PineShoreStudio/Paintings by Helen Harris

T'is the season......... If you click on over to my web site , you'll view many of the original watercolor/collage paintings that are available as gifts for this holiday season. Experience a random act of culture: buy a painting! Remember many of these works can be purchased as prints on paper, canvas or as a greeting card by visiting my FineArtAmerica site and customizing your selection.

My first chance to paint since opening my new business The Cookie Cab. This original,vertical floral is a mixed media/collage using my signature textures. Unframed, it can be purchased directly from my web site.

I have questions I'd like to address to the many "working artists", that follow this blog. Many of you have Etsy ,Artfire, 1000Market, Indie .Zazzle shops etc. Do you feel too spread out with your work ? Are the shops redundant? Do you place the same product in each or do you select certain products for one shop and different items for another? Are you finding different shoppers? If you have a web site that has shopping capabilities, do you still need another shop? I'd really like to get some feedback . I've been reviewing my sales.Based on the information,I'm thinking of reorganizing my shops, such as exclusively selling my best seller in one shop or only having higher priced work in another. What is your opinion? .......While we are on the subject of posting product . Ok...so this floral cycle of paintings continues. Don't know why but I'll just go with the flow. In case you missed my tweets or FB announcements I've just posted new floral ACEOs...

Sometimes a floral just happens! Landscapes are my subject of choice. I splash color on a paper and I see trees,mountains, rivers and skies. Rarely ,despite the many laborious and enjoyable hours I spend in my own garden ,do I paint flowers. So when they appear,and that is the only way I can describe how they show up...I let them happen... lol ... and my galleria owner gets happy. Maybe it was all the rainy weather on the East coast, or I just needed a splash of fun to chase away the blues...any way... Enjoy!

A suggestion from my art rep has opened up a new subject for my work. Florals have never been an interesting subject matter for me. It does not have the wide expanse of landscape. It lacked the variety of textures that I love. That was the "story"that I have told myself for so long. Now, after a week of playing, not with a particular flower form but rather the idea of a floral compostion, I think I have found an enjoyable image. I've painted a number of variations of a similar composition and I'm still interested and not bored. A playful splash of color, a textured pot and an exhuberant spray of greens has actually proved productive! Working in a small format has now expanded to a fuller size with great expectations. This couldn't have come at a better time .Spring is just around the corner and I'll have plenty of inspiration to look forward to from my gardens.

I'm having one of "those" days. You know, the kind that you try to convince yourself that all is well with the work you've just spent time doing. Something isn't quite right. You need that pay check, you need to make that deadline and catch the last mailing of the day...but. Do you give yourself some slack? Let this one, not -so -great , piece through? Is the critic in your head being overly obnoxious or is it the fear of regret once it is out for all to see? Hmm. ..good enough? If you have to ask....then it's not. Trash it. Keep working. That's the difference between amateur and professional.The best is yet to come. It's just a brush stroke away! Then tell that critic,"I told you so!" and smile.