Green Craftsman by Southern California Artist Marian Fortunati

Green Craftsman
© Marian Fortunati
6"x8" Oil on RayMar Canvas Panel

This little painting will be available from La Galeria Gitana in January. Contact me HERE for more information.

Well, it's that time of year again. It's time to look back at 2010 and the goals I set for the year and analyze where things went well and where I need to work a bit harder.

Here is the link to my 2010 GOAL SETTING POST:

Successes:

• I met almost all of the goals I set for myself in 2010 which is a really good thing.  
• I was especially proud of the fact that I've managed to improve my work  and thus have sold quite a bit more (At least I THINK that's why I've sold more).  I've increased my collectors, total number of paintings sold and total revenue.    I have more than met that goal which is wonderful!
•  I love painting en plein air and thus had no trouble with that goal at all.
• I continue to learn from all of my fellow bloggers.... they teach me, inspire me and best of all, make me laugh..... THANKS!
• I'd say I do have a "body of work" now... It's just that the more I paint, I sometimes think my older work isn't what I want to use to represent me.  Seems like a never ending challenge.
• I've improved in my marketing skills, but continue to need to learn more and apply more.
  
  More Work Needed:
    
• I am sketching more than I did last year, but not daily or weekly and definitely not regularly enough.  I need to improve in this.  If you want inspiration check out Sue P's Art of A Nomad blog and Johanna Spink's 365 Day Drawing Challenge blog.
• I still need to work on approaching other gallery venues AND on encouraging people to commission work.... (I think .... Actually I'm not so sure about either one of these.)   I think I really need to decide what I want from my painting.  My major hope is to continue to improve my skills, but I'm not really sure either gallery placement or commissions will help or hinder that.
• I have not yet figured out a good strategy for deciding which juried shows to enter.  Although I have been accepted into quite a few shows outside of the local area, which was an earlier goal designed to help new collectors become more familiar with my work, I've found that when you add up the jury fees, the transportation to and from the show, and sometimes, unpacking fees, this really becomes a burden rather than a good thing.  I HAVE sold from out of town shows, but most of the time that doesn't happen.
  
  I'll think about these goals and evaluate how to set goals for 2011.
  

QR-Codes and Tag Readers  

Do you have a SMART PHONE???   
My friend, Leslie Saeta, was the first person I heard about these tag readers from.   She used a Microsoft Application to create them.  I thought they were really neat and created one using that Microsoft application.  I put them on the wall of a few of the shows I was juried into near my paintings.  I also put them on the back of my business cards.   I soon found, however that because nobody really knows what they are, their use is limited. If you have the application which is easily downloaded for free to your smart phone, you can use it to scan this like a bar code.  Once scanned, the phone goes to whatever you've programed it to do when you created the code.  I've set up this one  to go my "works" page.  TRY IT OUT!!

Recently a fellow blogger, Moshe Mikanovsky, blogged about them and the post was picked up by the Fine Art View Blog.   Moshe used a different QR-Code creater and talked about how he uses them to market his work.   It was a great reminder and I found the application he talked about easier to create AND more universal to use.   I actually used my "Shop Savy" application (the one for comparing prices of items in the market) and it worked fine.  It is the code on the left side... although not as pretty, probably more useful and definitely easier to create!

If nothing else it is fun to fool around with.  I think eventually it will be a great marketing tool.  We'll see won't we?