Although I haven’t posted about painting in a while, in fact, it’s actually been since about November that I put paint onto a canvas; this doesn’t mean that I haven’t been creative. Although it may seem that it has been a 6-month break, I actually have worked on some important website updates that have taken a lot of my time.

Last September I moved to a new host in order to accommodate WordPress as part of my own art website. This would allow me to write news articles that are part of my actual website and to better keep my art fans up-to-date. Being a bit OCD, that was a huge challenge as there are so many options and routes that I could take. If you give me more then about three choices, I’ll shut down and that is exactly what I did.

So I focused on one of the smaller websites that generate a bit of income as I had at least three websites to update. As some of you may have known, I worked as a website designer for many years until technology took me down at which point, I now focus on my art.

My Ancestry website took only about a month to complete. I didn’t have to actually get my hands dirty doing any coding as I used a new type of website development tool that builds the website responsively all using blocks of visual panels that you drag and drop where you want to place them. The tool is Mobirise and I highly recommend them for anyone who is not familiar with the intricacies of web development and for designers who prefer to work as visually as possible, without fighting with code. It is also good for those who know a bit of code in order to prototype websites quickly and then tweak the code for themselves.

The next website, Everything Lucy, took the longest as I had to do a lot of new research plus it was over 1,100 HTML pages! Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a huge Lucille Ball fan and I have run a large fan website for over a decade but it drastically needed an overhaul. I added a lot of new content on not only all her TV Shows but movies and radio show as well. This website took almost 4 months to complete, working on it every day. I used a different prototype design tool, Webflow to build the site. It’s a fun site and there are some minor updates to do but anyone who is a Lucille Ball fan will appreciate the work that went into this website.

The last website to complete, of course, is this art website, vicritchey.com. I researched a number of templates but wanted this to be a minimally designed site so the focus is on my artwork and not on the site itself. So I used Mobirise to design the pages and WordPress for the news section. Knowing HTML, I was able to do a few tweaks to the design under Mobrise and used a Newspaper type template that I also tweaked for the WordPress section. It took me a bit longer do this site, about 2 months but at least now I can maintain and update more frequently with ease.

My new art website is designed for you to quickly see my latest painting progress as well as the most recently completed paintings on the home page. I also have a social media feed displayed on the home page. My artwork is featured in two places, under Art as well as those pieces available for purchase, under prints, where you can configure the prints with matting as well as frames. You can order my artwork as wall prints, phone cases, accessories, greeting cards and on T-Shirts and apparel! If you are interested in the original artwork, then contact me directly. For those interested in commissions, I have put together some information that people have always seemed to ask, including pricing. So if you are looking for a unique painting for yourself or as a gift, please be sure to visit this page.

Now that these website redesigns have been done and have taken my time away from the studio, I have some marketing to get accomplished and then back in the studio! I will be finishing up the painting that has been sitting on my easel and work on some other paintings that have already been started as well.

Just as my paintings are a piece of creativity, so are these websites. Please be sure to visit them when you have the time and let me know what you think. It’s been a journey and now I have to brush up on my painting skills again!