Open My Eyes

The first time I realized I could sell my art, was when I came home for a holiday and was talking to my sister. She told me about Outsider Artist on Ebay. It first made me laugh, looking at some of the pictures it reminded me of the things I would draw in high school on my note books. My sister who went to Rutgers and took art classes started selling watercolor sketches and mini teddy bears.The ABC's of Making Teddy Bears

She was making small 4x7 pictures of blue poodles and selling them  for about 10 to 20 dollars. So as a joke I did a picture of a cat and she listed it for me. It sold to my surprise. It wasn't until years later when my job transferred me to California did I really start thinking about art as a business or a way to make a living.

When I was in Ca my girlfriend who is now my wife lived in Pennsylvania. So to pass the time I started working with paper mache Papier-Mache Monsters: Turn Trinkets and Trash into Magnificent Monstrosities
and I have always loved Halloween. Searching on the Internet I found a whole new world. There was a number of pages of how to build anything you could imagine. www.monsterpage.com  There were kids along with people selling Halloween props and posting pictures and directions on how to build everything related to Halloween haunts.

At this same time I started a T-shirt business with my sisters artwork www.chicarttees.com we put her dog pictures on T-shirts and mugs and took an ad out in US Weekly.