Painting Inventory - how I keep track of my artwork

No. 8432

Pure Abstraction Series

40 x 30 x 3/4 "Mixed media, acrylics, sand, & oil on canvas

(c) Deb Chaney 2009

Original Available

Feng Shui Recommendation: Placed anywhere in your home/office this piece supports your inner health and vitality. To further amplify this area of your life, place this painting in the center region of your home/office.

There are quite a lot of programs and software options out there that can be used to inventory artist work. I used E-artist at one point when I had a PC but found it pretty clunky and not that fun to use. When I switched to Mac, at a friend's suggestion, I decided to keep things really simple and use Iphoto. Here's what works for me currently and how I keep track of all of my works - completed, sold and currenlty in inventory.

I start by creating a separate album for each body of work. For the sake of this blog and simplicity I'll work with my 'Pure Abstraction' series, since its my most current and what I am adding to and seeling from most right now. When I complete a painting and photograph it, I add it to this album. Then I click on the 'information section' that appears at the bottom left hand corner of iphoto of the particular painting image is selected, and in the notes section I add have the following information based on an "inventory" template I created. I do this for every painting I produce, sell, and exhibit so I can keep track.

Here's the blank inventory template:

Inventory Details

Painting Title:

Belong to group/series:

Medium:

Substrate:

Size: (H x W x D)

Year:

Sold/Selling person/interested:

location:

Feng Shui Recommendation:

Posted:

cafepress Y

Blog Y

website

Other notes -

Here is a specific example of the information I keep on the painting shown at the top of this blog.

Title: No. 8432

Belong to group: PureAbstraction

Medium: mixed media, acrylics, sand, & oil

Substrate: canvas

Size: (H x W x D) 40 x 30 x 3/4 "

Year: 2009

Sold/Selling person/interested: Available

location: inventory Vancouver

Feng Shui notes: Feng Shui Recommendation: Placed anywhere in your home/office this piece supports your inner health and vitality. To further amplify this area of your life, place this painting, with the intention to support your health & vitality, in the center region of your home/office.

Photographed for prints? Y (home done, not great, re-do)

Posted:

cafepress - need to convert RAW to TIF ( find out format required)

Blog - Nov. 17-09

website - TBA

Other notes - Emailed image of this painting to Gail at Pedro's cafe, Granville Island regarding exhibit there- need to follow up.

new Black & White mixed media piece in process

This piece is 30 x 40" on canvas and may still be in process. I just put a thin layer of heavy gel matte to act as an isolation coat and prevent the water soluble pencil ( Derwent) and other medias - gel pen, PITT pen, charcoal, C'aran Dash white water soluble crayon, and permapaque marker from smudging if I decide to paint more layers over it. I was talking to my friend Lyza over Skype the other day - we did art show and tell ( it was so fun and energizing) - and she said "ohhh I love this one, you should paint more" we'll see. Maybe there is another black and white hiding inside me somewhere but I am more excited about some other pieces I'm working on and don't plan a series of these. My friend Steve said I should check out John Virtue's work who paints mainly in black and white. His work is very dramatic and I must say its fun to limit the colour palette and just focus on form and contrast with just the two colours.