The old "Nigerian Scam" - still alive and kicking

I'm dealing with a sick child , as well as MORE snow and sleet and school closings, so I can report no progress on my Varenna painting today. Instead I'll share an entry I've been kicking around for a few days about selling art online. Enjoy! ****

Having had an online presence since the early days of Al Gore's notorious invention, I have made a number of direct web sales over the years. I've also seen my share of emails that have come to be known as the "Nigerian Scam". This scam is basically a fake purchase inquiry that, if the bait is taken, results in a  flim-flam for the artist or online seller (a loss of product, profit, or often, both).

It's called the Nigerian scam because in the beginning, many of these inquiries originated out of Nigeria. Now though, they seem to be popping up all over the world.  It's been around a long time, so I hesitate to even write about it. But even though they have been at it for years,  it still surprises me that there are artists (and other folks) who fall prey to them. The content of the emails vary somewhat, but  they follow basically the same formula. I get these bogus emails fairly frequently, and if you are an artist selling from your website, you have probably seen them too. But in case you haven't caught wind of this scam, here are a few red flags to watch for.

1. Sender uses a free email account (like Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.)
2. Often they don't identify a specific painting or are vague about which piece interests them. Other times they may cut and paste the title and other info about the painting in question into the email.
3. The emails often contain grammatical errors, oddly constructed sentences, no capitalizations, etc.
4. They usually want the paintings in a hurry.
5. Price is often inconsequential.
6. They want to use their own "shipping agent".
7. Sometimes they claim to live in the USA but need the artwork for their "new office" "new apartment", etc., located overseas.
8. They often want to send a check for larger than the amount of the painting (this is likely so that you can "pay them back" the difference down the road. The only problem is the check is no good to begin with, so if you fall for it you are out of your money and your art.)
9. They never want to use PayPal.

Now, I've sold quite a bit of art to clients overseas and I realize that, with the exception of number 8, it is actually possible for a legit buyer to exhibit one or two of the behaviors listed above. But when enough of these red flags appear together in the same email, well, all I can say is, sell at your own risk!

Unfortunately these scams are getting more and more sophisticated, and it is getting harder to determine whether or not an individual is for real. If there is any doubt in my mind, my feeling is it is better to risk a potential loss of business once in a blue moon than suffer a demoralizing loss of my artwork, time and energy. This is of special importance since most of these requests involve shipping the artwork overseas. Once the art leaves my country, it becomes very hard if not impossible to retrieve.

When one of these "red flag" letters comes through my email, I respond politely as I always like to give the fellow the benefit of the doubt. But if there are enough of these flags waving around, I just ask for Paypal. Scammers don't seem to like  Paypal and it usually puts them off fairly quickly.

For legitimate clients who are overseas, a good alternative to Paypal (especially for international clients) is wire transfer. Like Paypal, a wire transfer is  secure and also faster than sending a check and waiting for it to clear.

Varenna's dramatic skies (W.I.P. continued)

When I traveled to Bellagio and Varenna, one of the things that struck me about the landscape was the dramatic cloud formations that settled over these little lake towns. Possibly this is due to the altitude, or the difference in altitude between the lake and the surrounding mountains. OR, it could have just been my timing. In any event, while they were very beautiful and created spectacular displays, they also made it pretty tricky to sketch/paint en plein air because the daggone light kept changing from minute to minute. In the studio, of course all of that is much easier to control, and I get to celebrate the beauty of the clouds without at the same time cursing the inconvenience of them ;-). After I sketch in my composition, my most common approach to landscape painting is to lay in the sky and the far distance. Since the sky contains my light source, the highlighted sides of the clouds will hold some of the lightest values in the painting. Probably the only other things that approach this high value is the light bouncing off of the white painted boats.

Landscape painting of Varenna Italy in progress by Jennifer E Young

I am not sure if it's evident in this photo, but I have used an array of colors (cad orange, cad red light, alizarin permanent, ultramarine and sevres blue) to tint the clouds. The blue sky is a combo of ultramarine, sevres blue, and white.

Next distant mountains progressively deepen in value, but they are still very cool in temperature, so that they will sit back behind what's to come in the foreground. After evaluating my composition further, I decided to raise the distant horizon line, so as to push those cliffs back a bit more, in relation to the foreground town.

 After I get the painting a little further on, I may come back and tweak what I've done here. But for now  it's time to address  the water and the heart of the matter; the town of Varenna.

Varenna Shoreline W.I.P.

I feel a bit like Punxsutawney Phil, poking my head out into the public for a brief moment, only to run back into obscurity and wait out the rest of winter. It's not really fair to blame a pudgy little rodent for my absence and for all of the crazy snow days we've been dealt this winter. But given he's fictional and defenseless and  I've no one else to point a finger at, Phil it is. Nevertheless, I've started a new painting based on the small study I posted in my last entry. This is the tonal lay-in on a 24x36" canvas. Some of the lighter  areas got a little too "tonal" as I made adjustments to the drawing, (most notably the boats) but as I have my study and photos, I will make those corrections when I get into color.

Landscape painting Varenna Italy in progress by Jennifer Young

 There are only slight variations in design at this point-- just a minor reshaping of the distant hills to slow the speed of the downward slope. I also simplified and "skooched" back (sorry for the technical lingo) one building that sat directly behind the villa sitting closest to center to minimize the confusion of these overlapping forms and hopefully  create a more elegant design.

I 'm generally happy with the color plan I used in the study though, so at this point my plan is to follow its lead as I start my next steps of diving into color.

Studies

I'm baaaack. And I'm kicking off my return to blogging with a new Varenna study. I actually hesitate to call this a study, given the amount of time it took. I guess a month away from painting has left me feeling a litle rusty and slow! In any case, this painting will serve as a preliminary study for a larger piece.

Varenna Study Oil on canvas, 6"x9" © Jennifer Young

We have had rounds of winter sickness followed by school closings due to snow, so with my foray back into painting being thwarted quite a bit, I had the thought to develop a number of small scale studies of some larger painting ideas that  I've been wanting to tackle. I'll be painting some of these to scale up to my larger sizes. For example this 6x9" piece will scale up to 24x36".

I've painted various views of this harbor a few times now, which you can see here,  here, and here. I guess you can tell I am enamored with this particular view of this lovely Italian lake town! This composition emphasizes the strong horizontal of the walled town jutting out onto the lake, contrasted by the verticals of the buildings and tall cypresses.

While I almost always sketch out my composition on paper before I tackle a canvas, I usually leave the painted study for when I am out in the field painting from life. In fact, I have painted lots of studies and lots of larger scale studio pieces and quite a bit in between. Not all small paintings warrant a big statement, but I haven't been all that great about developing my viable studies into larger, more fleshed out studio concepts.  My schedule has been so sporadic for such a long time now, and with not much chance of an end in sight, I really feel like I need to have a more methodical  approach to my work habits. I am hoping that by tightening up my studio practices a bit, I might find more equilibrium when I do get a chance to enter the studio, and I will waste less time and feel less at a loss about what I am going to tackle next.

Well, nothing informs like experience, and since these small ones can presumably be completed in a fraction of the time, (ahem!) I thought it was worthwhile to have a go at a few of them, done, specifically with larger paintings in mind. I will also mine some of my other small works, in particular the plein air pieces I've done, as I think a number of them have potential for further development. I have worked from a number of them here and there, but I think there is more potential (especially in my James River series) and it could be something fun to do during these cold winter months when I'm not getting outside.

Finally complete- Tuscan Hay painting

I'm taking a break from chopping my vegetables to finally wrap up the latest Tuscany painting I left flapping in the breeze on New Year's Day. After I had my composition established and my canvas covered, it was time to go back in to further develop the background, middle ground, and foreground. It sounds very systematic, but this was really more of a back and forth dance because the value, scale, edges, etc. all have to relate and are interdependent with the other elements in the painting. For instance, in the image below, I thought I had the background fairly finalized...until I took a step back and decided the buildings were too large and too prominent in relation to my foreground house. As I moved forward to the center of interest it became apparent that these two areas of the painting were battling for attention. So I went back and softened the distant village and reduced the size and contrast of the buildings a bit more, and further softened their edges.

Tuscany landscape painting in progress by Jennifer E Young

Here's the final:

"Tuscan Hay" Oil on Linen, 20x24" ©Jennifer E Young