Robert Reeves: Oil & Dust

More items posted on Etsy! They’ll stay up until I get the chance to see which of them my local gallery rep, ArtDive wants. Once they hit the gallery the price will go up. She’s gotta make a living too ya know ~8)
Looks like some people are definitely looking. It’s inspiring me to get more involved with my marketing AND get down to the studio and paint, paint, paint! I really do want to make the transition one day soon from part time painter to full-time painter. I know it’s going to require a lot of time, effort, and determination, but in the end it’s what I’ve always wanted to do. If you’ve ever wanted to go into business for yourself or are in business for yourself I would LOVE to hear from you. To me few people are cooler than entrepreneurs. They’re a different breed and they embody the spirit upon which our country was founded.

So to all of you…
Cheers,

R

ps: I’ll be posting pics of the latest piece in progress. Stay tuned. I’ll be back later. Same Bat-Time. Same Bat-Channel.

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I went ahead and listed a few more items on my Etsy account. The first listing was a bit of a wakeup call telling me that getting more agressive with my marketing may just pay off. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it about a thousand more times, I’d rather sell my work that sit on it. I like the idea that someone will hang this in a room in their home or office and take a minute from time to time to look at it and feel… something. My work, to me, is an extension of my being and maybe it’s a bit narcissistic, but I like the idea that others get some enjoyment from it. Like Peter Gabriel said, “I Love to be Loved”. I suppose it’s the same for most artists.

So here they are:

All three paintings are of Chicago. What can I say? I heart Chicago. I’ve always had a great time in that town regardless of why I was there or what I was doing. It helps the the company I work for at my day job has an office there. As a result I get to visit on a semi-regular basis. Plus I have a fair number of friends that live there. It always helps to have friends. I find that more and more as I get older…

I have a customer that I’m waiting to hear back from that is wanting a sortof “best of” the Chicago skyline/landmarks. He’s had a similar piece done of Sydney and I look forward to the challenge of matching… no, surpassing the wonderful job that artist did. Chi-town is extremely photogenic and lends itself to my style of painting. But I digress again.

Time to hit the studio. The paints, they call to me.

Wishing you all an excellent weekend.

R

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Last night I was able to get a good start on my next piece. It’s based on a pic I took while I was on photosafari in Ames a couple of weeks ago. I posted the source pic and the initial canvas sketch shortly thereafter. Don’t make me go back and look it up… I’ve started to take the graphite sketch and expound on it a bit with a mixture of Ultramarine Blue, Sap Green, and Burnt Umber. In the pictures it tends to look black, but it’s anything but. It will also go up for sale via my Etsy account when it gets finished.

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I was finally able to finish my painting last night. Got the final touches put into place and the edges touched up. If you track back through the updates you’ll see that I did wind up adding some of the light glare from the original photograph. Initially I was going to leave it out, but in the end the composition was lacking something without it. For the record the pic I’m posting here is NOT the kind of thing I would use in marketing this painting to a gallery. It’s a good example of what not to do with your lighting. The miracle of Photoshop has helped to clean it up a bit. I DO plan on getting this one scanned for future print production.
So as of today I’m placing this piece up for sale via my Etsy account (click the pic). I would like to take this opportunity to thank Cat Rocketship (who’s art kicks ass) for turning me on to Etsy and giving me some lessons in online art marketing. Thanks, Cat.
I’ve decided I’ll keep this piece posted on Etsy at this price for the next week. After that I’ll be taking it to ArtDive for display and sale.
On a rather unhappy note I found out that one of the venues displaying my work has been forced to close its doors. East Village Books, a really top-notch place, has closed as of yesterday. It makes me sad to think that another great, local business has been forced out of business due to our current economic climate. The owners, Andy and Teri, are great people and I wish only the best for them in the future. Support local businesses! Keep your money away from the big chains as much as you can. Our country was founded on entrepreneurism. No WalMarts in the 1700’s, eh? I’d, for one, would like to see that business model again.
At any rate, if you love the painting I’d love to send it on to a good home. Get in touch!

Cheers,

R

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More good work done last night. Had a very nice night in the studio. It was good to get back to work after a couple of very decidedly non-productive days away. Sometimes you just need to decompress. It doesn’t always last, but at least the pressure was off for a little while.
I’m feeling like the only things left to do are paint the sides of the canvas and do a little detail cleaning. Once that’s done (hopefully tonight) I’ll put this one up on my Etsy account for sale at a fraction of the gallery cost. If there are no lookers by Friday night the piece will be taken in to be scanned and then delivered to one of the galleries where my work is currently on display.
Now that this piece is nearly done and I’m started on the next one I really need to nail down these two commissions that have been sortof waiting in the wings. I needed the break to produce some studio work, but it’s time to get these other projects going. Word from a friend and regular purchaser of my work is that there may be more, large commissioned pieces on the way and I’m sure that when he decides to move forward with that he’ll want them post haste. A good problem to have so I’m not complaining…

Until next time.

Cheers,

R

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In my efforts to expand into new markets I’ve been doing some looking in the Dubuque/Galena areas. I used to live near Dubuque and despite its small stature I’ve had a fair bit of luck with sales in that area. Galena is a lovely little town just over the border into Illinois. It’s sortof touristy, but boasts some vibrant commerce and some very nice art as well as a pictureque setting. Both areas, in my opinion, would amount to some seasonal sales centering around Autumn and Winter. I’m hoping to get some work in somewhere before Autums’s up or at least by Winter.
It also happens that I have a very dear friend living just outside Galena in an area called simply, The Territory. We spent the weekend catching up, shooting the shit, driving around some wooded farmland in a 4-wheeler getting completely covered in seeds, and taking pics of Galena for some future work. I’m going through the pics now. I managed to get about 150 so I’ve got my work cut out for me. Photoshop Elements is currently batch-rotating most of them… Posted above is one of many. I’ve employed my friend and his lovely wife as props. Haven’t really thought about which of the pics I’ll use yet. Over time I’ve found that pics I’d passed over for consideration have a way of coming back around. My most humble thanks for my friends for their gracious hospitality and love. Thanks, guys!

In other news I’ve gotten some more work done on my current piece and hope to put it up for advanced sale to you all before sending it off to one of the galleries. Buy it before it hangs and get a BIG discount! Sounds like a bargain for me. This little guy is 16″x20″ on gallery-wrapped canvas and looks stunning in person.
Not much to say about it tonight except I’m anxious to get to it. Here’s the current state of the union. One more good session and I think she’ll be ready to go. I think i need to fix those small, background figures. Looks like they’re marching. Not that that’s a problems per se, just seems a little… I dunno… silly.

Speaking of state of the union all I can say is Wow! Where was the Fed when so many other people’s businesses were going down the tubes. The Market, in my opinion, would recover more quickly if we let it do what it’s meant to do instead of propping up an industry that shot itself in the foot in the name of greed. I’d be willing to bet none of the top-level SOB’s in charge would be willing to cut their own pay to help lighten the load the rest of us are being asked to bear. We’ll spread the cost around and let everyone pitch in.
What the Living Hell happened to us as a people? “Hey Everybody! Watch the (insert pop-culture trainwreck name here) while your culture slides out from underneath you!“. Even Nero would be ashamed…
Ok… I’m done now.
*steps down from soapbox. gets beer from fridge*

Cheers, Goodnight, and Good Luck

R

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Finally I made it back into the studio last night after a long, strange, uncomfortable evening. Got some good progress made. I forgot my camera so I don’t have any image updates to post.
In a nutshell I spent some time on some smaller details. Picking at things. Pushing the dark areas back, pulling the light areas forward and mushing around everything in between.
I was talking to a friend of mine, Christine who owns a gallery called ArtDive where I display some of my work. She is not only the gallery’s owner, but also an incredible painter. We were discussing the painting process the other day. She told me that she’s forever telling her students to “push and pull”. I got a kick out of that since that’s how my process evolved, but I never knew what to call it or really how to describe it. Push and Pull. You find yourself working back and forth between the dark and light letting one partially consume the other defining forms and spaces. It fits in with my personal beliefs about how the universe works. Push and Pull. Yin and Yang. Far and Near. Light and Dark. My process then, at its most instinctual level, is an exploration of that.
I’ve been seeing that more and more lately in my own life. Without boring you with details it was a long, uncomfortable night punctuated by a close-up encounter with a baby T-Rex (Walking With Dinosaurs Live is in town), an entertaining visit from a restaurant prestidigitator, some very unruly kids(mine), an awkward situation that defies description (at least in this forum), a long talk with an old friend while painting, and a re-watching of Little Shop of Horrors. You balance the good with the bad or otherwise unpleasant. Give and Take. Push and Pull. Balance.

I’ll get those images and update you tomorrow.

Until then… Push and Pull.

R

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At first I thought I’d made a pretty big impression on someone then I found out that I have no idea who this guy is.
www.ihaterobreeves.com/
The guy on this website is NOT me, btw. Not even a good impression.
As it turns out there are lots of us Rob Reeves out there. There are six that I’m aware of here in Iowa. I was even served papers for another one of us one sunny, Sunday morning. Awkward…

Saw that and couldn’t resist posting.

Cheers,

R

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Soooo I bailed on the studio last night. Feeling a little guilty about that. Seems that two nights without much sleep finally caught up to me. In true Rob form I didn’t actually get any more sleep than usual. Well, maybe a little. Instead of being productive I sat and watched a so-so fight movie called, Never Back Down. Had some decent camera work and the fights were pretty well choreographed, but predictably it was a little light on plot, dialogue, etc. Worth the rental, but I wouldn’t have gone to the theater to see it. So a little viewer’s remorse, but it’s not like I just sat through some Steven Segal POS.
Been thinking a lot about how to market my work lately. I use but haven’t really capitalized the tools of the internet marketing trade: blogs(got one now), web sales sites(ETSY), personal websites(www.RobReevesStudio.com), online artist communities(www.redbubble.com, http://www.myartspace.com, etc etc). I have at some point used mailers, postcards, on-site visits, face-networking, and phonecalls. I have my fingers in all of them, but have yet to really push the envelope or to create a better fusion of old marketing techniques VS new. So here I am trying to find ways (and time) to get them to work together to get my work and my name “out there”. If anyone’s got a story to tell here or some good advice I’d love to hear it.
Perhaps it all comes down to making a plan. Never was much for that.
There’s always an opportunity to change, I guess.
So since I have no new image updates to share I’ll put this down in writing. Somehow putting it out here makes it… more real. Makes me more accountable.
I will make a plan to use the tools at my disposal (blog, website, sales sites, mailing lists, postcards, business cards, etc) to promote my work. I will make phonecalls and personal visits. I will produce new postcards, update my current mailing list, and get them OUT.
And I will not let my work slide in the process.
I’m looking to get away from the 7-4 workday and start doing what I was born to do.

Suggestions are always welcome so please drop me a line if you’ve got any.

Cheers,

R

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Another Monday has arrived. Another work week has begun and I’m already starting to shirk sleep. Some nights I catch that second wind. 1am rolls around to find me wide awake and working. I’m either painting, editing pics, or updating websites. Last night/this morning I was cleaning up a progress pic when it dawned on me that it was closing in on 1:30 and my alarm was wired to pop at 5:45.
All of that aside I did get some good work in last night and am looking forward to starting up a new, small (9″x12″) piece. I’d put up the initial sketch on canvas in an earlier posting. Last night’s work consisted primarily of re-defining my forms and spacial relationships. I’m hoping to put the finishing touches on it this week. I figure at least 2 more sessions.
Looking forward to the weekend. I’ll be taking my boys up to visit their grandparents while I make a run to Galena, IL to visit an old friend and take some photos. There are a number of galleries in that area and some have expressed interest in my work. Mostly they’re interested in images of Galena. There is, to a lesser extent, some interest in Chicago imagery of which I have plenty. I’m also going to try to touch base with a couple of galleries in Dubuque. I’ve had some decent sales in that town and am interested in getting back in there. It’ll be a nice opportunity to get out, spend some time with my boys, visit with family, and catch up with a good friend.
If anyone is reading this I’m also looking to get some representation in KC. If you have any helpful info I’d love to hear from you.
Until then, Cheers.

R

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