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This is a continuation of an essay previously posted here. Read Part One

• I wanted to put myself in a position where I had no choice but to learn solid business and financial skills. Any type of business would help me learn this stuff, but if I was not passionate about it, I wouldn't follow through. (You can lead a horse to water...) To this end, pet portraiture has been a great "boot camp" for me to really learn the business of being an independent artist. I handle every part of it. Some might shudder at the thought of handling the financial parts. But it's especially important to learn that stuff, and even more so if it makes you uncomfortable. (That uncomfortable feeling is just your brain telling your body that you need some experience and improvement in that area.) If you intend to make a career as an artist, you are in the unique position where you simply have to learn how to run your business, and that includes the finances. Plus, since you are passionate about your business, you will learn all this stuff within the framework of something you truly love doing. That makes it less painful and more interesting. When you have setbacks, you learn from it, get up and try again. And when you have successes, it makes them all the more sweet knowing that you are responsible for every aspect of your business. It's a great feeling to have a handle on those things also from the perspective of self-esteem. I've been a life-long math-phobe. Hey, if I can do it, you can do it. Lastly, to learn things right from the get-go will preclude the development of any bad or lazy habits. A good accountant is an excellent, and I think necessary, investment. I have an accountant to help with estimating quarterly taxes and my yearly taxes and though they are not cheap, it feels great to know I am 'doing things right'.

• The over-riding criteria for my business was that it had to be something I was really passionate about. I love animals, and I always have. So, in that way, it was a natural fit. I also liked the fact that it was  a kind of wacky, odd niche, which matched my personality. It was something that not everyone was doing at the time. I was sure that it would never be boring. But above all, my whole life I'd always loved creating cute and fuzzy characters through my artwork. Guinness was my first dog as an adult (a black pug, I married into co-parenting him). Guinness was my perfect creative muse, years before pet portraits were even a shimmer on my horizon. I drew and painted him all the time. Both Guinness's personality and his physicality perfectly matched my own creative sensibilities and lit up my imagination. (Today, a portrait of Guinness still hangs proudly in my home). Thanks to Guinness, I'd essentially already been doing pet portraits for a long time and strongly identified with the genre before officially making the leap. I have Guinness to thank for all of the inspiration. He was a wonderful companion and he clearly made a huge impact on me.


Today, though I still keep my toe in the pet portrait pool, my portraits are no longer the centerpiece of my creative work. But all that I have learned -- about business, about my art, about communication, about others and about myself, came first to me via the pet portraiture business. It's given me gifts too numerous to mention. It saw my ship out to sea, and powered it to sail high and proud. But the point is, I started *something* with my art. For me, it happened to be pet portraits. But it could have been anything. I was passionate and committed. I made something happen. In turn, it propelled me.

Starting your own 'thing', no matter how small it may be, has an excellent peripheral effect: It's a great confidence-builder. When you take yourself seriously as an artist and as a business person, and you walk it like you talk it, suddenly you will find that others are starting to take you seriously, too. As a career artist, you are a maverick. You are likely going to be paving your own way in everything you do professionally. As a creative professional, by default it comes with the territory. So get used to your entrepreneurial, independent business-person self. Embrace it. Own it! Every new venture you take on will be building on a previous one. Every new experience you gain is wisdom in the bank. In the long run, you will only get richer in all aspects for continually challenging yourself in new and different ways.

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Choosing pet portraiture

Becoming a pet portrait artist was an outgrowth of my creative interests, desires and needs at a time in my life when I had not been doing much of my own art work at all. I'd been suffering with chronic hand and wrist problems for a few years, off and on. When those issues finally calmed down, I was hungry to build something with my artwork - something new, fresh and different - something that was really "me"!  Maintaining my full-time job as a graphic designer/illustrator while starting up my new venture required some serious time-management. But, with proper prioritizing, I knew I was up for the challenge. I really wanted to jump back into my artwork head-first! Starting an art business would be a great way to do that, but choosing pet portraiture in particular really changed everything. It's helped me grow in so many ways.

I had a few overall goals for my what I wanted my pet portrait business to accomplish for me:

• I wanted to create a business which would be a framework for my continuing growth as an artist. I really wanted to get back into the habit of doing artwork consistently. Creating a business with timelines and deadlines would keep me on track. I would be accountable, and working under the umbrella of a business would be all the motivation I'd need. And choosing pet portraiture for my business would keep me producing, growing and learning - I viewed it as unchartered territory, I was excited about the subject, and the road was wide open for expression. In the end, it has accomplished all of this for me, and more.

• I wanted my business to foster my communication skills. Working this way would help me to learn how to better manage clients and projects in pet portraits and beyond, and, because the way I work with my clients is one-on-one, pet portraiture by default would accomplish this. Currently, I enjoy a very collaborative, creative workflow with my clients. Personality-wise, pet people are my kind of people, too: I'm just as nuts about pets as they are, so it's a good fit.


• I wanted to be able to do something where I would be in a position to be able to use my artwork to help others. With pet portraiture, I've had the opportunity to donate something uniquely special and valuable to many dog and cat charities and rescue organizations. That feels pretty good!

Stay Tuned for Part Two!

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Yay! Today is my birthday! I am so glad to be alive and well, and DRAWING!!! Yeah!!
I am so glad I've never stopped drawing. Drawing was always my 'best friend' - it was always my favorite thing to do. It was also always the thing I did best. It was also always the 'thing' I could do that people always most appreciated...

When I was really young kid, 9 or so, we moved to Massachusetts from Los Angeles. Total culture shock. Not only was it thousands of air-miles away from my former home, but it was total, TOTAL culture shock. I mean, night and day. Completely.

I didn't even know what a catholic school was, and all of the sudden I found myself in an ironed uniform, complete with a little tie (like the girl scouts wear, with the snap), lined up outside of school at 8 in the morning reciting "Hail Mary" together - the whole school. I didn't know any of the prayers by heart and I had to listen along and pretend for awhile, lip syncing the words. Really unpleasant situation. Then, once IN the classroom, we said the "Our Father" prayer together. (I remember, years later, learning the actual words to the prayer and being surprised. Because I didn't know the words by heart, I'd regularly just mimic what my classmates were reciting , and they all had thick Boston accents. So, all that time, some of the words I was saying were not correct.)

For a solid year, kids would brazenly come up to me and and "Say 'Pahk The Cah in Hahvahd Yahd!'" Like I was a circus monkey. Apparently, my west coast accent was amusing -- endlessly amusing.

Another thing that set us apart was having come from the town of "swimming pools and movie stars". Every single day without fail, someone would ask: "Did you see any movie stahs?". Ugh, the dreaded question. But one of the ONLY things that might make an outsider even remotely entertaining to a bunch of nine-year-old girls. On top of that, in L.A., stars were just normal people. Sure, it was a treat to get to spy "One Day At A Time"- era Valerie Bertinelli or Mackenzie Phillips at the Beachwood Market, but you never, EVER made ANY kind of deal about it. I mean, they were just there buying their groceries, like the rest of us. But here in Boston, these kids thought of them as if they were unicorns or wizards. Or Tinkerbell.

The nuns, the nuns, the nuns... Me (and my sisters) were complete outsiders, and the nuns never let me forget it. We may as well have been real aliens, the green kind with three eyes and antennae.

But I had an ace up my sleeve. I could draw.

I never truly realized the power I had, until one day. Sister Eleanor was my home room teacher. She looked like a cross between Jabba the Hut and the Heat Miser. But her personality was ALL GRINCH. I now theorize that she must have thought I was marked for life because I was a child of (GASP) divorce and I was (DOUBLE-GASP) from the land of 'Lost Angels'!

Anyway, one day, the most bizarre thing happened. She approached me so sweetly and gently. She asked me in someone else's voice if I would draw a picture of Jesus. It was so transparent. It was sort of the opposite of Linda Blair's transformation in "The Exorcist" -- and it was happening at MY DESK. Of course, I wouldn't say "No" to Reagan, and I certainly wasn't going to say "No" to Sister Eleanor. She got her picture of Jesus alright. And that was the beginning of a string of special treatment. By special treatment, I mean that she wasn't mean to me when I was drawing religious pictures for her. I became popular amongst all the faculty (particularly those wearing collars, headgear and big crosses), and they posted my Jesus, then Mary, and others, for all to see. Somehow, I had the time to draw these pictures during school. I don't remember when exactly I drew them, but I don't think it was during lunch or recess.

Sister Eleanor's attitude did not change toward me forever, but for a good long time it did. For long enough for me to come to certain realizations. And it was nice to not be treated like Oliver Twist for awhile. I also learned some powerful lessons first-hand -- ironically, I learned the lessons in school, but they were not part of my curriculum. :)

I think we ALL probably have similar stories like this one. I'd love to hear yours! Viva La Draw!

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I was cleaning out my tiny studio/room last week and came across this old watercolour paint box perched high on a shelf. I'd saved it from my grandmother's house about 15 years ago, and forgotten all about it. (Guess I'm not the greatest housekeeper!) I've never actually used it and don't know who did last-- it had been in her basement for who knows how many years. (I wonder if the paint is still good?) But I had always loved the retro picture on the tin. It's stamped on the back- "Page" and "London." So, because all items of even passing curiosity in our house get plugged into Google- I came up with this.

Eureka, we're in the money!

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