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.