Modern Folk Art Bouquet - SOLD

Click image to enlarge. Sorry, bidding has ended.
Size: 16"h x 12"w.
Medium: Oils on Canvas Board


This piece was so much fun to paint. It came together smoothly and quickly using only the pallet knife in a spirit of happy adventure. And I love the way it turned out.

I little ahead of you this week, so there is one more painting to see. Just scroll down to Tea and Oranges.

Tea and Oranges - SOLD

Click image to enlarge. Sorry, bidding has ended.
Size: 16" h x 12" w.
Medium: Oils on Canvas board
Date: November 14, 2007



I grew up in a small, coastal town in Southern California. In our backyard we grew oranges, lemons, peaches and avocados. Every room, including the kitchen had a view of the trees in our yard. In the morning our mother often made fresh-squeezed orange juice from our trees. The sunlight flooded our home and we were flooded with with happy times that left us with happy memories. This painting is a memory of breakfast and oranges and our happy life.

Bowl of Oranges - SOLD

Click image to enlarge. Sorry, bidding has ended.
Size: 14" h x 11" w.
Medium: Oils of Canvas Board.



Posting a bit early this week for Thanksgiving. Still painting these smaller Outsider, Folk Art pieces and experimenting with eBay listing strategies. Ready and waiting to post and list are: another fruit painting; an abstract at night, and a collage ukulele. The latter was inspired by a friend's invitation to hear Jake Shimabukuro. As it turned out, I was sick and could hear only the clips available on Youtube. I knew the Ukulele had become quite the rage. And friends up the coast are enthralled with their lessons and everyone is talking about Jake. My own fond feelings for this shy little instrument are attached to my father, who used to play it and we would sing to it together.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Home - Sold

Click image to enlarge. Bidding has ended.
Medium: Oils on Canvas.
Size:16" w x 12" h.



Last week I listed 11 paintings, in my continuing eBay listing experiment. Quite a few were little paintings listed at other times during the year that did not sell at the time. Of the 11, 8 sold and Bowl of Fruit (see previous post) will end Saturday.

Each was listed with a starting auction price of $.99. All but 2 were listed in the broad category of "self-representing artists" and using the keywords Folk, Outsider and or Pop art. The results? This is one example: The Red Bicycle, that did not sell last Spring at a starting price of $99.00 and then $49.00, was bid up from $.99 to $51.03. Is this due to timing?, the category?, the excitement generated by the low starting price and the race to win? It will take more experiments to know for sure. This time it had 110 views and 10 bids. It had only a fraction of the number of views in the earlier listings.

This week I am listing 2 new ones at $9.99. I want to see whether they have as many views, watchers and primarily, bidders and how this starting price effects the outcome. I will keep you "posted".

Bowl of Fruit - SOLD

Click image to enlarge. Sorry, bidding has ended.
Size: 16" h x 12" w
Medium: Oils



Continuing to paint in the Outsider Folk Art genre and having fun with it. By next week I hope to have another update for you on my eBay listing experiments. I am conducting a number of them through this week. See you then!

Three Lollipop Candies - SOLD

Click image to enlarge. Bidding has ended.
Size 10"w x 8"h.
Medium: Oils on Gessoed Board.



Continuing my eBay experiment painting Outsider, Pop, Folk Art and opening the auction at about $1.00 this week with Lollipops. Next week I will be doing the same but I am considering changing the category from the smaller "Folk Art" category to the much larger "self-representing artists" category, just to see what happens. To read the results of the Windy Day listing experiment, scroll to previous post, #56.

What makes art "art"? Who makes these determinations? People have been discussing this for ages and Marla Olmstead has painted her way into the middle of a flurry of discussions on the topic.

Marla is a little girl whose abstract expressionist paintings have sold for as much as $20,000. Some controversy has arrisen over whether to call her work "art" and even whether she finishes it herself. If you would like to see a video clip of Marla in action, click HERE. To see her gallery, click HERE.

Useful Link - eBay Listing Experiment

Updating my eBay listing experiment (see post #54). I decided in addition to listing in the Folk Art category, to open the biding at $.99 just to see what would happen. The upside is that with 101 views, 13 bids, 5 watchers and inquiries as far away as the UK, the painting received a lot more attention than usual. The activity was so much fun to watch. Coming to my computer to check on the listing was like rushing to the Christmas tree early Christmas morning to see the packages under the tree. And listing a painting on eBay for $.99 is considerably less expensive that listing at $99.00.

I realized too that in the Folk Art category, buyers are not looking for the huge canvases that Abstract Art buyers like. This means less money needs to be spent on canvases and paints, a canvas that is easier to work with in a small space, lighter to handle and lower shipping costs for buyers. On the downside, even with all the bidding activity, the closing price was lower.

Normally my auction listings begin at $99.00. I receive 1 or 2 bids, at the end of the auction, about 50 views, and from 1 to 3 watchers. So the lower starting price doubled the number of views (i.e exposure) the painting received. In the longterm,will exposure be more valuable than a higher price today?

On another note, if you are an artist, this may interest you. Some posts back I wrote about an art competition by Juriedartcomp.com.

They are now accepting entries into their 3rd Juried Art Competition. The theme me is “Modern”. The winner will have work published in the March 2007 Artists Directory, an ad section in ARTnews magazine. 2nd place will receive $100, and 3rd will receive 5 passes into future competitions.

The deadline is 4 pm Eastern Standard time, November 30th, 2007.

The Scroll - SOLD

Click image to enlarge. Bidding has ended.
Size: 24" x 24" x 1.5".
Medium: Oils on Canvas.



As I follow my experiment of listing a painting on eBay in the Folk Art category at $.99, this week's listing is in the larger category of Art: Paintings; American 1950-now, also at the very low starting price of $1.00. I will let you know how these 2 experiments turn out in subsequent posts.

Windy Day - Folk Art - SOLD

Click image to enlarge. Sorry, bidding has ended.
Size: 24" x 24" x 1.5"d.
Medium: Oils on Canvas.



Returning to the topic of Folk Art with this week's painting and Useful Link (scroll down to previous posting). There may be an advantage to selling Folk Art on eBay, which is that the category is fairly small. For example, today a search in the category of Original Abstract Oil Painting returns 6099 results to look through if you are a buyer. But for Folk Art Oil Painting, there were only 422 results. My guess is that this would mean more shoppers will see the paintings in the latter category, which increases the possiblity of selling the art.

Ueful Links - Contemporary Folk Art Paintings

Not only is Folk Art, in the form of paintings, difficult to circumscribe, but it turns out that there are more than a few categories of the genre. And the lines continue to blur between it, Pop Art paintings and Outsider Art. This brings me to this week's Useful Link about Contemporary Folk Art, which includes paintings, and the examples shown at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Click the link above to view these wonderful pieces.

At www.americanfolkart.com the description of Contemporary American folk artists is: They "share with folk artists of earlier centuries a strong narrative impulse, the use of figurative and representational forms that are highly abstract, an intuitive compositional strength, and a tendency toward the decoration and embellishment of a surface that goes well beyond necessity."