Lake Grapevine Commission 3

"Capitan"

8" x  10", Oil on Cradled Board

This is the third commission for the same couple.  

The husband did call but he wanted a different painting of his sailboat - rather than "his sailboat" he wanted a painting of his son skippering the boat.  

Fast forward a month and I'm in my fixer house working on it when we decide to meet.  They wanted to see my house the work I've been doing on it so we agreed that they should come,  I set up the three paintings on a built-in niche in the house to display so that they can view the paintings.  At this point the husband only knows of the one painting and the wife only knows of one painting.  She does not know I did two paintings because I was going to have her choose which she'd like to give to him.

They arrive at my house, they come in, we exchange greetings, we talk about  my house and other gossip, I lead them to the room where the three paintings are displayed.

They both say the like the paintings.  And the husband turns to me and says, "are these other sailboat paintings for someone else - because I really like them and they look like my sailboat, the three would look great together, would I leave your inventory down if I said I wanted all three?"

This surprised me, of course and made the wife very happy as we spilled the beans that one or the other  were a belated Christmas gift to him from his wife.  And I was so happy that they wanted all three.  I loved the surprise on his face and the happiness in his wife's face for having surprised him.  

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

By the way, I've purposely spelled captain - capitan...it's the foreign spelling.  I just Googled "capitan" and the image of this painting pops up - how cool!

Website:  JudyMackey.com

Email: CLICK HERE

If you are interested in having a commission like the above, please email me at judy@judymackey.com.  If you like my work, I hope you will refer me to your friends.

Lake Grapevine Commission 2

"Lake Grapevine Sailing"

8" x 8 ", Oil on Canvas

Last year a friend of mine took a sailing class on Lake Grapevine.  He liked it so much that he bought a sailboat.  In one of our email exchanges he mentioned that he might ask me to paint his sailboat.

Last December, his wife, seeing our email exchange decided to surprise her husband with a painting since he'd not gotten around to sending me photos or commissioning me.  It would be too late to have it ready by Christmas but that was OK, she said and sent along several paintings of him sailing solo.

I didn't know which to paint so I painted two different views.  Sometimes I like to do that, especially if the work I'm doing is in a small scale format, and let the client pick which they'd like better.  So yesterday's post with the painting of the sailboat and today's sailboat is for the same couple.  

Although the painting would not be in time for Christmas, she still wanted to keep this as a surprise for her husband so we talked on the phone on the sly, deciding on sizes, etc.

About a week later, she calls me rather excitedly to tell me that her husband would be calling, finally, with a commission for a sailing painting but I was to not tell him about her commission and do whatever he wants - even if he might be emailing me the same photos.  

I'll tell you the "rest of the story" in my next blog post..

Website:  JudyMackey.com

Email: CLICK HERE

If you are interested in commissioning a painting like this, please email me at judy@judymackey.com.  If you like my work, I hope you will refer me to your friends.

Lake Grapevine Commission

"Lake Grapevine"

8" x 8 ", Oil on canvas
Commission - SOLD

I haven't been taking my own advice.  Blog often and visit other's blogs and leave comments.

I bought a house last year which was not in the best of state.  It had good bones, i.e. no issues with foundation and the roof is fairly new.  I was going to re-sell it right away so I left it vacant for the past year.  At the beginning of this year, I realized keeping it vacant and not updating it was not helping it sell so I decided to fix it up and now I've decided to live in it.

Fixing a house to re-sell and fixing a house to live in is a little different.  There are things I've been doing to the house to make it more comfortable.  This has been eating up a chunk of my time and sadly I've put my blogging on hold.

It is a little hard to get back into the groove of blogging...it will be a challenge.

Website:  JudyMackey.com

Email: CLICK HERE

If you are interested in purchasing a painting like this, please email me at judy@judymackey.com.  If you like my work, I hope you will refer me to your friends.

Musing about Marketing 101

"White Vase"

8" x  8", Oil on Gallery-wrapped canvas

Last week I signed up and joined a local Jazzercise class.  During the month of March, Jazzercise classes on Fridays were free to try out.  Several of my friends do the Jazzercise and have been telling me how much they enjoy it so when one and then another of my friends asked me to join them for these free classes, I thought it a great opportunity to give it a try.

On one Friday I went to the free class at a location near my house and the following Friday I went to a location a few miles further away. 

I was torn between the two classes, both had enthusiastic instructors, the exercise is basically the same, one location was closer....

When in the mail, a few days after I'd attended the class which was further, I received a Jazzercise postcard.  It was a simple card but it was handwritten by the instructor and she wrote "Dear Judy,  Thank you for trying us out.  I loved having you in class today.  I hope you will join us."

Since it had been in my mind to join some sort of exercise routine, guess which one I joined?  I've not heard a peep out of the other class I attended.

By the way, the instructor who owns the franchise to the class I joined has one of the top ten largest Jazzercise class in the nation.  Can you see why?

This makes me think about my own marketing - a simple thank you - a necessary ingredient in succeeding.



Website:  JudyMackey.com

Email: CLICK HERE

If you are interested in purchasing "White Vase", please email me at judy@judymackey.com.  If you like my work, I hope you will refer me to your friends.