parts and pieces all year long to work with, and once or twice a year I spread everything out all over the studio and spend a week or so working up as much of it as possible, using all the beads left over from jewelry I make.  Most of the jewelry pieces I design, will get created numerous times, but what I like most about making the windchimes, each one is different.

Here's a few pictures of some of the items I've been working up in this batch of silverware windchimes, I'll post some pictures of the finished products in next week's blog.  All the windchimes will be available at Sedona Green within the next couple of weeks.

This weeks featured paintings are "Autumn Wedding" and "The Cigar Smoker".

"Autumn Wedding" was the 8th painting I did in 2012.  How it finished, is not how it was planned though.  Originally, this painting was going to feature a man riding a Penny Farthing.  A Penny Farthing is an early type of bicycle with a very large front wheel and a small rear wheel, as seen in this picture.

I painted the background first, but before I started on the man and the bike, I did a few preliminary sketches working out the details and realized that the best way to feature a Penny Farthing is from the side, so you see the wheels facing you, like circles.  The manner in which I had painted the background however, if I were to paint the man riding the bike facing sideways to the viewer of the painting, he'd be riding the bike in the wrong direction on the road and would quickly be hitting a tree.

I thought for a few days on what to do with the background, and had all sorts of ideas.  Most featured different types of vintage cars, but I was never able to sketch out anything I liked and gave up on the idea.  At the time Michel and I were starting to plan our wedding, scheduled for the following year, having decided upon a fall wedding, in October of 2013.  Since we were having a fall wedding, and I had painted a fall background, it just seemed a perfect subject to finish the painting.

Autumn in Canada is quite different than Autumn in Northern AZ.  For one, it's much earlier in the year, and the fall colors dont last quite as long up there.  We had our wedding at a lake house north of Montreal, and while there were still some trees with fall colors, we were about a week too late and had missed a majority of the color explosion.  It was still a beautiful wedding though.  We wanted to get the photographer to take our picture in a similar layout as this painting, but we never got the chance.  Hopefully when we do the Arizona wedding, there will be more time for pictures, and a beautiful backdrop of fall color.

"Autumn Wedding" gave me a couple of problems.  Most people would guess it to be the dress, with all its detail, but once I figured out the method, it was just a lot of repetition to paint all those ruffles.  What did prove to be a challenge was the groom.  This painting is the first time I ever gave one of my male Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) characters hair, having always reserved the painting of hair for the women characters.  In the original version, he definitely looked like a woman wearing a suit.  I painted over the original version of his head and hair twice, as he kept looking very feminine.  If you compare the style of his face, to the others painted in 2012, you'll notice that his face is noticeably different than the rest in the series.  I ended up painting his face in a "stronger/harsher" fashion, with a bit less fine detail, to give the face a much more masculine feel to counteract the longer hair style which was contributing to making him look like a woman.  While working on this phase of the painting though, I decided I definitely do need to do a couple of gay and lesbian wedding paintings.  Even more so, now that 37 states in the US recognize same sex marriages, and soon all 50.

"Autumn Wedding" has proved to be a fan favorite and is the second best selling of my wedding themed Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) paintings.  Coming in a close second to my very first Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) painting:  "The Bride and Groom". 

5x7 "Autumn Wedding"Print <click here>

8x10 "Autumn Wedding" Print <click here>

11x14 "Autumn Wedding" Print <click here>

The second featured painting this week is "The Cigar Smoker".  Until I painted "The Vigilante", which will be featured in about a month, "The Cigar Smoker" was hands down the best seller to men.

This was the second Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) painting I did featuring a Sedona background.  The rock formations in the background are Cathedral Rock in Sedona, AZ.  I'm not exactly sure why I keep doing it, but several times now, the story cards I've printed for the backside of the prints for this painting, will list the background as Coffee Pot Rock.  At least a hundred have been sold with this mistake.  If I ever become famous, I would imagine those copies would be more valuable, like a coin or stamp with a mistake are more valuable.  I really doubt I'll ever be famous enough for it to matter though.  I'm just happy that getting to be creative pays the bills.

While this painting sells well, it's one of my least favorites now.  I had retired it a couple years ago, but the owner at Sedona Green asked and asked and asked for me to start reprinting it again, and I eventually gave in.  

At the time I painted it, I was pretty happy with how it turned out, as I was still learning how to paint, but looking at it now, I just want to fix all the mistakes in perspective and depth of view.  It was first painting I did that had a long depth of view, so several things in the back have too much detail, others in the front have too little, the shadows are weird.....  I could go on for several pages.  

This is why I dont have much in the way of my own work hanging in my house, I tend to only see the flaws or things I'd want to make better, especially with the earlier pieces.  This piece, to me, has the longest list of things that need to be fixed, so every time I see this painting, it just drives me crazy.  I have many times wanted to paint over a few spots to fix some of the problems in the earlier paintings, but I like being able to see my paintings improve when compared linearly.  

"The Vigilante" was meant to replace this painting, with the poncho, and the cigar.  For many people "The Vigilate is preferred, but with the addition of an automatic weapon, and switching to a straw hat instead of the sombrero, many other people prefer "The Cigar Smoker".

Prints of all the paintings shown here in this blog are available at the webstore. 

"The Cigar Smoker" is on sale this week for 50% off.  It is available as a series of specially reprinted, limited edition, hand signed and numbered prints. Limited to a series of only 10. 

You can see the other limited edition prints by clicking here or visiting http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com and clicking on the "Special Edition Prints" link on the left hand side.

"Autumn Wedding" is available in 3 different sizes and is also discounted for one week only.

Two more paintings next week, and a special contest! Thank you again for sharing my artwork/posts with friends that you think would like my artwork, on your social media accounts:  Facebook, twitter, blogger, pinterest, tumblr, ello....   

It is INCREDIBLY helpful in getting my artwork out in the world, and is greatly appreciated. 

As a little thank you to those who've been reading this blog, when I start releasing the paintings in March, I'll be beginning a trivia contest, asking questions that you'll be able to find the answers to in my blogs.  There will be more details coming in March.  

This week only, with the purchase of every Spoon Skull Pendant, you'll also receive a FREE Hand Crafted, Vintage Chandelier Crystal, Angel Skull Ornament included with your order (retail value of $12.50).  This offer ends on Feb 1st.

If you have any questions you'd like to ask that I can answer in a future blog, you can either post them in the comment section below, or send them to my email  dizzybear73@gmail.com  

Webstore: http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com/

Direct link to all blogs: http://dizzybearcreations.blogspot.com/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/DizzybearC

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/dizzybear73/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/dizzybearcreations

Ello:  https://ello.co/dizzybearcreations

E-mail:  dizzybear73@gmail.com

All orders placed between now and February 14th will also receive a FREE Limited Edition Bookmark with their order.  

Apple Picking, Coffee Pot Senoritas

The last couple of days I've been doing a bunch of metal work, working on preparing a bunch of metal pieces to make into a batch of silverware windchimes.  I usually try and do something different after finishing a painting to give my eyes a rest before starting the next one.  In the last couple of days I spend working on a painting, I'm usually up really close putting in so many final touches of detail that I get really bad eyestrain.  One of these days I'll break down and get glasses.  Everyone in my family, both sides, wears glasses or contacts, so it's amazing I've made it this long without having to get a pair myself.

I always enjoy the process of making the windchimes.  I collect parts and pieces all year long, and once or twice a year I spread everything out all over the studio and spend a week working up as much of it as possible.  My studio is usually in a constant state of chaos, it's how I work best, but during the week that I work on windchimes, it's especially bad.  I'll leave myself little paths and the rest of the studio will be a sea of brass, silverware, glass pieces, wire, beads.....  it's a beautiful mess.  I always feel bad for my neighbors during windchime week though, as I'm often out in the yard pounding on the anvil for hours on end, making all sorts of noise.

I really love doing metal work.  The grinding, the sparks, the pounding of metal into different shapes....  it's all so much fun.  I bought myself a Pneumatic Planishing Hammer, thinking it could help me pound out the silverware flat, but it turned out to not be strong enough for that.  Which is good, because half the fun of making the windchimes is working on the anvil.  Today I realized I could use earbud style headphones under the industrial ear muffs I wear to protect my hearing, so I'm sure I was extra loud in the back yard today, albeit, a bit more rhythmic in my pounding on the anvil.  Louder because I found myself singing a lot though.  Sorry neighbors!  It wasn't a cat being hammered on an anvil, it was just me singing while pounding on the anvil.  Of the many albums I listened to today, I'd say the soundtrack of the movie Juno was the best music to anvil to.

I'll be posting pictures of the windchimes I'm working on in future blogs.

The painting I finished though, is the one I mentioned in last week's blog.  It ended up taking a few extra days to finish, as there were some changes I wanted to make.  It's definitely some of my best work and I cant wait to release it.  I let Michel see it a few days ago, the final test of any of my paintings, and let him attempt to tear it apart.  He didn't have a lot to say about this one.  The shadowing on part of it was a little off, and I had too much detail on one part, both easy fixes.  That's usually what Michel helps with most, pointing out shadowing and perspective problems.  I'm happy to have his help.  Thanks Michel!!!!

The featured paintings this week are "Apple Picking" and "Coffee Pot Senoritas".

As I've mentioned, I usually dont have a lot of time to paint, but during a 6 month stay in Montreal in 2012, I was able to paint 16 paintings.

“Apple Picking” was the 7th of the 16 paintings of 2012.  I had been going to Montreal pretty steady since 2009, and had already seen and done most everything there was to be seen or do in the city, as I would spend most of my time there playing tourist.  It's a great city, but it was starting to feel like a chore trying to find new things to see and do every day, which is why I set out to start painting again after nearly a three year hiatus from painting.  I matched my painting schedule with Michel's work schedule, and would just paint and paint while he was out of the apartment and I had all that time alone.  Often times continuing to paint into the evenings, or on weekends if the weather was bad or we had nothing to do.  I did still take many breaks and day trips with friends, and one such welcome break was an apple picking excursion in Rougemont with close friends.

Rougemont is a cute little town just 45 minutes out of Montreal.  Lots of apple orchards, cider and ice wine tasting rooms, farms, but everything does seem to center around apples.  Ice Cider is amazing, if you haven't had the chance to try it, make sure you do.  It's a dessert wine, originating in Southern Quebec.  Sometimes labelled as Ice Wine when sold in the US.

To make the Ice Cider, the apples are harvested from the trees at the peak of ripeness and kept in cold storage until the onset of consistently cold winter temperatures.  The apples are then juiced and set outdoors to freeze for 6 or more weeks.  The freezing and melting off process creates a concentrated juice at the bottom of the vats that is naturally high in sugar and flavor, and from this the ice cider is fermented.  It usually takes about 8 pounds of apples to make one 375 ml bottle of Ice Cider/Wine.

On this particular apple picking excursion, we went to the Michel Jodoin Cidrerie, took their tour and did a cider and wine tasting.  Then crossed the street and picked apples in an orchard.  With which I baked up several apple pies when we got back to the apartment.  I have two sisters and mom taught me right along side of them how to bake, cook, sew, crochet, knit, and all those other things mothers used to teach daughters.  I make a good apple pie, but they were even better with these apples.

Another thing I liked to do when I needed to take a break from painting, was go shopping at thrift stores and vintage clothes stores all over the city.  I'm a big guy, 50 x-tall in a jacket, so finding clothes that will fit anywhere is often a chore, even more difficult in thrift stores and vintage stores.  While in a thrift store on one of those days that I was needing a break, I found a tweed jacket that fit me perfect.  I had always wanted a jacket like this, so I was even more excited when I saw it was only 10 bucks.  Spent a lot more on a matching hat from a chapellerie (hat store) downtown a few days later.  I didn't wear the outfit when we went apple picking, but finding this jacket seemed like something that needed to be in a painting!

5x7 Apple Picking Matted Prints <click here>

8x10 Apple Picking Matted Prints <click here>

11x14 Apple Picking Matted Prints <click here>

The second featured painting this week is "Coffee Pot Senoritas".  Part of this paintings history can be found in my first blog, and can be read by clicking here.

As I mentioned in last week's blog, the gallery that sells most of my artwork and jewelry, Sedona Green, originally wanted to specialize in Sedona, AZ themed items, and originally only stocked my Day of the Dead paintings as a temporary space filler after moving to a larger location.  They ended up selling so well though, that the prints remained.  To make the owner happy, and as a thank you for keeping the prints in the gallery, I painted four dia de los muertos paintings with Sedona backgrounds.

Coffee Pot Rock is one of my favorite rock formations in Sedona.  I've lived in Northern Arizona for 37 years now, and remember this rock formation looking a lot more like an old fashioned percolator style, stove top coffee pot.  Over the last nearly 4 decades, the rock has been subjected to some weathering and rock cleavage, so it doesn't look quite as much like a percolator these days.  I often wonder if younger people even know what percolators are.  I haven't seen one myself in over 20 years, other than the one I use.  Maybe they should change the name to "Espresso Pot Rock".  The Italian style stove top espresso makers look a bit like percolators, and are still in use by many.  Myself included.  I do love caffeine, probably why I dont sleep much.  hehe.

There's a great trail around the base of Coffee Pot Rock.  I dont get as much time to hike these days as I used to, but it is a favorite hike of mine.  When friends and family come for visits, I usually take them on two hikes, around the base of Coffee Pot Rock for the views, and then we'll go climb Cathedral Rock.  I really need to find more free time, I miss hiking.

Most of my free time these days goes to playing roller hockey.  Which I love playing.  I only started learning how to skate about a year ago, but the other night while playing, one of the guys on the other team exclaimed "F#@$ing Dennis, he's getting good enough to be a damned pain in the ass".  This of course has absolutely nothing to do with art, or anything I make, but it made me super happy to hear that, as I've been working hard at getting better at this sport.  I play with a group of guys that have been playing for years and years, and are quite good, so hearing that definitely felt awesome, as I often feel like I get in the way, or slow the game down.  I still have a long way to go, but it's been a lot of fun so far.  I really should find some time and go hike around Coffee Pot though.  It's been too long.

Prints of all the paintings shown here in this blog are available at the webstore. 

"Coffee Pot Senoritas" is on sale this week for 50% off.  It is available as a series of specially reprinted, limited edition, hand signed and numbered prints. Limited to a series of only 10. 

You can see the other limited edition prints by clicking here or visiting http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com and clicking on the "Special Edition Prints" link on the left hand side.

"Apple Picking" is available in 3 different sizes and is also discounted for one week only.

Two more paintings next week! Thank you again for sharing my artwork/posts with friends that you think would like my artwork, on your social media accounts:  Facebook, twitter, blogger, pinterest, tumblr, ello....   

It is INCREDIBLY helpful in getting my artwork out in the world, and is greatly appreciated. 

As a little thank you to those who've been reading this blog, when I start releasing the paintings in March, I'll be beginning a trivia contest, asking questions that you'll be able to find the answers to in my blogs.  There will be more details coming in March.   

If you have any questions you'd like to ask that I can answer in a future blog, you can either post them in the comment section below, or send them to my email  dizzybear73@gmail.com  

Webstore: http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com/

Direct link to all blogs: http://dizzybearcreations.blogspot.com/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/DizzybearC

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/dizzybear73/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/dizzybearcreations

Ello:  https://ello.co/dizzybearcreations

E-mail:  dizzybear73@gmail.com

Ice storm, ice skating, vampires, dueling, and marriage.

Since last week's blog, I'm back in the studio painting away like a crazy man.  I should be finishing a painting today.  Yay!  :-)  Making myself not show anyone the new paintings, and waiting until March to start releasing these new paintings, is proving to be a lot tougher than I originally thought it would be.......  A couple of friends popped into the studio yesterday to say hello, and I let them see one of the paintings I'm working on, to get a little feedback, as the style is a bit different.  They both really liked the new painting.  I do too, which makes me happy as I had abandoned it 4 or 5 months ago, putting it on the scrap heap with all the other paintings that haven't progressed well enough for me to bother finishing.  It was hard not to show them all the others, but I resisted.

I flew back to Northern AZ  from Montreal last Tuesday (Jan 6) after getting to experience my first ice storm.  That was pretty crazy.  Thick ice covering everything:  sidewalks, roads, trees, cars frozen to the road, doors sealed shut....
All over the city, people were without electricity, due to trees falling, under the weight of the ice coating them....  On my last full day there, I went to get lunch with Michel who had returned to work that day, walking for a couple of miles on top of solid sheets of ice to meet up with him.  It was really more of a controlled sliding scenario than walking.  I slipped many times, usually, and luckily, near things I could grab onto to keep from falling.  Miraculously, I only hit the ground twice.  Hurt my arm a little on one of the falls, but it's feeling better now.  I've gotten pretty good at safely falling in the last year, thanks to roller hockey.

After lunch, I popped into a drug store and bought some spikes designed to strap onto the bottoms of shoes.  I've only ever seen little old ladies wear them, so I was surprised they had them in my size, but truly glad they had them, definitely a game changer.  I was stomping all over the city wearing them, even catching a couple of slipping people while walking around.  I was surprised to see as many people out trying to traverse the streets and sidewalks as I did.  While I was in Montreal, the Verde Valley (where I live in Northern AZ) received 6 to 10 inches of snow, and it pretty much closed down the area.  We're not used to snow here, so nobody really knows how to drive in it, unless they've transplanted here from the north, to get away from the kind of
weather we ended up getting here.  I missed all of that storm, coming home to only a couple patches of snow left in my yard.  I left the shoe spikes in Montreal for Michel to use since he had to stay behind.  He loves them, but he's still looking forward to moving to Arizona in the spring, and leaving the Montreal winters behind.  It was kind of neat to see people ice skating around the streets and sidewalks of Montreal though, because they could, and it was easier than walking.

I've done three partial winters in Quebec, and they aren't any fun.  It was during my first winter up there though, that I met Michel, and experienced my first blizzard too in the same weekend.  I'll tell that story in a few weeks in the blog containing the painting "Winter Wonderland", since that painting contains a nod to the day I met Michel.

I've had a lot of people think this week's featured painting "The Duel" is a representation of Michel and I.  If anything, it would more represent the man we were renting a room from and living with at the time I painted this.  He was interesting, but not in a fun way.  His name was Rony, and he was from Haiti.  He was unemployed, paid his bills by renting out rooms and collecting handouts.  He was almost always home.  When he did leave, it would be to run and get food at the corner convenience store, or to "go on job interviews".  I happened to be going out one day when he was going on one of these job interviews.  We headed off in opposite directions, and when I got a few blocks away, I realized I had left my phone back at the apartment.  I stopped, got a cup of coffee at the nearby Tim Horton's and turned around and went back, only being gone for about 10 minutes.  When I got back to the apartment, he was in boxers on the couch, yelling at a soccer game on the tv.  He'd get all dressed up a couple of times a week, and then just walk around the block a couple of times, telling everyone along the way about his big job interview and then come back home, never having gone to a job interview.  Michel and I found it a little amusing, and confusing, that he would go to the pretense of going on these "job interviews".

We only lived there a couple of months, as he was constantly complaining that we didn't hang out with him enough, once even throwing us out of the apartment for it, only to change his mind 20 minutes later.  Between the constant knocks on the door to our room to hang out, the constant flow of passing strangers he'd invite off the street to come hang out with him in the apartment, always leaving the front door unlocked, blasting music, always throwing dirty rags in with our clothes in the washer, and on and on, we ended up leaving pretty quick.  We only put up with it so long because of the location, and the room was big enough for me to have a large area in which I could paint in our room, while Michel was at work.  With Rony always pestering me though, it was a nightmare to work on paintings in that apartment.  There were a couple of times a gun would have been handy, but being Canada and their laws against people owning them, I didn't have one.  haha.  I'm totally kidding, but there were several times I would have liked to have punched him in the nose.

“The Duel” was the 6th of the 16 paintings I painted in 2012.  The story of how it came about is a bit less fun that what other people have come up with though.  After seeing the movie Abraham Lincoln.  Vampire Hunter, I Googled Abraham Lincoln to find out more information about his real-life son.  While reading the search results, I noticed a link to the story of Andrew Jackson’s duel, I guess the connection being that they were both Presidents. Whenever I search for something on Google, I always hit the "image" button as well, to see what pictures pop up.  That's how the idea for a lot of my paintings come about; the pictures that come with the random searches I find myself doing all the time. There were all sorts of awesome pictures of
dueling on Google, and it just seemed like a good idea for a painting.  This is the fastest painting I've ever done.  Everything just seemed to flow, beginning to end.  The background is simple, there's not nearly as much detail as my other pieces, and yet it is the second best selling image of all my paintings.  I've not had another painting come as easy as this one, so far.

Direct Links to the prints of "The Duel"
available at the Dizzybear Creations Webstore

The Duel 5x7 click here

The Duel 8x10 click here

The Duel 11x14 click here

My stock answer for the people that still ask me if this is a painting of myself and Michel,  I now joke and say: “yes, 10 years after our wedding.”  I really didn't intend for this painting to represent us though, but because of how often it is thought to be us, I'm going to do a painting in the future similar to The Duel, but in the upcoming painting, Michel and I will be wearing the Steampunk costumes we wore to our Quebec wedding.  No pistols though, he'll be dueling with a sword, and I'll be dueling with a ray gun, like we both had at the wedding.  I'll be doing two different versions, one with representations of us in real life, for personal use and for the invitations of the Arizona wedding, and a second painting, a day of the dead version, with us as skeletons.  Cant wait to paint them, but there's many others I have to paint first.

The second painting being featured this week is "Archway Bride and Groom".  Part of this paintings history can be found in my first blog, and can be read by clicking here.

The gallery that sells most of my artwork and jewelry, Sedona Green, used to be located in a smaller, upstairs location, but in 2009 he was able to move his gallery to a larger, street level location, but in doing so, had lots of extra room to fill up.  In the upstairs location, he only carried a small amount of my wares, but while helping him move his store I offered to temporarily fill in all the extra space he had with my windchimes, jewelry, ornaments, paintings, dreamcatchers, and such.  Just to help him out and make the store not look so empty, until he could fill the store up with other items.  Everything ended up selling so well at the new location though, that he let me be the main artist of his shop, and we expanded my displays.

I had painted 6 or 7 landscapes of Sedona, AZ since that first art show in Jerome, AZ, but found landscapes weren't nearly as fun to paint, nor sell as well.  He wasn't a fan of my day of the dead paintings, at first, but let me put in a small display of them, even though he liked the Sedona landscapes I had done much better.  The day of the dead prints outsold the Sedona landscapes, by a huge margin.


Since I had so much space to display my work, and the prints of the older day of the dead painting were selling really well, I decided to do a couple of new dia de los muertos paintings to add to the collection.  I was wandering around in the town of Jerome, and in one of the store's windows, I saw these cute, little Dia de los Muertos figurines, and went in to look at them.  I ended up buying 4 and used these as the basis for four, still-life paintings.  That store, Jerome Jewelry, now carries my art prints.

The "Archway Bride and Groom" was the first painting of the four paintings based on those figurines, and was the only one of them that didn't feature a Sedona, AZ background.  The idea for having Sedona in the background came about during a conversation with Mike at Sedona Green after he saw "Archway Bride and Groom", and he commented on how surprised he was that the Day of the Dead was outselling the Sedona landscape paintings, by such a huge amount.  At the time he really wanted his store to have a heavy Sedona theme, so he was happy to see that the next four paintings combined the two themes, having Day of the Dead figures, with Sedona, AZ backgrounds.

Prints of all the paintings shown here in this blog are available at the webstore. 
"Archway Bride and Groom" is on sale this week for 50% off.  It is available as a series of specially reprinted, limited edition, hand signed and numbered prints. Limited to a series of only 10. 

You can see the other limited edition prints by clicking here or visiting http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com and clicking on the "Special Edition Prints" link on the left hand side.

"The Duel" is available in 3 different sizes and is also discounted for one week only.

Two more paintings next week! Thank you again for sharing my artwork/posts with friends that you think would like my artwork, on your social media accounts:  Facebook, twitter, blogger, pinterest, tumblr, ello....   

It is INCREDIBLY helpful in getting my artwork out in the world, and is greatly appreciated. 

As a little thank you to those who've been reading this blog, when I start releasing the paintings in March, I'll be beginning a trivia contest, asking questions that you'll be able to find the answers to in my blogs.  There will be more details coming in March.   

If you have any questions you'd like to ask that I can answer in a future blog, you can either post them in the comment section below, or send them to my email  dizzybear73@gmail.com  

Direct link to all blogs: http://dizzybearcreations.blogspot.com/




Webstore: http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com/

Blog: https://dizzybearcreations.blogspot.com

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/DizzybearC

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/dizzybear73/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/dizzybearcreations

Ello:  https://ello.co/dizzybearcreations

E-mail:  dizzybear73@gmail.com

Happy New Year! Blog and first questions answered.

Hope you all had a great New Years Eve celebration!  I definitely did.  Michel and I wandered around Montreal with a vague idea in mind of what we were doing that night, but instead we went rogue in terms of plans, and ended up having an awesome night.

Found several outdoor art displays around the city, and then stumbled upon a little hole in the wall restaurant that didn't have a line around the corner like all the other restaurants.  It was a little sketchy looking from the outside (which I love), so he wasn't thrilled into being talked into eating there.  Until, that is, we found they had a hidden second floor and we were seated at a nice window table overlooking the old part of Montreal, and that the restaurant actually had a great selection on their menu, and reasonably priced.  Then after dinner we went down to the docks in Old Port, where there was a huge outdoor party going on, with three Quebecois bands playing that were all amazing.

Being from the desert, it's definitely different to see people huddling together in the cold, dancing, all dressed up in parkas and warm clothing, not letting the cold get them down.  We were even treated to a quick snow storm that looked really beautiful being reflected by all the spotlights that were shining and spinning about everywhere.  One of my favorite New Year's Eves.

Beyond that, I had a very nice and relaxing winter break, but am anxious to get back to painting.  Did a little sketching during my two week break, but for the most part just relaxed, and spent time with family and friends.  Was a bit sad about not getting a White Christmas this year, since I was in Montreal, and snow filled Christmases are almost a given there.  Also a little disappointed that I didn't get to go skiing for the very first time, or ice skating.  We were too busy with the holidays, family and friends for the majority of my winter break, but the weather in Montreal worked against us when we had free time, most notably freezing rain conditions that took down many tree limbs down, and made walking on ice covered sidewalks dangerous.  The weather was very odd the last several weeks, both in AZ and Montreal, when I arrived in Montreal a couple of weeks ago, the weather was absolutely beautiful.  Sunny, and warm (for Montreal).  Yet back in Arizona, a freak snow storm came to town and blanketed Northern AZ under a blanket of snow, which was unusual enough, even more unusual, it didn't melt away immediately.


Going back to quite a bit of work at the studio, but I'll be shipping out all the orders placed while I was gone by the 8th, each complete with a special gift for being so patient while I was away.  I was going through some old back up drives the other day, and found a digital printing file for a piece I did for that very first art show in 2007 (at my friend's restaurant) that I honestly forgot about because I thought the printing file I had for it was destroyed.  I might make it available on the webstore later this year, haven't decided yet, but for now I'll be keeping it a secret so everyone who placed orders while I was away can be surprised when they see it.

There were only 5 prints made of this particular piece, and sold during that show, and I never had any more printed until today.  I usually include some little extra "thank you gift" with each order, so I had a few extra of these prints made that I'll be adding to the box of "free gifts with order" that I randomly pick from while packing up orders.  One of these could be coming your way too with your next order.  No promises though, I only had 5 extra made, in addition to all the ones I'll be sending out with orders over the next couple of days.

While looking around on the same back up drive, I found a couple of other paintings and photographic work I did, never released outside of that first art show.  I was on display at the restaurant for 3 months, so I continued to work on other pieces to add to the collection, to keep the display changing and "fresh".  With the exception of one piece I did during the second month, I only continued to make available a handful of the pieces created during that very rushed two weeks of chaos prior to the first show, for good reason, I thought all the other printing files were destroyed. In late 2007, a computer of mine had a complete meltdown, that I thought destroyed everything from that show, and years and years of work, pictures, old emails, etc....  The computer wouldn't boot up, and the hard drive couldn't be salvaged by experts.  I wasn't big on backing up computer files back then, and sadly assumed everything was lost.  I back up my files all the time now.  

From what I can surmise, I had copied a couple of things to a cd to take to a print shop, and that cd was copied to a backup drive years later when I started copying all my random cds and sdhc cards to an external hard drive, to later organize.  I still lost thousands of hours of work, when that computer crashed, but I'm pretty happy to have found some of these early pieces.  I'll be having some of these pieces printed as well, and add to the webstore, or perhaps to include in future orders as special gifts.  I typically save the free prints for larger orders ($60+), and smaller orders get fun things like greeting cards, bookmarks, charms, ornaments, so please don't be disappointed if you dont get a free print with your order.  I'm not saying it never happens, just typically it's reserved for larger orders, as these free gifts cost me money to make, and prints do cost quite a bit more than the other items mentioned.

On to the paintings!

The first painting this week, "Cherry Blossom Bride" was done in honor of Michel's sister's wedding in August of 2012. It was my first time going to a wedding performed all in French.  I didn't really need to understand the actual words being used, I could still tell basically what was being said for the most part, based on tones of voice, and happy tears.  It was an outdoor wedding, in a little village, by a little stream, outside of Montreal, next to a pretty little reception hall.  It was a beautiful venue, and a fun celebration.  Right after the ceremony, the photographer started taking pictures of the wedding party, the parents, all the standard wedding pictures, but at one point he had Michel's sister sit down on the grass, and started arranging her dress out around her.  As soon as I saw it, I knew it would make a good painting, so I snuck over and clicked a couple of pictures to paint from later.

Cherry Blossom Bride 5x7

Michel and I both went dress shopping with his sister, talked a bit about decorations and themes, even made a last second mad dash right before the wedding to drive back to her house to get the written vows and the ring pillow, which were left behind.  I never drove faster, and luckily didn't get pulled over.  While talking about the wedding plans, she kept bringing up cherry blossoms for the flowers and designs, thus the background of cherry trees in bloom.  While Quebecois weddings vary a bit from the standard American wedding, there's still several similarities, like the throwing of the bouquet and bride's garter.  I caught the garter, proving the belief of he who catches it, is the next to be married true, as Michel and I got married a little over a year later.  

To me, the one thing that differs most between weddings in Quebec, and those in the US, is what the officiant says.  It's less romantic, and more like reading pages of tax codes.  You have the option of course of also adding vows, but things that Americans would just read before the wedding and sign a paper signifying they understood, the officiant has to read during the ceremony, an in the case of my wedding, in both French and English, since I dont speak French.  I chuckled several times during the ceremony due to how official it all sounded, because I did not expect that at all.  Michel's grandma officiated, and we never had time for a pre-wedding run through.  During the ceremony, his grandma would say something in French, and I assumed it was something inspirational, about love and the future, but then she'd translate it to English, and it all really did sound like tax codes.  Couldn't help but chuckle and wonder what the heck was happening.  

Cherry Blossom Bride 8x10

Cherry Blossom Bride 11x14

Dia de los Muertos isn't well-known here in Quebec.  I've been seeing the designs of the holiday (mostly sugar skulls) appearing in more and more items, but I have yet to meet a person here that knows much about the holiday.  I gave Michel's sister the first print of the "Cherry Blosson Bride" painting, since I based it on her wedding and dress, and while she appreciated the thought, I could tell she was, at the very least, confused as to why I painted her at a skeleton, if not a bit horrified.  I'm guessing a bit more of the later, as I haven't seen the print displayed in her house.  It might be hanging in one of the rooms I haven't been in, but either way it's ok.  I actually kind of like it more when people dont like something I've painted.  

I often go to Sedona Green to restock shelves at the gallery, where I have a bit of an agreement with the owner that he wont tell people who I am while I'm there, even if they're asking questions about me, or my work.  It's mostly so I can get my work at the gallery done, or else I'll just have to talk to everyone the entire time I'm there and get nothing accomplished.  While stocking shelves and fixing displays though, I often get to overhear little conversations of the customers, talking about what they like, amongst the jewelry, the ornaments, and gift items.  When it comes to the Day of the Dead paintings however, I get a little twisted wave of joy wash over me each time someone walks up to the display and says "I dont like these!" or some other string of words that basically boils down to the artist (me) being twisted and dark, while I'm standing there right in earshot.  It seriously makes my day that my paintings evoked enough emotion to make someone stand in the middle of a store/gallery and express their dislike out loud for anyone and everyone to hear  :-)  I enjoy hearing people say they like them as well, which is what usually happens, but it doesn't get quite as big of a smile.

The Return 5x7

The second painting this week is "The Return".  This is a mixed media painting I did as a cover to a book by the same title.  I mentioned above that there was only one piece I did outside of the two week period prior to hanging my first art show.  The background of this book cover, is that painting: "City in the Sky".  I painted the grim reaper character separately and then digitally combined the two pieces.  I don't think the book had much commercial success, as it's no longer available.  I've gotten a couple of emails about the book over the years, telling me my cover was the best part about it, so I know there must have been at least a couple of copies sold.  I was given a preview copy of the book, and I proudly put it on my bookshelf, a little excited that I had done a book cover.  I never had the chance to read it, but gave it a look after the first email telling me they liked my cover.

I will say that if I had I read the book before agreeing to do the cover, I might have passed on the job offer.  All I was told was that it was a book of short stories featuring the town of Jerome, and that I would be paid a certain amount, plus royalties for every book sold.  I'm not a writer, by any means, but I've tried to read the book a couple of times, and had to stop each time.  The writing in it, especially the grammar usage is so bad I cant get more than a couple of pages in before I have to quit.  It literally hurts my head and makes me want to break out a package of red pens.  I've read some bits and pieces from the author's other books, and they're pretty good.  Not exactly my taste in writing, but well written, so I'm not sure why this one wasn't of similar quality.  Perhaps it was an intensional style choice on part of the author.  

Had I been paid, I'd never say anything like that, and would find something polite to say about it, but I wasn't, and have long since given up on the thought of ever getting paid for my work on this book.  I will say, politely, that I hope at some point the book will be edited, and rereleased, as I would like to read it, but if they use my cover design again, I'll be expecting a check!

Prints of all the paintings shown here in this blog are available at the webstore. 
"The Return" is available as a series of specially reprinted, limited edition, hand signed and numbered prints. Limited to a series of only 10. 

You can see the other limited edition prints by clicking here or visiting http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com and clicking on the "Special Edition Prints" link on the left hand side.

"The Cherry Blossom Bride" is available in 3 different sizes at the Dizzybear Creations Webstore.

Two more paintings next week! Thank you again for sharing my artwork/posts with friends that you think would like my artwork, on your social media accounts:  Facebook, twitter, blogger, pinterest, tumblr, ello....   It is INCREDIBLY helpful in getting my artwork out in the world, and is greatly appreciated. 

As a little thank you to those who've been reading this blog, in the week before I release the new paintings, I'll be doing a trivia contest, asking questions that you'll be able to find the answers to in my blogs.  

I encouraged people to ask me questions in the previous blog, so if you have any questions you'd like to ask that I can answer in a future blog, you can either post them in the comment section below, or send them to my email  dizzybear73@gmail.com  

Direct link to all blogs: http://dizzybearcreations.blogspot.com/

ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS:

A couple of people have sent questions, though not exactly the kinds of questions I was expecting.  When I first opened the webstore a couple of months ago, I had several back to back sitewide sales where everything was discounted 25% to 30% off, because I wanted to thank my followers on facebook for having "liked" my artist fan page, and to get the word out that my webstore was finally open.  

Facebook treats fan pages differently than the normal, personal pages, in that it restricts the number of how many fans of my art page will see my posts (typically restricted to 2% to 10% of all fans), unless I pay to increase the distribution.  The other way to get my posts to more people without paying money to Facebook, is to find ways to get fans to share, "Like", or comment on my posts, and the sales helped that to happen, as many of you shared my posts.  THANK YOU!  

I do my best to keep prices as low as possible, so advertising is one thing I dont invest in, as it's quite costly.  I'm always very grateful when someone helps get my work out into the world through their own personal social media, whether it be facebook, or any of the many others, and try to do things to show my appreciation by having contests, giveaways for free prints from time to time, having sales, or including free gifts with orders in the hopes a happy customer will tell others.

The question one person asked was: "why dont you just leave your prices marked down to what they were during the sales?"  The answer to that, I cant afford to.  The costs of all the items I need to make the items I sell continue to increase, just like the price of everything else.  I work really hard to keep those costs down and spend anywhere from 10 to 20 hours each week just networking and shopping for discounts on the items I need to make what I sell, without diminishing quality.  I research, experiment, and test the quality of everything new I use, making sure I use products that will last.  I work hard to make things of quality, so instead of using things like monofilament, or cord to string the jewelry and ornaments, I use 7 strand wire cables that will last years longer.  I make sure the metals used will be hypoallergenic and lead-free, which cost more, I use solid color glass beads, instead of coated glass beads, archival quality inks and paper for the prints, that I hand mount, mat, sign and package myself, and so on.

 There's the additional costs of shipping items.  I do charge a fee for shipping, but what I charge, doesn't usually even cover the expense of what the post office charges me to ship items.  Then figure in the cost of packaging, gas to the post office, even things like printing out packing slips and address labels, tape to seal packages.  Also the fees I have to pay to Paypal and Stripe to accept credit cards, commissions to storenvy for hosting my webstore, money charged for domain names, and business licenses...  It goes on and on.

Beyond the monetary costs, there's unfathomable time invested in everything I make.  From the time to learn how to make and design new things, working on packaging designs, and something you probably would not have guessed, that I typically spend a minimum average of 60 to 70 hours, working on each painting, most clocking in with between 100 to 250 hours each.  

In the end though, it actually ends up being less profit, and takes a lot more time, for me to sell an item to an individual customer through the webstore, than it does to sell the same item, with many other items, to a store who then puts it on their shelves to sell to you.  I mostly made the webstore for all the people that write me about purchasing something of mine that they saw and regretted not purchasing while traveling. 

The other question was:  "when's the next sale?"  For those that have been waiting for the next big sale, I have plans to do one on Dia de los Muertos in November of 2015, but in the meantime I have been rotating different prints each week to be offered at a reduced price while writing these blogs, but that is not going to be an ongoing, constant thing.  These sales will end in March, and I will be streamlining the website in the coming months, removing a lot of the jewelry and ornaments, focusing mostly on the prints.

Thanks for the questions!