Hello! Hello! I am not dead!

Indeed, dead I most certainly am not.  This is, of course, a very good thing.  I've just been a bit quiet on the blogging front, yet again.

But this doesn't mean I've not been doing stuff.  Nosirreebob, not by a long chalk.  I've been painting, so I have.  And I've been very fortunate to have had a couple of commissions as well!

My very lovely friend Katyboo has an equally lovely mother, Sue, who took a shine to my painting of a large jewelled beetle and asked if it was for sale.  I was very torn - I wanted to keep the painting (as I wasn't sick of the sight of it yet) but I also actually want to try and make some money from my paintings if possible so didn't want to pass up the opportunity of a sale.

I pondered.  Then decided the easiest thing to do would be to paint it again, and this time I could customise it to the size Sue would prefer.  I discussed this with Ms Boo and she agreed it was an admirable solution, so I painted the beetle again, but a bit smaller this time, and shipped it off to her in time for Christmas.  Hoorah! (I managed to get the photo thing to work this time so have now added the pictures).

I have decided to offer some of my paintings for sale, just in case anyone likes them enough to want to buy one.  Like I said, I've had two commissions - the first being the beetle and the second being a copy of a painting of a still life of garlic cloves on a windowsill (again because I couldn't bear to part with the original painting, so agreed to paint it again - this is not a habit I want to cultivate, though!), but as Blogger is being a bitch about pictures, there's no point just yet in putting up a photo of that painting but I'll try -

*Sigh*  okay, so that one worked.  I give up.  It'll be something technical...

But to get back to the point - I like my paintings, my art tutor likes my paintings, two other people like my paintings enough that they were willing to spend their hard-earned pennies on them (for which I am enormously flattered and extremely grateful) and, frankly, I don't have enough space on my walls to put them all.  So I've taken the plunge and opened an Artfinder profile and put 10 of my paintings up for sale.  These are the paintings that I'm happy to sell at the moment.  I have others that I've painted that I really like and want to keep hold of them for a bit longer; in a few months it's quite likely they'll join these ones.

Artfinder is a large, online gallery for artists to sell directly to the public.  As it's providing a service, it, justifiably, charges me commission, much like a traditional gallery would.  In this case, 30% and then they charge me VAT (20%) on the commission.  This basically means that I get about 63% of the asking price of the painting.  In other words, I have to decide what sum I would be happy to receive for selling a painting, then add 30% (& 20% VAT) on top of that and putting that as the asking figure.

I also had to include a shipping fee and it wasn't particularly flexible so I went for a middling sort of price.

What I'm trying to say, in my appallingly British, unable-to-sell-myself-for-toffee, roundabout way is PLEASE go and have a look at my profile, and if there's anything there that takes your eye, then feel free to contact me directly at kaz DOT jones AT btinternet DOT co DOT uk (you know what I mean) and I can offer it to you for 30% (plus VAT) less than the price on the website, and the shipping will probably be cheaper too.   Admittedly there's not very many paintings available at the moment, but as I'm painting all the time, I'm expecting it to increase over the months.

Anyway, I'd be grateful if you went and had a look, and any feedback would be most gratefully received.  I know they're not going to be to everyone's taste but I don't think they're too shabby.  I've seen a lot worse sell for a lot more...

I'm completely hopeless at doing the hard sell so I'll just do the embarrassed shuffle back off to my studio and start working on my next still life....

UPDATE - I think I've solved the photo problem so here are the pictures that I've got up for sale currently (These aren't the best photos - I couldn't get those to work, and I can't for the life of me get the apple one to show up any bigger - the ones on Artfinder are better, but at least you can get an idea!) -

'Apple' - unframed canvas, 20" x 16"

'Kiwi' - unframed canvas, 20" x 16"

'The Lich King' - mixed media, including freshwater pearls, Turquoise beads, dichroic glass cabochons.  unframed canvas, 20" x 20"

'Orange Flower' - Acrylic paper, A4 size, unframed.

'Parrot Tulip' - Acrylic paper, A4 size, framed.

'Bluebells' - Acrylic paper, A4 size, framed.

'Shortspur Seablush' - Acrylic paper, A4 size, framed.

'Empire State' - Acrylic paper, A4 size, unframed.

'Reflections (in a garden pond)' - Acrylic paper, A3 size, unframed.

'Still Life with Vases' - Acrylic paper, A3 size, unframed.

'White Starflower' - Acrylic paper, A4 size, framed.