Friday, December 30, 2011

Paint Party Friday: Week 42 Check-In


Welcome to Week 42 of Paint Party Friday!  As the year winds down to a close and we enter 2012, we hope you are all enjoying the holidays.  It is so wonderful to see that so many of you are continuing to find time for painting even with all of the hustle and bustle of the season!

Last week we discovered that most of us looove cookies (and we even had a couple of delicious sounding recipes and tips shared)!  We were surprised to discover that some of us don't eat cookies!  (What?!?  Ha ha!)  This week, we're wondering how you're planning for a fresh new year?  Are you making resolutions?



Please make sure to use your post URL address NOT your blog home page URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website. If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 Check-ins.


All our best wishes for a wonderful, happy, healthy, exciting, cheerful, prosperous, productive, creative, paint-filled New Year!!!

xoxo
Kristin   and  EVA

Friday, December 23, 2011

Paint Party Friday: Week 41 Check-In


Welcome to Week 41 of Paint Party Friday! It's fantastic to see so many of you still painting with everything else going on at this time of year! 

The Holidays are here and from the results of last week's poll, most of us are still scrambling to get everything done. We know that we are! This week we're having another lighthearted and fun poll.  We want to know what your favorite holiday cookies are... Please feel free to share recipes (or send us some)!


Please make sure to use your post URL address NOT your blog home page URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website. If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 Check-ins.


We want to wish you and your families all our very best wishes for a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a joyous holiday season in what ever way you celebrate. Have a great celebration!

Much Love,
Kristin   and  EVA
xox

Friday, December 16, 2011

Paint Party Friday: Week 40 Check In


Welcome to Week 40 of Paint Party Friday! (Week 40! How fast the weeks fly!) The holidays are quickly approaching and we are thrilled to see that so many of you are making painting (and partying) part of your holiday traditions!

Last week we asked if you give your paintings as gifts. Your wonderful creations make fabulous gifts and most of you, for part of your gift-giving, make at least a few gifts or paint a few paintings for your loved ones. (We've seen lots of art we'd like to receive!   ;)      Lucky loved ones!)

For the next few weeks we are switching to fun, light and easy polls. This week, we wonder - are you ready for the holidays yet?


Please make sure to use your post URL address NOT your blog home page URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website. If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 Check-ins.


We hope that you find some relaxation (by painting?) in the midst of the holiday chaos and that you have a great time at the party!

Friday, December 9, 2011

Paint Party Friday: Week 39 Check-In


Welcome to Week 39 of Paint Party Friday!  How great to see so many of you painting (and partying) here even in these very busy times!

Last week we asked in the poll about whether or not you create paintings to reflect the season (whatever season it may be - Christmas is on many of our minds, of course, but we have seen lots of Hallowe'en inspired painting here at PPF too!) Many of you do paint for the season/celebration from time to time or depending on the celebration, others don't and some were inspired to try!

This week we have a similar question as last - we're thinking about paintings as gifts - Christmas, birthday, wedding or other occasion. Do you give your paintings as gifts?


Please make sure to use your post URL address NOT your blog home page URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website. If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 Check-ins.


Have a wonderful time at the party! So glad you made time to drop by and mingle!

Friday, December 2, 2011

Paint Party Friday: Week 38 Check-In


Welcome everyone to Week 38 of Paint Party Friday! We hope those of you who celebrated American Thanksgiving last week had a wonderful long weekend, that your clothes do up (again) and that you found some time to paint!

We have been seeing a trend lately.... a lot of your paintings are starting to look a lot like Christmas! So we thought we'd ask about the impact of seasonal celebrations on your art. We hope you'll also tell us your favourite seasonal creation in the comments!



Please make sure to use your post URL address NOT your blog home page URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website. If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 Check-ins.


Hope you have a fabulous time at the party and that you still have time to paint at this crazy time of year!

P.S. BTW - the charming and wonderful nutcracker above was created by Kristin during her 30-30-30 project last year and was excitedly bought by EVA to join her extensive nutcracker collection. We both love him and thought he would be fun to share with you!

Friday, November 25, 2011

Paint Party Friday: Week 37 Check-In - HAPPY THANKSGIVING Weekend to our American Partyers


Happy Thanksgiving Weekend to all our U.S. friends! We are so thankful to have all you wonderful painters participating in Paint Party Friday and sharing the love of painting with one another.

Last week we talked about sealing paintings and the watercolourists pointed out that they really had no need to do that! Other media primarily used varnish or spray fixatives.

To celebrate American Thanksgiving - which will technically be over as this week's PPF post goes live - we thought we'd do another fun poll and ask about your favourite fixings or side dishes. For extra credit (haha), tell us if you have a favourite use of turkey leftovers in the comments!


Please make sure to use your post URL address NOT your blog home page URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website. If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 Check-ins.


Hope you have (had) a great Thanksgiving if you are celebrating and have a fun time at the party!

Friday, November 18, 2011

Paint Party Friday: Week 36 Check-In


Welcome one and all to Week 36 of Paint Party Friday! Great to have previous PPFers returning and new ones joining in the painting fun!

Last week we talked about how you start a painting. Of course the answer depending on the media to some extent. The watercolour painters had no need to prime. For oil and acrylics, gesso and pre-primed canvases were most popular answers though many of you had tried all the ideas the poll suggested and more! Some of you even showed us your techniques in your posts. Fabulous!!

This week we are going to go to the other end of the process and ask how you finish up your paintings.


Please make sure to use your post URL address NOT your blog home page URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website. If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 Check-ins.


Have a great time at the party!

Friday, November 11, 2011

Paint Party Friday: Week 35 Check-In


Welcome to week 35 at Paint Party Friday! It is fabulous to see new painters joining in every week! All painters are welcome here - no need for invitations, just jump in and show us what you've been painting this week, and spend a little time visiting with all the other fun painters while you're here.

Last week we enjoyed learning more about why you buy the art you buy and we hope you did too! It seems when we are charmed, we buy! This week we want to learn a little bit more about your creative process... We're wondering how, and with what, do you get your surface ready to paint?


Please make sure to use your post URL address NOT your blog home page URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website. If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 Check-ins.


Have a fun time at the party!!

P.S.  If you have any suggestions for topics you'd like to discuss (and turn into a poll) please send us an email!

P.P.S. Blogger seems to be acting up again - especially in Internet Explorer. Using Google Chrome solved most of our problems, if you're having a challenge maybe switching browsers might be helpful.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Paint Party Friday: Week 34 Check-in



Welcome to Week 34 of Paint Party Friday! Last week over 90 of you wonderful painters dropped by, in search of chocolate and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and especially to share your panitings and visit other partyers. Wow!

This week we thought we'd carry on the previous week's conversation about buying art. We're wondering why you buy the art you buy?


Please make sure to use your post URL address NOT your blog home page URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website. If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 Check-ins.


Hope you have a great time at the party!

Friday, October 28, 2011

Paint Party Friday: Week 33 Check-In


And now for something a little bit different... and a little bit fun and Halloweeny! Welcome to Week 33 of Paint Party Friday where this week the big treat, as always, is sharing in and seeing each others' painting endeavours!

Last week our poll talked about where you buy art and while "all of the above" won (as usual), the top three were - from Etsy stores, from the artist directly and from art festivals or friends who are artists. That suggests to us, that these could also be good strategies for selling paintings (if you are so inclined). The contact between buyer and artist seems to encourage you to buy and so contact with you as an artist, may encourage others to buy from you.

We would like to explore that further but Hallowe'en is fast approaching as is the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos). Many of you have been showing us art inspired by these celebrations and we thought we'd join in with a silly, fun poll and ask - What's your favourite Hallowe'en candy?


Please make sure to use your post URL address NOT your blog home page URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website. If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 check-ins.



By the way, our friend and fellow partyer, Natasha May, is having a Halloween Party !! Join in the fun on October 31st at her blog if you'd like to partake in some artsy Halloween festivities.


Meanwhile enjoy all the wonderful paintings and fabulous fellow artists here at Paint Party Friday!


Friday, October 21, 2011

Paint Party Friday: Week 32 Check In

image created at dumpr

Welcome to Week 32 at Paint Party Friday! So great to have you all at the party, showing off your painting and visiting with the rest of us PPFers!

Last week there was a great discussion at the party about framing - until the poll died temporarily. Everything seems fine now. (We are sorry - it was beyond our control and ability to fix it - we're so relieved it came back!) While you could, you told us that you use a number of different techniques for framing or that you paint the edges so framing may not be necessary. A number of you mentioned that buyers often want to make the framing decision themselves, and that made us think it would be worth looking at painting from a buyer's perspective, as we've spent the past few weeks looking at it from a seller/creator's perspective.

So we wonder about the paintings you buy - this week we'll ask about where you buy and soon we'll discuss why you buy what you buy. The answers are interesting in and of themselves but we hope they also may help those of us who wish to sell art, to understand buyers' decision making processes.



Please make sure to use your post URL address NOT your blog home page URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website. If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 check-ins.



Hope you have a great time at the party!

P.S. We've had a number of people raise the issue of Blogger commenting and the time it takes to fill out all those annoying "captcha"s aka word verifications. As you probably know (haha) Kristin and EVA are not techies or programming whizzes and are trying our best in our technological naiveté to manage PPF and keep all the players happy. Kristin and PPF eliminated all blogger moderation and word verification. So far - no problems! You may want to try taking off the word verification and just delete any questionable comments if they happen. (Or you may prefer to do as EVA does and still moderate (approve) comments without using word verification but people sometimes get confused then as to whether their comments went through. Not a perfect system either.)

It is also important to allow "anyone" to comment as some of our players have their own websites and do not use google id, blogger, wordpress etc and they want to comment but can not! (This would help everyone to visit you.)

The decision is ultimately yours and we want you all to be comfortable no matter how you decide to manage your comment settings.  We just thought it was worth mentioning since we've received so many comments and emails regarding this subject.

Some PPFers also love to reply to your comments but can't - Geri has eloquently explained here how to change that so people can reply directly to the comments you leave them.

We understand Blogger is changing everything on us soon so there may be more things like this to chat about as most of us (using Blogger) adapt to these changes next month. Let's try and help each other out and make it easy to visit, socialize and spend time together. Thanks everyone!!

Friday, October 14, 2011

Paint Party Friday: Week 31 Check In

Thank you all so much for your comments last week - we are so thrilled that Paint Party Friday is helping most of us to paint more!! Welcome everyone to Week 31 - the "Framed" edition!

Two weeks ago, we were talking about marketing your art, and there were many great suggestions in the comments, including donating pieces to charity auctions, showing your work in businesses or restaurants displaying art and signing your emails with hints like MimiTabby "I also paint gorgeous watercolours" plus many more. Have we said how awesome and helpful your comments always are? Wow! Thank you! And this week we are hoping for more comments as we know the poll won't catch everything...

That same week Scarlet asked "I'd like to learn how to frame my own work. I have no idea how to do this but would love to learn. I'm wondering if anyone here frames her own artwork and HOW." Great question! We know some of  you do (as does PPF hostess Kristin) and we think this is a very good topic to discuss to help show off our paintings to the fullest extent. We wonder - How do you frame your art? (And if you have favourite video-tutorials that show HOW, we'd love the links!)

* The blog poll site is currently down and so seems to be our poll :( Hopefully it will come back soon (14Oct2011 7pm). Sorry!


Please make sure to use your post URL address NOT your blog home page URL address as there are many late visitors who get confused as to which post is for PPF when they arrive (after Friday) at your website. If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Linky, an explanation of how this tool works can be found on Week 1 and Week 2 check-ins.

Have a great time at the party!