Art Refreshments

Sometimes it is necessary to take a break from painting and go out and enjoy some fabulous art.  I was lucky enough to tag along on my hubby's work trip to London last week.  We spent our first 2 days in relaxing Bath, UK.  Then it was full on art galleries for 3 days in London.  I managed to get to the Mall Galleries, the Royal Academy of Art, the National Gallery, the Portrait Gallery and the Tate Modern. I think my step count on the ol' fit bit was over 22000 steps most days.  Ah... but it was artsy heaven.  Below are some pics and captions of the trip.

Bath, UK - beautiful city, relaxing spa day!

Looking through the bone sculpture toward Kensington Palace  in Hyde Park

The Mall Galleries had the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition with some cool paintings

A Claude Monet painting at I think the National Gallery

This was a painting by Van Gogh I had never seen before, but loved the colours and movement

Laurits Anderson Ring - Danish Painter - This one reminded me of home

An interesting immersive exhibit by Olafur Eliasson at the Tate Modern

The tower of Babel - tons of radios playing random things

Monet's waterlilies - Tate Modern

A relaxing spot to sketch and rest my feet in Hyde Park

Strathearn Art Walk - Fun in the Sun

Finding some shade!

On Saturday, I  set up my booth at the annual Strathearn Art Walk.  It was a beautiful day, with lots of great artists / vendors and the weather helped draw a record crowd. This was my fourth art fair experience and probably the most successful one.  I had lots of wonderful people stop by and received some very positive feedback.  I managed to sell 3 original paintings, a few prints / cards, 3 potential commissions and made some great connections with other art minded people.  

Thankfully, my wonderful spouse helped me haul and set up / take down everything and gave me a break part way through.  I managed to race around the site to check out other booths - there were approximately 300 of them, so it took me awhile.  I especially enjoyed meeting some of the other artists and seeing their work.  I held a free giveaway draw for one of my prints, which was a good idea, as I now have a potential commission from that.

So my take-aways from this art fair:

1)  WEATHER is probably one of the biggest factors to a successful amount of traffic through your booth.  Not much you can do but come prepared and hope it is nice out!

2) LOCATION - the park was a really nice spot and most booths had great flow through of people.  Mine was right on a walking path, lots of people wandering by, you did not get to choose though.

3)BOOTH SET UP - not too crowded with stuff, lets more people wander through and looks clean.  

I did not bring a lot of extra art, so when I sold my pieces I didn't have much to replace them with - lesson for next time

4) SIGNATURE PIECE - wow, so many people stopped in because of my large central painting of the mountain town - trying to guess where it was.  Excellent way to start a conversation.

5)BE PREPARED - I finally had my Square credit card reader, a proper cash box, wrapping material for sold paintings - lots of business cards.  I seemed professional this time!!  I did run out of drinking water for myself and so did many food vendors, so I was pretty parched by the end.  More water and snacks next time.

I brought my Plein air easel and paints but as it was sooo busy I didn't have time for that.  I still think it is a good idea if it were a bad weather day though.

Check out this link for some good tips I reviewed (afterwards for some reason) Bob's ideas for art shows

Completed Series

Well this is the second painting of the old blue truck, entitled 'Out to Pasture'.  I enjoyed trying to get the rust and I really liked the bright purple peeking through here and there.  I am attempting a quick dry in the sun, so that the painting will not be tacky on Saturday for the Strathearn Art Walk.  It is the second largest art fair in Edmonton, with tons of vendors, music, food trucks, etc.  Hoping the weather holds!