If you are an artist in Ohio, you may be interested in entering the "Our Ohio" contest, sponsored by the Mahoning County Farm Bureau.

You will need to use a full sized cowboy hat to create an artwork with the theme "A Tip of the Hat to Ohio Agriculture." All Ohio counties are participating. The hats will go on display at the Ohio State Fair and the Canfield Fair. Then, the hats will travel all over the state, on display at art galleries and conventions through the year. The hats will be shown online at www.OurOhio.org, where people can visit and vote for their favorite hat from July 30 until November 30, 2008.
For more information: CLICK HERE

Labels: hat art display, mahoning county farm bureau, our ohio contest

Do you have a website or blog, and if so, what kind of site hit tracking software do you use? I have used about three different types, and have been very happy with SiteMeter. But if you have been looking for something that will give you a little more information, check out Google Analytics (free) at Analytics.Google.com.

For the people who may be reading this who don't have a website or a blog, it may seem creepy that someone wants to know how you found the site. It isn't for mean intentions I promise you, it's really to make a site better - the statistics help me know if I am providing what people want. It also tips me off to problems...for example, in the past I discovered that a certain page of my website wasn't working properly, when I investigated why such a large percentage of website visitors were leaving from that part of my site. I was able to fix the problem. So statistical information on a website can really be helpful for everyone.

At first, the workings of Google Analytics seems a little confusing, but the more I use it and look at the information that is collected, the more it all makes sense. It is great to be able to see the keywords people used to find my site or blog. I still haven't even scratched the surface of all the tools that are available.

Through Google Analytics, I found out that on average, the readers of this art blog only stay here for about one minute. They're either very impatient or they are speed readers. Another very real possibility is that the blog's main page has too much junk on it and it's loading too slowly.
Unfortunately, I bet it's the latter.

This blog gets around 1,300 visitors a month. My art website gets 4,490 visitors a month, and the average visitors spends about 2 minutes there, viewing about 3-4 pages.

Another interesting tidbit is the 'bounce rate.' I had no idea what that meant, I had to go and look it up. The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who just view your main page, without going into any inner pages of your site. They leave from the first page they enter, and don't peruse any further. Having a high bounce rate means you aren't what they're looking for in some way. A high bounce rate might mean that the main entry point is not enticing enough to encourage further browsing.

My art blog has a bounce rate of 86.63%. I would say that is because I am so .... "Random" - as my teenage daughters would say. You may have noticed that I have trouble staying on one topic. One day I write about my kids, and another day I'm writing about how to draw or art business or whatever. I started this blog just for fun, so I'm kind of at a loss of what to do about that. Lately I have tried to stay focused on art topics, but I'm too busy to read up on art topics, so that explains a lot doesn't it? Look for this bounce rate to become a lower number as I have more time to think and go to the bathroom by myself.

The bounce rate for my art website is 48.89%. Much better than this art blog. Of all the people who visit, a little more than half of them go on to see more. They visit about 4 pages. Lucky me, the Contact Page is usually one of those pages. Over 17,500 pages of my art website are seen per month. To me, a website is the most fantastic portfolio for an artist. People are looking at my art from all over the world while I'm sleeping! So how cool is that?

Labels: free hit counter, google analytics, site tracking

I just became aware that the 2008 Entertainment Book is on Clearance sale for $9.99 each book.

The Entertainment Books normally retails for $25-$35 depending on city, and for example, the Atlanta book I just ordered has over $19,000 worth of coupons...if you could ever use them all, that is! That's an amazing amount of coupons. There are coupons for hotels, dining, movies, and more. There are over 324 coupons for restaurants. You can see what coupons are in this year's book online.

Keep in mind that if you travel to certain cities regularly, it might be worth getting a book to use there, too. If you have family and friends in other cities, an Entertainment Book would make a wonderful gift, especially for families with children. They charge $2.49 per book for shipping, but they are pretty hefty books, if you've ever seen one.

I'm looking forward to getting a lot of use out of it this summer.

Get the 2008 book for only $9.99!

We are going through sickness again here. I think that when you have 6 people in a house, with most of them going to places (work and school) where there are a lot of people, this is bound to happen. But I am really getting tired of it. I am stocked up on Lysol wipes and we use antiseptic hand gel on a regular basis, but it doesn't seem to really help. So that gets me down.

The new issue of Art Calendar Magazine arrived, and I was going "yippee yippee!" because that magazine always tends to get me pumped up and positive and I really needed that boost.

The latest issue is mostly about art for public places (sculpture and such) and exhibiting your art in corporate spaces - so most of the magazine this month isn't geared for me, but I try to read it all anyway, because you never know where a useful tidbit of information will come from. This issue also goes into "Creating a Studio to Envy." That sort of depressed me more. My "studio" is a large art board. I have a corner of the living room where I work, but very often I just use the art board and get comfy on the couch and work with some music playing or the TV on.

One of the best articles each month in the magazine is written by Jack White. In this issue, he discusses how he decided one day to be an artist, but he had never even doodled! His wife thought he had gone insane. That Christmas, their kids didn't get any presents except candy and fruit. It was a dismal time, but he goes on to explain that an artist needs to lock himself or herself away to produce art, saying,


I think that is so true. Most artists are creative people, and therefore, everything seems so interesting (and distracting!) to us. I must work really hard to not be distracted from my work. I keep the phone nearby when I'm working, and I'd rather not, but I place it so I can see the Caller ID ... I might need to answer it if it is the school calling saying a child is sick, for example.
My friends who call know which days and hours I have childcare, and I've told them I must work during that time. However, when my kids keep getting sick, they can't go to preschool, and that destroys my working time. That can be very frustrating, but I know my job as a Mom is the most important one.

Oh, by the way, Art Calendar magazine has a great site called Art Scuttlebutt. Here is my page on ArtScuttlebutt.com. If you are an artist and you join, be sure to add me to your Friends list!

Here is a neat way of marketing your art. Fort Worth TX artist Randy Bacon creates house portraits that are given to homeowners who participate in a home show/tour in Dallas. His portraits are an additional motivator for people to open their homes to the tour and serves as a special commemoration of their participation in the show. You can read more about this from the Dallas Morning News.

I'll need to add this idea to the page I wrote on Squidoo about How To Advertise Your Pencil Portrait Business. I think this would be a great addition.

Don't forget to blog about your custom house portraits and link right to them, as I have done here. haha!

Labels: dallas, dallas tx, house portraits, randy bacon

My daughter needed to do a family tree as part of her 8th grade project. I hadn't looked at the genealogy paperwork for over 8 years or so. Since so many years had passed, I hoped I would find more information online, and I found a jackpot!

I was able to trace one family branch all the way back to 1600 in England, another branch back to 1640 in London England, and another branch to 1663, a descendant of Dutch royalty living in New Amsterdam (now New York.) I found another ancestor who was in the Revolutionary War militia.

But you don't just find royalty and possible war heroes, you also can find rascals, like my great-great-grandfather, who allegedly abandoned his wife. His wife had to divorce him on grounds of desertion in 1887.

My daughter was shocked to find this info with me. I like any extra info I can find besides names and dates. I think it serves as a reminder that they weren't just names and dates, but they were real people. It's a lesson to leave behind only admirable data for our descendants....and to live a life worth genealogical research.

Oh, and that Revolutionary War militiaman ancestor? I need to find out which side he was on. If he was on the American side, maybe I can be a Daughter of the American Revolution. I wonder how much that would cost, and will I have to wear a silly hat.

UPDATE: I now have one line going back to the year 1540.

UPDATE #2: Oh bummer, I'm not really related to Anneke Jans (Dutch royalty) but close. Seems my ancestor was just related to one of Anneke Jans' husbands. Too many family researchers in the past wanted to make a connection a little too badly.

Labels: anneke jans bogardus, genealogy

This was in a newsletter I received from Gwinnett County. I thought it was interesting

"It is interesting to meet someone from a different culture. Some of these encounters may seem unusual. Here are some guidelines to help you better understand another person’s culture. Read on to find out more about your neighbor. "

Put your guess in as a Comment below...guess the nationality,
and I'll let you know if you're right!

Clue: They greet each other by kissing on both cheeks.

Clue: One important rule is to refrain from pointing at people, or pointing people toward objects or locations.

Clue: If you are wondering why this person is so close to you, in their culture, there is no personal space.

Clue: You may think weddings are costly. Think again. This culture celebrates weddings for three consecutive days.

Clue: Family members of the older generation kiss both genders on the lips; however, non-family members are kissed on the lips only if they are of the same gender.

Clue: No need to guess what they are trying to say; they are very direct and will tell you exactly what they mean. There is no beating around the bush.

Clue: Bring a gift to the family who invites you to their home for dinner. If you bring flowers, make sure the number of flowers is uneven; even numbers of flowers are for funerals.

Clue: Do not cross your legs with the ankle on the knee or put your feet on the furniture. It’s impolite to show people the soles of your shoes.

Clue: Be prepared to accept all alcohol and food offered when visiting friends—and that can be quite a lot! Refusing a drink or a toast is a serious breach of etiquette. An open bottle must often
be finished.

Clue: Don’t put your thumb between your first two fingers. It is an extremely rude gesture.

Labels: guess

"NEW YORK - The owner of Norman Rockwell's "Bottom of the 6th" — showing three umpires looking skyward as first raindrops fall — is steaming over the use of the classic illustration in the television series "The Bronx is Burning."

Curtis Publishing Co. Inc. has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan seeking to stop ESPN

Curtis sent an e-mail to ESPN lawyers notifying them that ESPN did not have a license to use the painting and was committing willful copyright infringement, the lawsuit said."

Full story on Yahoo News

Labels: Bottom of the 6th, curtis publishing, ESPN, Norman Rockwell, norman rockwell lawsuit

Several months ago, I came to a realization - I was receiving quite a few emails from people who wanted information on how to start a pencil portrait business. Others had started a pencil portrait business, but had no idea how to find clients. It struck me that there was a need for this information.

I grabbed one of my kids' blank composition notebooks, and whenever I had a spare moment here or there, I jotted down advice that I would give someone who was starting a pencil portrait business. My first thought was that it would become an e-book, but when I discovered a site Squidoo, I realized that it would be a perfect place to put the information. After all, why not share it? Now I can direct people who email me for advice to the page on Squidoo that deals with what they need. It saves me time overall, but it is also gives the information seeker much more thorough information than I would be able to give them in a single email.

You can read all my art business pages here.

I've created pages about art marketing, affiliate programs, dealing with difficult situations, what to charge for portraits, advice on advertising, and more. You'll also find how-to art tutorials. The most popular is How to Draw Hair.

So, if you have been looking for information like this, be sure to check out the pages. I am always looking for advice and suggestions!

Labels: art business, art marketing, squidoo