Friday, February 24, 2012

ITS THE LAW - Artist get your Tax Certificate and Collect taxes for your state

Its the Law, Once you start selling a couple of paintings or any other art that you create you must get a tax certificate or license even if you are only selling on the internet. When you sell a painting in your state you have to collect the taxes and give them to your state.
Every state is different, in Florida they tell you that you can do it online for free but that never work, the forms on their website never work. The best way of doing it is to go to your local Department of Revenue, fill out a form it will cost you $5 and you will walk out with your certificate. You will also get a Certificate that will deffer you from paying taxes on materials that you use in creating your art.
Once you have your State Tax Certificate at the end of the year you will have to declare your profit of our annual sales on your Federal income tax. When you calculate your profits remember to deduct all the costs of running your business which includes all material used. You can also deduct your monthly internet fees, ebay fees, paypal fees and any other venue that you are using. You can also deduct the price of trade shows, membership to artist guild, the price of entering a show or competition, advertising on business card and postcards, frames and even some of the power that you are using to maintain your studio and keep track of the gas and car milage that you are using when you are doing things that are related to your new business. If you are just starting out you will be showing a loss and you will be ahead of the game. Keep all receipt and Good luck.

Monday, January 9, 2012

How to transfer your image on a canvas?

How to transfer your image on a canvas? 
I recently held a three hours oils still life workshop, the students were from starters, amateurs and professional artists and the number one question that was asked is how to transfer the image to a canvas? or how to start painting?

A) There are many ways to transfer a picture on a canvas, the easiest way is to use carbon paper. For those of you who are more mature (older) like me you should remember or know what carbon paper is. Yes you can still buy it from art supplies stores, ACMoore, Michaels, Pearls, Jerry's Artarama, Office Max, Staples etc...
      

1) Enlarge your image and printed the same size as your canvas. Most printers print 8 1/2 by 11 inches the size of a piece of paper. If you are not as lucky as I am and don't own a large format printer or plotter you will have to play around with the standard printer. What you have to do with a standard printer is split your image in different sections, take the image and crop different sections like the top right side and save it as imagenameA,jpg then do the left side and save it as imagenameB.jpg etc until you can take the different sections (tape them together and cover the whole canvas, you will have to experiment until you get it right.
      2) Next step is to tape (scotch or masking tape) the carbon paper face down on the canvas, make sure you cover the whole canvas and don't worry if the carbon paper overlap. Tape the image over the carbon paper on the canvas and center it the way you want your painting to look like. Use a pencil, pen or an object with a sharp point to trace the picture, press hard while tracing just make sure that you don't put a hole through the canvas. You can test how the image is going to transfer before you start tracing your image by drawing (tracing) a small line on one of the corners and pull carefully the corner of the image and the carbon paper to see how the line was transferred. Trace everything, the more detail you have the easier it will be to paint.

B) Another way to transfer your image is to create a grid. Make sure that your image is proportionate to the the canvas, for example: the canvas is twice the size of the image or 4 times or 8 times the size of your picture etc.... If they are not proportionate the transfer will be distorted.
    
 

1) Place a ruler at one corner of the picture and connected to the opposite corner and draw your first line, do the same to the other corner. Draw a horizontal line at the center of the picture where the first two line crossed each other, now do the same by drawing a diagonal line through the center of the picture. Now you have 4 different squares, do the same to each of the squares and keep on doing the same until you have many small squares.
       2) Do the same to the canvas so you can have the same grid with the same amount of squares on the canvas, make sure that you are drawing the correct image on the corresponding square on the canvas.
       3) Now you can transfer your image by drawing small square by small square, when you are done step back and you will see your entire image in the canvas. You do not have to erase the squares off the canvas, you can apply the paint right over them. Now have fun and start painting.

C) There are many other ways to transfer images on a canvas, will talk about them later and let me know if you have a preferred way of doing it.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback, Ezi
Don't forget to check my website: http://ezistudio.net

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Finest Artist, Finest Website....



International Artist Ezi has sold and showcased his paintings in:
England, France, Italy, South Korea, China, Israel, Egypt, the Bahamas, Bermuda and in the US from coast to coast.
  • Chosen to be Coral Springs Festival of the Arts 2012 Signature Artist. http://www.csfoa.com/
  • In January 2012 he will be teaching a workshop on still life. http://www.jerrysartarama.com/

  • Exhibits in:
  •  
  • The painted Easel Art Studio Weston FL,
  • Coral Springs Museum of Art FL,
  • Broward Art Guild Gallery FL,
  • American Orchid Society Gallery FL,
  • Delaware River Gallery PA, 
  • Simply S.O.T.A. PA, 
  • Howard Gallery PA,
  • Gallery 125 NJ,
  • Sand Castle Gallery PA,
  • Philadelphia Sketch Club PA,
  • Riverrun Gallery NJ
  • and many other local galleries. He was invited and showed his work more than once in most of these galleries.
Three books about Ezi's Paintings have been published.
Ezi is a member of Broward Art Guild, Boca Raton Museum and the Artist Guild, Coral Springs Artist Guild, Artist of Yardley, TAWA and the Sketch Club.