Chambers’ first exhibition was a group show with West Malling local authority 1968. He worked in picture restoration in London 1969 and met Salvador Dali in Spain in 1970. In 1974 Sidney co-founded The Retigraphic Society and worked in screen printing and process photography. He also studied for a BA in Art History, participated in many exhibitions and completed many commissions/private sales.

“I do not have a profound philosophy to explain my work. I hope it stands on it’s own merit for what it is, an image that I have produced from information gathered, humour or pretentiousness is added later with the title. If it is appreciated by others that’s comforting, if it is disliked by others that’s sad, but not lethal.”

“For me being an artist is self indulgent, manual labour and to some degree therapy. If I couldn’t paint or draw I would go mad, I don’t know any Artist that feels differently to me, were all addicted to Art in some way and all a bit mad, some more than others.”

Sidney was awarded the Palm Award “Certificate of Excellence” at The Domain Gallery Leipzig, Germany, 2008. His website is: www.sidneychambers.com.

Karen Baker Thumm

Karen set aside art for many years to start a family but returned to college and received a degree in commercial art in 1984. For ten years she did pet portraits and then horse portraits and is now concentrating on fine art. Sporting art and english riding are her particular favorites. Although she also paints, pencil remains a favorite medium. She is an associate member of The American Academy of Equine Art and an award winning artist.

Karen has been a horse owner for many years. She is learning classical dressage and likes to trail ride on her special horse, Scottie. To see more of her work, visit her website, Alpha Mare Equine Art or follow her blog, Drawing on Life; The Art of Karen Baker Thumm.

My Black and White Note Cards are now marked for clearance on my primary pencil drawings site (www.pencilplace.com), here in my Pencil Art Blog Store and at my namesake site – www.kelliswan.com. I am clearing the shelves to make room for a brand new selection of note cards later in 2010! $5 packs are reduced to $2 … and … $10 packs are reduced to $5!!

Marketing materials are very important in starting and building an art or craft business. Some of the most important pieces include: business cards, flyers, an artist statement, and a bio/resume. I am surprised at the number of emerging artists I meet who have work ready to sell and not so much as a business card on hand!

Create a business card, and keep plenty of them on hand. With the availability of online discount printing sources, business cards are downright cheap these days. Carry the cards with you, attach one to every original, print, necklace or anything else you sell. Hand them out at networking events. Post them on bulletin boards. The card should reflect your name and contact information. A nice slogan or tag line to help people remember you is also a great idea. Try to pick a form of contact that won’t change frequently. That might be a formal address, cel phone number, email address, website address or blog url.

A nicely designed flyer is also quite valuable. The flyer should contain information about you and your work. People want to know about you – the artist or crafter! A great flyer would consist of your artist bio, your artist statement, a picture of you and 1-3 pictures of your work. An artist bio (short for biography) is written to tell people more about the artist. The bio can be written in 1st or 3rd person, though it is often found expressed as a third person view (appearing like a publication review of the artist.) The artist statement can be anything you choose, though most artist statements reflect an artist’s philosophy and vision for his or her work. The flyer does not have to be large or printed in full color. A 1/2 letter size sheet works well, and can be reproduced on home printers. On the back you might list your Awards and Accomplishments. (You can see a sample Artist Bio and Awards/Accomplishments List for my Pencil Drawings at pencilplace.com.) You will want to include contact information on this sheet as well. As with the business card, include one with everything you sell.

If you have enough written copy and images, consider a brochure. A 3-panel brochure, even a 1-color version, makes a nice addition to your marketing materials. They are also easy to drop in the mail as they fit in a #10 envelope. Add a greeting letter and a business card and you have a complete marketing package!

Portrait by Duane Lawrence

Duane has been drawing since he was very young. Just about every child draws, but at an early age Duane began to get responses from the adults in his life which indicated that perhaps his drawings were special.

He began with super heroes from the Marvel comic book collection and even thought he might become a comic book illustrator. But in his late teens he switched over to portraiture and began to explore the style that he employs today.

Duane took art classes in high school and college but soon after that all creations went dormant for a while. In fact, he did not put a drawing pencil to paper for many years. Several years ago he began to draw again, in earnest, and today there is always a work in progress.

Mr. Lawrence works in the “photorealist” style, similar to artists Chuck Close and Robert Bechtle who use photographs as reference material. These works are all hand drawn and are not conversions from photos by using any software rendering techniques (like Photoshop). Each drawing takes a great many hours to complete.

Portrait by Duane Lawrence

In addition to being an accomplished visual artist, Duane Lawrence is also a vocalist and professional voice-over artist!

Duane does accept commissions. To see more of his work and to learn about his many other creative talents, please visit Duane’s website at: Pencil Drawings and Portraits by Duane Lawrence (www.duanelawrenceonline.com). You can also email Duane at duanelawrence at duanelawrenceonline dot com.