The Alliance Board Members.
 

I started this harebrained scheme with a small portrait of John, the president of the Arizona Art Alliance. The group has all the best intentions and pretty much every artist in the state knows about it, but no buyers! They manage to wrangle all the disparate art groups in the city together twice a year to sit and look at each other.

Because I have been trying to explain they need to gear their outreach to people who do NOT paint, so they might purchase something, I sort of lured them into my clutches with a surprise set of paintings of all the board members I could get into one place. These are Al and Cathy.

I am not sure how many other members I need to do, but I did get a tentative feeler (as was my evil plan) to let them feature me in their materials and website. Perhaps free hanging in their juried shows for a while, but I am so used to not getting paid I am beginning to think I am the "Godfather" of art: "One day I will ask a favor of you....."

dj*

Here is the last of the four so far. The first, John, was posted yesterday in his own thread

These are very nice, Debra!

Thank you, Julie (and I have the note you sent. Thanks for that too!)

I have four more photos today!
Lucky thing I went down. The last list of members is different than the one I was sent.
here is our liaison for the group representatives.
dj*

One more. This is Chuck.

They are great. I specially liked the last one you posted.

Last for a while. Two members missed the meeting. One apparently was ill and the other was out of town. BUT there is a lot of talk of another portrait. It is escalating. Unfortunately they are so thrilled by my bad inket prints I am giving them as a thank you that only three are actually purchasing them.
Good advertising, again, not so good at income.
dj*

The last of the actual board.
 

This project has, well, I hesitate to use the word blossom as it sounds much lovelier, but it has grown. I believe there were once ten members of the board, then they had two new positions since I checked. And they really want to recognize the support people, so...

I am trying to explain what I volunteered to do, and what is sort of above and beyond. At any rate, this is apparently the last OFFICIAL board member. I am going to try to say how happy I would be to do any other lovely person in the group IF they buy the painting. Times are tough, but there is a point where marketing ends and stupid starts.

HOWEVER I still think it makes a nice group for a portfolio and promotional piece, so mission is accomplished.
dj*

All of these are nice, but I like this recent one a lot more than the rest. It seems to have an interesting visual texture (not the paper itself) -- did you use some colored pencils here?)

I should also point out that I like your signature. It reminds me of japanese seals and their function in asian art.

Really good work, Debra! The marketing thing is tricky. Sometimes it comes down to either not doing the work, or doing it free of charge. It's hard to stop in the middle of the project and say, "Sorry, you'll have to pay me if you want more" when you envision the project all completed.

Thank you both!
Ramesh,
The texture, which always looks much different from scan to post, might be my fault. I wanted to get good prints of all of these, so I strip out the white in my editing program and try to balance the colors and textures to look like the original. I may have tweaked it a bit contrasty before I cut out the white, so it does have a more crisp edge. The paper was different on all of them. The last for were a small sketchbook watercolor and the first two were 180# Arches scraps. The sketchbook is excellent for my dog portraits but it does break down quickly with smoother flesh tones. Hence maybe more interesting texture but a little crisp.

My signature is
JO
N
ES
in a box.

I have had a feeling, right or wrong, that my work on its own was suffering from being "pretty good for a girl". When I was doing more western and wildlife subjects, for some reason, done by a man, they were strong a noble, but done by a woman they were cute. VERY odd, and maybe all in my mind, but with a name like Jones, it is very hard to stand out in a crowd. I just was playing around with a logo and came up with it. Now, not only is it non-gender specific, it is ethnically confusing. SO whatever the first impression of the work is, it stands on its own.

Alexandra,
The issue is resolved. THE BOARD talked with the people who were volunteering new board members and this is indeed the final portrait. I am happy. I have given two already as sales and two more promised and it will be a good reward for my efforts. My bio is going on to the site and printed material with a small self-portrait and my hitch-hike marketing is more than I could ever afford on my budget, so all is well!

Still doing the hit or miss marketing. It will improve both of our "street cred" in any case!

These are lovely Debra! So glad to hear it worked out well with drawing the line with the board... and it's a credit to your work that the 'volunteer' board members are in fact willing to pay for them now that you are not offering them gratis! :)

That is fantastic news, Debra!

Well, I found out yesterday it was up on the site. Tomorrow one of the subjects gets another painting. Maybe two if he is in the right place at the right time.

Here is the board online:
http://www.azartalliance.com/about.html#board
Never bad to have people read my name!
dj*
(I just noticed I missed posting one of them:)

Did you miss the secretary too or am I mistaken? Glad that your effort worked out :-)

WELL! I'll be!
I did two complete pictures of her that were a little off the mark, but she just bought this one today! Thanks, for pointing that out! I guess she is so visible in my mind's eye, I forgot to look!
dj*

vibrant work Debra!

These are most awesome!

Thanks so much for your comments. As you all can see now, they added a board member. I will have a picture on Friday for a new portrait, hopefully before Monday. Well I held the line on the support people, but they did have an open board seat!
ONE more to come..
dj*

Make that two!
One will replace the photo as of June 19, and the other is the webmaster. BOTH purchases.... yippee!

These are all great, Debra - these folks should buy each of their pieces! What very nice work.

Quite the collection you have there Debra! Wow. I know those are not easy, but you have a way of making everything look so fresh and effortless. Interesting what you say about not being taken seriously as an artist because you are a woman. I think the work speaks for itself and is as strong as any manartist I've seen.