Decision on "To Zazzle or not to Zazzle?"

UPDATE:  We're not pursuing Zazzle at this time.  The payback was too low for the time investment.  We are still interested in getting Lee Carvel's Art into the hands of fans... and better ideas about how to do this at a price point that justifies the effort and covers the print and shipment from a high resolution of the art original.  Thanks!

ORIGINAL:  I'm interested in feedback from our fans of Lee Carvel Art about the Zazzle website.   The artist Lee Carvel (my Dad) only made a limited set of art prints which I have been sharing via our eBay store.  But there are many art pieces for which Dad did not create prints.  Our initial assessment was to share these via high quality digital images that can be turned in to fresh art prints on media of your choosing.  We have a Zazzle store which still needs to be populated with more Lee Carvel art images.  Do you like Zazzle or are there other similar sites that you would prefer?  This question is of special interest as we have uncovered new art pieces that have been out of public view for many years.  Thank you in advance for your comments.  - Lee Jr.

New Lee Carvel Art has been discovered!

It is my pleasure to report that new Lee Carvel art pieces have been recently discovered in family storage outside of the Carvel Studio. These art pieces include a fantastic huge Conan the Barbarian, "Smigel" from Lord of the Rings, Vincent Price portrait, horror art with Eygptian mummies wrapping up a beautiful mistress, and a prized early portrait of the transformation of Thorn -- a central character which Dad created for his movie script. My plan is to capture this art with high resolution digital processing and make it available through our art stores. And to get these on our web site as well. Watch for this soon.

Store Inventory is Coming Soon...

If you have been trying our ORDER ART ONLINE feature at the LeeCarvelArt.com website, we apologize. We have been delayed in our efforts to complete the inventory and setup of our Art Stores. We DO have the Art Collectibles store up and running under eBay stores (although we plan to do significant updates). But the MAIN and CELEBRITY art stores are not yet complete at zazzle and deviantArt sites. The main delay has been Lee Jr's absolute insistance on exceptional high quality of the digital art images and full preparation of the images for On-Demand printing. In some cases, this has resulted in repeat sessions to capture the art at high resolution. It has also included color enhancement and other techniques for polishing the digital art images prior to upload. Because of the large number of Art pieces, Lee Jr has had been delayed in completing these tasks to properly stock the inventory at each Art store. Please be patient and come back to check our web site for availability. If you have a particular art piece you would like to see uploaded first, please contact him at lee@leecarvelart.com and he will raise this item up in priority. Again, thank you for your patience.

LeeCarvelArt Web Site Completed!

The central web site for Lee Carvel's Art is finally complete. Although we had earlier announced that the web site was done, it turns out that there were a number of areas that needed further polishing and problems to be resolved (such as the Search function wasn't working for a while). Well... all that is fixed now and the About Lee Carvel section has been expanded with nice pictures and newspaper articles, eulogy, tributes, and more in honor of Dad. Please check it all out and enjoy his wonderful artwork. One disclaimer: right now unfortunately the Art Stores are not fully operational yet. I still have to process the many high resolution digital images that will enable the Print on Demand function to work. Those need to be uploaded and created into products. So please don't be disappointed when you click on the Order Art Online button. You can reach the art stores but there is little to no inventory yet.... But I'm working on it as fast as I can! Note that the ebay-based Art Collectibles store is operational and was the first of my websites to be created (although I am polishing it and you will see more benefits there).

Initial Launch for LeeCarvelArt Web Site

New LeeCarvelArt.com site has launched! -- alhthough it's not yet completed. We are doing lots of updates to finalize it. I will be working to get partner art stores set up as well and that will take time. In celebration, here's an excerpt from an interview (circa 1983):

Lee Carvel has captured some of the most well-known faces in the world, researching his subject to make the paintings more meaningful. He aims for what he calls "super-realism," making his subjects larger than life. "My competition is the lens," he said. "I hate hearing people say, 'that looks like a photo.” But the artist admitted that this was, in a way, a compliment. "Da Vinci said the greatest accolades should go to the artist that makes a two-dimensional object look three-dimensional."

There's not a great market for one of Quintanar's favorite artistic passions - the nude - in this country, but there is in Europe. "The European market loves art nudes - I'm doing six plates for them," Quintanar said. My favorite subject is girls. I don't see anything obscene in a beautiful woman. In Europe, they treat the woman as the greatest art form." His hope is to be able to do monthly pin-ups for a major magazine, much as artist Alberto Vargas did for Playboy.

Quintanar has turned out figures from the other side of the coin, catering to the fascination monsters hold for people. Quintanar has drawn a good number of creatures and science fiction characters. "We're all fascinated by monsters - there are monsters in our ‘Id’ -- it's a struggle. An artist, to me, is really living out a dream state. He chooses to share that dream."

Here's one for artist Lee Carvel. Thank you for "sharing that dream"... and making us all a part of it.

New Web Site Progress...

I expect the new web site to publish within the next week! With a lot of hard work and sweat over the last few days, I have completed a number of writes and re-writes for pages that will exist on this site.

Most notably I had the pleasure of researching and writing more about Dad for the forthcoming new version of the 'About Lee Carvel' page. Ahh... the miracle of optical scanning which permitted me to scan in newspaper articles and photos about Dad and his artistic views, philosophies, and words. It brought back sweet memories of times together with Dad and being there while he created and polished his artistic masterpieces. You'll have to check out this page when the site goes live. There are included three articles, stories about art, and special tributes in honor of Lee Carvel. I am also including new high quality photos of Dad and a special 'self-portrait' drawing that he did of himself around age 46 yrs old.

Lastly, I have learned a lot about displaying relevant Google Ad's and how to incorporate those and a site-specific Google search box into the web site design. My goal is not to be obtrusive with ad's in the midst of the users' web experience but still permit earnings.

A New Beginning...

I have begun on a new and exciting path for the Artist Lee Carvel. Lee Carvel was a consummate artist whose works covered a wide spectrum and variety of inclinations. He was also my Dad who passed away at a too early age of 63 yrs.

Now I am in the process of creating a new web site that brings forth examples of the full array of Lee Carvel's artistic talents for online users to appreciate (LeeCarvelArt.com). With the talented assistance of Lisa Cameron from Whispering Stars Web Works, this new web site will prove to be both a monument to the art of an incredible individual and a viable side-business for myself and the family.

As an interesting side note, be thankful I rejected my first attempt at this Blog: "Deadman's Canvas - The Living Art of Lee Carvel". Although catchy, it did wear on me and I changed it. I must admit though that Dad would have appreciated that macabre sense of humor!