Category: Fine Art America

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Brewing a Pot of Tea as Part of a Challenge at FAA

A pot of hot tea is a great way to begin the day – even with camera in hand.

Being a fairly active member of the art Discussions (forum) at Fine Art America I have been involved in several “Art Challenges” over the last year. These involve posting one new piece of art based on a theme, one piece per day for a set number of days. The Forum Moderator, Abbie (a talented painter and photographer), creates these challenges along with the help of another uniquely talented artist, Donna. These challenges help us, as artist-participants, focus for a period of time on a particular theme, which encourages new creativity. We all get to see how colleagues interpret the theme, creating a win-win activity for all involved.

The current challenge is “7 Day Kitchen Macro Images” and has about 30 guinea pigs, er – participants, creating close-up images of things in/around a kitchen. I started off with my morning kitchen routine of making a pot of tea for my wife and a cup of coffee for me. My only change in routine was to have my camera in hand affixed with a macro (close-up) lens. My first image was of the fire used to heat the teapot full of water.

Blue Flams heating the Tea Pot
An Expressionism view of blue gas flames heating a pot of water to make tea.

Yesterday, day #1 of the Challenge, I heated the water for a pot of tea – so today (day #2) I added in the tea bag. The teabag was easier to photograph than the gas flame because I didn’t have to put the camera right on the stove near the burners.

Tea Bag as a Charcoal Sketch
A traditional tea bag hanging by its string and presented as a simulated charcoal sketch.

I was able to hang the tea bag by its string and photograph it with a shallow depth of field to blur out the background, which is actually a brown wicker-back chair near a window. A tea bag, by itself, is rather plain so I edited this into a simulated charcoal sketch presentation.

Link: Blue Flames Heating Up the Teapot Expressionism

Link: Tea Bag Rendered in Charcoal

Tomorrow I will need to photograph a cup of coffee as it is being brewed. 🙂

Visit my FAA gallery at Bill Swartwout Photography.

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I Use Zazzle for Calendars

My photographs appear on Calendars, Jigsaw Puzzles, Ornaments, Prints and more at Zazzle.

Yes, people still buy and use calendars and the first day of a new year is an appropriate time to bring this up. Just this morning, New Years Day, I received an email inquiry from a fellow artist at Fine Art America (FAA) inquiring about where I have my calendars produced. There have been quite a few discussions on the FAA Forum about the possibility of offering calendars there. For a number of reasons I doubt that will happen. Below is the gist of my answer…

My 2022 Assateague Pony Calendar Offering

I am certainly willing to share information with fellow artists about calendars. I use Zazzle, another quality POD (Print On Demand company) that make about a gazillion products. I sell calendars, ornaments, jigsaw puzzles, calendars and (yes) even some prints there. I no longer promote the puzzles at Zazzle because I prefer the ones offered at FAA. However, I had started offering puzzles and calendars with Zazzle six years ago and they still sell – a lot. I suppose that is because they have been in their internal search for so long and, because of that, Zazzle actually promotes them with Google ads. The same with the calendars they offer – calendars with my photographs, that is.

Zazzle provides the template but the whole system is not very intuitive – It takes a good while to get used to it. But they also have a very active forum – for info, advice, help, etc. There are a few FAA members also active at Zazzle.

Here is a link to my Assateague Pony Calendar: https://www.zazzle.com/z/301dowpa

Here is a link to the much of what I currently have at Zazzle: https://www.zazzle.com/mbr/238675969062853179/stores

Try a search for – Assateague Pony Calendar – on google and see if you can understand why I sell a lot at Zazzle. The wild horses of Assateague Island are quite popular.

Regards,

Bill

BTW – here is the text of the original email inquiry. I actually receive frequent questions similar to this…

Hi Bill,
I read your response to the discussion thread on calendars. Wondering if you would please share the company you used to do this with? And if they supplied a template or if you had to create with a particular software or app, which one?
Thanks & Happy New Year!

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Rebranding and an Art Challenge

Welcoming the New Year with a few changes.

Not really changes – let’s just call it a few adjustments for 2022. The main adjustment is the “rebranding” of my vanity domain name, USPictures.com. For the last few years I have simply pointed that domain to my Fine Art America/Pixels Premium Gallery at https://bill.pixels.com. I have decided to develop the U.S. Pictures domain as a unique website where my current and future art buyers will have more choices.

US Pictures Business Card Preview

Now for the 2022 Art Challenge. Lofty goal but will it be reality?

The goal is to create and post a new article EVERY DAY for the entirety of 2022 on one of my photography related sites (blogs or what ever moniker you choose). I had participated in several create-a-new-piece-of-art-per day (for a given number of days) challenges in the Fine Art America Forum throughout 2021. I completed several and felt I was learning and growing with each one. Now, Abbie, the dear forum moderator, set up a major challenge of one new piece of art per day for all of 2022 (with the ability to “skip” 30 days).

I initially thought yeah, I can do that. Even with our hopeful set of road trips this year I should be able to shoot or edit a new photograph and upload it every day. Sure. Yup. Yes.

I realized, however, that if I could do that on my own sites, instead of FineArtAmerica/Pixels, that I would be adding SEO value to my own work and potentially attract more buyers to me and my own art – rather than to the main site(s) at FAA and the art of thousands of other artists. I believe if I focus on this practical solution – it provide more exposure for my photography. (Catch the intended puns there?)

The caveat is that I will allow myself to miss two days per week – but hope to accomplish 300+ new articles, with images, during the course of the year. Please wish me luck and please follow along if/when you get the chance.

Put MY photographs on YOUR walls. Thank you for supporting my art.

My art-photography related sites that will be growing this year are…

The site I plan to grow the most is U.S. Pictures. Much of my photography is a sharing of places to which we have traveled through parts of the USA.