2008 - getting back in the swing of things.

At last I am back at painting everyday. And now to get my blogging up to a schedule.

I am about 3/4 finished on a new painting with fourteen figures - do I call it a group or a crowd? It is based upon some images I captured in Mexico a couple of years or more ago. I always liked the photos and now have got around to painting them. The painting consists of a group of musicians entertaining some people at a beach side bar.

It has a sunset sky (I seem to be hung up on these skies), the ocean, and the sandy beach with lots of shadows. There a lot of tiny details which I enjoy painting with my smallest brushes (000), but it is slow work. Still have not got a name for the painting. Will have to work on that one.

Otherwise, I am putting a lot of time into helping my non-profit Santa Barbara Visual Arts. It is membership renewal time and I have been arranging for the solicitations and answering the many questions that arise. Plus, I have to build the emailing lists for 2008 as people pay.

To make things easier, last year we tried using the PayPal method of allowing people the option of paying online with a credit card. It gets the money in faster, and requires less handling and bookwork. This year we expanded the approach by adding several different fee rates and using the online payment method for each.

On the whole things have gone very well. Of course, some of the larger organizations still require invoices, but I have been submitting them by email, which seems to be accepted and makes thing easier (and cheaper for us).