Working It Wednesday: Creating a series

As those of you who have been following my blog know, I've been pondering the idea of no longer painting my Nativity sets. I've gone back and forth about it and decided to do both. That's right, both!

I'm going to retire the current Nativity set at the end of this Christmas season. I will then reveal a newly designed Nativity set next year in October for the 2017 Christmas season. I've decided to start a series where every year I recreate the Nativity set with a new design. This will keep my best selling Nativity sets available while also keeping my design unique and fresh. I'm excited to see how it all turns out! Note to shoppers, if you want one of the current Nativity sets you need to go to my Etsy shop and order one now because it disappears forever on Christmas Day!
You can visit my shop here: Etsy Shop

I've read before that artists should try and create a series out of items that have been successful sellers. I've never done it but feel it's a good time for me to start focusing on that. I've got my Nativity set that sells wonderfully but I've also got a few canvases that sell consistently that I may try to turn into series as well. There is a canvas I sold back in April that I've missed like crazy ever since then. It's a bird silhouette with a perfect turquoise background. On Pinterest, it's my most repinned pin. Seriously, it's at like 9,600 pins! That means 9,600 people liked my painting! I'd like to do a series spinoff of that. I honestly think it's my best painting I've ever done. And I never even took a truly decent picture of it! I've done other bird paintings but nothing ever looked quite as good as that one.

And there's a colorful, whimsical tree painting that almost always sells every time I paint it so that's a thought too. You can check out the colorful tree here: Whimsical Tree

While craft fairs are on hiatus until early Spring, this might be a great project for me to work on. So stay tuned for insight into series I'll be creating!

Working It Wednesday: Craft Fairs, Copycats and Custom Orders

Being that it's the day before Thanksgiving, I'm having a busy week! I've got pumpkin pies to bake and potatoes to mash but I also have art stuff to take care of too.
This past Saturday I had a booth at the St.Louis Catholic craft fair and it was an excellent way to end my craft fair year. It was busy pretty much from start to finish! I sold a couple canvas paintings, including one of my larger ones. Story stones, especially Nativity sets, sold very well too but the best seller of all were the polymer clay gift tags. They sold very well! I took a few custom orders for story stones and I've been busy getting those painted and ready for delivery. This was my final show of the year and aim looking forward to just focusing on Christmas now but I am already starting to plan out next year's events. Stay tuned and I'll post a list of events I'll be attending soon!
In addition to craft fair orders, my etsy shop has been busier than usual, all with Nativity orders. I love that the Nativity is still holding true to be my best selling story stone set. Recently, the 901 Rocks group I've mentioned before had a member copy the picture from my Etsy listing for the Nativity set and post it to the group Facebook page and ask if anyone would make her a set for free. And then someone, several someones actually, proceeded to do just that. The members of the group actually painted sets that mirrored my design almost exactly. Someone who had seen my work saw this happening and tagged me in the post. It's hard to explain how it felt to see my work being copied so exactly and given for free. Yes, it was super flattering that my idea was so well liked but it also hurts to see other people stealing my ideas. If they would've just put their own twist or influence on the Nativity sets it wouldn't have bothered me at all but they didn't. They just painted theirs to look like mine. And until that one person recognized my design and tagged me in the post, no one was even bothering to credit me as the original artist. Not being credited as the artist in the initial post lead to a few uncomfortable moments at my craft fair when more than one shopper mentioned they'd seen that exact set on 901 Rocks just that week. My husband said I shouldn't care and that people who paint 901 Rocks aren't the people who are buying my story stones. But while I do hate missing out on a few sales, it really isn't about that for me. It's more about my thoughts, my creative design being stolen. I'm trying really hard to be positive and not think negatively about it but it definitely is pushing me further away from painting rocks in the future. I'm actually contemplating not painting rocks at all anymore. We will see.
The most exciting thing I've been doing this week though is a custom canvas painting for someone who saw my work a few months back at Cooper-Young and decided she needed a new painting for her living room and she wanted me to paint it for her! This is perhaps one of the biggest compliments you can get as an artist. Her color palette was a bit different than my normal go to color palette so it was more of a challenge but still incredibly fun. Here is a picture of her finished custom canvas:

Well, my work is calling so that's all for blogging today! I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! 

Working It Wednesday: After the show

The Bartlett United Methodist Craft Fair was a smashing success! It was a 2-day event and by lunchtime on the first day I'd already made back my booth fees and started turning a profit. Usually 2-day events are mostly looky-Lou's and vendor to vendor shopping on opening day but this event had excellent turnout both days.

My booth was a great corner spot in the gym which meant I had space for people to shop and had walls to lean my canvas artwork against. This was a huge advantage as some of the vendor booths were squeezed along hallways and some people even ended up outside. I'm not sure how I got so lucky as to the space I got but I am thankful. The show was huge and had the most vendors it's ever had.

My Nativity story stones almost sold out and would have had I not gone home and painted more on Friday night. The set I donated to the church's silent auction ended up selling for double what they sold for in my booth. And many customers mentioned that they came to my booth just because they saw my Nativity set in the silent auction so it definetly paid off to donate the set. Many shows ask for item donations and I typically always give something. It's good advertisement. Other sets sold as well and I had several customers place special orders for story stones of themes I didn't have currently available. I was able to get those painted, glazed and delivered today.  I sold a few of the wooden trays I'd stained so I'm glad that I listened to customer requests from the previous show because it made a nice add on sale. I sold out of holiday gift tags and almost out of the more generic gift tags too. Three of my canvas paintings sold and I had several people ask if I ever offered paint and wine classes. This was mentioned to me at another show but I hadn't thought much about it. Perhaps I should think about it. It could be fun.

My next show is coming up next weekend! I'll be at St. Louis Catholic Church on Saturday 11/19 from 9am-4pm so if you're local, stop by and say hi! It's an annual event that apparently brings in vendors from all over so it should be a great opportunity to do some Christmas shopping! In the meantime, you'll be able to find me painting more Nativity sets and making more polymer gift tags!

Working It Wednesday: Website Building

So this past week I've been working on building my own website. It's something that I've been thinking about for a long time and I finally decided to go for it. Being that I'm one of the least tech-savy people I know, it has not been a quick process. Not totally miserable or anything, just not fast.

Why pay money and take the time to build a site? Well, it's something I've noticed that many of the artists I admire have. Sort of a place to tie everything related to my artwork together. I'll still have my Etsy shop and still blog here but my website will link it all together. My shop, my blog, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest all happily accessible from one site.

If you want, you can check it out here: www.wishesandwonderment.com

Keep in mind though that it is a work in progress. There are still a few glitches that I'm working out, especially on iPad view. Desktop and iPhone view seem to be okay though. And once I get all the little issues worked out, I'll fill it with more content and liven it up a bit. For now it's just bare minimum basic.

You may also notice that it has only canvas art featured. That's something I'm thinking of working towards. My love of art and crafting often have me doing a huge variety of things from painting rocks to canvases to glassware to gift tags. Personally, I like that I like a lot of different things. But I also don't like the lack of clear focus my shop and booth can sometimes have. And one piece of advice I've heard over and over is that I should aim for just one thing. I've been told this and I've read it and heard it in webcasts. I can easily narrow it down to two. Rocks and canvases. But the rocks have become a touch of an annoyance lately so I'm focusing on canvases for now. Back in July I hid a few painted rocks around town for people to find. Less than 2 weeks later, a group was started on Facebook called "901Rocks" where people paint rocks and then hid them all over town. And it went practically viral overnight. Initially I loved the idea and enjoyed watching people get so excited about painting rocks. I've even participated in hiding them around town. But then people at craft fairs began asking if I was the lady who started 901Rocks and when I said I wasn't, they ALWAYS ask if I took the idea from her. I didn't. I've been painting rocks for several years now. The thing about it that bothers me is I don't ever want people to think that I took someone else's idea, twisted it and tried to make money off of it. See, 901Rocks are supposed to be a free thing. My painted rocks are not free. So, until the luster wears off a bit for the whole 901Rocks thing, I won't be selling any individual painted rocks at craft fairs. I will still sell the sets of story stones that I have, including my nativity sets, but once they sell out, I may stop making them altogether aside from any special requests. We'll see. I just hate the thought that anyone could possibly mistake me for stealing an idea and profiting from it. In the meantime I think it will be fun to try and focus on just my canvas painting. It should bring improvements and strengthen my painting skills if nothing else.

I am also gearing up for a show this weekend. I'll be at Bartlett First United Methodist Church this coming Friday 11/4 through Saturday 11/5 from 9-5. My booth is #13 and is located in the corner of the gym. If you're local, stop by and say hi!
You can learn more about the event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/562359350639506/

Craft Fair Checklist

Since all I'm working on this week is organizing my art room I decided that this week's blog post will be different than my usual Working It Wednesday. Instead I'm going to share my craft fair checklist. It's a master list of must have items for vendors at a craft fair. Why a list? Well, because I like lists. And because when I was brand new to the whole craft fair thing I found several similar lists on Pinterest and they were quite helpful. Often times the days leading up to an even t can be so hectic and stressful that lists like this come in super handy the night before an event when your brain is just dead with exhaustion. So here's my personal list of must have items at a craft fair:

-Cash (Broken into a variety of small bills)
-Card Reader
-Phone
-Phone Charger
-Pens/Pencils
-Sharpie marker
-Notepad/paper
-A book (This gives you something to do while you wait for the crowds to roll in)
-Scotch tape
-Duct Tape
-Paperclips
-Rubberbands
-Binder clips
-Glue Dots
-Trash bags
-Pop up laundry hamper (Use as a trash can hidden underneath a table)
-Wet wipes
-Windex wipes
-Paper towels
-Kleenex
-Advil
-Bandaids
-Gum/Mints
-Water (Occasionally I'll bring a cooler with sodas too)
-Snacks (You do not want to blow all your $ on concessions)
-Business cards
-Bug spray (If an outdoor event)
-Sunscreen (If an outdoor event)
-Small portable fan (I got a great battery powered one from Walmart for $6)
-Inventory
-Display props
-Tables
-Chairs (The camping kind are great, especially if they have cupholders)
-Tissue paper/bubble wrap
-Bags (I bring a variety of sizes)
-Folding dolly/handcart

And that's my list of must have items. Every artist/crafter will have their own version of this list. It took several shows before I felt I'd created the best list for me. If you're new to craft fairs and wondering what would be best for you, I'd suggest browsing Pinterest and reading as many lists as you can, pulling out what applies to you and soon enough you'll find that you have your own list. I have a board on my Pinterest page where I've pinned tons of great articles and lists and tips for craft fairs. You can visit it here: https://www.pinterest.com/starrygirlb/etsy-and-craft-fair-tips/
It's a Pinterest board that I still pin to fairly often so feel free to follow it.

Working It Wednesday: After the show

Last Friday and Saturday was the Bartlett Hills Baptist Church Annual Craft Fair and it went really well. This was my first experience with a 2-day show and I think I like them better than single day shows. I also was allowed to set up tables the night before which I loved since it gave me a chance to see the space I'd been assigned and decide on my layout. Plus the added benefit of having one less thing to unload and set up on that Friday morning. I lucked out and got a corner space for this event and was able to try a new layout that pulled traffic through the booth rather than around it. My next event already notified me and told me that I've gotten a corner booth so I plan to use pretty much the same layout again.

As expected, my Nativity sets sold the best, followed by my gift tags. I did sell two canvas paintings as well but this event was much more geared towards holiday shopping than art shopping. I did not sell individual painted rocks at this event like I usually would've. It can get confusing when I sell the individual rocks and sets of rocks at the same event. People never seem to understand the difference and it just complicates things. Since I knew I wanted to sell the Nativity sets at this event, I opted out of the individual rocks and did a semi-mass production of some of my best selling sets. I stained wooden trays to display samples of each set on and then behind each tray I had a basket with pre-bagged sets of that sample. It actually worked well this way and I will continue to use this method of setup/display going forward. In fact, several of the customers who purchased sets of story stones actually asked if I sold the wooden trays that I was using as a display. Based off that, I've purchased a few more trays and plan to stain them and sell them alongside my Nativity sets at my next show. They're just simple, unfinished wooden trays from Michael's that I stained to match my other display props but they do look nice. If they do end up selling, I'll likely continue to make them. We shall see.

I've got two more craft fairs this year and I'm currently working to replenish my stock. I painted more Nativity sets and I'm about to make more gift tags. I bought some new holiday rubber stampers so I can offer a bigger variety of gift tags. With Christmas only being 9 weeks away I figure these will be a good seller and at only $1 each they'll make a good alternative to my $1 rocks that I usually sell. Awhile back someone told me to always offer something at a cheap price point when I do shows and so far, that's proven to be great advice. Those little dollars here and there do add up pretty quickly!

I have started to receive notifications of events accepting applications for 2017 fairs but haven't yet signed up for any. I'd like to do more than I did this year but want to be sure I take my experiences and make wise decisions on which events are right for me. I definetly seem to do better with smaller school and church hosted fairs than massive community hosted events so I'll be giving those priority. I'll keep you posted here as I start scheduling those events.

Working It Wednesday: Instagram Giveaway

This week I've got a lot of small projects going, most of which aren't all that exciting. Fun, but just not anything you all haven't heard about before. Rock painting, booth planning, and so on. But the one thing that is exciting is that I'm currently hosting my very first Instagram giveaway! Several of my Etsy friends have done them and I've always liked them so I decided it was time to participate and host my own.

The giveaway is a set of my Nativity Story Stones. It began on Monday and runs through 10/7/16 at 8pm CST. Complete contest rules can be found on my Instagram page (@Wishesandwonderment) 

If you haven't entered yet, be sure to hop on over to Instagram and check it out! 

Working It Wednesday: Holiday Season Prep

This week I've been getting a jump on something that I completely missed the boat on last year. Holiday items. More specifically, the Nativity Story Stone Set that I make every year.

Last year, amidst moving to a new state and taking on the largest commissioned project I've ever had, I missed out on several chances to sell Nativity Story Stones. I had several people request them via Etsy and Facebook that I unfortunately, I had to decline simply based on the time I had available. I hate turning down any chance to create something for someone. So this year, I've decided to get a head start and I've been pre-making several Nativity sets. I know it's early in the season for holiday items but I really regretted not having them on hand, already made last year. I'll be selling them at all my Fall Craft Fairs as well as through my Etsy shop.

The Nativity sets are a favorite of mine. And a best seller in my shop. Since I began making them, several other Etsy shops have started making them too but I'm of course partial to my own style and design. They're simple and childlike. Bright and colorful. Perfect for those little ones with curious, need to touch everything hands. Definetly more durable than the porcelain set my mother had when I was growing up! If you want one of these sets for your little one (or just for yourself!) you can find them in my shop here: www.wishesandwonderment.etsy.com  or if you're local to Memphis, pick one up at one of the following Craft Fairs:

Bartlett Hills Baptist Church Fall Craft Fair 10/14-10/15
Bartlett UMC Fall Craft Fair 11/4-11/5
St. Louis Catholic Church Annual Holiday Craft Fair 11/19

Or, if you want to score one for free, follow me on Instagram (@wishesandwonderment) and watch for a giveaway coming soon!

Working It Wednesday: Defining Success

Well Cooper Young Festival has come and gone! First and foremost, let me announce that it did NOT rain. Almost all week the forecast showed high chance of thunderstorms and rain and I was super panicked that the event would be rained out. Thankfully, all my prayers were answered and it didn't rain. There was a very light sprinkling around 10am that lasted maybe 5 minutes at best. By afternoon it was all sunshine. Lots of fiery hot sunshine.

So how did the event turn out? Well, that depends on how you look at it. Or rather how you define success. If success is defined by making a profit, then yes, it was a success. I covered all my fees and still turned a profit of a few hundred dollars. That should make me very happy but it doesn't really. More like it leaves me feeling kind of blah. See, everyone I'd spoken with who had participated in the event before swore that this was the most profitable event they did all year. They told tales of bringing in profits in the thousands. I knew the event got major traffic. Like 130,000+ each year. So with that in mind, I imagined this being my most profitable event as well. Now my items are very inexpensive so I wasn't expecting to make two grand or anything but I did hope to get close to a thousand. I didn't. I did sell the highest amount I ever have before but after the high booth fees (which I normally don't have) I fell just shy of the $400 mark.

I also spent a significant amount of time preparing inventory for this event in comparison to the others I've participated in. I also had to get significant more help with the event than ever before. I had so much inventory and so many booth props that it required multiple car loads. My brother had to get up before the sun and drive downtown to pick up a shelf and stool that I couldn't squeeze into my car. My sister had her car loaded to the brim with all my inventory. And then my husband, both my siblings and their spouses spent part of their day helping set up, work and break down my booth. I always have some help at a show but never have I needed that much assistance. I'm very grateful for each and every one of them and all that they did to make the day run smoothly for me. But having to have so much help and having to spend so much time preparing inventory made it feel like an unsuccessful event when I counted up the money at the end of the day. If it'd been a smaller, less help needed event, I would have felt like it was more of a success. The booth next to me had a serious abstract artist who sold several expensive paintings. One of them was $2,500. Yep, $2,500 for a single, abstract painting. That in and of itself can make one feel a tad unsuccessful. As a side note, this artist did paint very beautiful pictures.

But I did take away some valuable lessons from the day. I should not participate in events that have such high fees. It's not practical given that my prices range from $1-$40. By the time I've earned back my booth fees, there isn't enough left to make a happy profit. I should stick to the smaller, free and cheap events. I also learned that the amount of traffic doesn't always equal sales. The festival was packed but I saw more people with beers and pronto pups in their hands than artwork. I may do better at events geared more closely to art than to festivities. I also confirmed that I need a better way to show my paintings. I've got to figure out how to get more of them upright and vertical. I have some easels but not nearly enough. This is actually not a new thought but more of a confirmation. Oh, and I also can't be the person responsible for taking pictures. I didn't take one single picture. All that work and I didn't take a picture of the tables. I'm also starting to think that I need to narrow down my niche'. Most artisans have one specific thing they create and I'm still doing variety. Perhaps I'd do better to focus on just one type of art. I'm still thinking on that though.

So what did sell? I sold out very quickly of my Memphis skyline canvas paintings. I actually wish I'd had more of them to sell. Also sold out of my 901 (Memphis area code) wine glasses and mugs. Wish I'd had a few more of those too. As usual, I sold lots of my $1 painted rocks. I sold a few other small paintings too. And I had someone who saw my work at the festival send me an email about potentially doing some custom work for them.

So what's up next? Well, I have the Bartlett Hills Baptist Church Craft Fair in October and the Bartlett First United Methodist Church Craft Fair in November. Both are smaller than Cooper Young but are regular annual events so I expect good turnout. Both were cheap to participate so I'm not worried about covering my booth fees. And best of all, they're indoor so I won't have to worry about weather at all. Overall, I'm optimistic that they'll both be good events.

For now, I am busy updating my Etsy shop and painting some Nativity Sets for the upcoming season. You can check out my shop here if you want to see what's new: www.wishesandwonderment.etsy.com

Working It Wednesday: Cooper Young Festival!

Okay, okay, so I am aware that I've missed the past several Wednesday blog posts and I apologize. I've been busy busy busy! A nasty little bout of bronchitis had me feeling like I was on death's doorstep for a couple weeks. (I mean, who knew that breathing was so important?) Add in a few overnights of niece-sitting, a mini-trip to St.Louis and a wonderful weeklong trip to Oahu for my 16th anniversary (I have the best husband ever!) and there's little time left for blogging! Oh and most importantly, add in all the Cooper Young Festival prepping! I've done lots of that! I've got 400 painted rocks, 40 painted glasses, 100 painted pendants and bracelets, and 65 canvas paintings. That's the most inventory I've ever had on hand at any one given time. My art room has spilled over into the hallway it's so full! I've got my booth all planned out and my happy helpers lined up. I'm actually a little nervous that I'm forgetting something because I'm basically finished prepping. Like, shouldn't I be in a mad panic rush to finish everything right now? I'm not. And I sincerely hope that doesn't mean I've missed something.

Cooper Young is finally here! It's this coming Saturday the 17th from 9am-7pm! I will be in booth A75, which is located on Cooper near the intersection of Nelson. Sort of across from Soul Fish Cafe. If you are local to the Memphis area, I'd love for you to stop by my booth and say hi!

And if you're local or not, I'd LOVE it if you could send up a few prayers for me! The weather forecast currently shows rain and plenty of it. I've been praying like crazy for clear skies and welcome anyone else who could do the same. The festival has Sunday set as a rain makeup day but that forecast looks wet too. If the whole weekend gets rained out, the festival is cancelled and no booth fees are refunded. If this happens, I will seriously cry. Probably an ugly cry. Nobody wants that. So please, say a quick prayer for sunshine if you could! And if you've got some extra prayers to spare, say a prayer or two that the event runs smoothly for me! Thanks in advance!

I'll post pictures from the event next week but in the meantime, here are a few pictures of things I've been working on!

Working it Wednesday: Displays

This week I've been continuing to prep for Cooper Young by painting canvases and rocks. I've also been really, really researching different options for displays within my booth. I've read blogs, Google searched, and Pinterest hunted for hours on end. My displays need to be pretty, coordinated, packable/easily transported, and affordable. That's quite a challenging combination! Usually the ideas I find that I like aren't feasible for me either because of portability or cost. This week though I was able to come up with a new idea!

The table that I display my rocks on is never very eye-catching from a distance because the rocks don't have any vertical height. Once you stand over it and look down, it's great but it's always bugged me that you couldn't really see the rocks well from across the booth. Enter my new idea: shadow boxes!

I found an inexpensive shadow box on Amazon and ordered 3 of them. My plan is to stain them to match the wooden crates I use so that everything is coordinated. Then I'm going to attach a block of wood to the back of it so that it is propped up at the top end so that it sits sort of at a slant. This will allow a few of my favorite rocks to be featured in a way that can be seen from across the booth. I'll still have rocks randomly arranged, lying flat on the table around them but at least this way some of the rocks will have more vertical visibility. Here's a picture of the unstained shadowboxes:

I'll post final pictures once it's all stained and the prop is attached. For now, I'm off to scour Pinterest in search of ideas to display my canvas paintings better! 

Working It Wednesday: Catching Up

As you may have noticed, I was MIA last week. Where was I? Well, I was lucky enough to spend my week volunteering as a camp counselor at New Hope's kids camp. It was so much fun and I really want to do it again next year but after taking a week off work I am running behind on creating inventory for Cooper Young. So all in doing this week is playing catch up and trying to paint as many canvases as possible. I only have 37 canvas paintings in hand right now and I really want more like 75 on hand when show time rolls around so needless to say, I've got some serious catching up to do! No time for blogging, must paint now!

Working It Wednesday: Memphis Rocks

I'm not feeling so hot today so this week's post will be short and sweet. This week I've taken a break from canvas painting and worked on painting rocks instead. As I've mentioned previously, at shows I sell my story stones individually for just a $1. For Cooper Young I want to do a special theme of "Memphis" rocks so I've been doing a big variety of those in addition to my regular rocks. Here's a sneak peek of what I've finished so far.

Want to show your Memphis love with one of these rocks? Well, you'll just have to come see me at Cooper Young in September! 

Working It Wednesday: Booth Planning

It's still early but I've started planning out my booth for Cooper Young. If you've never done shows then you'd probably think all you have to do is design your booth one time and then just use the same game plan each show you do. That would be nice but it isn't realistic. See, every show is different and every show has different booth factors. The sizes vary, sometimes you get a corner booth, sometimes you're squished between two other booths, and so on. For Cooper Young I will be between two other booths and the booth size is 10x15 instead of the standard 10x10. 

In the past, I've had lots of brilliant ideas for booth layout only to discover at set up time that the brilliance of my idea didn't quite fit within the confines of my allotted booth space. That's never a fun moment. So, to plan more appropriately this time, I've devised a new plan. I created a grid of 1x1 blocks and measured it out to 10x15. Then I cut out tables, chairs, shelves, etc.that I often use inside my booth. Now, I can play around with my brilliant ideas and make certain they'll actually fit in my space instead of waiting until event day and hoping they do. I still haven't nailed down my dream layout but at least now I can play around a little more easily until I do. There's a picture below but it's hard to see since I used white paper for both the grid and the prop cutouts. And I also Threw in a picture of one of my usual front view sketch of my booth ideas. Once I get my ideas finalized I'll be sure to post a picture of the layout and the sketch. 

Working It Wednesday: Cooper Young Festival

What have I been working on this week? Prepping for the Cooper Young Festival of course! I am so incredibly excited to announce that I have been accepted to participate in the 2016 Cooper Young Festival in September!

For those of you unfamiliar with the event, it's a massive annual arts festival held in Memphis every year. And by massive I mean MASSIVE! Like 130,000 people attending the event, massive. There will be music, food, art and so much more. You can learn more about the event here: www.cooperyoungfestival.com

Now I realize that September is still a good ways off but if I plan on doing an event with traffic of 130,000 then I have to build up my inventory asap! The booth fee for Cooper Young is $225 which is more than double what I would usually pay for an event but this one is so consistently successful that I feel comfortable that I'll be able to make my booth fee back and still have a nice profit. But I'll need lots of inventory. Over the next several weeks it's likely anything I work on will be for my inventory stash. So this week I've been painting my mini-canvases (8x10) . I usually sell these between $10-$12 each at my events and do pretty well with them. Usually at events I'll have just one of each painting. For this event, I'm doing it a little different and having several variations of the same painting so that I can replenish as I sell. I'm starting by duplicating my best sellers,like my colorful trees for example, but I'll be adding new works too. Here is what I've done (so far!) this week:

Some of these can be found in my etsy shop here: 

www.wishesandwonderment.etsy.com

But others I'll only have available at Cooper Young.

My booth assignment is A75, which will be just past the intersection of Cooper and Nelson. If you're local, I would love for you to stop by and say hi! For now, back to work on my paintings...

Working It Wednesday: Abstract Art

After taking a few days off to relax and rest after all my VBS work I did some abstract canvas painting.

I've always been somewhat torn about abstract art. Is it really art? Can't anyone do it? Well, yes. Yes to both of these common questions. But even though I know the answer is yes, sometimes I question if I'm doing anything special and wonder if there isn't something better I could do with my time. And then I decide it doesn't matter. If I like it and think it's pretty then that's really all that matters. So I painted yesterday, spreading random colors of paint across the canvas until I decided I was happy with it and this is what the result was: 

One thing I do disagree with is the idea that abstract art is worth hundreds of dollars. I hate when I'm out somewhere and see a painting priced at like $750. If you're famously known and renowned that's one thing and totally understandable but the average unknown artist charging those kind of prices drives me crazy. You'll never find me selling art at those sort of prices. I'll probably end up selling this one for $40 at a craft fair or possibly in my Etsy shop. That covers my canvas and paint costs and provides a little profit. 

Working It: Volunteer work

So I didn't blog last week and I know today isn't Wednesday but I have seriously been working it and I've just now gotten time to blog about it. I was asked to decorate the sanctuary for New Hope Christian Church's upcoming VBS and their theme this year is Deep Sea Discovery. Now, growing up, the churches I attended never did much by way of VBS decorations. There were maybe some posters or signs but no real decorations that I can remember. New Hope goes all out. Like, really, really big, elaborate decorations. But hey, I've got some time and a touch of artistic talent so I figured I was up for the challenge. After some serious Pinterest researching, I sketched out my ideas and mentally planned out how long it would take me to make everything. Seemed simple enough. I figured it would take 4 or 5 days tops. I figured wrong. It took more like 8 or 9 days. Most of which were pretty labor intensive days. Things I thought would take a couple hours ended up taking a couple days instead. Thankfully, I'd allowed 2 weeks even though I anticipated finishing in just 1 week. But as of tonight, it is finally finished and it all turned out beautifully (in my professional opinion) and I'm sure the kids will love it next week during VBS. I fully intended to take tons of pictures along the way but now that I'm blogging I see that I missed LOTS of photos of steps in the creative process. I did get some pics though so I can at least share those.

The original sketches. 

Step 1 in creating the rocks of the coral reef: tear up old magazines.

Step 2: Tape balls of magazine pages to 3 sides and the top of  a sturdy box.

The completed product of Step 2 in making rocks. I had to do this 5 times. This was the smallest of the 5 rocks.

Step 3 of Rock Making was one of many things that I forgot to take pictures of. It was to create a 50/50 mixture of glue and water and paper mache over the taped up boxes. It is recommended that you do 2-4 layers of paper mache. For the sake of time, I only did 2 layers. Let it dry for 24 hours.

Step 4 of rock making: Coat each box in Dryloc to give both durability and texture.

Step 5 was also left out of the photos. It was to spray paint each box with a light sand colored satin paint. 

Step 6: Bring out the details of the rocks by sponge brushing a darker tan color over the spray painted boxes. 

This is what the rocks looked like when I was finished.

For seaweed plants, I cut old cardboard into plant shapes and then painted them in three different colors of green so that they would look more realistic than a simple one-tone green color.

I created coral for the rocks using a can of spray-on expanding foam. It was the thing I thought would be the hardest but ended up being the easiest, least time consuming thing I made. I laid out sheets of wax paper, taped bamboo skewers to them, and simply sprayed the foam over the skewers in random, coral like patterns. Then I let them dry for a day before spray painting them neon pink. I have zero pictures of this process which stinks because it would have made a great pinterest tutorial. 

To make sea stuff to attach to the rocks I took small styrofoam balls, covered them with bamboo skewers and spray painted them in bright blue. Not 100% certain what sea life/sea creature they're supposed to be but they added color and texture and someone else had done it on Pinterest so I did it too. Easy enough to make but I did end up with several teensy tiny little splinters that were a pain to pull out. And of course I didn't take any pictures, go figure.

I also took natural sponges and spray painted them neon yellow. They ended up absorbing a lot of the color and turned out more mustard than neon but that's ok. Again, no pictures were taken.

And lastly, to decorate the rocks, I took Dollar Tree pool noodles and sliced them up. I used lime green ones but really any color would've looked great. These were super easy to cut but gave me a real pain when it came time to super glue them to the rocks. Lets just say it took multiple tubes of super glue and several command strips to get them to stay. I ended up feeling very thankful that I'd only planned to incorporate a small amount of them onto the rocks. 

The church had provided me with a poster of a submarine and a sea turtle. I took those and using a repositionable glue, attached them to foam core and cut them out. I had no clue how hard it is to cut foam core. This ended up being my least favorite task but still turned out great.

I used simple green crepe paper to make seaweed around the submarine and school of fish.

 To make a school of fish, I took old bubble wrap and cut random, free-handed sizes of a basic fish shape. I laid them out, ever so slightly overlapping them and tacked them together with dots of super glue. Then I used my fingers to wipe various bright colors over the bubble side of the plastic. This was easy and I sorta liked how the bubbles in the wrap, once painted, looked like fish scales.

The end result of the centerstage for New Hope Christian Church's 2016 VBS!!!

Working It Wednesday: Watercolor Pencils

This week I played around with watercolor pencils for the first time. Until recently, I'd never even heard of them and had no idea such a thing existed. They're kinda cool in that you can use them dry just like regular colored pencils or you can wet them and they turn into watercolor paint. There are different ways to get the wet effect. You can dip the pencil tip directly into the water and then color on the paper or you can color dry on the paper and then brush water over the paper. I tried the second, using a paintbrush to spread water over the paper.

Here's a step by step of what I did:

I started by sketching out my picture. I used watercolor paper and dry watercolor pencils. The pencils genuinely feel like plain old regular colored pencils when you use them dry.

Once my feather was sketched out, I added a short quote.

Then came the fun part! I took a clean watercolor paintbrush and carefully brushed water over the paper. You have to be extra careful on this step because using too much water will smear all your colors together. Sometimes this could create a nice effect but in this particular case, I didn't want all my feather colors blending together so I tried to use my water sparingly. On the short quote part I used the water a little more liberally and you can see in the picture below how the color spread nicely across the paper. 

As a final touch I took an extra fine sharpie pen and went over the lettering and the stem of the feather to make the detail pop a little more. Here is how the finished project turned out:

All said, I liked how the lettering turned out with both the pencils and the sharpie. I think this would be a great technique for me to make some greeting cards with. I will need more practice playing around with the pencils and water on the multi-colored pictures. Not over watering the colors and blending them together definetly takes practice. In the meantime, I may take a few quotes and paint them/color them onto blank greeting cards and list them in my Etsy shop. You can watch for them to appear in the shop here: www.wishesandwonderment.etsy.com

Working It Wednesday: Just For Me

This week I've been working on a little something just for me! Several years ago I took some sharpies and wrote all over a canvas some of the cool things I've gotten to experience in my life. It wasn't anything fancy but I've always liked looking at it, thinking back over fun times.

Since I created it, I've done so many more things since then (I've lived in 4 states since then!)  that I decided it was time for me to create a new one. And this time I wanted to make it prettier.

I started by painting a few bright watercolors on a blank canvas.

Once that was dry, I used a sharpie paint pen to put an Oscar Wilde quote in the middle. It's one of my favorites. I could've just used a regular sharpie marker for this but the paint pens have a glossy finish that will make the quote stand out a little more once it's surrounded by a bunch of writing.

Then, I grabbed a sharpie marker and got busy writing my life experiences across the canvas. This is where I messed up by assuming I didn't need to use a ruler. I always need a ruler yet always convince myself that I can freehand without it and still keep my lines straight. In truth I could've used a larger canvas as there were many things I wanted to add but couldn't because I was out of room. I may end up re-doing it on a larger canvas and with the help of a ruler, but for now, I'll just let it hang as it is on my art room wall. So, imperfect as it is with my uphill slanted handwriting, I still like it. For someone like myself who loves taking trips down memory lane, this is just perfect.

Working It Wednesday: Mother's Day Gift

This week I've been working on a little gift for my mom for Mother's Day. I'm actually giving it to her today so that's why I'm able to blog about it without ruining the surprise. Awhile back I'd seen a picture of an angel on a greeting card on Pinterest and immediately thought of my mom when I saw it, planning to paint it for her at some point. Well, with Mother's Day around the corner, I figured it was a good time to paint it. 

I began by painting the backdrop of the canvas. This is probably one of my favorite parts of canvas painting. I absolutely love how the paint colors blend together. I used dark brown, tan, emerald green and turquoise to create the background of the 12x12 canvas.

Once the background paint was dry I started working on the angel. The picture that inspired this had a beautiful pale blue on the dress of the angel but I prefer turquoise (and was also out of pale blue paint) so I started with that and then slowly blended in touches of the emerald green, brown and gold.

Once the angel itself was dry, I painted a clear gloss finish over the whole thing. This is something I just started doing in the past year. It gives the painted canvas a nice, completed feeling and helps the colors stand out better. I'm pleased with how her painting turned out and I'm sure she'll like it!

Then I wrapped it up, adding one of my polymer gift tags to the wrapping. I am NOT a present wrapper and am in fact, Queen of the gift bags but canvases always look nicer when wrapped in brown butcher's paper so when I give paintings (or sell them) I usually wrap them. Under normal circumstances though, if you get a gift from me it will either be in a gift bag or not wrapped at all. I'm incredibly terrible at it, ask anyone in my family.

Anyway, I've also been working in my Etsy shop this week, getting things replenished now that I've gotten a few craft fairs out of the way. I'll be adding a few new paintings this week so if you like my work, feel free to check them out here: www.wishesandwonderment.etsy.com

Working It Wednesday: Watercolors

First, let me say that last Saturday's V and E Artwalk was a success! Sold lots and lots of rocks as well as paintings! Definitely learned a lesson about doing back to back shows though. You shouldn't do it unless you have really built up your inventory. I sold through nearly all my canvas art at the East Buntyn Walk and even though I spent hours on end painting replacements, I still don't feel I had enough stock on hand to really make a good showing at V and E. I did good but could have done even better if I'd had more paintings and rocks on hand. If ever I do this again, I'll prepare far in advance!

Now, on to what I've been working on this week...

After taking a day to rest and recoup, I decided to try my hand at watercolors. I own plenty of them but aside from childlike play with nieces and nephews, I've never done much with them. So today I dabbled in it and for a first effort, I'm pleased. I will probably need to watch some tutorials and such if I ever expect to do anything worthwhile with it though. It was fun to try my hand at something new for a change and who knows, perhaps I'll discover a new talent within myself. 

My first attempt at a Memphis skyline silhouette.

Single sunflower.