Art Fundraiser for Cancer Research...

Good morning to all, and a happy (almost) Spring Friday!
It definitely feels like Spring in the Northeast today!

As you may have noticed, I've been a bit scarce on ye olde bloge lately. No, I haven't been on Art Sabbatical in the beautiful Caribbean with no internets. But as you can see on the left side of my blog in the purple widget, I've been training!

In May I'm participating in a triathlon as part of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Team in Training! Team in Training (TNT) is LLS's largest fundraising program. Members train for months to participate in endurance events with the assistance of coaches and mentors who volunteer their time for this cause. During that time we also raise funds to help find a cure for blood cancers.

Research funds are crucial in finding a cure for this disease: For patients with Leukemia, the five-year relative survival rate has nearly quadrupled in the past 48 years! The other great thing about this news is that many of the same methods used to fight blood cancer can be used to treat other cancers (breast cancer, prostate cancer, etc.) too!! I know that by becoming a member of TNT and helping to raise money for LLS, I am making a difference.

As a way to raise funds for my mission (I'd like to raise at least $1500 but ultimately my goal is $2000 by mid-May!), I'm having an art fundraiser! So... Here's how you can get some art for a great price AND donate toward a great cause... (and it's tax-deductible! Woohoo!)

You may recognize these guys from my 30 bugs in 30 days series!

Beautiful 6-Spotted Tiger Beetle:
Bug #15 print with *printed* bright yellow-orange border in a cherry stained frame.
5"x7" (bug print in center is standard ACEO size of 2.5" x 3.5")
$10

Sweet Snail:
Bug #17 print with *printed* bright salmon colored border in a black frame.
5"x7" (bug print in center is standard ACEO size of 2.5" x 3.5")
$10

Ladybugs:
Bug #29 print with *printed* bright green border and a black mat in a black frame.
5"x7" (bug print in center is standard ACEO size of 2.5" x 3.5")
$10

Honey Bees:
Bug #6 print with bright yellow mat in a black frame.
4"x6" (bug print in center is standard ACEO size of 2.5" x 3.5")
$10

Stink Bug:
Bug #28 print with *printed* bright green blue border in a black frame.
5"x7" (bug print in center is standard ACEO size of 2.5" x 3.5")
$10

Praying Mantis:
Bug #8 print with *printed* periwinkle blue border and a white mat in a periwinkle frame.
5"x7" (bug print in center is standard ACEO size of 2.5" x 3.5")
$10

100% of the proceeds from this fundraiser are going to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. The prints have been donated by me, the frames donated by my family.

If you see one that you love and would like to buy it and make a donation to LLS, please:

1. Leave a comment on this blog post saying which one you want & your name (first name, last initial is fine). These are going on a first-come-first-served system *but* if the one you want has been spoken for, I can probably make you something almost identical- just ask! Send me an email: SamanthasArtStudio@verizon.net

2. Then go to my TNT fundraiser page here:

http://pages.teamintraining.org/cpa/nervetri10/sgallagm0a

and in the "Make a Donation" section, fill out the cost of the item you wish to buy & complete the rest of the info to make your donation.

3. When you make your donation, please be sure to fill in your email address so you can get a receipt if you'd like to write off your donation & so I can contact you and confirm the address where you'd like the art to be shipped (or if it's a gift, you can let me know, etc.).

4. When I see that your donation has been made & confirm the necessary details via email, I'll package up your art and send it out! (If you'd like to help with shipping charges let me know- otherwise shipping costs are on me as a Thank You for donating!) Or if you're local, I can hand deliver :)

I apologize that it's not as simple as shopping in my online gallery. To maximize the funds donated to LLS, it's important to donate through my training page rather than PayPal. It eliminates all the middle-men and any extra fees that would be taken from your donation.

If you're a Facebook fan, you can also view my fundraising album on my Art Page and leave a comment on the item you'd like.
Samantha Gallagher's LLS Art Fundraiser on Facebook


Don't see anything here that you love?
Be sure to check out my entire "30 Bugs in 30 Days series."

I can print any of the bugs to a 4"x6" or 5"x7" size with the colored border of your choice and frame it up for you!

I can also paint the frame a color of your choice, but please note that this could add a couple of extra days onto production- depending on if I already have the color paint that you'd like and the weather could impact painting/drying time.

Thanks everyone! Stay tuned as I will be adding more to this fundraiser soon.

My Favorite Commercial....

Spring is almost here! I just love everything about this commercial... well, except for the fact that I think soda is gross. But I love the happy music, the animation, the cute bugs...




Yay to Coca-Cola for celebrating bugs! :)

HELP HELP!!!! OMG IT'S TAX TIME.

I know for a lot of us this can be quite an overwhelming time of year. Especially if we are running our own little small business- selling arts, crafts, etc. I'm hoping this blog post might help some people out *a little* if you haven't done your taxes yet.

I know the first year I attempted to sell art at outdoor shows and galleries, I kept what I thought were very meticulous records: I kept track of all of my expenses, and all of my sales/income. And of course, saved all my receipts.
There. Done!

Uhhhh... no. Not even close. At tax time, I searched online to find out what I had to do to report any anythings about my business and found out I needed to fill out Form 1040 Schedule C. Great! I'll fill out that bad boy and away we go, smooooooth sailing from here! I downloaded the form and opened it up expecting to see this:

Income: $________
-Expenses: $________
=
Profit (what we're going to tax you on):$_______

Imagine my shock and horror when I downloaded 2 pages of big words that I didn't understand, blanks, and instructions that ran you around in circles like, "Subtract line 7 from line 42 on page 2"... so you flip to page 2 to see "Add lines 28 and 29 and then subtract line 30 then multiply by the square root of the number of beers you had last night plus the calories you burned while the wheels in your head were spinning out of control as you try to comprehend this."

EEEEEEEEK!!!

Luckily after my first year of doing my own taxes (which took me like 12 hours), I now know to keep much better and more detailed records than "spent" and "earned."

I keep a spreadsheet every year of all my tax-write-off-expenses. I put my receipts into a little stack on my desk (and save all my emailed receipts from online purchases in a folder on my computer) and when they start to pile up, I open my spreadsheet and record them. I record the date, the store from which I made the purchase, the amount I spent, and then the category (the number of the line on the tax form) that I'll need to know when it's tax time.

Expenses on the tax form are broken down into allllll different kinds of things: Advertising, office supplies, legal fees, labor, inventory-type-stuff, and a crapload of others that I don't even use. I spent hours reading the instructions for Schedule C to understand what all the blanks meant (and I kind of feel like I still don't know...). Sorting between categories each and every time I record an expense has significantly cut down the time it takes me to do my taxes! Another thing I do at the end of the year is color code all the categories so I can easily just glance at the thing and know what's what.

In 2009 I also implemented something else to help me at tax time (and help over all with expenses). I made a chart of how much each thing I sell costs me to make. So, for example, if I'm selling a print- what goes into that? A plastic sleeve, backing board, paper, ink, sometimes a mat. I figure out the cost of each of those things and add them up, then I know how much it costs to make a matted 16x20 print, a matted 11x14 print, etc. (Ink is tough, I cheat; there are websites out there with that info, you just have to find them!) When I'm at an art show, each time I sell something, I write down what item I sold, the price of the item, and in parenthesis next to that I write in what that item costs me to make. This way at the end of each art show I know my real profits, not just what I sold. I can now also easily add up the "cost of goods sold" at the end of the year, and that minus what I spent on inventory = my inventory at the start of the following year.

It's a lot to contend with, maybe I could've/should've hired an accountant to do it all. We have one who does our taxes and each year he checks my forms to make sure at least everything makes sense! And so far it has.

One piece of advice that he gave me was, "Getting the expenses in exactly the right blanks isn't necessarily the most important thing. The most important thing is just that you report everything and get it on that form somehow."

Good luck this tax season, everyone!!

Sunflowers... finished?

I still have to scan them in so the colors are correct- the colors shown here are still a little off. I think it might be done, but there's a possibility that I'll be adding a ladybug to one of the leaves on the flower on the left. A little more pop of color and something random to add interest.

However, two friends have suggested something else. One friend of mine (author of this wonderful blog) suggested a honey bee, either on a flower or flying toward them. Another friend (and author of another great blog!) mentioned that she always has grasshoppers on the leaves of her sunflowers and suggested one of those.

Either that or the bee would be interesting because I could do either of them in a way that they would almost blend in and not be noticable right away.... so there are still some other possibilities with this painting!

Sunflowers

Here's what's been on my easel the last couple of months! I've taken some time away from it to get the Christmas artwork/gifts done, and have also been spending a lot of time on my triathlon training. But I do hope to finish this one very soon and finally remove it from my easel!

I'm debating on putting a small lady bug on one of the leaves on the left-most side of the canvas. What do you think? On one hand I think it would be quite cute and visually pleasing. But I also know not everyone likes bugs.... but everyone likes ladybugs, right? Decisions, decisions!

I've done a slightly different technique with this piece, once again trying not to hide my brushstrokes like I used to do- just trying to be happier with keeping things simpler. I'm working to blend more efficiently (meaning, without having to do each coat 10 times) and I think that seems to be going well. I've also been keeping track of how many hours I've spent on this piece and so far it's only about 12. Go figure! A painting has been on my easel for 2 months (or more) and only worked on 12 hours. That is SAD. I need to really spend more time painting. Even just an hour here and there makes so much progress!

Keeping track of my hours like this will help me to figure out what's taking the most time, and when I'm done, should facilitate in pricing the art since I have such a hard time with that. Plus trying to spend less time on things will also mean lower prices on these paintings, too. I kept this one so simple, yet it still has taken me longer than I would like to complete.