This morning I began the upgrade of my Art Cards, Website, starting with the cards depicing some of my flower paintings, in oils, pastel, watercolours and acrylic.
I unbundled the selection of eight cards from a grouping of eight and put them as individual items that can be purchased one at a time. 

This will make purchase easier and over the month of September '09, I will upgrade all my art print, art craft and original art web sites to make all purchases on line, from my web sites easier.  
Postage within Australia is included cost and international shipping is arranged at cost. 
Check out my first upgraded page :-
http://artcards.weebly.com/folded-card-flowers.html

I am at the Dalwallinu Show in Western Australia today, It’s a small friendly country show, in the Northern Wheat belt of Western Australia. 

This area is also famous for its wildflowers and the show was a mixture of field days with huge farming machinery on the oval for viewing and orders and a craft market with many local crafts people both exhibiting and selling their wares.  It was a lovely day despite rain showers. 

Tonight there is a concert being held on the grounds for the locals.
The photo is of wildflowers from the Dalwallinu area. Flowers supplied by the Western Roads Board who were at the show to educate about safe driving on Western Australian roads.

Tomorrow we head toward Toodyay in the Avon Valley.  That town is special to me, I have good friends there and it is a beautiful town, one I would like to spend time painting one day, maybe next year.   Next year I plan to 'free lance', travel without any show or exhibition bookings, just trust what blows in on the winds of luck.

Last year I stayed most of September in the beautiful Avon Valley as the Artist in Residence at the beautiful Beverley Railway Station Gallery. 
The lower photo is of myself, Kathy Shell, taken at the Beverley Railway Gallery.

I have my exhibition for the Fortescue festival at Newman, all set up, and ready to open in the morning. I have divided the exhibition into two sections, Reg’s stock of teddy bears and lucky dips designed to appeal to the children and my own exhibition of some original oil and water colour paintings and the reproductions of these works as art fridge magnets, art post cards, small art prints, art cards and art book marks. 

Given the difficulty of setting up this exhibition while feeling the effects of being one week in with a a dose of the flu, I am seriously considering travelling next year without doing these retail exhibitions, my work still sells, just via different venues.

The thing is Reg and I have become accepted as part of this ‘show run’ and we love the friendships we have made with the other retailers. 

I also enjoy a little retail therapy at these shows. I like to purchase from my fellow traders, both to support my friends and because the quality at these events is usually of high standard and very competitive pricing, compared with bricks and mortar stores.  Things I will be looking out for at the show tomorrow will be lavender and emu oil as it’s time I restocked my supplies, and out of general interest, the best acne treatment  Wonder if anyone is stocking flu fixes LOL, J, that work?

The trader alongside us, sells beautiful leather goods, ‘Rugged Luxury’ and he gave me a three litre cask of red wine as a gift, now maybe a glass of red, to  help get me off to sleep, right now and a couple of glasses of the red, while packing up the show tomorrow, will be the best flu fix of the lot and by the time this flu has worn off, I will have forgotten how hard it was to set this show up, while feeling under the weather.

Well that’s retail and self employment (hobby business), for you. Ups n downs but the pleasures and friendships surpass the downturns and inconveniences.    My friends in the ‘show run’, are beautiful people and ethical traders, they are hard working people I admire greatly.