You are cordially invited!

The last 2 weeks I have been hinting about an announcement I am about to make, and today is the day! I have been working flat out to get everything ready, invitations are sent out to everyone I have an email address for, and all the rest of you get your invitation like this, via my blog.

You are hereby invited to my brand new art gallery! But relax, you don’t have to book a plane ticket to London, you don’t even have to move from where you are sitting, my art gallery is online and all you need to do is continue reading! 

I got my first digital camera in 2004 and I took about 7000 pictures the first 12 months. I still take a lot of pictures, but not as many, around 3000 the last 12 months. However, those 3000 pictures were all taken within my house and garden, I didn’t taken one single picture outside my property, as I don’t leave my house except for when I go to hospital and doctor appointments. So what do I do with all my pictures? What do you do with all the pictures you take? Many of mine simply end up on my blog accompanying my stories about my garden. But some of them end up as sort of experiments in Photoshop, applying lots of different things, layering several pictures together and every now and then (far from always!) something interesting or nice eventually turns up on my screen. The picture here is one example, which started out as a photo of my Dicentra 'Valentine'. (Click to get a larger version - a much nicer view, promise!)

I used to upload some of my pictures to my website so I could show family and friends what I had made, and I also uploaded many of my greeting cards. Over the years family, friends and people I have met online have asked if they can buy my greeting cards and pictures, and up until now that has not been possible unless I arranged for it. Now all that has changed! Most of my digital prints and greeting cards and some of my photos can now be found on my very own online gallery – and you can buy any you like! The prints are museum-quality enlargements, framed art prints and canvas reproductions of my original photos and digital art. All of my prints can be bought as greeting cards too, and many of the prints are especially made for greeting cards. This is a photo from East London, facing Cananry Wharf.

The company where I have my art gallery is called Fine Art America and they have something like 5 mill. visitors every month. That’s a lot of potential exposure. I say potential, because advertising is all up to each and everyone. I as an exhibitor can easily drown in the masses there and therefore need to make sure people know I am here, that’s what I am doing now – so hey, I am here, online, with my pictures! So far I have 134 pictures in my gallery, nicely placed in separate sub-galleries according to type of pictures and themes. I have a separate gallery for pictures from my Woodland Corner in my garden, so far not that many pictures but many more will come in the future. This picture started out as a photo of an Arisaema speciosum and went through many stages and techniques in Photoshop before finally ending up like this. It is part of a series of 4, the other 3 pictures are of different types of Trilliums from the same woodland corner of my garden.

It is worth trying out the many different options for frames, prints, canvas prints, acrylic and metal prints and posters in the galleries when you come for a visit, as they make the pictures look all the more striking. The prints are made in the US and they send worldwide, postage is unfortunately quite expensive for large prints with frames or as stretched canvas, more reasonable for smaller prints - but all the pictures can be ordered as greeting cards too, and many of my pictures are made especially for greeting cards with text like Happy Birthday or Merry Christmas. Prices and postage for greeting cards are very reasonable and if you buy a 10 pack or a 25 pack of the same print the price would be quite favourable to most shop-bought cards here in Britain. I am expecting my first delivery of greeting cards so I can't yet tell you anything about print quality, thickness of paper and envelope etc, but I hope to receive my first order sometime this week. I will of course let all my readers know what I thought about the prints - but I expect them anyway to be fantastic from what I have read from other users and exhibitors on the Fine Art America website :-)

Some examples for you, in British pounds, although you can choose currency on top of the page at any time. All prices include envelope.

Single cards            = £2.63 / card
Pack of 10 cards     = £1.42 / card
Pack of 25 cards     = £1.27 / card

10 cards     = 16.66 incl. shipping     = £1.66 / card

25 cards     = 35.80 incl. shipping     = £1.43 / card

100 cards   = 131.43 incl. shipping   = £1.31 / card

OK, without further ado – whether you go to shop or just do some window shopping - here is the address for my art gallery: www.heleneutaylor.co.uk  I hope you enjoy your visit!

Oh, and please come back here and leave me a comment, I would so appreciate to hear what you think. And if you after the visit would like to do the same for your own pictures then please just ask if you have any questions, I’d love to give a helping hand to anyone who would like to do the same! Take care.