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

Finished!

I had entered this into the Federation of Canadian Artists Postcard Competition a couple of weeks ago.  Was pleased to know that it was juried into the final judging - final winners are going to be chosen May 1st. Crossing fingers.

36x18" oil on canvas
Spring Thaw

Finally, I have completed my painting of Fernie, BC main street.  This has taken a lot of time and effort, but I am fairly pleased with the result.  It will be one of the pieces in my solo show at the Fernie Arts Station in July 2019.  Check it out in person then.

Market Madness!!

I always enjoy a good Farmer's Market and look forward to the outdoor markets starting up again sometime in April or May.  I have taken a number of pictures at them and became inspired to try and paint something.  

My first 'practice' painting is oil on black gesso on paper.  I did about 4 prepatory drawings trying to find a good composition, and came up with the 12 x 16 one below.  I had to use about 3 different photos.  I quickly became disgruntled with all the detail and some errors and it was not very loose, so I set it aside.

12 x 16 oil on black gessoed paper

 I was not ready to quit so I looked at my photos and what I kept coming back to in the photos was this happy go lucky shopper, almost skipping along with his purchases and enjoying the nice weather.  So... I decided to make him the focus and loosen up.  I got a bigger canvas, 14" by 18" and started again.  I am much happier with the result.  My colour photo of the painting below is not showing all the colours that well, the pavement has some pinks / purples and yellows, but overall it worked out okay.  I think I will try a couple more with this theme.

14x18 black and white photo of the painting to check my values

Warming up

The weather has been rather chilly here, but when you live in a cold climate YOU MUST get out and enjoy it or you will go mad!  We had a beautiful sunny day yesterday and spent it outdoors with friends and family   We had a fire and picnic - it was so cold the quinoa salad froze first as we ate it, then the bean salad soon after, potato salad stood up a bit longer.  Hot chocolate was essential, the marshmallow is just a sweet extra.

8x8 oil on canvas

Day 12 - Finishing up

Today's painting time was spent working on finishing up my Backyard Rink start - got rid of some trees, changed some background.  I am almost done, aside from some tweaking of values and sky.  Tried doing an extra 1 hour painting but only had 1/2 hour before running off to get kids, dinner and head for a meeting-so it got scrubbed.

12x12 - oil on canvas

Office Work

I have been picking away at a couple of paintings I posted on my blog earlier this month, trying to finish them off and get some critical feedback.  So... I have been painting each day but won't post the same paintings until they are done.

What I do want to talk about is what I have also been working on over the last month - developing my own website. After listening to many Savy Painter Podcasts and hearing numerous artists stating how important it is to develop your presence along side your artistic development, I bit the bullet. Creating your own website can be daunting and time consuming, but also worth it when you are starting out.  When I got a couple of quotes to have a website developed for me professionally, costs were above $2500, depending on how much additional marketing and assistance I would require.  I decided that until I can sell at least $2500 in paintings, I best spend my money on art supplies and honing my skills.  I purchased a fat book about Wordpress, which wasn't really too helpful, as it was already out of date.  What worked best was watching Youtube instructional videos - love the YouTube!!

I spent probably 20 hours now and I have a 'finished' website = click the link to check it out Tessa Stanley Art .  

The process includes:

 - choosing / paying for a web hosting company (I chose Bluehost based on my 'research' of hosts and costs) 

- choosing / paying for domain name for your website

- choosing a 'platform' in which to build your website - I chose Wordpress.org NOT Wordpress.com - this was very confusing at first as I accidentally signed into both at different times.  Wordpress. org is a self build platform versus Wordpress.com has pre-made designs, less work but less flexible.

- After watching a couple different Youtube videos about building your own Wordpress.org website I went ahead and followed along.  Early on in the process I almost gave up, but it got easier the more I worked at it. The resulting website, I feel turned out pretty good for a beginner, considering my costs were roughly $99 - $150 for Bluehost and domain name. $30 for the obsolete Wordpress manual. Time used - priceless.

I am sure when I start producing some really great paintings and want a more professional looking website I can spend some money on paying someone to build and maintain a website for me, but for now I am pleased with the result.  Have patience and try it!