Oh hiiii there happy camper! I know it’s been a while since I posted here on Substack or sent an email, I’ve been figuring out how to do some updates to the site and such (as well as still coping with some nasty pain flares). But I am pleased to announce that the website (particularly the home page) has a lovely new update, and hopefully you’ll be able to navigate around the site a bit easier to find what you’re looking for. 😊
And I also wrote a new blog post, about the materials and tools I recommend for stitching and crafting, as well as art making. I’ve also included a roundup of reviews I’ve done over the years, from various stitching tools to crafting books.
And of course, in between all the things I’ve been trying to keep up with doing some painting, I’m still playing with various surfaces to see what I like. Below are a few pieces I’ve done recently, including a master copy of Manet’s portrait of fellow artist Berthe Morisot.
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And just a note (as all the scammers are coming out of the woodwork more frequently on social media posts), at some point I will be offering original oil paintings such as these for sale. You’re of course free to reach out via social media to enquire if something has sold yet, but I will not be conducting sales or taking deposits, etc via social media. Once paintings are ready to sell (as oils do take a fair whack of time to dry enough to varnish and then ship), they will be listed on my website and of course I’ll be sending emails about their availability. All transactions will happen via my website, the only exception might be if you live somewhere not covered by my shipping prices then I may invoice you separately to cover the additional shipping (and that will all be communicated before the sale is finalized). Shipping and insurance, tracking, etc is very complex and it’s always changing, and it’s something I still have to figure out (thus why it’s taking time to get the original art on the site). I know many artists do sell directly via social media, but there are too many scammers out there these days so all transactions will take place via my website. 😊
And speaking of social media, you may have seen a lot of uproar recently about the fact that Meta (Facebook, Instagram, etc) have been scraping our art and data to use in building their AI generative capacities. Aka stealing our art without licensing it to use for a purpose that was never agreed to. Some countries are able to opt out (Canada and the US are not among them), and of course opting out is retroactive (so none of your posts that are already up will be removed from their datasets). AI training on our art without permission is a highly contentious topic, and most artists are sincerely over it (as licensing can make up a fair whack of your income as an artist). I’ve set up an account on Cara, it’s an app by artists for artists, and it’s anti-AI in that no AI art will be permitted on the platform (and our art won’t be scraped for that purpose). Right now it’s gone through a huge burst in the past week or so, and I know that it’s completely self-funded by the photographer who set it up (and she just got a bill for close to $100k for server usage, due to the sudden spike in users at Meta’s announcement). I don’t know if or when I’ll leave other social media platforms, I’m just seeing how things go on Cara. I will say, it’s LOVELY being on a platform with almost no video, it’s a much calmer feed… It may end up just being a platform for other artists to support each other, which is fine, but it’s too early to tell what will happen.
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If you check out the new home page layout (and some of the menus have changed too), let me know what you think! And I hope you enjoy the new blog post as well. ❤️