Handmade on Amazon, Live and Ready for my Pet portraits!

Sarge is looking for his portrait painting
on Handmade at Amazon!

Handmade at Amazon opened for business today and my shop there is live and open for business: My Handmade at Amazon

I need to add more samples and more of my woodblock prints and other art, but am optimistic that Amazon will do this up right and publicize it to make it worth our while.

I'm so honored that I was chosen as one of the pioneers of Handmade!  It's exciting and encouraging for sure!

And I hope Etsy gets off it's self-appointed high horse for handmade and actually advertises for buyers for us.

If they still really want customers of true handmade, that is. Which is of course debatable, given their encouragement of factory made in the past two years!

Ebay vs. Etsy for Art, First Steps in Transition

Saluki Custom Portrait by me,
artist Robin Zebley

Today I'm beginning my first steps in my experiment in opening an Ebay store to see if it can pick up the slack that the nosedive in views at my Etsy shop.  More on that in this post about my Etsy views declining.

In order to make an Ebay store a better deal than just listing, I need more listings.

The Ebay rep I spoke with said I could convert my listings to my Ebay store when I was ready.  So my first step is to load my listings.

I have to work around my portrait commissions, but I get drying time since I use a pretty standard medium to paint, I dislike the look of the ones that speed things up.

So, don't have days to work on this project, but I do have hours.  So....off to work!  Have a great one, Robin.

More of my blog HERE.

I'm Philadelphia area painter, Robin Zebley.  I paint custom pet portraits in oils and colored pencil, house portraits in watercolor and ink, and anything else that catches my eye!  I'm currently working on florals, still lifes and landscapes in between my commission work!

I would love if you'd help me by tweeting, pinning, or facebooking my work with a link to my site, robinzebley.com.  It really helps!  Thanks!!  Robin

On Painting Big, what am I afraid of?

Why am I not painting big?  I just received an order for a dog portrait painting so large that I had to figure out the shipping before I could even give a quote.  Measured in FEET, not inches!  Which leads to the question of why am I not already painting large?  Is it fear?



Boxer Dog Portrait ACEO, 2.5" x 3.5"

THIS is my comfort level...inches, not feet.  When I started out 12 years ago, I was amazed and thrilled whenever I sold anything, and those anythings were ACEOs on Ebay.  I could NOT believe people actually spent their good money on something I did!

Well, hopefully I've gotten a little more confident.  But maybe not enough.  Other artists in my life have been challenging me on this.  Why do I think an 8" x 10" is big?  Why do I continue to offer small, and not large?  Well, I do offer large but have very few samples of large.  And not very large.

It's not like working small is easier.  In fact, it's harder to get good detail, hard on the eyes, hard on the back, scrunched over a table, etc. 

But I think it is a fear, and one I aim to get over in the next few months.  Fear of being too bold.  Fear of appearing too confident?  Fear of paying a little more for art supplies?  (I still tip my hat to the late artist on WetCanvas whose tag line was "Paint Like a Millionaire").

Fear that charging more means I price right out of EVERYONE'S market?

I am not sure.  But I have lots of paint, lots of big brushes and lots of everything else needed to paint large and I'm going to do it.

Watch me.

How's that for hubris?  YIKES!
Thanks for reading!  Robin