Nocino

Here’s another cool thing for ya, as some of you may know I want to draw up some wine labels, since it just might be the coolest way to make money off art.

Well one day I was tweeting about it on twitter and some guy asked if I could draw something for him in trade for a case of some nocino, I said sure thinking it would at least be something cool to do. Well the guy sends me a mason jar filled with that dark scary looking stuff, I try it anyway, and it turns out to be some really good stuff.

I put it off for a few months during the move and all the settling in. He also sent me a lot of pictures of last year's harvest and in them I see his little girl playing in the grass, spinning in circles, which complements my circles perfectly. We joked around that it would be cool to draw a new label every year with the same little girl and every year she would be a little older and it might look cool to see how she grew on the family's own liquor. But who knows.

So if you know anyone who needs or wants any kind of label or anything drawn up with circles let me know and show them this

Prost Productions

Check this out, after I posted my blog about my wine labels all my wine followers on twitter did me good with some great retweeting and it got viewed by the Prost Productions guy, who asked me if I wanted to draw up a few Christmas wine cards, after we talked back and forth for a few days I finally got some time to work on something, one was perfect, one needed some photoshop work, and one needed to be dropped. We ended up with two really good cards and went into production, Prost Production as it was, you can find them here and here.

Spend some time on their site and read about them and read their blog and buy lots of cards!

It Just Takes Time: A Love Story About A Commission

Its no big secret that I used to have a “real job” as an architectural drafter for a big company back in San Antonio. Well at this job, just before I left, I met a girl that saw some of my work and really loved it. Remember, I used to draw at work every chance I got until I quit. Then about a year later I had a show at a hotel less than a block away from that office and I invited all my old friends from that office and they did make me proud to have worked along side them as they bought up about half my show. Well I talked to this girl at that show for a while and she asked about other work I do and sizes and prices and where she could see some more work.

Ok about a year later, which is 2 years later if you are counting, which you should because this is why I am blogging, I get an e-mail out of no where wanting to know about how my commissions work, yup from that same girl.

She wanted to talk about getting a series done to go over her couch but by the time we talked on the phone about it some thing amazing happened in her life which brings a more meaningful piece to mind. She was meeting her parents at a hotel bar in Miami and thinking that her boyfriend was still out of the country. To her surprise she found her boyfriend hiding behind a tall chair as she walked over to her mom. So he sits her down on the chair next to his and gets down on one knee and asks her to marry him. I being the hopeless romantic I am was moved by this story, as we chatted back and forth we came up with this drawing:

The red chair was the chair he was sitting in and the other one was hers. She wanted the name of the bar there and the “yes I do” that she said. I think this was a really cool commission, more in the vain of this one. Commissions like this remind me of the tattoo shows where the people come in and so much meaning goes into each piece. If anyone wants to talk about a custom drawing I’m here and you can check it out on my site.

Winterfest At Evergreen High School

We were up at 4:00 and left the house at 5:00, got to the show at 6:00 and were set up at 6:20. As usual we were all set up and watching all the other artists setting up. There was an older couple next to us and it was looking like they were having some time setting up (I did try to help as much as I could but they were proud and almost always turned me down). I commented to Hannah that I’m glad we have an easy set up and take down so we won't have much trouble when we are older and still doing these. The “KISS” method is what we live by, keep it simple stupid, we only have 3 big bins, 2 with art and 1 with bags and bubble wrap, then a tool box with everything to fix anything that might come up. We wheel it around on a dolly, we might need to get a better dolly though, but its good for right now.

here we are, #69 huh

We talked to the older couple next to us a lot about how life on the road is, they had a trailer and did art fairs and tent shows all over Colorado, which as some of you guys out there know, that is something Hannah and I would love to do, maybe even after we are done with our Denver stay. But that’s another blog and another whole chapter in the life of living as an artist working here at “Art By Nemo”.

our table

Ok so on to the show. We didn’t get much sales due to the nature of the beast, it was more of a craft show and since it has been going on for 31 years, people who came out knew what they wanted and had a list of names and stuff to buy already. Most people didn’t even give us a look over for some reason, although a lot of people did manage to come and check us out and they all were surprised to see the kind of work I am producing. We even had a few sales, but nothing like we have been having lately. I don’t really know if a craft fair is a place to try to sell fine art or not, I did see a lot of people spending money and tons of people came out to the event and the person selling the tall skinny Santa Clauses was making a killing.

rolling things in at 6:30 or so

Now I wanna ask all you tent show and art fair people about how they do in craft fairs? Is it harder to sell fine art at a craft fair?

around noon time and it was packed

Even though we didn’t do as well as we wanted to I think we will still try out the Summerfest show and see if we could build a following and grab some selling that way. Also we got lost on the way home cuz all the street signs had snow on them. It was the 1st time we were out in the snow like this. It wasn’t that bad but it was scary. When we start touring with our art we will be in Florida when its snowing here!

Twit Of The Week

I got a mentioned on the Westword website for being a good little Twit! You can find me on Twitter @artbynemo.

Carbon Copies

These dead guy pencils are about the coolest things ever, if you know anyone that is dying and wants to be turned into pencils for me to use in my art let me know. I will even sign every drawing with their name.

When I die I am going to have these made out of me and they will be for sale at a million bucks each. Comment or e-mail if you want me to put you down on the list for one.

Here is other cool stuff Nadine Jarvis does.

Art-O-Mat

I have been doing these Art-O-Mats for about 3 years now and it is one of the coolest things I have ever been part of. Sure, at 5 bucks a piece there isn’t much money to be made, but its bigger then money. Art-O-Mat is more like a movement taking over the world and who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?

It all started in about 1997 as an art piece in an art show and quickly blew up. Who could resist an old cigarette machine carrying art? With about 86 of these supped up bad boys who could get enough? Check out more of the history here.

When I started out I was still making abstract paintings and I must have made about 100 of those and some are still out there, I just got an e-mail and a picture from a buyer in Nebraska.

I changed my style and then started make one time prints and sticking them down to the blocks and have done 150 now. This is just one of those things I feel like I could do forever.

There are a lot of artists playing the game, so lots of good stuff to chose from. Find one near you and check out all the wonderful art that you can carry in your pocket.

And if you’re an artist and want to play sign up here. Thank you.