Scaling down: My thoughts on ACEO paintings

 I’ve recently been working on some original ACEO paintings, or artist trading cards as they're also known. Basically they’re teeny tiny paintings the size of a playing card. I’d bought one last year from one of my friends, who’s also an animal artist, and thought I’d find it difficult to work on such a small surface. After all, my earlier work had been close to 150cm on the longer side, and I'd found it difficult enough to work with HALF of that a couple of years ago! In 2014 I gradually learned to work back at the standard A4 size, and I still use that now to some extent since it’s easily frameable, scannable, and the most popular size among buyers. I do enjoy sizing up now and again, but no more than A3 – I’ve had more than enough of MASSIVE paintings that I lumber myself with, thank you very much!
But getting back to the ACEOs, I’d been wondering whether they’d be worth a go recently, as I kept seeing them posted by my arty friends on Facebook and Etsy. After a little bit of casual research (read: pouring over the response other artists had been getting from their followers), I found there’s quite a nice market for tiny originals, since they’re usually very affordable compared to full-sized paintings, and it’s a nice way for fans of artists to collect something unique and special. They’re also enormously cute - perfect for dog illustrations! ;)

Skye Terrier Puppy ACEO

I’ve done four dinky little doggy watercolour ACEOs in the past week to see how I’d fare, and I’ve discovered two things: They’re properly addictive to paint, and people really do seem to enjoy them! One’s already found it’s new home, and the other one I’ve popped in my Etsy shop has had A LOT of interest, much more than my A5 gouache originals or even A4. It also gives me a fab opportunity to try simplifying my paintings in a natural way - there's only so much you can fit on an ACEO after all!

Little Sealy has found his new home already!

So onto the practical side of working with 2.5 by 3.5 inches of painting surface. It’s initially quite off-putting to downscale SO much, I admit. For me it’s easier to work with a rough sketch in a larger sketchbook and then move onto the actual card, much like I would when scaling up onto larger surfaces. Painting on a little surface like this requires quite a lot of self-control and patience (if you're anything like me, shaky hands occur surprisingly often when concentrating on teeny tiny details!), plus a very small paintbrush. I use a set I picked up for a few quid that’s intended for use as nail art brushes, and they work like a charm. The great thing about a little painting is that it’s very quick to go from start to finish, so if you had a lot of ideas ready you could easily do a few in a day.

Smile! Yorkie ACEO

I do think they’re heaps of fun, so it’s nice to have an option for those days when I just can’t face starting a big painting but want to work on something new. And to all my artist friends, I really recommend giving ACEOs a go too. :)

Comfy Freija ACEO

Little moments of mindfulness with my dog

 Although I spend a lot of time talking about all the benefits of all our various dog sport hobbies and trick training, there’s one thing I never talk about enough: quality time with my dog.
It’s easy to sort of forget about spending a bit of time each day focused solely on your dog, but during the past couple of years I’ve really begun to appreciate these little moments of dog-related mindfulness on a whole new level. Now I know we've all got mindfulness blogs, magazines and telly programs coming out our ears at this point, but I'm using it in a slightly more day-to-day sense. See, work and school and just everything these days can sometimes get a bit overwhelming for the best of us. With dogs, however, there's a sense of enjoying the moment as it is.
We all know our time with our beloved dogs is limited, which is why it’s absolutely essential to make the most of it – not just through training but by also developing that bond between you and your pet. This is especially important if you work or study all day, not only for your dog but also for you – we all need a moment to just sit down and concentrate on something completely removed from all the stress and challenges we face during the day. The fantastic thing about dogs is they come with a built-in mindfulness exercise for us people – walkies! Nothing clears a worked up brain better than a bit of a romp in the fresh air, and our dogs make sure this is part of the daily routine, how good is that! During the time spent together out and about, everything you've been working on or worrying about that day seems a little less pressing. Perhaps it's just the way I am, but knowing that every day, no matter what, I'll have this moment of spending some time together with my pooch is really very comforting. What got me thinking about this is that I’ve been asked a few times lately why I’m bringing my dog with me to university, and won’t it be hassle and a strain on my social life. My answer is this: If you’ve never owned a dog, you can’t know the amount of joy it brings. My dog is so much more than just a pet, she’s my best friend, she’s the reason I’ve gone out and taken up new hobbies and met new people, she’s my little personal trainer… And more than anything she puts a smile on my face each and every day. I'm responsible for her well-being, but she's just as responsible for keeping me down-to-earth and happy every day, no matter what. So to those who think I’ll be losing out in keeping her with me, really it’s the complete opposite. :)

Here’s a list of the little things about my dog that make me laugh, smile, and wonder each day: 

• She shares my morning muesli with me. She doesn’t beg, but once I'm done she'll mosey over and wait to lick the bowl clean.
• Loves veggies, especially jalapeno peppers. When I was in art school, I would occasionally leave my dinner by the sofa while getting a drink or looking for my phone, and when I returned lo and behold – the veggies had gone. It was always the greens too, never the meaty bits! These days I set some aside specially for her.
• Protests when I stay up late reading by flopping on my face and licking both me and the book in turn, till I put it away. 
• Follows me to the bathroom every morning to roll around on the carpet while I brush my teeth.
• Stares intently at the cupboard I keep her frisbee and tennis ball in, till I eventually oblige to a game. This can go on for hours if I'm working!
• Pokes the other dog with her nose for attention, then promptly runs off and ignores her. 
• Really loves round buns, she thinks they’re her toy balls. 
• Lies flat on her back under my arm while I work during the day, no matter how uncomfortable it may seem, and occasionally peers up at me as if to say “let’s stay like this all day!” 
• Is terrified of flags for no apparent reason, so whenever we pass the one that’s on our daily walk, I get her to do tricks till we’re at a safe distance again.
• Trots off for a drink of her own accord between agility laps, like a proper athlete!
• Watches Heartbeat and Doc Martin with me and mum, and knows to only get up and say hello once the end credits roll.

A like is not just a like when it comes to Facebook

 This morning I woke up to find my Facebook page had hit a lovely new milestone: 300 “likes” within a year of opening the page! I’m thrilled to bits, most of all because I know a lot of these people genuinely like my page – they’re not paid likes and the only like-for-likes are from other artists who’s work I enjoy anyway. The thing about statistics like these is that one can quickly become a wee bit obsessive about checking them day in day out, and I know a lot of page-owners can, in a moment of desperation, try to boost their follower-count by dishing out money to companies who claim to earn you thousands of likes quickly. Tempting though the idea of your work being seen by all those people can be, it doesn’t quite work like that - please please please don't waste your money on these schemes!
As many bloggers have pointed out before me, these paid likers aren’t actually real people but accounts made for the sole purpose of liking millions of pages, and therefore wont help your business in any way at all – the only thing they’ll do is raise that little number at the top of your screen. The way Facebook works is this: if your posts are getting lots of clicks, likes, shares, and comments from a good percentage of your likers, then it’ll deem them important and will show them to your followers and through them their friends. To encourage that kind of engagement, the likers obviously have to be interested in what you’re posting. See what I’m getting at here? The real fans are FAR more valuable in the long run, even if you’ve only got a handful, because if you’ve got 50 likes and say 30 people actively comment, like and share your posts, Facebook will think you’re more relevant than a page with 1000 and only a few active likers! :)

This can of course be a bit frustrating for page owners, I know I sometimes get seriously annoyed my new art posts aren’t being shown to all my followers, but there is a way to organically boost your post’s relevance: share them yourself! Not just on your personal page, but in groups devoted to whatever it is you’re posting. When I share a dog illustration from my page to all the various animal art groups I’m in, that post will get up to five times the amount of engagement it would get without sharing – and may, with a little luck, draw new real fans to my page! The groups are a natural way to show your posts to the people who are really interested, so use them as much as you can to get your work seen. The same principle works with groups as well as pages too, join the ones with say 1000 members or less, and your post will probably be seen by more people since they'll be more likely to be active members in the group. Also there are lots of massive generic art groups on Facebook, with hundreds of thousands of members, and you can bet your work will get buried under a million posts from all those other artists within minutes, which leads to nobody really taking any time to look at any of the posts on the page - there's simply too much!

To sum up:

• Your like count is just a number.
• The valuable likes are the genuine ones that engage with your posts, and really love your work!
• Facebook works in mysterious ways, so just focus on posting really good content and sharing it organically - it's the best you can do!
• Groups can be a real helping hand in getting your work seen by the right people, use them wisely!

Baby steps towards Canicross

Last summer when I started thinking about going to university, I decided if I was going to live on my own I'd have to get fit - for Freija's sake just as much as my own! I need to be able to work long days and still have energy to spend time playing and going for walks, and that means having a bit of a lifestyle revamp. My first goal was to get out and do something sporty, but finding something I was motivated to do took a bit of searching. Canicross, which is essentially cross-country running with your dog, popped up a few times in the dog groups I'm part of on Facebook, so I did a little research and decided that's what I'd start working towards. I say towards, as what I do can’t exactly be described as cross-country running. Combining a complete lack of stamina and horrid asthma does not a cross-country runner make! However I have found a way to run that works for me and the dog.

I first read about combining bursts of sprints and walking on Pinterest. Essentially it said work your way up from four minutes of walking and half a minute of running to equal amounts of each till you can run non-stop, which sounded easy-peasy, so I thought I’d give it a go. As it turns out, running like this wasn’t as taxing on the old wheezy-lungs as I'd dreaded, and a good 5km each day was surprisingly manageable for the first couple of weeks I ran in July.
After one or two of goes with me holding Freija’s lead, I opted for getting a proper canicross belt (well, it’s actually a skiing belt because this is Finland after all) – running while holding it in my hands was not only awkward but also led to accidentally yanking Freija along every now and again, NOT GOOD! The belt is far more convenient and the lead has an elasticated handle that gives girly girl a bit more leeway to shift gears from walking to running. It also makes us look like we know what we’re doing! ;)
This hobby was put on hold when we started agility and it started getting colder out, but now this year despite it still being winter I’ve taken running up again alongside our other dog sports. Thankfully I’ve managed to slightly boost my fitness through those hobbies during the past eight months or so – running for short periods of time is essential for agility after all, and of course is part of many of the other sports we try out!
That gave me confidence to try walking and running for the same amount of time. In January I started off with a minute of walking with half a minute of running, and now can sort of manage a minute of each (although being a bit of a moron I do sometimes get a bit over-ambitious at the beginning with the running and have to go down to half a minute again towards the end of the route). The great thing about sprints is that I don’t feel like I’m dying after the first kilometre or so, and can manage what would amount to a reasonable run which I wouldn’t actually be able to do in one go normally.
Freija enjoys this method too because she gets to sniff and do her business during the walking bits, and loves a bit of a race when we run. Plus we get to go on longer routes than on normal walks, since we get further in shorter spaces of time. I do look forward to proper long walks in the summer mind you, and especially exploring new places when we get to Bath… I wonder if by then we can manage real Canicross runs? :)

Trendy subjects - are they really your thing?

Today’s subject is… subjects. No really! I was browsing the Etsy forums recently, and came across an interesting thread which I hadn’t really thought about for quite some time: Should artists follow trendy subjects in order to sell their work?

At the moment trendy subjects in the animal art field are owls, foxes and deer. They’re HUGE, and are overflowing onto clothes, stationary, home décor… you name it, those critters are on it. I even saw foxy Christmas decorations last year. Now combine that lot with a muted palette and geometric shapes and you’re bang on trend! But don’t think I’m saying that’s inherently a bad thing, because I most certainly am not! If you’re into owls go right ahead and paint them, and have fun! Experiment if you want to, you might come up with something seriously cool!
However, if you’re thinking your own work isn’t being seen because it’s up against the popular stuff, that simply isn’t true – it’s a different, far larger market. Although fox art might be selling really well in general at the moment, it’s spread out over hundreds of different artists who might sell one card or print every now and again – unless you’ve got a devoted following already you’ll probably sell no more trendy art than what you’d normally sell (in fact, the trendy stuff will probably be more difficult to sell compared to your other work!). Breaking into a massively saturated market isn't easy if you're not really persistent with bringing your own take on it to the table - you've got to put all your effort into showing that you are the artist worth supporting, and that means you've got to be excited by your work!

See, there’s a reason people are drawn to your work in particular - when you’re really passionate about what you’re making, it shows. You’ve spent time perfecting your own style, and figured out interesting ways to tackle your subjects, and that's what people want to see and buy. Artists like Louise Rawlings and Kate Brazier are perfect examples of this – not only is the style instantly recognisable, but the repeated subjects are things the artist is clearly inspired by and has spent heaps of time working with. Whatever it is you love painting, be it dogs or flowers or houses, you’re showing the world how you feel about your subject and your customers are going to be the people who feel the same way. You wont get that same feeling with a subject you’ve got absolutely no interest in.
Now I’m not saying always stick to your comfort zone and don’t try anything new either! Just remember that your work really comes to life when you love what you’re doing, when you’re inspired. So if you’re not really feeling what’s popular right now, you honestly don’t have to force yourself into that mould.

One very muddled up competition, and why we really do agility.

We had our very first unofficial agility competition today, so I thought I’d write a bit about what it was like and my thoughts afterwards.

The competition was held at our lovely doggy school. We were the second to sign up for the beginner’s class, and first for the intermediate – I decided to pay for second goes on both up front, partly because I wanted Freija to have a good run around, and also because I wasn’t feeling too confident on how we’d perform in front of an excitable and possibly stressed out crowd of dogs and owners.
When I was doing the dry run of both the courses, I did try to think up good solutions for the trickier turns (of which there were more than plenty). These were promptly thrown out the window on our actual runs, because a. I wasn’t as focused as I could’ve been and ended up doing what felt easiest at the time, and b. some of my grand ideas were impossible to incorporate at speed.
Our first run on the beginner’s course was a complete mess. Freija decided that it was much more fun to make up her own course, and I think we were disqualified within the first few jumps and tunnels. On our second go I did concentrate more on what I was doing, but after a couple of refusals and one jump which Freija decided to go around and jump twice, we were disqualified again. She was extremely quick on both runs however, coming in at a good ten seconds under the time to beat.
The intermediate was no great success either. Our first run included several refusals and another muddled up jump amounting to a third disqualification and a seriously slow time. The second went okay-ish speed-wise up until the second to last jump, which she passed, jumped over the wrong way, and jumped back over again. So all in all four disqualifications for four runs.

Now of course I’m disappointed we weren’t magnificent and couldn’t show off just how agile and clever we can be at our best, who wouldn’t be, but in the end we did have fun, we had a bit of a run around and Freija charmed the crowd with her ridiculous looks if not her agility skills. The thing is that it doesn’t really matter how I feel about our results, because it’s not about me. It’s about spending a day out having a laugh with my dog, who doesn’t care about titles or prizes, she just wants to do tricks and be together. It’s not always easy to remember when your out there on the track, but that bond with your pooch should be the reason you’re doing agility in the first place. 

Perhaps competing isn’t really our thing in the long run, not because we didn’t do well at it, but because we get all the fun and excitement of working together we need at practice. Compared to the hours of standing around waiting your turn for just a minute or less of running, an hour or two of dedicated training each week where we’re running, jumping and climbing throughout (with breaks of course!) is a far better way for us to strengthen our teamwork and trust as dog and handler.
In any case, Freija and I will continue training here through the spring and early summer, and hopefully find a nice place in Bath to carry on as well – she’s going to need something to relieve the stress from the big move, and I need to at least attempt to keep fit! ;)

Ignore the competition silly artist, you're doing your best!

I've been talking to a few artist friends recently, all of whom have been down in the dumps about the usual suspects; making it in the creative industry, being seen in a sea of so-called "better" artists, and generally just not feeling good enough to make it in the competitive art market.

Now, I shan't pretend I don't feel like that every now and again, we all do! What I try to tell my artsy friends whenever these  things come up is this: Somebody out there is looking for exactly what you have to offer. Whether it's a company or a commissioner, or even somebody looking for the perfect birthday card, there will be someone. Until they find you, you can only do YOUR very best. 

I'm very much for focusing on the nice things and ignoring the rubbish ones, not because I don't think we can learn and grown from a setback or two (fun fact: we can and do, oh so much!), but because if I were to spend any amount of time moping about thinking my work is a big pile of poo, I wouldn't ever have time to sort it out! 
As a little metaphor, consider a person who spends all their time watching the news. Day after day they see terrible things happening all over the world, and feel helpless and stuck and really, really dreadful. Then they flick over to the local news, and there's a heartwarming story about a little old granddad who tidies the park or a guide-dog who saved it's owner from being run over. Now, this person could either spend all their time stuck worrying about all the bad things happening in the world that they can't control, or they can draw some positivity from the good things that are a little closer to home, and get up and enjoy life. 
See what I mean? It's good to be aware that there's heaps of competition and to acknowledge that it's not easy to get seen among the millions of other artists, but you don't need to compete with the rest of the world. You just need to make the most of your own thing and you'll be all the happier for it, which in turn will inspire your admirers and potential buyers, and that's really why we make art in the first place, isn't it?

So here's a little list of things I do when I've had a big old slap in the face from the nasty side of the art world:

• Look up pictures of cute dogs and doodle all my favourites. Not only does this put me in a good mood (because dogs, obviously), but it also may lead to a good idea for a new piece of art!
• Revamp my entire Etsy shop. There's always SOMETHING that needs to be updated, improved or binned, and what better time to do this particular chore than when you're feeling a bit fed up with the actual making art aspect of the shop?
• Snap photos of things (usually Freija). It's a good way to use up a bit of that creative energy without having to commit to a "proper project" when you're just not feeling up to one.
• Google other artists similar to your own niche. I know this sounds counter-productive when you're feeling like your art isn't worthy of being seen by human eyes, but actually it does help to see that although your work might be similar, it's not the same - on my part that means looking up other dog illustrators, many of whom have become firm favourites. I love their work, but I can also see that mine is good in a different way!
• If I'm in a really properly foul mood, I get away from the computer and go and do something completely different like starting a crochet project or reading a bit of the latest The Simple Things (note: this is in no way endorsed by them, it's genuinely just my favourite magazine). Doing something so utterly removed from my usual work helps to move on, and it's usually really inspiring too!