Sweet Month Of February

A few days ago one of my facebook friends posted this link. I shared it as soon as I read it hoping it would help get the word out about copy right violations. In fact I shared it again this morning. I think the more this story is passed around the better. Maybe it will help get the message across to the public that taking pictures off the internet without permission from the owner is a big no no. Here is the link http://www.blogher.com/bloggers-beware-you-can-get-sued-using-photos-your-blog-my-story

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Oh but Debbie, if computers hadn't been invented we wouldn't be talking right now. Computers are good tools. It's just sad and madding that not all users are honest. Then their are those who are just plain clueless. The link above is about and for them. That's offal that flicker wouldn't do anything. Most sites such as that have forms called a dmca you can fill out. here is another link to a discussion that is active now in the main forum. http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=1024532

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Thanx for starting new thread Darice (for me).
I think the problem is the time out thing (15 minutes) on faa and I get the boot when I post. I obviously have to come here first then read activity and stuff. Funny for years I have been here and all of a sudden. Sort of a silly thing (the 15 min.) I think.
I have lost soo many posts and feel bad about the stupid ones Ieft - it was/is very frustrating.
Anyway I have been following you all. Congrats on the book cover Darice. I saw James book covers too and they are fabulous.
Cold here and a wee bit of snow - not much though and walking still good.
I just walked over to next townline (probably about 2 miles).
Wonder if Pauline is still at her walking.
Gotta go cuz I am a slow typer and dont wanta loose this!

I don't know if you remember the story I told you guys about the large framed print I ordered, "Island Feast" from FAA. It has turned into a nightmare. First the package was delivered damaged in transit by UPS, but the print inside was not damaged, but was poorly framed by FAA. Then two weeks later FAA sent me another framed print, but not at my request. So now FAA has filed a complaint with UPS because of the original box that was damaged. Why I don't know, because the print inside was fine. Anyway, now FAA wants me to repackage the original print in the original torn up box and have it picked up by UPS... as if it would make it back to FAA? This is not customer service, this is a bad dream. I emailed FAA customer service this morning saying that my wife and I had re-taped the original box with the original print in it and it was ready for pickup by UPS. I also told them that this whole process was very unprofessional and that I would never order another framed print from them.

James - I just read this - as a talk about nuts aside - I logged out and relogged in (not to use up my 15 min) to respond. Now isnt this nuts!!!!
Yes sometimes this bureacracy stuff is crazy. If I wondered when you first posted - it seemed to good to be true (and was). I would not reorder in your shoes either. All I have ever ordered is some of my own cards (they were fine). If you are going give a 100 percent guarantee give it (sorry I couldnt find the percent sign on my laptop so had to type it to save time...).
Lets all have a drink before my time runs out!!!

Yahoo!!!!! Pat's back. Good to see you Pat. I'm a type slow too and have lost many posts. That's why most of my posts are short.

James, wow, sorry to hear about your shipping woes. I've never ordered a framed print through FAA, just cards like Pat. What a hassle. On a lighter note, how are you enjoying this incredible day?!! Talk about being spoiled here.........Sometimes I feel bad telling my friends and family how nice the weather is when they are suffering below zero temps......not.

I had a great morning painting at the Gallery. Then I walked over to the harbor to get some more reference photos. I'm working on a 16x20 oil painting of the harbor and needed to get some detail shots of some the boats and buildings. Speaking of which, it's time to work on it....so see ya all later.

I read Julia Robinson's post, hopefully a new contributor to this thread. Welcome Julia!

Darice, the FAA package is still waiting to be picked up by UPS. Every time I look at it I get angry. Oh well.

Today was a better day, still very cool up here in Kalae. Yesterday I planted about 15 Italian parsley plants in my vegetable garden, tomorrow I will be planting dill plants. I have lots of dill recipes on my food blog. I grow vegetables from seed in little pots out on my lanai until they get big enough to plant in the garden. I bought two bunches of Swiss chard today for $3.00 a bunch (small bunches). That's why I grow my own food, not only does it save me money and taste better, but it gets me away from this keyboard, plus I like getting my hands dirty.

Kimberly and I went for pizza today. We only have one restaurant that sells pizza on this island, but it's pretty good. Yesterday a neighbor phoned and said that she just baked a loaf of crusty bread and was bringing it over. It was still hot from the oven. We had some of it last night with pasta and clams with lots of butter and garlic. Tonight it's artichokes for dinner. You just have to boil them in salted water for an hour, then eat each leaf by scraping the bottom bit of the leaf between your teeth, where the meat is. When you get to the heart of the artichoke you get several big bites. I dip the leaves in a combination of soy sauce and butter that has been heated. Kimberly just uses mayonnaise. I love artichokes. Enough rambling... IT'S ALMOST COCKTAIL HOUR!

Hey James. We grow most of our own vegetables here when the weather is good. We have to wait until late March to plant our garden in North Carolina, but my husband starts everything from seeds in the garage under grow lights. Our tomatoes grow until September and we normally have an abundance of squash but our root veggies don't do so well. We get a small crop of potatoes and maybe some carrots where we're lucky. I make pints and pints of tomato sauce in the summer and freeze it. I just used our last jar of it a couple weeks ago. I know what you mean about the vegetables tasting better. Our broccoli tastes so much better than the anemic looking stuff we get from the store. LOL.

Julia so glad you found your way here. I know you are going to fit right in with this group of foodies. Now don't worry, we do talk about art once in a while.....hehehe. If you have any questions someone here will be glad to answer. James is our Hawaii chef, he lives on the beautiful Island of Molokai' and writes "taste of Hawaii" (did I get the title right?) blog and has written three cookbooks. Oh and he is our golf champion. You'll soon meet the others as they pop in.

No No Darice, it's http://www.tastinghawaii.com/

Julia, Darice is our host for this party. She and Charlie live an island away from me, on Maui. Darice is very active in the art world on Maui, teaching classes to children, VP of an art club, painter, book cover artist, etc. etc. It's hard to keep her down. I sometimes wonder if she ever sleeps.

It sounds like you do up a lot of tomatoes Julia. One of our other cooks is Pauline, who lives in your neighborhood. She puts up a lot of vegies.

It's a beautiful morning, I just took my dog Maka for a walk and noticed that my lime trees are full of blooms. It must be spring in Hawaii.

My cousin live in Honolulu. Her husband is stationed there in the Navy on the USS Hopper. I've been interested in food since I was a kid. My parents were horrible cooks and never made anything from scratch. I grew up on Shake and Bake and over done pork chops. Both my parents worked so at the age of 10 I was expected to cook dinner when I got home from school and have it done and ready to eat at 6 p.m. We joke that my mother's turkey at Thanksgiving is so dry that its "turkey jerky". I watch Food Network religiously and I love to make things taste better than what I remember growing up. I want to eventually try to brew my own beer when I get adventurous.

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You poor thing Julia, you must be a good cook. I grew up on shake 'n' bake also. I still put chicken in a bag and give it a shake. When I met my wife Kimberly 30 years ago, she was living in a small trailer, parked in her mother's driveway in Monterey, Ca. She knew nothing about cooking but that didn't matter to me. Now she's a great cook. We take turns in the kitchen. She's a great lady.

Some of us love to cook, and some don't, life's a mystery.

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There are many myths and legends here on the Islands. I love the rich history behind them. There are legends past down through eons of years by the Hawaii people and legends made up for the tourist industry. I personally love the ancient legends, have been studying them for years.

The older I get the more I like to cook. As a young adult/mother I didn't enjoy it that much because with four kids every night at least one of them would complain. Now it's different. Being gluten intolerant It is much easier for me to cook at home then to find an affordable restaurant here. Plus Charlie really enjoys the meals I make. He also does all the cleaning up after me, I love that part.....hehehe. We live in a condo right now so are not able to grow any veges or fruit. We are taking our time in deciding if we want to buy a house or condo. Both have advantages and disadvantages. If we buy a house I want to grow a lot of things. I love working in the dirt and the feel of the earth in my hands.

Pat is still having issues with posting in our group. She has been emailing me to keep me up to date. It seams she can do everything on FAA normally except post here. Both Sean and Beth (Sean, owner of FAA. Beth, FAA moderator and all around fixer of problems) are at a loss as to why this is happening. I do hope the problem gets solved for her. In the mean time she is reading all our post and misses you all. She is going to London in three weeks and is very excited (lucky her).

Pauline, whatcha up to?

HI everyone... it has gotten soooooooooooo cold here. Was 26 degrees this afternoon. My car windows were frozen over and my one side door stuck. No fun getting things defrosted! lol

Helping my sister make up a dinner party tomorrow night... Italian of course. Made the sauce today and tomorrow we put the Lasagna together.

Pat its tooooooo cold to walk right now.. I really want to but not with this freezing air plus the roads are slippery. Think I could use a cocktail! lol

Hi Julia.. Ive been rather busy and not getting here as often...Welcome aboard.

Nothing new except that lively painting I just post. Thx for the compliment Pat! Im really like other cultures traditions... lots of color.

tata for now gang.....

Yes it's cold here too. The high didn't get out of the 20s yesterday. We had an ice storm roll in and the roads are nasty. At least the bad weather canceled drill for today with the Army. I have an entire Saturday I can devote to writing or painting. Yay!!!!

I feel bad for you guys, I saw the national weather report today and the cold weather that is hitting everyone. I wish I could beam you up to Hawaii. The only thing I can say is that I lived in Minneapolis, and Chicago, two of the coldest places I ever want to be in. I remember having to put an electric dip stick in my engine block at night in Chicago just so I could get the car started in the morning, and that was in my garage. And shoveling the snow off my driveway every morning just so I could go to work. And walking 10 blocks to my office only to arrive with ice cycles hanging from my beard. I had a beard in those days. No thanks! I deserve warm now. Hawaii is warm all of the time, well mostly.

I played in a golf tournament today with my club. I won the thing. $11.00 was given out to me each of my three team members. It's a game called scramble. Hey, $11.00 is $11.00.

Have a warm Sunday!

Morning all.
Give me credit for trying - though I will loose this!

Miracle of miracles - must be a good day in faa.
Off to London UK soon as Darice told you. Never been before so... with my aunt.
James did they ever straighten out your print situation.
Waving at you all.
Swamp romp next.

Yahoo Pat!!!!! I'm glad your back. I was missing Happy Hour. It's just not the same without you....hehehe

BIG congratulations On your win James. I bet you play for the love of the game and not all those big bucks you make. I'm with you in feeling like I deserve to be living in Hawaii. 32 years in Lake Tahoe was more cold and snow then I ever wanted. Since moving here I've been cold maybe a handful of times.

Julia, are you in the army?

Pauline, if I remember right, I use to spray wd40 around the seal of my car doors to help them not stick. Spay "Pam" on shovels so the snow wouldn't stick and I even had to use a utility light under the hood of my car to keep the battery warm enough to start in the mornings. Boy am I glad those days are over.

Today we are hoping to get out to do some photography but the vog is back and it hinders both visibility and breathing. So we may just hang out at home. I hope you all have a fantastic day what ever you do. Aloha for now.

Hey Darice,

I'm in the Army Reserves. I play clarinet in the 208th Army Band in Concord, NC. I've been in the Army Reserves for about 13 years. I just got home from drill today. We had a weekend to catch up on paperwork and I didn't get to even touch my clarinet all weekend. Yesterday the weather was so bad they canceled drill but at least I still get paid for the snow/ice day.

I've been working on creating a new website on weebly for my art for about a month now and have been driving myself crazy over it. Charlie built my original website many years ago. He did a great job but it is a stagnant site, meaning nothing has changed on it for a very long time and I don't have a blog on it. Every time I need to update it I have to wait days and weeks for Charlie to get some time to do it for me because he built it all in HTML code. But then it dawned on me yesterday FAA has already provided me with all the tools I'm looking for; blog, the ability to upload new works with out having to wait for Charlie, newsletters and on on. My artistwebsites through FAA is exactly what I needed. So today Charlie forward my doname name to it and now when anyone goes to www.daricemachel.com it takes them directly to it. My very long frustration and head ache is gone. I don't have to make new business cards or send out emails to everyone telling them about the change. I can now direct more traffic to it. I don't know why it took me so long to recognize that artistwebsites is a valuable tool. I know it now and I'll be working it a lot more.

David your painting has an amazing glow about it. Love the lighting on the vase.

Have a very fun, safe, inspirational trip Pat. Bring us back souveniers hehehehe.

Aloha Ann, and happy Valentines Day. That was a beautiful orchid shot.

Tonight I'm fixing lobster for my valentine. She bought me a box of chocolates.

Have a great day everyone.

Good Morning guys...

Recently I've been receiving emails from someone who he said is interested in buying my original artwork "After Shower"...

The thing is, I have never sold my original artwork to someone I have not personally met before...Thus, I don't know how the process should go - should I send in the artwork first?...he'll wait until he receive it and then send me the payment?...One more thing, the original artwork he wants to buy is only from my 8 x 12 inch sketchbook - I know I should send it in such a way that it can't be crumpled or damaged during transportation...But, how should I send it in a professional way?

And one last thing...how should I know if he's a fraud?...or not? hehe

Thanks in advance for your advise...

Ann, first let me say congratulations. Selling originals to strangers is hard to do at first, you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly. This is what I do when I get an on line sale through an email. First I reply with a short email thanking the person for their interest in my art. I tell them a little about the piece they like. Such as size, medium and where I painted it or why I painted it, I let them know the price of the painting plus shipping. I tell them I only except pay pal for payment ( I have found this to be a great way to ward off scammers and frauds). If I get a response back from the interested person I know it's not a scam. Most scammers want to send cashier checks. (I'll only except personal checks if I know the person and I let them know I wont send the painting until the check has cleared the bank.) Often I get an email back with more questions or an OK to send the pay pal invoice. Never ship before you receive payment. Now as far as packaging goes, you have it easy. 8x12 can fit into a large mailing envelope. You can get padded ones or heavy duty ones. Put the piece in a clear sleeve with your business card and a printed BIO. You can sandwich your drawing between two pieces of cardboard then slip it all into the envelope. Make sure you charge the customer for shipping and packaging. I hope I've been helpful. Good luck.

HIYA, HAPPY VALENTINES DAY all! PIB you have returned! Nice to see you. Hi David. New painting is beautiful. Hi Ann..ditto what Darice said! lol Good to see you.

I just returned from a native America workshop. Its great. Our instructor is the from Micmac tribe here in NC and a psychotherapist! lol just what I need! hehe, No, he is terrific! He did Mens Traditional dancing tonight so I took lots of photos plus alot of smudging. I smell like smoke! cough.... but it was great energy. Next week hes doing the Eagle Dance. We all kind of jump in at some point. Each class gets more involved in the Native way... so it really is awesome learning and doing.

Nice Valentines dinner James! Drooling over here!
Lobster sounds great....

We went out to a Mexican restaurant the other night (girls night out) and had a delicious meal and Cadillac Margaritas!!! OMG they were potent! YUM! It was great. And the waiter was mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! so cute! hehe

Im working on a painting of a gal who plays crystal singing bowls and Tibbetan bowls... Soon to be finished. Will post here next week.

Nice to see ya'll... have a good nite

This link was posted on the main forum. I thought some of you might be interested in seeing it.
http://www.artsyshark.com/125-places-to-sell/?goback=.gde_2768233_member_207087455

The other day a friend who likes to cook asked me if I would be interested in being a personal chef with her. She said that she got a call from a group coming to Moloka'i in August. They have a house on the west end of the island, or have rented one, which is the more exclusive part of the island. It's a group of nine adults and some kids, not sure how many. They want us to cook dinner for them for a week. The hitch is that two of the adults are vegans. So it gets complicated. Anyway I told her that I wanted to see the house that we will be cooking in and want to know what the pay will be before I say yes. Sounds interesting. I put up a new personal chef website just for fun: http://personalchefjamestemple.blogspot.com/

Just got off the golf course with a friend, so I started cocktail hour already and it's on 3 pm here. Oh well, who cares.

PS Pauline, the lobster was wonderful last night, and the box of chocolates that Kimberly gave me was also wonderful. Life is good.

Hi James...may be you can be the personal chef of a famous person too...I think their kitchen would be great enough for you to cook in and challenging too hehe :)


Thanks for the advice Darice and Pauline...I skip the part of the BIO and business card though...as I, currently, don't have one - one that says I'm an artist or something related to it. So I just decided to write a note to the buyer...as to why and when did I draw the portrait. It's funny how I remember things and how it feels to sell your original artwork,,,it felt like a part of me is going away too. I suddenly missed my friends and how our life seems to be so different now. I wish I can turn back time and draw more while we are together.

Yes "life is good" James - I just wish it could be different...for me :)

Good night guys...I'll try to hang around here more during my vacation.

Nice website James. May I share it on fb? You never know what rich and famous person is stocking me......I mean following me on facebook.....hehehe

Ann, a hand written note is a good substitute for your Bio. Collectors like to know about the artists they buy from. It gives them something to talk about with their friends and family. And it could lead to more sales for you.

Today I'm working on creating 4 or 5 lesson plans for the 11 kids art classes for Lahaina Arts Association. They are simple lessons for the entire class to create a poster for a fund raiser event we are putting on in April. I have lots of ideas running around in my head, too many. So I better get off this computer and get to work. Have a great day everyone.

Almost done. I'm going to sit on it for a few days and see if I want to change anything:

I guess I did not wait a couple of days after all. I did a final push and finished it:

Well done David!!!!! Your still life is spectacular!

My newest !

Later!

Pauline that's wonderful. Is it a self portrait of your inner peace?

Compare the painting above to the reference photo:

David, your reference photo is beautiful I can see why you wanted to do the painting. If I remember right, you did some photoshop work on the photograph to get it the way you want. Is that not right? The painting is even more beautiful then the reference photo and that is as it should be. You did an amazing job on the wood grain of the table, the shadows and highlights are great and the background color you choose is perfect.

The reference photo was a complete Frankenstein. I liked the flowers in one photo, the pitcher and bowl from another photo, and the table from even another photo. I stitched them all together into one photo and used it as a reference. The reference photo as it is never really existed in real life.

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Debbie, she is beautiful!!!!!

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It's strange the code is not working for you. I did it from my iPhone. But you might be right about Firefox, try safari and see what happens.

Life here is great. The whales are here. We get to see them breaching and splashing around almost daily on our ride in to Lahaina. We have become so fascinated by them. This week has been very busy for us. We have had something to do every night this week. February is a very busy art and whale month around here. Open studio is every weekend, there is a Plein Air event going on and lots of whale calibrations. Fun fun fun.

This painting has just reached 8000 views. It's my number one most viewed painting on FAA. It usually gets over 50 views a week and it's one of my top sellers.

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I have been working hard on building my art career for many many many years. It takes time and patience. I've been working at promoting my art on the web for about 13 years and FAA and facebook since 2009. My views are high because some people have shared my images on twitter, facebook and stumble upon and I'm on Google plus. I also have a Yelp account and I'm on a lot of free web listing sights that direct people to my website on FAA. My name ranks high in Google searches as well as my images. And I do believe there is a few of my paintings on Amazon, placed there by FAA. I also pass out a lot of business cards. My domain name http://www.daricemachel.com is now directed to my artistwebsites account (it's the free website you get when you are a paid member of FAA). Another thing I do here on FAA is I put my work in a lot of the contests and other groups. I also join in on a lot of conversations in the main discussion forum. Other things I do off of FAA and facebook are I subscribe to quite a few blogs and newsletters on how to market art online.

Wow, I didn't mean to go on and on. That is a long answer to a short question. LOL

Wow, Darice! My most visited piece is this one at about 450 views, a fraction of what you get. I've got a ways to go.

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I started a new discussion for March. Here is the link.........see ya all over there
http://fineartamerica.com/groups/la-creme-de-la-creme-.html?showmessage=true&messageid=1081296