Ready For The New Year

      Here I am again, another month out since my last post.  I'm so ashamed...

      The holiday rush coupled with the usual pressures of life really whooped my butt this year, but emerging from all of it I feel a renewed energy and am ready to tackle the new year with reckless abandon.

The Art of Self Promotion

      Wow, November is just about over.  I barely even remember it starting, but it's been a crazy busy month with art related deadlines and day jobs filling up my schedule.  A few more weeks, and I'll be adding cookie baking into my agenda.  Oh yes, I am a Christmas cookie baking fiend ;)

I even designed a cute cookie themed baking apron.
You can buy it here.

      A lot of this month has involved working on self promotion because part of getting myself established as a full time artist means getting myself out there and noticed.  This has

Prints Finally Available

      So today marks a new milestone for Niki's Art... a teeny weeny one... but a milestone none the less.  I've officially hooked up with a print on demand service so that I may provide prints of some of my artwork.   

This being the first one to be made available.  Come on, you know you want to buy it.

      I've been wanting to get prints of my work done for quite some time now.  After all, one of the reasons I paint is so that I can share my work with other people who enjoy it, but let's be real.  Not everyone can afford a $250+ painting, and even if they could, that would only be one person who would forever get to enjoy that painting.  Prints allow for a much wider audience, and a happier me because now more people can have them in their homes.  Ideally, I would like to invest in a high quality printer and inks so that I can have full control over my prints, but for now I've decided to place my trust in Crated.com.  I just recently received the proof I ordered and was pretty pleased with the results.  I was even more pleased to find the colors of the final print matched my computer monitor image to a tee, which will make future pieces easier to adjust.

      This site offers a few different options.  For starters, you can order just the straight up print, or you have the option to order it already framed and matted.  There's also the option for a printed canvas.  The original size of the cat painting above is an 8"x10" but it is also available in larger sizes.  I should also note, if you do decide to order the print by itself, there is no white boarder and the print comes delivered in a mail tube, so the print itself will be rolled up.  Not a huge deal, but this might provide a small challenge if you're framing it yourself.

      You may have noticed I've added a link to my Crated store to the sidebar.  If cats aren't your thing, I encourage you to keep checking back, as I will be posting some more artwork very soon.  But, of course, if you are one of those people who totally love this painting, you can order the print here.

Blogs, Banners, and... Mice?

      In redoing my blog, I've faced the challenge of coming up with something a little more interesting to look at.  The previous banner with the sketch of the pig and pencil just wasn't cutting it.

Too monotone.  I like color in my paintings, darn it!

    But what to do?  This was particularly difficult considering I have a number of styles I work in, but after mulling over it a bit I came to the obvious conclusion: why not show all of them?  I, therefore, came up with the following design...

New Blog Setup - First post!

    Today marks the momentous occasion of me starting a blog with blogger.  Woot woot!

     I was originally running a blog directly on my website, but despite all of my self taught efforts and success in constructing NikisArt.com, my methods were waaay too inefficient, so I decided it was time to rely on blogger for my blogging needs.  It was the best decision for my sanity (Lord knows I need all the help I can get!).

     So what is Niki's Blog?  Simply put, it is the news hub and information spot for my business, Niki's Art.  You saw that link up above, right?  You should totally click it.  Go ahead.  I'll wait...