Jay Raymond Art

Napa Vineyard - Original California Impressionistic Landscape I recently opened an Etsy store as a new adventure into marketing my work. Etsy is an amazing site that provides a free store to any artist looking for an easy way to set up his or her own shop. I literally had completed establishing my Etsy site within minutes, and after a couple of hours, I had uploaded artworks and listed them for sale with descriptions, shipping information and prices. Etsy is a huge online market dedicated to the sale of hand-made or vintage products. There is no charge for owning or creating a shop. Artists pay a 20 cent fee for each item when it is listed, and this fee allows for the listing to remain active for 4 months. When an item is sold, a 3.5% sales fee is paid to Etsy. This has got to be the best deal in world! My store has been up since early July, and I've been adding items and refining my listings based on research I've conducted. It turns out there are some really successf...

This is a plein air painting I produced at an Agency Bay beach on Leech Lake, Walker, Minnesota. It was a beautiful Fourth of July weekend, and I couldn't help but get out in the morning to paint. I used lake water to thin the paint and clean my brushes, so there's some of the Minnesota lakes locked in the surface of the image! For purchase inquiries, contact me by leaving a note in the comment field below or by going to my Etsy Gallery through the link on the right side of this blog. Thanks for looking!

This is a new abstract piece that evolved through several compositions. In fact, if layers could be lifted from the canvas, you'd find several different paintings. Even though it changed significantly as I worked and re-worked it, some of the original image remains. You can see an early stage here . While many of my abstract pieces often start out as formal experiments usually based primarily on shape, they often end up transformed by ideas and experiences I'm encountering while developing the artwork. It's as if these experiences fill and transform what began as an empty shell or skeletal structure. It's difficult to accept changes to the work as new directions suggest themselves, but eventually what started as mostly a simple compositional study becomes a resolved image filled with an idea. Finding resolution between elements of the composition and the idea is a struggle. There's always tension between what the intended outcome was and the new form almost impo...

I submitted a painting and was accepted into a show at the Franklin Arts Center in Brainerd, MN. The opening is June 4, and the exhibit features 36 artists. I'll post a photo of my piece after the opening. If you'd like to attend the artist's reception, please RSVP by May 27th.