Hi everybody!
I used to be part of this group years ago when I was doing art fairs but have spent most of the time, since then, working on my art and participating in galleries or plein-air events. Now that I'm moving to North Carolina (in the Spring of 2015), time to get back out and sell my paintings at those fairs. I'm currently in Northern Vermont and there aren't a lot of events that are suited for oil painters. Most of them fall into the craft group.
A bit about me. I'm a traditional landscape oil painter and spend a bit of my time creating plein-air paintings. My work is currently sold in galleries, online and at various plein-air events. Besides the traditional landscape paintings, I'm starting to delve into the fantasy genre with some oil painters of creatures in a landscape.
Dougie
Replies
Welcome back, Dougie! What is taking you to North Carolina and how do you think that will influence your participation in the shows?
Another returning member showed up yesterday also, Linda Shields who always has an interesting point of view. Glad to see you both.
Its hard for me to imagine this site has been around for so long that members have left and are now returning ... never expected this when we launched it six years ago, September 15, 2008!
The main reason for the move is: retirement and planning. My wife and I retire in 20 years and we're currently living in Vermont. My main activity is my painting business and my wife loves to do agility training/competitions. There's not a ton of places to sell my work in Vermont and effectively get training/grow my business. Also, the closest agility competitions are almost 3 hours away... which we go to about 2 to 3 weekends a month. Plus, neither one of us likes the cold.
We're were going to wait until our nephew got out of high school (10 years from now) before moving but that means that we'd have hard time to find jobs in the area (my wife does HR and I'm a software developer for a neuroscience company). I've been to the RTP area about 15 years ago (almost moved there) and we've been back several times this summer to make sure that she likes the area. Seems pretty nice, so far.
By moving to the RTP area, should be relatively easy for us to find work there and the weather is very nice (we're both love 85 - 95 degree weather). My wife can do agility trials every weekend and the trials are about an hour away. There's a lot more opportunities to physically sell my work down there and to increase my training. Besides the better weather, we would be saving more money since the cost of living and expenses are cheaper than Vermont and I should be able to make more sales of my work and, eventually, teach oil painting.
So, my plan is, when I get there, start establishing myself with the galleries and plein-air painters/events. With the art fairs that I've read about in the region, the number of galleries, the number of tourists who visit various parts, I should be able to sell a LOT more paintings... which will increase my painting prices.
Hi Doug, welcome back! Your work sounds interesting, can you post some photos on your page? Do you have a page yet? Be sure to do that if you haven't already...lots of good stuff going on here, please share your expertise with the rest of us who are just starting out and take advantage of the discussions and blog posts. Thanks for returning and best of luck to you!
Thanks! Just added some of my paintings to my page.