Jeans for Genes

Today I was in Paternoster Square (adjacent to London's St Paul's Cathedral). There is a beautiful sculpture there by Elizabeth Frink called the 'Shepherd and Sheep'. Today however it had been 'denimised'. The shepherd was wearing jeans and the sheep had blue denim bow ties.
Today apparently is Jeans for Genes Day "Raising funds for today's scientist for tomorrow's children' - an important fundraising organisation for research into genetic diseases in children. See www.jeansforgenes.com for more information
I am sure Elizabeth Frink would be happy to see her sculpture used in such a creative way to help such a good cause.

New J S BACH artwork ready
I have finished my new print of JS Bach. I kept putting him off as he was quite a challenge. However I have been asked by an American symphony orchestra if they can use my portraits for a series of educational cards and Bach features in the first, to be published this month. So here he is. It is available as a fine art print from imagekind and will be sold as a poster print from art.com.
I have also added it to my cafepress shop - great presents for Bach lovers!

Which CALENDAR printer to use?
It's time to prepare and publish my 2008 calendars. Following the success of my 2007 calendar I have decided to try publishing some online. But which service to use? I have found three sites which I will certainly try out: cafepress, Zazzle and Lulu. I'll write here my experiences.
Today I have just published my Great Composers calendar on cafepress.

• There are 4 styles: a single page calendar print and three spiral bound 12page wall calendars.
• You have the option to set your own selling price which is good.
  
• It is a US based service so postage is likely to be expensive for international orders.
• Quick and easy to implement.
• Affiliate program available
• They take the order, print, ship, collect the money and pay you your markup.
  

You will find it on the front page of my cafepress store here:
http://www.cafepress.com/paulhelmshop

Henry Moore at Kew
Today we went to Kew Gardens, always a great experience. An added bonus was that we were able to view several of the Henry Moore sculptures that have already been installed in readiness for the exhibition that opens on September 15th. We were also able to see some of them being transported and installed.
This is an ideal location for a sculpture exhibition, there will be 28 large scale sculptures. I believe it continues through the winter until March 2008. There is no extra charge on top of the normal garden entrance price.
For more info see the website: http://www.kew.org/henry-moore/index.htm

Grieg's Centenary
Edvard Grieg died on 4 September 1907 aged 64.
I made this etching and collagraph earlier this year. I have just added it to my cafepress shop and uploaded it to art.com. It is already available as a fine print at imagekind.com

The Holidays are over - Back to Work

OK - so the holidays are almost over and it is time to get back to work. This summer has been great but I have fallen badly behind my plans for developing my web presence and I have not produced as many new images as I had planned.
We are already in September so I must get ready for the preChristmas selling season. I need to upload more images to Imagekind and art.com and to enlarge my Cafepress store which is doing quite well.
I plan on using eBay a lot more - not so much for selling as for driving traffic to my online stores.

Artists' Self-Portraits from the Uffizi
I've just been to the Dulwich Picture Gallery to see the new exhibition of self portraits from the Uffizi. A few outstanding ones such as Lippi, Thayaht, Annigoni and Volpedo.
It was a small exhibition of only 49 pictures hung in a long narrow gallery. The price I reckon was excessive (£8) for such a limited exhibition. But that is probably just the miser in me!
I would really like to see the Uffizi collection - the largest and most famous collection of artists' self-portraits in the world - over 1600. But they are not open to the general public - you have to make an appointment to see them.