What's next?

Here's a photo of our shared booth. The sign above our booth said "Art as a Living". That was the name of the workshop that the Guild sponsered for teachers. Michigan art teachers could participate in the workshop then send in slides of their work to be juried. 5 of us were selected to share the booth. The Guild provided the tent and display units, and guidance from professional artists. It was very generous of them. This gave us the opportunity to experience what it is like for professional artists firsthand. I know this experience will benefit my students.

Now that the Ann Arbor Fair is over, I'm on to thinking about what I should do next. I sent some prints up to a local coffee shop for display today. I need to get more work up around town. I have a lot of original work for sale, and quite a few prints in a variety of sizes.

My artist friend down the street stopped by today to invite me to a workshop she's giving on Aug. 14th. That will be fun! I'll get to spend the day painting. She also invited me to participate in a small show at her house with a few of her other artist friends. That will be in Sept. Sounds like great fun to me. I'll get to meet her friends and try to sell some more work! So, I have to get ready for that now. I'll need to send postcards, and work on some display racks. Hopefully, we'll have good weather! Can't wait!

The Ann Arbor Fair was a good experience, I'm so glad I had the opportunity. I can't help but be disappointed however that I didn't sell enough to cover my expenses. Hopefully, I will get back the money through later sales. I have a lot to figure out on the business side of things... It would be great if I had some sort of manager to do all that for me. I need a rich patron!

I'm also thinking about the direction of my painting. I'm in the middle of 2 paintings that are barn scenes. They are off to a great start. I need to get back at it. We'll be camping next week, so I'll probably get some drawing done there- although, I am bringing along Harry Potter... that might be all I do for the whole trip, read and relax. My daughters just finished the book and loved it, it is sad that it's the last book... I'm going to take my time and really savor it. Talk to you soon.

details, details, and more details

There sure are a lot of little things to take care of. Today I took 5 more pictures in to have professionally photographed. I left postcards advertising the fair at a few places. I bought some more mats and frames for the prints I had made. Spent time matting and framing. The prints look great in the black mats with black frames. I'm really pleased with the way they came out. I hope I have time to frame the snow crab pictures, they would look really good framed the same way. The beach pictures look great in the black mats too. I priced some more things today too. My costs are really adding up! I hope I make some money back!

business cards arrived!

Hooray! My business cards came in the mail today. I like the way they turned out! And the business that printed them was easy for me to use, they sure have been sending me a lot of emails though... I guess that's smart on their part, they send lots of enticing offers... I used www.vistaprint.com It will be fun to hand out cards at the Art Fair. I hope they bring me good luck!

email

This is what my card looks like on the front. I also created a new email address today just for my painting business. If you want to buy a painting you can email me at juliatimetopaint@yahoo.com.

getting more done!

Today I ordered business cards, so it's official! I'm in business! Or, at least it feels official. I'm not really sure what makes a business, but it's probably not just having a business card. This is the picture I put on the back of my card, and I also wanted a little pink on it to match the lettering so I also added a part of the bleeding heart painting. It does look a little sappy, but I guess I just need to admit that I'm a little sappy. I can't help it that I love flowers and the color pink. I also ordered 4 frames online, I hope they work out well because they are way cheaper than anywhere in town.

Yesterday I drew at Ave's studio, she's the one that told me about the online frames. It was fun to see her since it's been so long- probably last summer... I haven't been figure drawing for quite a while so it was nice to give it a whirl again. Part of me feels like I don't have time to mess around like that right now, but I do love to draw people even though I have trouble with proportion when it is so direct like that.

I tried to see Laura's work in the show that's at the same building that Ave has her studio, but her stuff was in the locked part- it won't be open until the weekend. I'll have to go back and check it out. It's an Urban Artwork show, what I did get to see was fun stuff -graffitti like.

My gyclee prints should be in today, I'm anxious to see how they turned out. So, I want to get hooks today and pick up the prints so I can show them to my art fair booth-mates tomorrow. We are meeting at noon at the restaurant that will be across from our booth. It will be good to see them again and talk over the details. It would be nice if I could have a draft of my pricelist before tomorrow so I could get ideas from them.

business cards

Did I say business cards would be a quick, easy thing to do? I was wrong! I tried at home on my Dell. I don't have a program with quick, easy templates for that kind of thing like I have at work. I tried using my daughter's Mac but I'm so slow with it because I'm not used to it. I tried looking around on the web, messed around with a few websites- time flew- hours later I had accomplished nothing! I'm learning!
Next day at work I tried a few templates, added pictures of my paintings, came up with something that looked good enough. It's fast for me at work because I am used to the computer and the programs. I can't print in color at work, so I thought I would just email it to myself at home... it was too big to send through the school email.
My solution- I burned a CD to take home.
At home- my computer at home won't open it because I don't have a compatible program. I looked around for something on the web to open it, but I don't know enough about what I am looking for so I give up for now. I'm stuck for now. This is taking too much time. More time than I wanted to spend on it. I'll figure it out later though. I want to have cards by this weekend.
This probably is funny to all you tech saavy people. See how hard it is to have not grown up in the computer age? Let me remind you that I learned to type on the old manual typewriters in High School. I never worked on a computer until I had been teaching for awhile- and that was back when the computer screen was black with white letters! I think they were commadores or something like that. I really can't believe what we can do now, it really is great to have so much available to us!