My latest drawing was a gift to a friend of mine, her name is Mitsy and she’s a ceramic artist with a shop on Etsy (artmind.etsy.com) we’ve been working together to create a jewellery line featuring some of her ceramics, and so we have been sending each other all sorts of photos and drawings and diagrams with our ideas and samples. The drawing I made for her was inspired by some photos that she had sent me, that showed her process as she made a mould of a hand from a Barbie doll. It was quite a scene, and I find all the little hands so beautiful cast in porcelain. When it was Mitsy’s birthday I decided to draw something for her inspired by these pictures and the lovely hands.
She has put of some of the photos and a picture of the artwork on her Flickr page.
I just love natural things, I think it’s partly fuelled by the absence of these things here in Athens, but I just want to surround myself with leaves and pods and feathers, and hence these are the only things I want to create.
The great thing about Etsy, is that you don’t have to have a lot of capital to start up, as long as you have something you have created and 20 cents, you can make a start at your own arts business.
It does take work to do well on Etsy, as I imagine it does with any online venue, but the more you put into it, the more you will get out of it.
The most important thing with getting started online, is to photograph your work well. Good photographs not only show your product in its best light, but show the professionalism of your shop.
I have my studio from where everything is created. I like having the two areas of work, because it creates a lot of variety for me in my days. I do sometimes find that I can get carried away with one line of work and abandon the other for a time, but usually this leaves my feeling refreshed when I get back to the other.
I confess that I am not much of a resolution maker, but I do plan on organising myself and my business better.
A shiny new website would be nice.
Who are your favorite artists and why?
My major at university was in print media, and I have a real fondness for all printing processes.
I love Japanese woodblock printing, artists such as Hokusai and Hiroshige, all the way up to modern Pop, Andy Warhol and his use of reputation is something that appeals to so many, and I am no exception.
How would you choose to depict the eyecandies concept in a drawing? What elements / colors would you use?
Eye candies would consist of lots of little items, all lined up together neatly in rows. They should be bright, and being me they would have black outlines.
Some items would probably have eyes. And perhaps some nose. But not necessarily the same ones. Dimples could be used to good effect too.