art theft and scams

work in progress - oil on wood

Today I found out about a website that steals art images from galleries and artists blogs and websites and offers them for sale as posters.  Even found several of my painting images on there.  Very aggravating, and must be illegal, but it's a reality in this age of the world wide web.  Lots of lurkers out to make a buck any way they can.  What can artists do?  I suppose watermarking images might prevent image theft, but I've never bothered with it.  The thieves are a website called Wallpart.com  I did sign a petition  to try and get it shut down.  Please do the same by clicking here.


About 2 months ago I almost was hooked by another art scam.  This one was out of Ottawa, and sounded legitimate to me...donate a painting for a fundraiser for colon cancer by Ottawa hospitals.  All sorts of info was provided, who would attend the fundraiser, how to package the art, where to drop it off, etc etc.    I had my donation all wrapped up and ready to take with me on my weekend trip to visit Holly in Ottawa.  Then I started actually clicking the links provided to the fundraising website, and other various links.  They didn't work!  I finally clued in!  I got in touch with the contact person... I had been corresponding with a scam artist all along! All sorts of lame excuses were given as to why the links didn't work, I was assured the site would be up and running very soon, but "please bring the painting donation to this storage unit at this time and place, yadda yadda yadda"....you guessed it...the contact person wouldn't be there when I arrived but there would be someone on duty at the storage units to accept the donated painting!!!  I was really bowled over because I didn't think that I could be scammed.  Thank goodness that I caught on before I actually dropped off and donated my painting!! Ask Holly, it really BUGGED me.  I was pretty consumed with the idea of almost being swindled for the rest of the weekend I was ticked off about it!

Had some painting time this afternoon, and worked on another abstract. Here's how its progressing.

Escape Route

Escape Route - oil on canvas
18x24 inch $600
click here to purchase

I'm enjoying working on abstract paintings with oil paints and pastels.  It seems the only thing at the moment that holds my focus long enough to get any kind of flow going.  I like the freedom and the intuitiveness while working on them.  It seems to quench something down deep in me.  At this time when things are a little 'up in the air' in our life, it's just what I want to do.