Don't sell your best/most meaningful work

First of all I just want to say that today's samples are little "quick" paintings that I did of Gracie, my daughter, and Charlie, my son. They have helped me so much in my endeavor to get my new blog site going. It's almost done and I think it will look a lot better. After all-this page, now, is part of my maiden voyage. Anyway, Gracie works at a place called Shoplet.com in the web page and marketing department. She looks at 100's of blogs every day and writes the online blog for their company. Quite a clever lady. Charlie is Mr. Computer Know it All around our house. He's fabulous also. I just want to say a huge thank you to both of them for all their help!

Back to the main topic. As artists we are constantly trying so hard to make a buck here and there. This I have done. I mean-who wants to live in a hovel? Not me. So, it's tempting to sell or give away/donate all your original work if someone wants it. Now, I do have to say that it would be hard to turn down a million dollars but you get my point when I say that you'll be sorry if you can't look at the originals any more. This is especially true of subject matter that is near and dear to your heart. These paintings above of Gracie and Charlie were sold and I miss them but I have a lot of paintings of my kids. So I thought I could spare a few. Plus I take pictures of everything before it leaves my house. Let me repeat that-I take pictures of everything before it leaves my house. That way I have an image of them for occasions, like today. I know it's tempting to donate your best work always but that's a mistake as you won't have anything to show (and this will happen) in your home when the time comes to show off your work.

Maybe I should go into the picture taking in more detail. That's for another day. Wow. I could do this forever. I never run out of ideas. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share them.

Many of you know that I'm back in school after many years getting my Art History degree. I'm a senior. Well, pretty soon I've got to take "Senior Seminar" and it's been so long since I was really in the art history world. Of course I remember quite a bit but there's a lot I don't. I think, starting tomorrow, I'm going to add a "Art History Moment" comment to my blog. This will help me and help all of you to become a more well rounded artist. I've got to start reviewing everything, guys.

*****Blog address change reminder*****
Remember my address will be changing very soon to laughinghorseart.blogspot.com.