Wanna be a Cow Girl, Baby

My best horse friend here in Indiana has a daughter that is also a June bug baby and her poor horse underwent surgery recently.  It was an unsure thing if Bucky would live through the whole ordeal, but she came out of it fine.  So I drew Val and Bucky rounding a barrel for Val's birthday!  Here it is:

I am excited, because I don't usually use different colors than what actually is there in the picture or in front of me.  I've been trying to break out of my comfort zone and want to eventually dabble in abstract, but we'll have to see how that goes.  Abstract = scary to my incredibly literal mind.  If I'm working from my imagination, that's a different story.

Updates on where I am in my goals:  I have a better understanding of GIMP now, and am playing with a few images just to familiarize myself with it, but I should honestly put more work into it.  I need to smooth my logo out and get the business cards and stamp made. 

I think I've improved my woefully awful photograph ability slightly.  Check out Daphne: African Godess to see what I mean: 

Better, I hope.  Plus I discovered that my camera has a *GASP*  Macro setting!!  When did that magically happen?  lol.

I've also been trying to research how to market myself besides just vomitting out work on Facebook and hoping it will garner some interest.  Some interesting things I've never thought about were brought to my attention and rightfully so.  I should get my work appraised by a professional dealer.  I should join a guild to get exposure.  I should start trying to find juried shows and competitions to get my name out there.  And before I ask someone for help, I should figure out what I actually want them to help me with. 

Makes sense.  You can't become a successful actor without an agent, so how can you even possibly conceive 'making it on your own' as an artist if you have no experience with the trade you're trying to break into?  I had 2 professors at my university appraise an 8x10 inch colored pencil drawing for $220.  But since I'm not a known and sought after artist, I don't think I can command that price.  Not yet. 

I think my July goals will be to join the local art guild, find a gallery/art dealer and pay for their opinion (if not be able to have them sell pieces for me), and work on improving my Etsy store.  The only merchandise in it so far are those magnets.  Kinda sad and scrawny looking right now, BUT.  There is something in there!!  Gotta start somewhere, right?