Reaching Out To Others

This week, after David J. announced the pending release of the new DVD 6002, I was sitting thinking of ways to market decorative painting. I remembered when I use to do ceramics many years ago that the ceramic industry was kind of divided up into groups. One group did stoneware, one did porcelain, one did slip poured ceramics, others did hand thrown works, and so on. It is kind of like decorative painting where some use wood, some use tin/metal, others canvas, glass or some other surface. Well, I got to thinking, and I do know that is rare. What if we try to combine some parts of the two industries in an attempt to reach out to other artists. So, I grabbed my keys and off to the local ceramics shop I drove. The owner and I had a brief discussion about our industry, about teaching some decorative painting classes at her shop and about using ceramic bisque pieces as a decorative painting surface. What was next? Well I purchased 4 pieces of ceramic bisque from the shop owner. What plan did I have? I had decided that I would take a few of the Heritage lessons from the manual and paint those lessons on the ceramic bisque.

And that is just what I started to do. The next step was how to I reach other artists? I decided to use FaceBook. I currently have 1830 people following me on FaceBook (David Vernon page) and 1086 following Pampered Palette. That would be a perfect place to throw out my idea, reaching lots of people and getting their response. So, I posted what I was doing on both the Pampered Palette page and David Vernon page, how we, as artists, could use different surfaces paint crossing over boundaries/industries to learn new things. So, ceramists could learn some decorative painting techniques painting them on ceramic bisque, wood or other surfaces. I even posted a picture. Next, as a member of the Ceramic Artist Guild, I posted the same information and another picture. I have been absolutely blown away with the responses. Many people thought it was a great idea to cross industries and expand the boundaries of both industries. Let's share our art........................I was even asked if I would consider submitting my finished piece for inclusion in their CAG magazine.

So, I am working on a deal to teach decorative painting at the local ceramic studio, will include ceramic bisque as a surface in my studio lessons, and possibly add ceramic bisque to my online store (the bisque will be purchased from the local studio, I am not cleaning and firing greenware). So a little idea that was circulating in my head (lots of room for that) on reaching out to fellow artists no matter what industry has created an opportunity for me to expand my involvement in decorative painting and hopefully bring new people to the Heritage family. A good week if I must say so myself............lol.

Well that is it from Pampered Palette for right now. Until the next post, Happy Painting.

Snow, Snow, and more Snow!!!!!!!

I am sorry but this is just a little too much snow for me. We ended up with 32 inches of the white stuff (other areas got as much as 40 inches). I am really not a Snow Bunny so all this snow is just an annoyance for me. Normally, I tend to spend my time traveling or just running to a store if I need something. Well with all this snow, we could go no where. We were stuck in the house. This morning things are a little better as the snow plow finally came down our street but from reports on the TV, it does not appear that it is that safe to venture out today. We will see how things go. Actually, the TV weather forecast for this coming Tuesday is for another 6+ inches of snow. Come on SPRING!

What else has happened this week? Thanks for asking. I released my very first pattern packet titled "Strawberry and Daisy Fusion" and now am working on my second one. Putting together the design, selecting the colors and finally putting the total pattern packet together was really kind of fun. I learned a lot. I would really like to thank Georgia Dawbon and David Jansen for the use of their eyes to review the materials, their suggestions, assistance, and overall help with this project. Their help is soooooooo appreciated.

Since it snowed all day Friday and yesterday, I painted a little on my next pattern piece. I wanted to work on my DVD pieces (that I have started) but the power kept flickering off and on. Then there were times it went out totally so TVs, DVDs, and computers do not work well without electricity. Go figure. It is funny because that is one thing I never really thought about. When we heard that we had the potential of getting hammered with snow, we went out to the grocery store to buy what we thought we needed (CAKE). Well, we absolutely did not think of things that we may have really needed. I never realized how dependent we are on electricity. We woke up yesterday morning around 4:30 am (as usual) with no power. Well that meant no heat (we have two electrical units and one gas unit) we could not could use the stove or oven as both happen to be electric, no lights, no telephone (we at least had cellphone for backup), no TV, no Radio, no computer, etc. The gas heating unit is the main unit for the lower portion house but does not work without electricity (hmmmmmmmmmmm). The two electrical units heat the rest of house (of they did not work). We do have a gas fireplace which, I was surprised, actually works without power. We figured we could huddle around that if the power stayed out for an extending time and we needed some sort of heat. Well, we were very lucky as the power came back on after only being out for about 2 hours. However, there are people in our area that have been without electricity since Friday night. I can feel for them. Ours stayed on most of the day just flickered off and on throughout the day.

What did this teach us? That we are not prepared for an emergency. All the food we had basically required a stove and ours was electric. We did at least have candles and flashlights but nothing to cook on or even a battery powered radio. Everything is electric. So I now have a new goal. Buy items for the house that will assist us in the future in the event of some sort of emergency. It is really funny because you would think that we could have just gone to a hotel if necessary but in this case we could dig out the driveway with no problems but we could not go anywhere from the driveway. The streets were and are just impassable. We seemed to be stuck...........so now we will be prepared for future snow, rain storms or other emergencies. We learned a valuable lesson.

We do hope that all our friends are fine and please stay warm and safe. Happy Painting!