Art at CafePress

As previously mentioned, I've been in the process of getting some of my wildlife and landscape paintings available through CafePress. Three up so far, probably another today or tomorrow, each in its own shop linked, of course, to The Insolent Lad Emporium. More shops will be opened, as I can, when I can.

These paintings are probably at their best on products such as postcards and note cards, rather than larger prints and posters, but I am offering some of the latter. Note that I have attempted to remain faithful to the original dimensions of the art rather than cropping or changing it to fit CafePress's templates. Therefore, some borders are not symmetrical on the prints; I'd rather leave it up to the end user to crop them, if desired.

The newest stores are:

Stephen Brooke VIII : The Pigeon House, a painting of a colonial-period building in Virginia.

Stephen Brooke IX : Great White, a shark swims the deep blue ocean.

Stephen Brooke X : Gulf, a painting of a boathouse in Naples Bay (or Gordon River) in Florida.

The New Stores

As promised, I've now a gaggle of shops at Cafe Press to replace the one 'premium' store from which I previously sold. Here's the list (though you could just come by the Emporium page at my site):

The Insolent Lad -- well, that's an obvious name, eh? Same as the old all-in-one store. It has my Chopin Liszt design. For classical music buffs with a sense of humor.

The Insolent Lad II -- of course. My Chopin When Baroque thing. More classical music humor.

The Insolent Lad III -- inevitably. The Lute Lad design is there. Not that anyone cares, it's my worst seller. Based on a painting by Hals but insolentized.

The Peanut Road Collection -- ah, a change! I hope to have more Peanut Road shops in time. The In Vino Veritas design is featured (for all the winos on your shopping list).

Stephen Brooke -- got me a whole bunch of these. The first four have my wildlife drawings, starting with Standing Tall (a buck deer, um, standing tall).

Stephen Brooke II -- more wildlife, this one with a Florida theme. The Wood Storks picture, a favorite.

Stephen Brooke III -- continuing with the wildlife, this one features Treed, a raccoon up a tree.

Stephen Brooke IV -- the last wildlife drawing of the group, this one is of the Cheetah.

Stephen Brooke V -- yep, more eponymous shops. Here we get into the holiday art with The Christmas Tree.

Stephen Brooke VI -- continuing in the holiday spirit, I give you The Madonna (no, not the singer).

Stephen Brooke VII -- and last of all, The Christmas Star. More shops, more must-have merchandise, in time!

Changes Coming

I've a month and some till my 'premium' shop at Cafe Press is up for renewal and I am opting to switch back to multiple basic stores instead. The cost -- although not really very high -- was simply not justified when I could do the same thing with individual free stores for each product, all linked to the web site.

So far, I've created four new stores. One a day...I'll keep it up until each and every design has its own shop and then I'll close down the premium store. Links to the stores will be posted here when they are all done.

POD CD SNAFU

I HEREBY officially give up on selling print-on-demand CDs through Cafe Press. They just keep messing up the graphics. For all I know, the audio may be just as likely to come out wrong. So I deleted my very-low-selling Wind on the Prairie, Wind on the Sea album. Permanently. I'll try home brew for a while, as it's not really worth having run off professionally by Disc Makers or Oasis or whomever. The new one -- if ever completed -- is another matter.

Tee-shirt and such remain but without the CD (or any future ones) there is a lot less reason to keep (and pay for) a 'premium' store at Cafe Press. I'll be going back to the free stores for individual designs very soon, all linked up to my web site.

Red Bubble

I'm trying out a new site to sell some of my designs and art, Red Bubble. It seems that it might be preferable to Cafe Press and Lulu for selling higher quality prints. Probably not quite so attractive for tee shirts and such, as pricing is higher.

Anyway, my page there is at: http://www.redbubble.com/people/sbrooke

Only one design up at the moment -- I was testing the waters and put up something just to try out the process. The plan is to get new and better scans of my artwork up soon, not only at Red Bubble but perhaps at the other shops too.

Goin' Chopin

It's time to introduce a few of the designs from my store here, starting with my 'Chopin' series. These are available on tees (including black), mugs, etc -- the usual suspects -- via my CafePress shop. The first is 'The Chopin Liszt.'

And then there is my 'Chopin Baroque.' Yes, they're pretty silly. They're also my biggest sellers...

So please stop by the store for these and more! I'll get more product up, by and by.

Introductions and Stuff

The point of this blog is to announce news and introduce designs at my store, The Insolent Lad Emporium. More of that to come.

In the meantime, a mention of the first CD we were intending to offer, The Wind on the Prairie, The Wind on the Sea (by Stephen Brooke on Deadman Bay Records) : our plan was to have it available on a print-on-demand basis through our Cafe Press shop. This has not worked out well; CP is fine for printing tee-shirts and such but they can't seem to get their act together when it comes to CDs. We will -- soon, we hope -- be offering it directly from our site, along with more music!