What about that then! Whooooey she's a fine beauty. 6 feet of twin tube light and opaque perspex. Damn straight I tell you she be the finest box in all the land !

Its been a mad week, today (saturday) we put up the new box specially built to display the new wood framed hangers. The rest of the week I sat down and went for a full on networking publicity mission.

Firstly the facebook page, Pete Gillies Glass & Art. At the start of the week I had about 20 'likes' and by Friday I had got 45. I put up a post that there will be a prize going to one of the first 100 folk on that list. Generally sharpened it up and posted some new photo's. That is hopefully going to be useful in letting folk know about the gallery, cause I need to get people to visit & spread the word.

Next up my Folksy shop. I sorted out the paypal business which was not a difficult as I had built up in my head. Took photos of some of my current favourite items and uploaded 'em. So they are up n for sale.

Next up from reading some forum posts on Folksy I discovered a whole heap of things I should be doing. So I joined Flickr, Craft Juice, updated my Craft Scotland details, got on twitter.

So it seems you need to make a daily effort to all these sites and more as well as looking & commenting on other things to get kick back to your page. I'd rather just make a nice shop and then someone looking for glass will search, find it and i'll have a sale. But that doesn't happen, the game is publicity even though in a way it feels totally contrived.. And if you aint doing it the hundreds of other folk are, and your work will never be found. So im all over that like a rash.

Now the alley cats. The girl who had this studio before me said there were some feral cats that kick around here and will come and sit in your window if you leave it open. They are pretty wary and will bolt if you try pay them attention, but its kinda cool seeing them hanging about out my window. Like gang members, ragged ears and scars. Maybe there is a cat version of the Warriors going on right now outside. A wet Saturday night in Glasgow a group of cats have to make it back across town...

I managed to unlock the grills on my window and climbed out into the alley out back, it faces south and is great to sit and enjoy a coffee. Thats going to be a favourite place come the spring / summer. This week it was nice for like 5 minutes but as its about -1 degree I wasn't hanging about. The cats sat and watched me, I kept an eye on them... I wouldn't put it past em on trying something. Note to self, don't fall asleep out there in the summer.

ART - I haven't mentioned art in a while, well last week I spent a couple days on this picture. Its a combination of some other ideas, and it worked out rather well. The only change I would make is making the background hills more a very dark sepia colour, not straight black. But the pencil work over the paint worked great and will definitely translate into a future painting. This was on card and my masking fluid nearly ripped a couple parts of the picture so it would need to be done on canvas or board next time. I have always wanted to paint on board because sometimes the canvas isn't smooth enough. Especially as I like doing a lot of pen liner work over acrylic and inks. Thats something I need to read up on.

But the copper ink spray as the stars looks great, and I really liked the leaf area at the top of the picture. Loosely painted them in watery white, not being too pure about it, mixing in some dirty water and kept it loose, its the pencil work over the top that sharpens it out and you can make use of the paint work.

Feeling good with what I completed this week, if I can get the blog views up and a lot more likes on the facebook page i'll be a very happy man. I caught a group of ladies leaving the tea room this afternoon and invited them to come and see the studio. I think that might be what I have to do next week, just sit out there at the lunch time period and invite folk in. Good old fashioned 'Word of mouth' at the end of the day is way more valuable than any amount of blog views and facebook shares I think, getting people through this door is crucial.

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"The Hidden Lane" 1103 Argyle St Glasgow G3 8ND