ORIGINAL LANDSCAPE PAINTING - 24x24

Name: Chad Wys

Shop Name: cwysart

Blog/Website:
www.chadwys.com
www.cwysart.blogspot.com

Location: Peoria, Illinois

A little bit about Chad:
I’m 24 and in-between colleges at the moment. I recently graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in English and Art History. Thankfully, I am enjoying a year of relaxation and work before I enter graduate school. I will go on to study visual art in some fashion; likely in the field of art history.

What do you sell that would appeal to the guys?
Since joining Etsy in April most of my time has been dedicated to painting landscapes. I also paint more gritty abstracts from time to time that really demonstrate my more masculine side. Frankly, I think landscapes are unisex; both men and women can take pleasure in nature. My paintings tend to be somewhat rough, loose, minimal, and containing extreme contrasts in color… all attributes that could function equally in a bachelor pad or in a stay-at-home mom’s kitchen. I’ve never catered to one sex over the other and I think that has been an important benefit in my work.

Where do you sell your stuff?
Currently, the best place to buy my work is on Etsy. I have been looking into possible gallery representation as well as the website Artbreak.com. The #1 resource for finding links to purchase my art will always be my personal website (www.chadwys.com).

Original Landscape Painting - 24x24

How long have you been in business?
I have been selling my paintings for 4 years now. I began by using eBay as the primary tool for getting my work seen. eBay has been good to me over the years, but Etsy has quickly become my favorite online marketplace.

How did you get started?
I’ve been artistic my entire life. I started drawing pictures long before I knew how to read. I was an admirer of Monet by age 5. Mostly, I am inspired by the work of other artists – hence my interests in art history. It was only a matter of time before I made the jump to painting. One day I got the urge to post a painting for sale on eBay and, much to my amazement, it sold for a surprising sum. I’ve been hooked ever since.

How do you get the word out about your shop?
Thankfully, my Etsy shop has been catching on all by itself. It’s a great feeling to post a painting and then have it sell in less than 24 hours- or in some rare cases a few minutes. The best part about the whole experience is working with such kind and passionate people. There hasn’t been a bad seed in any of the people I have dealt with yet… which has been a pure delight. Things couldn’t be running smoother (knock on wood)!

Portrait of Olive

What’s your creative process?
Occasionally I’ll preset a time that I will sit down and paint; sometimes the urge to paint just comes out of the blue and I’ll have to drop everything and grab a piece of paper or a canvas. If I see a piece of art that really moves me then I may get a rush to create something of my own (it’s a fantastic feeling). I’ll either get my LARGE painting palette out or my small one, I’ll squirt out my main colors, find a favorite brush, and lay down the first layer of paint. I often use a hair dryer to speed up the drying process. I nearly always have an idea of what kind of picture I want to create, though sometimes it morphs into something else entirely. A landscape might become a bizarre, non-representational composition or vice versa. Music is almost always blaring loud when I paint, whether it’s Coldplay or Beethoven.

What do you want people to know about your work?
I’m an artist well aware of differences between decorative art, created for profit, and more conceptual-based or intelligent (if you will) artwork created not necessarily to turn a profit. I’m a budding art historian… I get it. What I am finding is that the Etsy consumer base gets it as well, and therefore artistic integrity is greatly rewarded in that marketplace. The greatest skill, I imagine, for any artist is to balance the conceptual and the meaningful with the sellable. I hope that I do this. I don’t want to create empty art that creates a duet with your sofa, I want to create something that will pop off your wall and mean something to those that see it.

Manganese - original abstract painting

Anything else you’d like us to know?
I may be an artist but I am also an avid art collector. In this regard, I have a perspective from both sides – as a seller and a consumer. I think this helps me a great deal when marketing my work and dealing with my customers. My greatest passion in life, besides painting, is collecting antique artwork; be it paintings, prints, works on paper, sculpture, ancient antiquities, and so on. I’ve got a little bit of everything around the house and it serves as a solid source of inspiration on a continual basis. Art is the best kind of investment: it can be seen and enjoyed.