20 DEC 2010 Prizes are all gone!

The final winner came round to pick up her framed print yesterday. 
So the six winners of our daily prize draw have chosen and collected their prizes.


This who they are, and what they chose  [cue drum-roll]

20 Nov 2010   Ava Jessey     'Polperro Low Tide'   by Colin Ruffell

21 Nov 2010   Daina Warbis   'Girl with Kite'   by Fran Slade

27 Nov 2010   Louise Courtney   'Lets Play on Brighton Bandstand'   by Colin Ruffell

28 Nov 2010   Christine Connoly   'June Summer'   by Shyama

4 Dec 2010    Nicki Winton    'Brighton'  by Colin Ruffell

5 Dec 2010   Anne-Marie Roberts   'Lets Play on Palace Pier'   by Colin Ruffell


Thanks everybody who came to see our show, and thanks indeed to all those who bought artwork from us.


Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

17 Dec 2010 A Golden Moment

 Today is our 50th wedding anniversary. So here are some photos from that day.

We were art students. We had no money, so we borrowed the clothes. Everybody said that it might last a year or two.

6 Dec 2010 End of Christmas Open House

Yesterday was the last day of our three weekend Artists Open House event. Phew!
Now we clear up. 
You can see more photos of  our show and visitors on the Facebook fan page photo album.


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=19204&id=122614404465769

Here is a shot of the weather just before the last weekend. A foot of snow fell on Wednesday night that turned into ice and made travel impossible on Thursday and Friday. But the fates are kind, and overnight on Friday the rain washed it all away.

21 Nov 2010 Day two, and a prize winner!

We hold a daily prize draw during our Open House events. The prize is a framed 'limited edition' or something equivalent. The winner chooses an image and we arrange a size and frame to suit their requirements. This morning our first visitor, Ingrid, pulled a card at random from yesterdays visitor records and we had our winner. The card was entered in the name of the youngest visitor yesterday, named Ava, aged about 6 months. So today Ava's parents came back to choose a print from our catalogue. 

Ava will be hanging a Ruffell print called 'Polperro Low Tide' in her room in Cambridge.

20 Nov 2010 End of day one!

The start of our three weekend Artists Open Houses show was quieter than previous years. This probably because we are opening a week earlier than most of the other houses in the Brighton trail. Here is a picture or two of the show on the first day. We sold original paintings, prints, and cards plus guest artists exhibits. Looking forward to tomorrow.

17 November 2010 More about Facebook...

Yesterday I wrote here that I have enjoyed cracking the Facebook thing!
Actually I feel like a religious convert or teenager on a first date.


The journey of spending a bit of spare time going through the process of learning, understanding, and implementing was much easier than I thought.
And it was deeply satisfying to get the results of the time spent so quickly.


I really do recommend that any artist who wants to get noticed should get a Facebook fan page. [It is now called a LIKE page].


I followed the guidance of Chris Farrell and his 'Understanding Facebook' series of bite sized videos.
Click here to see how much free stuff he just gives away!

16 Nov 2010 Facebook excitement

Just a couple of weeks ago I was uninspired and unimpressed by Facebook 
I knew that it was popular and that it was being used by many other artists to promote their work.
But wasn't it shallow and trivial?
I felt that this very blog, plus my own website [www.colinruffell.com], plus our business website [www.crabfish.com], and my Linkedin groups, was enough.
Then I found an online teacher who showed my how to do FB better, and who explained the viral process. I also read a couple of books recently that added excitement to these viral possibilities and another that supplied explanations about the naturalness of social media.


So I stuck in and re-created my Facebook profile, made a bunch more FB friends,and then created a LIKE/FAN page with this welcome picture. And already 50+ people have 'LIKED' it! All in a couple of weeks.


. 

Do you want to go and have a look? 
Here is the link http://www.facebook.com/ColinRuffellArtist