Show Prep and Christmas Ornaments

Tomorrow I will be participating in an art show at a local animal shelter.  After my recent blustery day show, I am pretty excited to be doing an indoor show.

As typically happens, this week I got ideas for several new projects that I wish I could complete by my show.  I started working on some new Christmas ornaments.

I've accepted the fact that I won't get that many done by Saturday so I probably won't have them out on my display, but I am having lots of fun and am excited to sell them at a future time.

Sometimes You Have a Bad Show

A couple of weeks ago, I had a booth at a local street market.  It was my first show after having a baby and I was excited to get back into the swing of things.  My show did not go well.

This was the only picture I got of that day and you will have to excuse the poor lighting.  You see, the day started out with a little bit of wind and a chance of rain.  By the time I left at 3pm (3 hours early), there had already been moments of pouring rain and almost constant wind gusts.  I pretty much spent the whole day holding onto my canopy to try to keep it from blowing away.

Don't worry, I wasn't alone.  All the other vendors did the same.  My booth-neighbors eventually braved the chance of rain and took down their canopy after it launched six-feet into the air.

Because of the weather, there were almost no visitors that day.  In the course of six hours, I sold $3 worth of merchandise.  Needless to say, I did not make back my $35 booth fee. 

The final straw occurred when there was a small house fire across the street from my booth.  Don't worry, it was immediately under control and no one was hurt; I'm pretty sure it was a kitchen fire and there was no property damage.  But the fire department was called in and all the vendors got moved to a small, disorganized cluster on one side of the street.

I'm not sharing this in a "poor-me" kind of way.  It's fine.  Really I'm just sharing this so other artists know that it is okay if you have a bad show.  I've had great shows where I get lots of good feedback and am selling regularly throughout the day.  Other times, I have a slow show where I barely sell more than my show fee.  And then there are days where I have the worst show I've ever had where my metal canopy frame bends from the force of the wind and one of the few comments I get is "why are these so expensive?"

But the good news is that sometimes a bad show means you get to attend a wedding with your husband that you thought you were going to have to miss because your art show was ending later than you originally thought.

Peacock Cards

Hey All! 

I just wanted to share some new cards I posted in my etsy shop.  I made these using a print of one of my paintings from the 30x30 show.

Peacock Card

This was the first painting I did in that series and I was really happy with it.  Happy as in, I don't think I could ever sell the original.  But thanks to a local print shop, I can share my work with the world.

Note Card Sets

Also, if you are in the area, I will be selling my work at a local show in Duvall, WA this weekend.  Stop by and say hi!

30 in 30 Show

Hey all!

I wanted to share a few pieces I've been working on lately.  In a couple of weeks I'm participating in a show called 30 in 30 at Avanti Art and Design in Seattle.  Participating artists were given 30 canvases and 30 days to paint them.  It's June 12 and I've finished 12 paintings.  Wish me luck.

And just so you know that not all artwork turns out well, here is one of my failed paintings.  I tried to paint an orange tabby cat in honor of my recently deceased kitty Milo.  Sadly, he turned into a scary looking muppet cat.  This canvas was painted over shortly after this photo was taken.

14 Canvases Project

I recently had fun participating in a project called the 14 Canvas Project, hosted by Seattle Handmade.  14 Artists were given canvases and told to make something with it.  We were all challenged to "think beyond the canvas."

Opening night of the show was this past Saturday.  It was really fun to see all of the ways that the artists had interpreted this project.  Each piece was so different.

Personally, this was a big challenge for me.  I wanted to do something different than just paint my canvas.  I started by trying to cut out flower shapes from it.  I was not happy.  So I ended up covering the whole thing with tissue paper.  I didn't like it.  Finally, attempt number three was successful and I created this.

I wish I had taken pictures of the project along the way to show you how my piece evolved.  I was frustrated because I was stuck with this one canvas and couldn't start over.  At the same time, I was challenged to come up with new ways to work with what I have.

Another lesson I learned during this was pricing.  As I start selling more and more pieces of original art, I'm realizing it's really hard to price accurately.  How do you put a number on creativity?  All this is to say, I under-priced my piece and was a bit embarrassed to see the price point of the other pieces on display.  Lesson learned.

If you want to check out any of the pieces in person, they are on display at Luther's Table in Renton, WA.