Me and Etsy

Well I started my etsy shop in Feb 09. It has been 10 months by now and time flies so fast. Looking back in time, I realize that I have indeed come a long way. Learned so much from so many etsians in some way or the other and I have grown on creative as well as business path. Originally started with just the idea of giving a platform for my father's paintings from his exhibition in Sydney, now I myself have fallen in love with handmade artifacts, arts and crafts, as well as supplies for making those things. And I am glad to see Etsy supports all of these. Not that I did not love handmade arts and crafts earlier, however I must say my passion for arts and crafts is regenerated. With help of my father, by now I am looking at providing painting-PRINTS at lower costs than original ones, I am also looking at providing beautiful and exciting supplies for art and craft projects. I have also re-learned few things about "making" creations as well. Couldn't have been happier. Must say, I thank all my buyers, people who have added me as favourites, etsians who have helped me with shop improvements and suggestions. I also thank my friend from the US, Taru for introducing me to etsy in first place. Well I want to grow my online shop for sure, while making the customer happy through simple little ways, and I am ready to research further on providing new exciting product lines, better customer support and well priced items as always. Stay tuned at "Creations- The Art Shop".

Introducing Dashing Miniature Lord Ganesha

I am very excited to introduce this new series of miniature clay made Lord Ganesha. Have a look for yourself at the following link:


http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=34183494

I am hereby attaching the image as well of the new listing on ths shop. I can imagine variety of uses of this little wonder. You can use it in art and craft items such as 3 D paintings, you can use it in home usage art/crafts such as traditional wall hangings. You can get it framed just like that as well. Or if you have spiritual belief in lord Ganesh (Ganesha), you can also carry it in your purse or bag. Finally you can use it for gifting your loved ones. This supply item can really be used in many creations that you heart seeks to make.

I am learning too

This is the first time I am writing about my own creations..Well regards creating- I do have enjoyed creating things all the time and now I have formally started learning painting, two of my paintings are ready. Both are Warli paintings, one is on hardboard and other is on wood. Both are colored and the hardboard one has got decorative mirros pieces as well. I used acrylic colors and for the wooden painting I used acrylic tube (3 D) colors. I will update this post with the pictures soon. The activity was fun indeed.

Listed On Etsy Treasury For The Second Time

Well second time getting listed on etsy treasury is again a thrill. This time I am more prepared about it. This is the item (painting) that got listed in treasury :
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=32652328
Perhaps if the treasury listing is still active, you would be able to see it at
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=72303

If you cant visit this link, no worries. Let me explain a bit. A very sweet etsy user and shop owner Caron (aka shop name: BeadSire) loved my shop and picked up the given painting ( which is based on energy chakras) for her latest treasury which is a series on the 7 chakras. Glad she liked my shop (and of course my great father's painting). Thanks so much to her. Father and everyone at home is excited too.

Listed On Etsy Treasury For The First Time

Very are happy to announce that our painting http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=21600099 was selected for Treasury on etsy (by member: FlashForward). It was a day of dance indeed for us. At first I was confused as to what it means to be listed there. Perhaps I had not researched etsy on that front much. Basically it's member curated gallery of etsy. This particular item is indeed a very refreshing dancing scene of Warli people. My father was excited too to hear this. The next day 4 of our paintings for sold as well. All this is making me feel so fulfilled with joy and sense of responsibility that I am required to do better work on my etsy shop and in general to promote our art in the world of art-lovers. Thanks for all the love and support.

Sale Sale And Sale

Sorry readers I haven't been up to date with my blog. I have been in the midst of shifting base from Australia to India. Finally done. As far as Creations, our art shop goes, it will work even better since me and dad can work even closely. I can visit him and discuss new ideas for the shop in person. And yes, in the meantime I must admit I have mainly been renewling the listed items and /or putting up items on sale and further sale. This is the final sale we have going on at the moment. Also father is working on some new set of paintings which I will blog on with greater details shortly. We realize that we need to put up more of abstract paintings as well. Let's see how the shop remake goes. Till the next news, bye bye and take care.

Titles Of Our Artworks

As you visit our online shop (creations1000.etsy.com), you will see some interesting titles given to the paintings. I mean, I can hope you will like those once you look at the painting and then start relate to those yourself. It has become my hobby to give different variety of titles to different paintings. Looking back, I feel the names are derived from emotions the paintings provokes in me, famouns song titles, some teamwork activities and right words corresponding to those. It just feels great to convey one of the "perceived" meanings of the artwork. As any art-lover would agree, perception of art is also what makes it different. And it may vary from person to person. At the same time, while purchasing, a buyer is always looking for something, some expression he or she can relate to. And by giving right names, I feel I am serving this aspect of the art shopping better. Hope you will enjoy the titles!!!

Price Tag: How much?

Well you would also want to know how we have been deciding the prices and what is going to be our pricing strategy in future? Here is how we go ...

- We do market research based on category, materials used, size of the similar paintings. We definitely do not want to overprice it!
- We analyse our supply costs, artist's time gone into it and finally but not the least we rank 'creative value' gone into it. Now it's quite an intangible value, so we do our best to quantify it rationally.
- We also provide bulk purchase discounts.
- Quality of materials used is also another parameter, for example - all papers may look the same. However if the we have used high quality paper then the price tag would reflect that reasonably.
- Shipping and handling costs are also optimised for regular mailing options, parcel size and delicacy. Bulk purchases often help reduce shipping costs.

The goal is to provide our buyers the best value for money they are paying.

That's it for now..will continue to add on to this post as we evolve with betterment in our pricing strategy.

How was the exhibition?

In the month of September '08, when father was here in Sydney, I had started wondering what if I put up an exhibition of father's paintings, drawn during his trip. My husband gave many ideas on overall how the paintings should be in order to be exhibitable. I thought of few ideas on where to exhibit, either at my place or at Padhye's residence or at one of the council halls nearby. Our close buddies Rashmi and Rajesh Padhye had happily offered their residence to be used for exhibition purposes. I just kept thinking until it final struck me that father's date of return will be approaching soon. Since invitations had to go out ahead of time, I checked with Rashmi again, and she asserted and said - "Don't worry, we can defnitelty do the exhibition at our residence". Then many activties started at fast track- creating invites, planning for snacks, arranging for the bluetak, categorising the paintings, numbering them and what not.

The day arrived, 26th Oct '08. We all at home and at Padhye's residence finally managed the show. Many guests came in, apprecaited our efforts. We had not kept sale as our objective of the exhibition, still a few sales occured which was welcoming. In retrospect, we could have planned better, created more large size paintings (than smaller size) considering the audience requirements. At the same time, we did best of ourselves. Rajesh did a bit of video shoots with his new camcoder and the memories will now remain with us forever.

What is the Origin of Warli Art?

The Warli or Varli are aboriginal or indigenous people who live in certain parts of India, primarily states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. They have their own beliefs, life and customs and they speak an unwritten Varli language mingling Sanskrit, Marathi and Gujarati words. The word Warli is derived from warla, meaning "piece of land" or "field". They carry a tradition stretching back to 2500 or 3000 BC. Warli art has become well known worldwide over the years for its universal aesthetic appeal.

Warli paintings use very basic graphic vocabulary: circle, triangle, line and square. Circle representing the sun and the moon, triangle derived from mountains and pointed trees. Only square seems to obey a different logic and seems to be a human invention, indicating sacred enclosure or a piece of land. Most of the Wali paintings depict simple village scenes such as farming, wedding, dances, prayers etc. I personally love warli paintings for their simplicity.

My Special Precious Corner

Thanks to blogger, I finally got a small "space" on Internet where I can write about me, in the context of "Creations" - my big/small venture. I mean it's small right now, and I dream of making something big out it, not just for monetary reasons but also in terms of touching people's lives, giving them little joy through our collection, helping them make their gifts to loved ones stand special. I am glad to be from the family of family and friends who are equally (in fact even more) addicted to art as me.

Well, basically I am a computer engineer by education, always enjoyed logic, engineering drawing, boolean algebra and gates. Human mind and its amazing power always fascinates me. Excellence is my pursuit. I am certified NLP Practitioner. My experience as Business Analyst and as Business Process Management consultant helped me learn business aspects in their own rights. This is the first time through "Creations" I am applying those for myself though. It's fun and at the same time it's a challenge. There is nobody like "they" now who doesn't do things right. Nevertheless it's an interesting journey I must say- writing my experiences, working on promotions at etsy, listing the products, describing them from buyer's perspective, taking photographs of the products and last but not the least- to see orders and to strive to provide best value for money to my customers.

When I first thought of setting up an art shop? Well, I will have to go back into the timeline and make a transderivational search :-) My father attended an exhibition on Warli paintings (alias: Varli, folk or aboriginal art, from Indian tribal areas). I was excited to discover this new form of art. I was intrigued by seeing those precise little characters working in their villages, dancing, celebrating. They didnt have "real faces" and at the same time they were so representative of human life. I drew a few myself, well I had given certain well recognized drawing exams during schooling and I did enjoy preparing and learning for those. Since then amongst all forms of art, Warli paintings became my "top favourite" ones. And then I believe they have universal aesthetic appeal too.

So it all started with Warlis and now I am here, still interested in taking father's art (and possibly many artists work) ahead for its apt recognition worldwide. Our scope now is not only limited to Warli though.

Artists Corner

He has been living his entire life drawing paintings and is dedicated to art in general. Chintaman Rudra (my father), after completion of degree in art from JJ School of art, Mumbai, started working as an artist in a well known government office in Mumbai, while simultaneously working as freelance artist for various firms. His rich experience of over forty years encompasses various forms of arts and commercial work such as busienss logos, greeting cards etc. In Oct 2008, he created a great set of paintings for our informal exhibition in Sydney. Here is the picture of "work in progress" from exhibition time..Life has taken an interesting turn post retirement for him..Earlier slightly dull looking (thinking that he is "retired now") Mr Rudra is now excited about innovations he can bring into his paintings. He is also excited about the online shop (creations1000.etsy.com). Well, not just excited he is amused to see a few his paintings being sold on internet by worldwide buyers. More about exhibition and other fun things..in a separate blog post.

What do we passionately create?

At 'Creations - The Art Shop' we create variety of abstract, folk and nature paintings and some specialized Indian form of handmade art here. Our paintings are canvas or paper based and uses acrylic or oil colors. We have a wide range of products based on as pricing, quality of material used and creative value gone into it. We cherish vibrant colours and we cherish the value we provide to our font-of-handmade-art buyers.

We also accept custom orders, say your want specific design of your choice, or you want our design made with your specific requirement on size, material (canvas/paper), colors, special effects (like 3 D effect). We also design business logos and accept orders for the same.

What is there in name? Creations..

As I get more and more insight into human nature, I realiase that all these human minds and after seeking creations, creating creations and thus growing. What is one of the greatest pursuits of human lives..guess it's to continue to create. And the scope of this phrase 'to create' is so vast that it encomasses almost every area of our lives- creating houses, creating great food, creating artistic artifacts, creating work, creating pottery, creating 'thoughtlessness', creating photographs, creating music, creating silence, creating toys and creating friendships..What is the difference between making and creating then? Taking a closer look at these, creations involve passion whereas making is more process oriented. I want our work to depict the force of passion, hence the name Creations. I can always technically "make" food, but the food created with passion is "felt" for sure.