Painting my pooches

 

I draw and paint dogs all the time. I often take inspiration from Freija, she’s such a funny looking thing that I find it quite easy to get her characteristics down on paper or canvas. But oddly enough, I’ve never found it quite as simple to paint my older dog, Kara. I’ve given it a go many times before, and occasionally I’ve been fairly happy with the result, but mostly the portrait just looks a bit off. I’ve put it down to using the wrong colours, not putting in enough work with the initial sketch, basically just every reason in the book as to why it wasn’t looking a lot like her. I’m still not completely certain on some of the drawings, studies and painted portraits, whether I was just trying too hard to make it look like my idea of her, or was it down to not being quite there yet in the skill department (I’ll say right now that I’m not a great fan of straight-up realistic portraits, illustrations are more my thing). Whatever the case, I was not happy with most of the results.

"Quizzical" a painting of Kara from 2014

 Since I found out I was definitely going to be moving to Bath, I had this idea that I wanted a nice portrait of Kara to take with, something pretty to remind me of her and to brighten up the new flat (whatever that’s like – I’m going on a househunting trip to England mid-May, fingers crossed I find something really lovely!). It had to be larger than A4, but not huge so that it would be easy to frame and take along with the move – so it’s A3. It also had to be… well, not TOO colourful, in case it clashes with the décor of the flat – some of the potential ones in Bath have interesting colour schemes, so I was going to have to make it work with basically ANYTHING. So I decided on subtle pale pink on grey, with details in black and just a hint of brighter pink in the eyes and nose – I’ve used a similar palette in purple before with the splatter painting of Freija, but this had to be more “interior design-y”. With the style of the piece, I sort of wanted to hint at realism, especially round the darker detailed areas of the face, and leave the rest airy and light. Watercolour helps with this effect, just using light washes with a fairly large brush does the trick.

 
So the idea was all set, all I needed to do was find a reference photo, and in looking for that I sort of saw what had been going wrong in my earlier attempts at the grumpy old lady. The photos I loved, where she really looked like herself, weren’t particularly good – there was very little detail, they were often dark and grainy (an iphone camera with bad indoor lighting does not a good photograph make), just plain rubbish. I looked at the ones I’d used before and they were ALL like that. As it turns out, gorgeous though she is in real life, Kara just isn’t particularly photogenic. I eventually found ONE shot I’d taken on my actual camera that had real potential. It was from a hike last summer, and the lighting was really rather lovely, Kara was looking slightly off camera and it just had the feel of a good portrait. It’s the kind of photo I can snap easily of Freija since she’s essentially grown up as a photographer’s dog, she KNOWS to hold a pose and has the patience of a saint. Kara has never been this kind of dog.
Combining ALL of what I’ve talked about above, this is the result! I’m pleased with how it turned out, and will definitely be happy to pop it in a frame to spruce up that Bath flat later this year. :) 

 

Also if you're interested in my painting process, I actually recorded a very sped-up video of the portrait I did after this of Freija-girl. I think I'll record more painting videos from now on, this one was rather fun. :)

 

Tagging tips for Etsy

 

I’ve written up a few tips on improving your SEO today (two Etsy-themed posts within the last few days – guess who’s been tinkering with her shop this week?). I started my Etsy shop at the end of September last year, and had NO CLUE about search engine optimisation, or SEO for short. It’s all to do with relevancy and making it easier for people to find your shop. I thought because my listings are on this huge shopping website, people are automatically going to find them – that’s what it’s for, right? Not quite. The thing about Etsy is that the marketplace is SO saturated, you’ve got to be really quite specific about what it is you’re selling, but you also have to think like a buyer and avoid really technical terms that only you and fellow artists will ever think to use (surprisingly few people search for "archival 300gsm art print", as it turns out). Also if you're used to tagging on Instagram or Twitter, tagging on Etsy can be a bit irritating. Where on IG you've got around 30 tags to use as you like and you're guaranteed to be found with at least a handful of them, on Etsy you've only got 13 - so you have to use your tags wisely.
So here’s a little checklist for doing up your titles and tags on Etsy (please note that they do change their search algorithm every now and again, so although these tips may work now, check and see if there’s any new info in the Etsy forums about SEO).

• Match your titles and tags! The way Etsy works is that to consider something relevant to a search, not only does the title have to include the search term, the tags do too. This means that your listing will be more likely to be found nearer the first few pages of the search. 
• Avoid one word tags. Say you’re selling a really cute dog-themed greeting card, so you include the tag “cute”. At the time of writing this post, there are 596,498 results for that tag. It’s pretty unlikely your listing will be at the top of those results. Now switch that tag to “cute dog card”, and there’s just 2177 results – one of the first listings is one of my cards. It’s SO much more likely that something searching for your kind of product will use a more specific search term, and finding it will be a lot easier this way.  
• Don't include the name of your artwork. Us artists love using the name of our work in our titles. However, if that title isn’t along the lines of “sheepdog painting”, NOBODY is going to find it in a search. Instead of using the name in your title, why not pop it in the description? :)
• What are your buyers searching for? Try to think of potential uses for your product and include those in the title and tags. For example, people might be searching for “dog lover gift” or “farm animal décor” – if your art would be PERFECT for either of those uses, go ahead and tag it as such! 
• Use descriptive tags! What exactly is your product? If it's an A4 art print, tag it! If it's a kids birthday card, pop that in there too! Also with art it can be a bit difficult to pick out a single colour for your tags, but if you’ve got work where this is possible, definitely use tags like “purple dog art” or “blue cat painting” – I’ve had A LOT of people find my shop with colour-related tags. 
• Don’t tag everything exactly the same way. You're probably selling similar products - I sell dog art, cards and gifts, so it's all pretty much in the same niche. Experiment with different tags where you can – use “art for kids” on one listing, and “dog wall art” on another. The more searches come up with your items, the more people will see them and click through to see the rest of your shop! 
• Update your tags little by little. It’s easier to tell what’s working and what isn’t when you redo a few listings at a time. I did about ten a day, and since I saw immediate results, I had got through all my updates within a week. :)

Product photo tips for Etsy

Judging by the countless forum posts on the subject, one of the biggest pitfalls for an Etsy seller is photography. I’ve briefly mentioned this before, essentially saying you want your photos to be just as nice as the product you’re selling.
Now I’ll be the first to admit my listing photos aren’t the best in the world – if they were, I wouldn’t feel the need to change them ever few weeks or so! Honestly I must’ve spent more time changing, tweaking and updating my photos more than I’ve actually spent on making new items, eek! The thing is that when you’re putting a lot of time and effort into your shop, you do begin to notice things that could be improved a lot more than you would if you just set up shop and left it as is – it’s all about creating a beautiful brand to go with what you actually make, and it takes lots of work.
I’ve tried a number of different kinds of photos. Some have been pretty, some have been simple, and some have been downright terrible. Thankfully I usually notice the really bad ones quickly and spruce them up then and there – before eventually getting fed up with those photos and taking a whole bunch of new ones. What works and what doesn’t is really down to personal taste, but I thought I’d write down a few things that should be considered when taking and editing new listing photos.



 
What to include in the photo?

• I really love styled listing photos with the product shown in use or with other matching bits and bobs around it. One of my favourite kinds of photos for artwork is to show it on a gallery wall with other similar pieces, or perhaps on a mantelpiece with a vase of flowers and pretty decorative objects beside it. These sort of styled photos can be properly gorgeous, and work nicely in editorials and blogs – it’s all about creating really desirable scene built around your product. However, don’t go overboard. These photos can easily look cluttered and your product can get lost among all the props. Depending on what it is you’re taking the listing photo for, a plain background can be the best option to show it off beautifully. I’d suggest trying a bit of both kinds of photos to find what suits you best, and perhaps using the styled scenery shot for your second or third listing photo just to give your customers an idea of what it could look like at home, and also a sense of scale.

Party Westie print

White backgrounds – yay or nay?

• When browsing Etsy, you’ll notice A LOT of the listings have a plain white or off-white background. This is to highlight the product itself, and can give a professional, polished look to your shop. Generally speaking white does work well, and I’d suggest using it especially if your products are bright and colourful – my dog postcards and prints tend to fit into this category, so a white background helps them leap off the page. Where I don’t think this works, however, is with white items – specifically cards and prints. Firstly, taking a photo of white paper on a white background is a right old pain. Secondly, it can make your listing look washed out and easy to overlook in a search. At the moment I use a pastel pink background for my Terrier Love cards, for example – I’m bound to change this at some point, but generally speaking when you’ve got a white product, use simple coloured backgrounds to your advantage – make those photos really pop! 

Terrier Love: Border Terrier card

 Cohesiveness among your own listings

• I readily admit that I struggle with this one. When your products are multi-coloured artwork, it’s difficult to find a way to make it all match neatly. This can apply to lots of other products as well, so I’d say don’t worry too much if you’ve got a bit of a mixed bag in that department. What you can do is to rearrange your shop so that listings which complement each other are all in the same area. Also if you do use coloured backgrounds, make them the same colour or similar shades – and if you’ve got white backgrounds for most of the items but a few coloured ones here and there, I do recommend using pastel shades to keep it bright and fresh. This also applies to lighting – make sure your listing photos are ALL well lit, either photographed in natural light or using an adjustable flash gun (you don’t want full-on flash photos, they never look appealing). 

My current shopfront. Although the colours of the products themselves vary, there's a general theme of pale pink and bright white going on throughout my listings.

Thumbnails – to zoom or not to zoom?

• Another tricky one. What I’ve done is zoomed out on my cards, bags, notebooks and bookmarks, because the main listing photo in these includes a plain background. It gives a sense of these being tangible items, something you can pick up and use. This may be different for other kinds of products, jewellery for example can look a lot more exciting in a search when the thumbnail highlights the key features. On the flipside, I use zoomed in thumbnails for original art and prints. That’s because my main listing image for these is the full artwork with no border or background – I want the focus to be solely on the art. My second and third images show the tangible product, framed or on an easel, but I want that first impression to be of nothing but the painting itself. The thumbnails are zoomed in on the main feature of each painting – most of my work is vertical so it’s got to be cropped a bit for Etsy’s thumbnails anyway, so I try use that to my advantage.

Here's an example of how I use thumbnails for cards and prints differently.

Those are the key things I came up with, although of course there’s always hundreds of things that can go right or wrong with listing photos… Just do your best to show your lovely products as well as possible, and don’t be afraid to go back and redo a photo or several hundred. It’s all about trial and error with product photography, you wont find what works for you unless you give it a go. :)

Just a hint of courage and a yellow ribbon.

I’ve talked about Freija’s anxiety before, and how difficult it is for her to meet strangers. These past couple of weeks I’ve noticed a bit of a new development… Girly girl has been going up to people voluntarily to sniff, or even be petted! To put that into perspective, it took her over six months to build up the courage to happily sniff and follow our agility class trainer. Can you imagine my sheer surprise when girly girl goes and parks herself at a complete stranger’s feet, and is quite happy to be stroked and made a fuss of? Make that a tall male stranger, which has been her number one worst nightmare up till now?? That NEVER happens!

I’ve also noticed a little change in attitude from dog owners approaching us since I tied a yellow ribbon to Freija’s lead. They know not to let their dogs pounce up on her and to just take the meeting very slowly and peacefully, so none of the dogs involved have any cause to fear. Not everybody knows about the yellow dog scheme of course, but those that do are a great help to us. Basically if you see a dog with a yellow ribbon, or perhaps a special yellow vest or lead with a warning, you shouldn’t approach it without permission. There’s any number of reasons for using the yellow ribbon – we use it to signal that we’re still practicing our social skills and I tell other dog owners this so that we can make the encounter calm and not too frightening for girly girl, but some use it when their dog is in heat, ill, or on fear-aggressive dogs… It could be anything, so unless the owner gives you permission, stay away.

From the Yellow Dog UK website

Off-lead situations are another matter of course. I don’t let Freija go off lead during walkies, there’s no safe space to do so around where we live, it’s all busy roads - besides which, when I have let her go without a lead on special forest hikes and things before, she’s simply trotted along beside me so there’s hardly any point! But the one place she is let off lead is at agility class. We’ve just started our fourth course which has a couple of new members in the group, who aren’t familiar with us or know that Freija is still working on her socialization. One is a large, excitable short-haired collie. As we were about to do a run of the practice course, this cheerful big lad runs up to us for a sniff and tries to get girly girl to play. My heart does a leap at this point, usually I’d expect a snap and panic from Freija, she’s not great with surprises like that. That didn’t happen – instead she just watches the collie, has a bit of a sniff herself, and turns to me as if to say “let’s get on with training, shall we?”. My jaw could’ve dropped clean off.

Could it be that we’re really making progress? Will Freija be the perfect city-dog when we move to Bath? I wasn't too sure before now... But dare I say, I really think it could happen! :)

Finding the right kind of paint

I have a confession to make: painting was my least favourite part of making art up till late spring in 2014. I know, I know, how on earth did I survive art school without enjoying painting? It’s a real mystery, somehow the actual painting courses just whizzed by without me really noticing at all. In fact, considering I got into that school with an entrance exam that included me accidentally tipping water all over my nearly finished watercolour piece, effectively ruining it, I reckon I did quite well to pass any courses at all.

Over the years I’ve tried lots of different mediums, starting from kid’s poster paint to really rather professional oils. For years and years I struggled with watercolours, which I had convinced myself ruined all my work, since nothing turned out how I’d have liked. In art school I took up acrylics, and used them for everything imaginable – painting on canvas, wood, even handmade fimo pendants. Somehow I left that particular medium there and haven’t picked up my once-cherished plastic paints since. At school we slaved away with oils, starting from the gesso base on our handmade canvases, to the layers upon layers of colour applied with palette knives and all manner of non-brushy equipment which was simultaneously exciting and tedious. If there’s one thing I absolutely hate, it’s working on a painting for more than about a week – I get bored of looking at it and loose all motivation the longer it takes to complete. I gradually settled into working solely on my tablet in photoshop – no mess, I could pick it up where and when I liked, and it was heaps faster with no waiting for each layer to dry.

"Lewes Corgis", one of my first Scenic Dogs illustrations in watercolour.

So what changed? In early 2014 I was still sticking to my digital art like glue. Still, it did feel a bit odd not having anything physical to show for my hard work, after all no originals existed, if I wanted to display my art it had to be printed. I was longing for something tangible. I’d taken up crochet and it was SO fulfilling, and through that I sort of began to think about getting back into traditional art and painting. The watercolour set from before art school was still sitting in a cupboard, so I grabbed a brush and started experimenting. Turns out, after all that time, I just needed to WANT to paint, and the results were wonderful. It took effort, but since I had the motivation to keep at it, I was finally pleased with my painted work. Inspired by the first few successes, I took on a series of dog illustrations now known as Scenic Dogs, and haven’t looked back since – it’s all about the painting now! ;)

"Canis Major come out to play", one of my recent gouache paintings.

Recently I have of course been learning to use gouaches as well. I find they’re a happy middle ground between my usual watercolours (gouache is a type of watercolour, of course) and the acrylics I was so fond of in art school. They’re opaque but can be watered down well, and mix nicely. I adore the chalky matte effect the produce when dry, and I like that I can combine them with watercolours without fear of paint crumbling off or other mishaps later down the line (like mixing oils with acrylics had taught me).

So that’s how I discovered my favourite kind of paint! Brands are of course another matter all on their own (my rule of thumb is to stick with Winsor & Newton or Daler-Rowney when possible, but others can be good too). :)

Holiday with the doggies: A game of frisbee in Lapland

Most of my holidays away from home are the big seasonal family ones; Christmas, Easter, midsummer and Halloween. We pack up clothes to last for a good two weeks, all the dog supplies, my shop inventory and art bits and bobs (because I can't go shutting up shop altogether, and most of my products are fairly easy to lug around the country), and head up north to my grandparents in Rovaniemi. The trip up is long and can be stressful for the dogs, depending on how long it takes to pack up and leave - if they see us packing for most of the morning, it can lead to anxiety, especially on Freija's part. Sometimes we do get away with it, and the eight to nine hour drive is fairly smooth and panic-free.
Upon arrival, there's a lot of excitement both for us people and the pooches. New people, new environment, it all takes some getting used to. Girly girl does sometimes get a bit hyper at this stage and the only thing that'll calm her down is a good long walk and a night of sleep (which is my answer to any kind of problem or ailment whether human or canine, by the way!).
After the initial doggy culture shock, we all calm down and go about our daily routines as normal. Walkies, breakfast, nap, lunch, pee break, nap, walkies, sleep. That's what we base the day around at home and indeed on holiday. Although there may be additions of us people popping out or visitors arriving, it all fits in with the dog schedule.
The one big difference is no dog sports class during the holiday. Since this is such a major part of our week, I do try to think up ways in which to get some practice done on our own. Thankfully one of our new sports is perfect for this: frisbee!

So during our evening walk we diverted to an unused sports pitch near the path, doggy disk in tow (but well hidden, because if Freija had caught a glimpse of it, doing her business would've been categorically out of the question!). There are a few great open areas up here in Lapland, and since there's still snow on the ground we can do a bit of disc throwing without worrying about hurt paws on gravel or swallowed sand. It's quite hard to find a good place to practice otherwise, the only other really sensible type of surface would be an open grass field or an indoor sports hall.
I've only got the one disk, but ideally this kind of practice would include two, since it's a lot easier to gain the dog's attention when you've got a toy of equal value to swap with the one being fetched - I discovered this in flyball class, where a string ball will simply not be good enough to merit swapping for the tennis ball, it has to be an exact replica of that squeaky tennis ball Freija fetches from the box. Anyway, we got up onto the pitch and I got the frisbee out to excite girly girl into fetch-mode, then sent out a roller onto the snow. She goes to fetch it, and as I expected keeps it to herself for a bit of a chew. Since all I had to bargain with was a tug rope toy, I soon gave up on her returning the disk and went to pick it up myself... A grave mistake.

A word to the wise: if you're up in Lapland in April and the snow has just about started to melt, do not chance a walk across an unplowed pitch.

There I was, waist-high in the snow, very stuck and highly uncomfortable. After considerable wriggling, rolling, and heaving with the help of mum, I got out, grabbed the frisbee and we tried again, this time on firmer ground near the side of the pitch. We did get some good throws and fetches in, but oh my dear sweet lord it was difficult. At one point I was thrown flat on my back while Freija was some five to six meters away desperately pawing at the fribee which had turned upside-down (she's not mastered turning it yet). After about twenty minutes to half an hour of falling about and laughing ourselves silly, one soaked but happy terrier, one bruised and battered owner, one amused mother, and one disgruntled spaniel headed off back to grandma's to recover.

So that was our first go at what I've named snow frisbee. Onwards and upwards, eh? ;)