Closing My LITDigitalPaintings Etsy Shop

I started my Etsy shop back in 2012. I rediscovered my love for watercolors and pastels on my iPad. I started to paint pet portraits and thought I would give it a go on Etsy. I spent a lot of time and energy on this website. I literally self taught my way on two art apps - most recently Procreate. I had 341 sales over the years and still get requests from returning customers. Digital art has changed a lot in the last twelve years. And with AI anything is the limit. But each portrait takes a lot of time first sketching and then hand painting every speck of the canvas. There are also fees for every image and over time the revenues just didn’t match the expenses. So yesterday I decided to close my Etsy Shop. It was rather an easy process. I didn’t take the final step of actually deleting it - yet, but probably will once I feel more up to it. I still have my website and other sites that showcase all of my work - Redbubble, TeePublic, Amazon Merch, Zazzle, and Fine Art America/Pixels. On top of that Pinterest, Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram are also maintained. I want to thank all of my Etsy customers for the enjoyable experiences I have had painting beloved pet portraits. My Etsy shop was a small business venture and I learned a lot. Now I’ve moved on to taking photos for the 52Frames weekly challenges and create composite images as projects. Some of those images are being used as uploads to my other websites. It’s an evolving process just like everything else. It’s sort of sad to say good bye, but the pressure of turning around portraits isn’t worth the effort like it used to be. I still love painting portraits - I’ll just do on my own schedule. 

Etsy Sales Milestone

I started my Etsy shop in 2012. It was soon after I rediscovered my love for painting when I found an app I could use on my new iPad. At first it was just sketches - several that were done for my three children’s books. Then there were several from trips we took to Iran, England, Denmark, and items from our Capitol Hill neighborhood. Then I started doing custom pet portraits. My first order was from someone in Oregon and it was a Vizsla. Then it took off from there - especially around the holidays! Last week I got a note from Etsy that I hit a milestone in sales - 300. It felt good. The 300th sake was a downloadable rendering of women on the steps of Persepolis. Now I have shops on Pixels/Fine Art America, Amazon Merch, Zazzle, and Redbubble and my own website that pulls it all together. It’s really nice to be noticed out of the millions of images and sites that are out there now, though it takes a lot of self promotion via Twitter, Instagram, Facebook business page, and so many more. The program I use on my iPad is no longer supported, so now I’m learning a new app on my new iPad Pro and Apple pencil. It feels like I’m starting all over again and my subject matter has changed to women from Persia - from the scenes we saw in Isfahan. Digitalart is a great hobby and I’m always working on something. So thanks for reminding me of my 300 sale milestone Etsy. I can’t believe it started way back in 2010 when I got the first iPad. Who would have thought?

LITDigitalPaintings on Etsy

I started my Etsy shop in 2012. It was after I got my first iPad and relearned how to paint from watercolors and pastels to digitalart. It was all self taught. The primary purpose of the shop was to create custom pet portraits. But I also did a few paintings of our travels, our Capitol Hill neighborhood, and my Betta Fish. The bulk of my commissions are of pets, and it takes a lot of time to work with the customer until the portrait is “just right.” And you can imagine the holiday season is quite busy! I also use the digital images to populate my other websites - my own, Zazzle, Redbubble, Pixels, and Amazon Merch. What was most interesting is that this year, my downloadable artwork has also been noticed by people from all over the world. Yesterday two paintings from Iran were sold to someone in Denmark; another Iran painting was sold to someone in Philadelphia; Two Betta fish images and the scene of our grandson shoveling snow were also sold. It’s really nice when someone notices those - they mean a lot to me and are very personal. And even better - I don’t need to do anything because they are already completed. I always send a thank you note to the customer because I really do appreciate that they noticed my work out of the millions of images out there. So thank you again for looking! It’s been a very interesting holiday season. Now I need to get to work on some pet portraits! 

LIT Digital Art Zazzle Store - Sold IPad Mini Cover

I set up a Zazzle shop in 2013 or so. It's an opportunity to post my digital art, and if anyone is interested, they can purchase the images on a huge variety of products. That's what makes digital art so much fun - the options are limitless apart form the traditional mat and frame. For quite some time I have not been able to add new images to the shop and have been too lazy to call and get it fixed. So I am tickled pink when I receive an email saying someone has purchased one of my images. This time it was of the Sussex spaniel on an iPad mini cover and the buyer was from France. Since most of my work is custom pet portraits through Etsy, it always amazes me that these shops have such a reach to customers all over the world. Other purchases were from the UK, and Germany, along with places in the US. But what thrills me the most is that there are literally millions of images to sort through on this site, and even if a handful of people like mine so much to purchase an image, I am so pleased! So that reminds me that I really need to get this website working for me again so I can upload the most recent digital works - and there are a lot of them! Thanks for looking! 

Updating the Wagtime Gallery Wall on Capitol Hill

Across the street from the historic Navy Yard on Capitol Hill is Wagtime! It's a great place for all things dogs and cats. And luckily for me, I have a storefront "gallery wall" to showcase my digital art custom pet portraits. Every few months for the last few years, I've been updating and refreshing the wall with the custom portraits that I've painted for customers from all over the country. Once I have at least fifteen or more available since the last update, I print them from my iPad to the very slow HP printer in my closet studio, along with a few sheets of business cards and a few in process photos. Then they are cut to size and everything is packed up in to my carry case, including spray on and stick glue and Velcro. Since most of the new pieces replace older ones, I don't need to mount the new images on new foam board pieces, but simply stick them on over the older images. It's so nice to be able to show the portraits this way. I'd like to thank Lisa Schrieber for allowing me to use her space, and really appreciate the positive press Wagtime has provided. If you are ever in town and happen to be by the Navy Yard on M street, please stop by and take a look! 

Ardsley Custom Pet Portrait

I've had my Etsy shop for almost four years. I love to sketch digital portraits - especially dogs. Some are more whimsical and challenging than others. Ardsley was one of those. He was dark and mischievous looking and I hoped I could capture what I saw in his eyes. I couldn't help but smile when I was working on it. Yesterday I received feedback from the customer who ordered it and the comments could not have been nicer. It always makes me feel good to know I was able to paint an image of a beloved furry friend and get such positive feedback. Thanks so much! Ardsley was a really fun project!

Shop.loistavaf.com

Well, I'll give it a try! I started an Esty shop almost four years ago. It's called LITDigitalPaintings. It is a wonderful way to promote and create my digital art. I do a lot of pet portraits, but also most any custom request. I've had commissions from all over the US and around the world. Etsy Recently introduced the opportunity to showcase your products on a website called Pattern. I have a website I created on WordPress, but I find it difficult to maneuver around, so the updates are limited. But since I have a Wordpress domain, I was able to use it for my Etsy website rather than an Etsy domain. It took a bit of doing, and the folks at Wordpress were great to work with. So I finally found a theme I liked, did a bit of tweaking, and launched the website yesterday - shop.loistavaf.com. It's a free trial for a month, and then $15 per month. It's almost a full time job maintaining all the social media updates that are already in place. I need more time to actually paint the commissions when I get them! But exposure is the key and this is another route. Let's see how it goes. Why don't you check it out and give me some feedback? I would really appreciate it! 

New Etsy Shop Look - LITDigitalPaintings

I've had an Etsy shop since 2012. It's called LITDigitalPaintings. It's been a fun adventure because I am finally doing what I always liked to do - paint. Using my iPad as the canvas and a stylus as my brush makes it even more fun - and easier - because my studio travels with me. And,the final product is a JPEG image that is an email attachment and it can be used over and over. Every once in awhile, Etsy changes up how things look. They add more variations to the website, and try to improve the look and feel of things. This time the whole shop look is changing, and I've been working on my banner and icon. The banner is a compilation of some of my favorite pieces that includes dogs, cats, birds, and people. The icon is simply my initials that I use to sign my portraits - LIT - which is my name. There is a section of what's on the shop, ratings from customers, daily updates that I try to maintain, and an about section. All in all it looks quite nice. I hope everyone else thinks so too! Feedback is greatly appreciated!