Did you think I fell off the earth?

Soooo... I had some personal crap take me away from blogging, which is weird because blogging is so cathartic for me. But it was just too mind blowing and painful to write about. I promise to write about it soon, but this is mostly just to say I am still here, still happy (even after the "crap") and I almost made my last promise come true....in case you need reminded, I promised to have my website up and running by the end of March...well it went up a couple of days ago, so I was close!


Here's the link:   http://www.pawprintsbyann.com/

I never realized how much is involved with something seemingly so simple. At first I didn't realize that I had to set up the contact page to go to the web hosts email and then forward to my email, that could have been a disaster! People could have been trying to reach me and wondering why I wasn't responding, luckily I thought to send a test email! The next big thing is getting people to the site, I don't have the resources to pay to be listed on the first page of search engines, so I am going to rely on word of mouth through facebook and putting flyers up in vet offices and supermarket bulletin boards. Again, I didn't realize how involved a business facebook page could be! Godaddy gave me some credits to use for facebook advertising....I have no idea what I am doing so we will see how that works out. They also gave credits to use on Bing....again, I am clueless, was feeling overwhelmed, so I am saving that for another day! Google has an analytics tool you can sign up for for free, but I am having trouble figuring out how to access where I need to paste the code, waiting to hear back from godaddy support...If I see that people are coming to the site and not buying then I may lower my prices. I did lots of pricing research and am lower than other sites, I didn't want to go too low because I was worried people wouldn't think I was a "real" artist, but I think my samples should speak for themselves.

I plan to give it a year, I don't want to become famous or a millionaire, just get paid for doing something I truly enjoy. So wish me luck and check out my site!

It is really exciting to finally take the leap and try to make a little money off of something that I have literally been doing since I was a child. Remember the Art School ads in TV Guide and other mags? Draw the turtle, the pig or the pirate? I still have those drawings I did! I made our upstairs guest room into a gallery for all of the art that I drew or painted and kept. Most of the pet portraits from the facebook page and the website were all drawn for free and given away, just so I could have a portfolio to start this website....It was over 4 years ago that I first decided to give it a try and finally I am seeing it through!

Most of that work was done in my teens and twenties....I didn't take a picture of the wall with the TV Guide drawings...I'm not sure I was even a teen when I did those.

I am not sure if I am quite ready to write about what has kept me away, maybe I won't ever be...you will just have to keep checking back to see if I am brave enough to bare my soul.