Oliver Inspects Art

Oliver Inspects Art, originally uploaded by Melsky.

Day five and I'm still at it!

Persistence/procrastination is my biggest problem. That and crack. Just kidding about the crack. But I have a hard time sticking to things every day, even something small.

Oliver is looking at a blow up of a magnet I just finished. It is today's Etsy listing: Red Cat Magnet

(In case you haven't read the other entries, I'm doing a thing where I put a piece of art in my store every day and blog about it every day in November.)

I also am in the middle of cleaning my studio. Here's the before photo:

Martini Ornament

Martini Ornament, originally uploaded by Melsky.

Day 4!

I've been experimenting with shrink plastic, usually known by it's brand name Shrinky Dinks. Most people who grew up in the 70s and were at all crafty are familiar with this stuff.

It's very fun to watch your drawings shrink in the oven. They twist around and then get thick. I bought one pack of this and am doing a bunch of ornaments and some magnets, but I'm not going to make it a permanent part of my stuff.

The direction I see myself going is digital. I want to start painting digitally using my paintshop program and a wacom tablet and selling prints. That way, once I create something I keep making money from it. I plan on building up a little catalog. So now you know my secret plans!

Martini Ornament on Etsy

Toronto day and night

Toronto day and night, originally uploaded by Melsky.

Day three and I'm still here. If I didn't have my goal to put something in my store and post every day I'd be in bed now. So it's good to have goals.

This is a painting I did last April. I was living in Toronto at the time and hoping to get more of my work into local stores and galleries. That never happened. Toronto was just a bad place for me artistically. It was a hard time in my life. I'm doing a lot better as an artist in Syracuse in terms of meeting people in arts organizations and galleries and such. Plus I have a much better space for my art. It's a smaller space than my Toronto studio but a better layout, and since this house has so much storage space I don't have to try to cram a lot of stuff in here. It has nice big windows too.

I do miss a lot of stuff about Toronto, like the transit system! I miss being able to walk to so much stuff, all the restaurants, the exciting feeling of being in a big city.

Anyway, back to the painting, it's here:

Toronto Day and Night Painting

It's actually two paintings! I think they would look really cute side by side.

Tomorrow I have goals, besides putting up something else on Etsy and writing about it in my blog, I am going to clean up my studio and send out some cards I made.

fall leaves magnet

fall leaves magnet, originally uploaded by Melsky.

It's day two and I'm still at it! Who said I had no persistence?

This is a magnet. It's an original painting. I'm experimenting with a new technique. First I draw the leaf pattern on blank paper with pencil. Then I paint a transparent sunset colored glaze over all of it using various shades of red, orange and yellow with glazing medium. Then I paint the background in black.

The smaller things I've done in it are coming out good. I have two larger paintings I'm working on right now with this technique and they are harder. It's mostly because I am trying to use larger leaves and they don't seem to look as good.

Here is the listing for this one on etsy:

Fall Leaves Magnet

Joshua Tree Sunset

Joshua Tree Sunset, originally uploaded by Melsky.

I have been neglecting this blog but I've decided to post every day for the month of November. I'm putting new art in the Melsky Art Store on Etsy every day, and I've decided to post about it every day too.

This was inspired by NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. That's a thing where people pledge to write a novel every month. That has been very popular, and spawned several spinoffs, like a thing called Art By The Inch where you pledge to paint a certain amount of square inches every day, and a thing called NaNoBloWriMo where you write in your blog every day. So I thought I would make one of my own where I put art on Etsy every day and then blog about it.

So my pledge is to put art up on Etsy every day, to write about it in my blog, and if I happen to miss a day to make it up and not just abandon the project.

My cat Oliver has pledged to help me by being my muse and mascot for the project.

So here is my entry for the first of November, All Saints Day:

Joshua Tree Sunset

I'm on a desert painting kick again. This one is in quite the 70s colors, don't you think? I spent a lot of time in the desert in the 70s as a child.

Two new paintings! Ok, technically they are not new I did them about a year ago and never scanned them. They were in storage and at the time I did them I didn't really like them. I found them yesterday and scanned them, and it turns out they have grown on me during their yearlong hibernation because now I really like them, especially the flower one.







Both paintings are available in the Melsky Art Store on Etsy



I'm re-doing a martini painting I did a while ago that I don't really like. I like the actual martini part but the background just never did it for me. I have it in my etsy store now and it's barely getting any views.

Syracuse Autumn Leaves

Syracuse Autumn Leaves, originally uploaded by Melsky.

Most days, I ride downtown with Dave in the mornings and then walk home. It's 3.2 miles and it goes gradually uphill. So it's been good to get an hour's walk in almost every day. Sometimes he leaves early and then I try to take a walk somewhere else. This morning I didn't go with him, I'm going to walk downtown this evening and go to a reception at a gallery. So things are moving along nicely.

On my walks I pick up leaves and scan them when I get home.

I found some old paintings and I'm finishing them up. I've sold a bunch of stuff on Etsy recently, including one of my customers from the ebay days who found me through google.