SUMMER'S come AT LAST

Summer has come to this beautiful little village and Alan has been working on various new projects.  It also helps that he has just begun some new and - allegedly - revolutionary treatment for his arthritis. We'll report on his progress as the year goes on. 

The problem for any artist - and Alan is no exception - is marketing. He's far better at promoting his wife's novels than he is at selling his own wonderful artworks. I've even used one or two of his pictures for my eBook covers. (The one above is a little volume of short stories - the illustration is one of Alan's pictures of the Isle of Gigha.)  But once people are here in his little gallery, he's very comfortable chatting to them about the work, what inspired it, how it's done and so on - and people love the interaction.

We've been thinking of having our own 'open studio' events, three or four times a year - a sort of pop-up gallery.  But we're also thinking of taking an occasional stall at our local antique market a few times a year, just to get the work 'out there' - especially the more affordable and very beautiful prints. 

The other thing we've been thinking about is opening a shop on Etsy. Alan's work is already on a couple of sites, including eBay, and this website can host a store, but we're also thinking about Etsy since it's such an inspirational site and both of us are fairly comfortable with mail order. We've been supplementing the creative arts income for a little while with some part time dealing on eBay, and packing is no problem. 

What we could really do with, though, is a few celebrity endorsements, so if your second cousin is married to David Tennant's aunty, or Geena Davis is your long lost relative, please spread the word!

All in all, a few changes are coming, but we're not quite sure what they are yet. Watch this space ...

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