Last night after taking care of some things I worked on my "Christmas" commission. It is starting to take shape nicely. As you know because this painting is going to be used as a Christmas present, I can't tell you anything specific about it. What I can say is that I was talking to another co-worker at my day job about it and she may want something similar for herself. I told her that I won't be able to get anything else done by the holidays but she is definitely interested in my work.

  The "buzz" looks to be starting as more and more people see my finished paintings and are thinking about coming aboard and investing in my artwork. You don't know how good that makes me feel as we go through more and more economic uncertainty. Like I talked about in my post on Thursday, people are spending their money but making sure that they get the best value out of it.

  This weekend I plan on printing my Christmas cards that I didn't get to last weekend. The neat thing is that if I do it early enough, whatever people don't want I can just use myself and promote my work that way. When I did this two years ago, one of my co-workers who came to this country from Russia, bought three or four off of me so the chance is high that at least one of them made it back to family in Russia!

  With all of this art activity going on it is very important that I organize my Christmas well so I'm not running all over the place at the last minute. I plan on doing my shopping in small "bit size" pieces and getting decorated fast. Having said that, I'm going to close today with a tip. Don't waste your time looking for the "perfect" tree. If you put a ton of ornaments on it and break up the colors nice it will look great, trust me! Go to the dollar stores in your area and load that baby up! That's it for today, enjoy your weekend.