Tag Archives: art

Exploring Visual Art

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I begin to explore visual arts: watercolor painting, drawing, and linocut printing.

In my previous post, I shared a lot of info about how I’ve been moving from creating with words to creating with my hands. In a quick review of that post, I realized that I didn’t share much about the art I’ve been exploring.

Painting

Bob at Easel
A publicity photo of Bob Ross.

It started with Bob Ross. You know — the white guy with the afro and soothing voice from the PBS The Joy of Painting series? I don’t recall when I started watching his videos, but I must have seen at least half of them. They’re all on YouTube and if you want something to calm you down or put you to sleep, I highly recommend them.

I wanted to try what he was doing. It looked so easy. But I had no artistic skills. I knew that if I wanted to follow along, I’d need the exact materials and tools he had. But the idea of working with (and cleaning up) oil paints was daunting, especially with so much time spent traveling every year. So I never hunted them down or bought any.

And then I started thinking about watercolor and how easy it was to clean up and how it didn’t matter if the paint dried in your palette. And I started watching YouTube videos about that, starting with videos by Jenna Rainey. I bought her book (as I’m prone to do), Everyday Watercolor, and started following along with her exercises, using her suggestions on brand and colors of paints, brand and sizes of brushes, and brands and types of paper. That’s how I wound up using Winsor & Newton Professional Watercolor paint in tubes, Princeton Heritage Series 4050 Synthetic Sable Brushes, and mostly 100% cotton cold press paper. Not the cheap stuff, but not crazy expensive, either.

It worked out well for a while — until I got bored painting leaves and flowers, which is apparently what she mostly paints. Around this time, I also saw a change in her videos. She’d obviously made the YouTube big time and had money to burn. She had a new studio and new camera set ups and was extremely self-promotional. As a YouTube creator — you know I have a YouTube channel of helicopter videos, right? — I know how they push us to bring in more subscribers, viewers, and money. I find it a turnoff when it goes beyond a certain level. She had gone beyond that level. So I stopped watching her videos.

(I’m so sick of YouTube creators caving to the demands of YouTube and video sponsors.)

I started watching other videos and reading other books and learning from other watercolor artists. Here’s a list if you’re interested:

YouTube Channels

I watch more YouTube than any other “television.” There is so much to learn online there if you are careful about what channels you watch for good info. Some are just plain crap. And I didn’t think I’d ever say this, but if you watch a lot of video, subscribe to Premium. It’s worth it just to get rid of those f*cking mid-roll ads that YouTube demands creators include. You can always fast-forward through the sponsor messages, which are prevalent on popular channels.

Anyway, here are the watercolor artists I watch most on YouTube these days.

  • Paul Clark
    Paul Clark looks like a nice guy, no?

    Paul Clark is a Brit who does a lot of line and wash painting, which I like. He explores other styles, too. He’s got a nice sense of humor and I enjoy watching him paint.

  • Karen Rice Art features another Brit who does a lot of abstract watercolor painting, which I like. She’s very down to earth, with a good attitude.
  • Erin Eno is a watercolor artist with lots of beginner and otherwise very easy tutorials. My only gripe with her is that she has a tendency to overwork her paintings — it’s like she can’t finish. I’ve also seen evidence that she experiments while she records video and has no idea how something will turn out. This occasionally leads her down a bad path, so beware if you follow along!
  • The Mind of Watercolor is Steve Mitchell’s channel. I think it’s more advanced than some of the others, but it does include beginner videos. I like his style, mostly because he’s just explaining things one artist to another.

  • Diane Antone
    Diane Antone. Not sure about the hat.

    Diane Antone Studio is an ambitious channel with lots of new videos every week — she promises a new one every day. These days, many of her videos seem to be the obligatory video created solely to reward a sponsor for sending her product. To make matters worse, I’m pretty sure she’s the one who gets preachy once in a while. (After a while, they all blur together in my mind.)

  • Paul’s Watercolor Studio (which is a new name for that channel) features another Brit named Paul. I don’t like his videos quite as much as Paul Clark’s and I noticed that he’s been doing a lot more promotional stuff than he used to. But he’s still a good resource.

There are a few more I watch once in a while, but I can’t really recommend any of them. So many of them are the same stuff over and over. Or “artists” talking about their life while they put blobs of paint on wet watercolor paper and then doodle on the result with permanent markers. Not something I can really learn from.

Books

I already mentioned one book. Here are a few others I like:

  • Watercolour Book Cover
    Paul Clark’s watercolor book. I bought the ebook version, which is easy enough to consult while I’m painting.

    Watercolour: Techniques and Tutorials for the Complete Beginner by Paul Clark. Yes, the same Paul Clark as the videos. It’s full of practical exercises that build on each other and are not limited to leaves and flowers. I’m working my way through them slowly in a watercolor notebook I have. Oddly, I can hear his voice in my head as I read the text.

  • Watercolor Workbook: 30-Minute Beginner Botanical Projects on Premium Watercolor Paper by Sarah Simon. The best thing about this book is the color mixing recipes with places to paing your own version beside or beneath a sample. It’s challenging to get it just right. The exercises are pretty much the same, requiring you to outline a drawing and then color it in with the colors you mixed for the exercise. The paper is not “premium watercolor paper” by any stretch of the imagination. It’s thick and rough (like cold press) but is definitely not cotton and does not handle water well. I’m about 1/3 done with the exercises but I’m bored with them. Too much like a coloring book.
  • The Complete Watercolorist’s Essential Notebook: A Treasury of Watercolor Secrets Discovered Through Decades of Painting and Experimentation by Gordon MacKenzie is basically a tips book, with a few exercises to illustrate each tip. It’s extremely thorough and has the kind of tips that it could indeed take decades to come up with. It’s the kind of thing I dip into once in a while to fill in the gaps of my knowledge.

The trouble is, watching videos and reading books is not the same as practicing what’s in those videos and books. I got immersed in other things in my life — traveling on my own boat, organizing my last season of flying work, prepping my house and packing for a prolonged trip (with a new house sitter to hold down the fort). I didn’t practice much and, when I did, I didn’t like the results. I was getting seriously discouraged no matter how many videos and books I consumed.

Drawing

And then there’s the simple fact that I can’t draw my way out of a paper bag.

I would never be able to make anything more interesting than blobs of color resembling flowers and trees viewed with my contact lenses out unless I learned how to draw the things I wanted to paint. I love the concept of line and wash — where you take a rough drawing done in permanent ink and add watercolor washes for color, highlights, and shadows — but the only way I could do such a thing was to start with someone else’s picture. That’s fine for practice, but I should be able to do better.

So I started watching videos and reading books about drawing. Here’s what I found helpful so far.

YouTube Videos

Artisto Videos
The Artisto Sketching Course on YouTube covers all the basics.

I’ve only seen one series of videos so far and I admit that I fell asleep watching them so I need to watch them again. It’s the Artisto Sketching Course on YouTube, which I discovered on a slip of paper that came in an Artisto notebook I bought. I can’t say much about it other than the fact that it’s a good primer that covers all the basics. Next time I watch them, I won’t be sitting on the sofa at the end of a long day. I’ll be sitting at a table with a sketchbook and sharp pencils in front of me.

Books

I’ve also looked at a few books, two of which I really like.

Again, watching videos and reading books isn’t enough. I have to practice all this stuff.

Enter Linocut Printing

As if I didn’t have enough art-related hobby stuff to neglect, I got interested in another type of artwork: linocut printing. It started when I watched a YouTube video suggested by The Algorithm: Artist Demonstrating Picasso’s Reduction Linocut Technique. I was fascinated.

Linocut is a method of block printing where you carve a picture or design into a piece of linoleum (or something similar). You then apply ink to the cut surface, put a piece of paper on top of the cut, and rub the paper into the ink (or put it through a press) to transfer the image onto paper. Whatever you carve away has no ink on it so the paper stays white. Whatever remains raised is inked and creates the image. In a reduction linocut, the original linoleum carving is carved away before each color is applied. If you’re having trouble understanding this, do watch the video. It’s very good.

Speedball Kit
The Speedball kit I bought. The only thing missing was drawing skills and paper. I had one of those things.

I probably wouldn’t have gone any farther with this, but I happened to be in Hobby Lobby — which I honestly do hate with a passion but it’s the only art supply store in town now — and they had a Speedball Water-Based Block Printing Starter Set on sale for just $19.99. It had everything I needed (except drawing skills; I wish they came in the box) to create and print a linocut image. I bought it. I carved a simple seascape drawing with a lighthouse and ocean and waves and a crescent moon. It printed okay. (Not good enough to take a picture of since I don’t seem to have any pictures of it and now it’s packed away so I can’t take a picture.)

I was hooked.

Watercolor of Berries

First Berry Print

Colored Berry Print
The inspiration for my berry linocut print (top), my first print with chatter (middle), and my first colored in print (bottom).

What I wanted to do was create single color linocut prints and then use my watercolors to apply color and shading. It would be a line and wash, but the line would be a block print.

But I had a problem. The kit came with water-based ink. Even after it dried, it smeared when it got wet. It would definitely not work with watercolor paints. I needed oil-based ink. That wasn’t available locally, so I bought some online at Dick Blick. I bought Speedball Oil-based Relief Ink because that was the only brand I knew.

Meanwhile, I saw a simple watercolor painting on Mastodon that inspired me. I printed a copy of it and traced it onto Speedball Speedy Carve Block. Since the oil-based ink hadn’t arrived yet — Dick Blick has a great selection, but shipping takes over a week — I printed it with my water-based ink. It came out ok, although there was more “chatter” than I wanted. I’d need to do more carving to get rid of it, but that could wait until the next print, with the oil-based ink.

Although I knew I couldn’t use my watercolor paints to color my print in, I did have oil pastels — we called them “cray-pas” when I was in elementary school and I loved them. I used them to color in the berries as blueberries and apply a gradient background over the chatter. I was pleased with the results. It wasn’t perfect, but at least I liked it. (Ask anyone and they’ll tell you that I’m my worse critic.)

Of course, I needed to learn more. So I started watching more videos and reading more books. And I started learning about more interesting techniques to apply the colors, like chine collé. There was so much to explore!

YouTube Channels

Here are a few very good channels with linocut content worth watching:

  • Handprinted has all kinds of videos about all kinds of printmaking. Very approachable.
  • Laura Boswell Printmaker has more advanced tutorials and demonstrations that really show off what you can do with printmaking.
  • Linocut Elina Artist is wonderful for demonstrations of reduction printing, although she focuses on the actual printing part and not the cutting part. The videos I’ve seen on this channel are not narrated, but they’re fun to watch. I especially like the “Red Rooster” demonstration.

Books

Block Print Magic Book Cover
I absolutely love this book and can’t wait to work through all the exercises.

I only have one book about linocut printing (so far) and I love it. It’s Block Print Magic: The Essential Guide to Designing, Carving, and Taking Your Artwork Further with Relief Printing by Emily Louise Howard. It covers all the basics about tools and materials, explains how to keep cutting tools sharp, and then launches right into several projects, with lots of illustrations and step-by-step instructions.

I’m looking at a few other books online, but I think I’ll hold off until I get to Dick Blick in Washington DC next month where I hope to be able to browse better.

It’s All Packed and Shipped

I can’t do any artwork right now because I’ve packed and shipped all my materials and tools to my boat. After a long, dull summer at home, I’m finally heading back to Do It Now next week. I’m spending these last few days packing and cleaning and getting the house ready for its live-in house sitter. I barely had time to write this blog post, which I started this morning and then finished after a long day mowing my lawn, taking my trash on its 2-mile drive to “the curb,” and prepping my garden for winter.

It’ll take a few days to unpack everything I’ve shipped to the boat — I’m thinking there should be about 20 packages waiting for me when I arrive — and reprovision for the first leg of my trip south for the winter. I’ll be spending more nights at anchorages and should have plenty of time to get some practice in. With luck, I’ll be able to show off more work in a few weeks, assuming there’s work to show. I’ve also decided to do block printed holiday cards this year and will be working on those.

In the meantime, if you have any insight into any of this and want to share some of your favorite resources, please take a moment to leave a comment on this post. I’m really interesting in learning as much as I can from as many good sources as I can. Can you help? Don’t be shy! Leave a comment!

Starting My Watercolor Adventure

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A video from my personal YouTube channel.

Silly me! I’ve taken up a new hobby: watercolor painting! I started cheap to make sure I liked it before diving in. I do! So I purchased some better quality materials, which just arrived today in time to pack them for my upcoming boat trip.

This video tells you about my progress so far and shows some of the exercises I’ve completed. Then it gives you a tour of the new materials and equipment I’ve acquired. Enjoy!

Words of Wisdom from a Graphic Novel

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It can be deeper than you might think.

When I was a kid, I glazed over the comic book phase a lot of kids go through. I don’t think I read more than 10 of them. They just weren’t interesting to me. I preferred regular books.


I read The Watchmen at least 15 years ago.

So it’s understandable that I wouldn’t be too interested in graphic novels. In fact, I didn’t know much at all about the genre until years and years ago when I read The Watchmen. This is before it was made into a TV show on HBO (which I still haven’t seen; I’m not an HBO subscriber). It struck me as interesting, but I didn’t really get much out of it. Maybe because I was reading it the way I read books? Fast to get through the story?

I’m older now and I’m more interested in expanding my horizons. That includes what I read. I generally don’t enjoy the latest bestselling literary fiction; I find it dull: too many long, meandering stories that have no satisfying end. The Goldfinch, although beautifully written, was like that. I read a lot of action fiction (think Jack Reacher and Jack Ryan) and mystery fiction (think Dorothy Sayers, Raymond Chandler, and yes, even some Agatha Christie). I’ll read one book by an author and, if I like it, read five more. (That’s what ruined Robert Ludlum’s work for me: his plots are so totally formulaic, which is obvious when you read five of his books in a row.) I also read Star Wars fiction beyond the movies and television shows. I didn’t realize until a few years ago that there are scores of books in the canon and many more that were written before there was a canon.

Anyway, I was reading a book of Neil Gaiman’s essays, The View from the Cheap Seats, and was enjoying the way it made me stop and think about things I’d never really thought about before. I’d read some of Gaiman’s fiction — Coraline, The Graveyard Book, American Gods, The Ocean at the End of the Lane — heck, I didn’t realize I’d read so much of his work until I drew up this little list — but had little knowledge of his graphic novels. But the Sandman series, which is apparently his magnum opus in that genre, was mentioned in one of the essays and I decided to check it out.

I’ll be the first to admit that I avoid buying books these days. It’s embarrassing for a writer to admit, but there it is. I simply read too fast to invest in a book I’m likely to read just once. I’m. not saying I don’t buy books at all — unfortunately, I do. I buy too many books. I have hundreds of books at home, some of which I never even bothered to unpack after my 2013 move from Arizona to Washington. This year, 2022, is the year that I will begin to liquidate my library. (I need to downsize for an upcoming lifestyle change anyway.)

Instead, I use the library where I get books in two formats: ebooks and audio books. I read ebooks in the morning with my coffee and sometimes in the evening before I go to bed. I read audio books while I’m driving or working on jewelry projects in my shop. It’s not unusual for me to be reading two very different kinds of books at the same time. (I’m extremely fond of Random House productions of Star Wars books. Great narrators who voice each character individually and sound effects/music that really dramatize the work.)

I tracked down The Sandman Volume 1 at my library using the Overdrive app and put it on hold. A week later, it was available and I was able to read it on my iPad using a web browser.

I absolutely loved the art that started each chapter in the edition I was reading (which may differ from the edition I linked to above), but really did not like the actual art within the book. But I looked past that and read the story. Or at least tried to. My brain was not accustomed to reading the graphic novel format. I often read things in the wrong order. I found myself missing things because I was too focused on words and not focused enough on the story told in the images that went with them. I got the main gist of the story and enough details to enjoy it — despite the gruesome violence in some parts. But, at the same time, I wasn’t much interested in trying Volume 2 (which my library does not have anyway), especially if the same artists illustrated it in the same style.

The last story in Volume 1 introduced the Sandman’s sister, Death. On a whim, I decided to give Death: The High Cost of Living a try. It was available in my library in a Kindle-compatible format, which turned out to be great for me. This format didn’t show a page at a time unless that’s what you wanted to see. Instead, it used a zoomed in technique to show one or more frames at a time. I’d swipe to expose more frames or zoom to the next frame. It made it impossible for me to read text in the wrong order and it magnified the content so that it was easier for my old eyes to read and enjoy.


Death is portrayed as an attractive goth chick.

I’ll start off by saying that the book is dark. The main character, Death, is portrayed as a friendly, attractive goth girl/woman. (Older than a girl but somehow younger than what you might think as a woman.) The people she meets with in most stories are people who are contemplating suicide or will die shortly or have died or are facing the death of someone else. So the main theme that is explored in various ways is death itself.

As I read, I worried over and over about young people who are contemplating suicide reading this book and thinking its okay. But that’s not the message that comes from it at all.

The book is really about life. That life isn’t always easy. That we make our own lives. That we have to take the bad with the good because the bad helps us see how good the good really is.

The first piece of dialog that really hit me hard is something that I’ve always believed and try so hard to tell other people — especially young people:

… Let me tell you what you get. You get life and breath, a world to walk and a path through the world — and the free will to wander the world as you choose.


Death and Destiny share some good advice with a suicidal teen.

This was said by Death’s brother — I think it was Destiny, although his name was never mentioned — to a teenage boy who had climbed to the top of a Ferris wheel one night to kill himself. He’s depressed because his mom died at the World Trade Center and he blames God for letting it happen. He wants to die so he can ask God why he let it happen. Destiny tells him that God doesn’t answer questions. Later, Death joins them in the panels shown here.

This book is full of stuff like this.

Anyway, I’m enjoying this book a lot more than The Sandman. Part of it is the artwork. Another part is the clear messages it’s sending about life and death.

It’s a quick read for me, especially since I don’t linger much over the artwork. I’m nearly done. But it was on my mind this morning so I thought I’d blog about it.

My Twitter friend Juliana mentioned today how re-reading books at different times of her life bring out different aspects of the books. (I’m paraphrasing a conversation here.) I think she’s right.

I think it’s time to read The Watchmen again, just to see what I missed the first time around.

Welcoming a Vaccine Mandate

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I share some thoughts about how Washington’s upcoming vaccine mandate may affect my participation in an art show.

Custer's Arts & Crafts
The Christmas Arts & Crafts shows are just two of the shows Jim Custer Enterprises produces.

Yesterday, I got an email from Jim Custer Enterprises, a Spokane-based company that manages arts and crafts and other shows in Washington state. I’m signed up to participate in two of their holiday art shows in November this year. The email was related to a vaccine mandate going into effect on November 15, 2021 for all indoor events to be attended by more than 1,000 people.

My History with Custer Shows

This will be the first time I’m attending any of Custer’s shows. I had originally applied to one of their shows way back in spring of 2019 but my application was late and they were already full. I applied again for the November 2019 shows and was waitlisted. Undaunted, I applied again for their two spring 2020 shows and was accepted. But then Covid came along and both shows were cancelled. The November 2020 shows were also cancelled. So were the spring 2021 shows.

But the November 2021 shows were not cancelled and my previous acceptance got me in without going through the whole reapplication process.

There are two shows — one in Pasco and one in Spokane — and both are indoors. Most of the artists I know in the area are familiar with the shows and several from Leavenworth’s Village Art in the Park, where I sell my jewelry a few times each year, are going to both of them. They say good things. I was slightly concerned when I learned that the shows had an admission fee — it seems to me that less people will attend if they have to pay a fee to get in — but I suspect that if people are willing to pay to attend, they’re also more likely to buy. I’d rather have X number of serious shoppers than X times 5 number of browsers who are coming to waste time (theirs or mine) or look for ideas for their own work.

Because both of the upcoming shows are in November, they are holiday shows full of gift buyers. I’ve been spending the past week making jewelry and, will continue to do so right up until November 3 when I have to pack for the Pasco show. It would be a crying shame if I ran short on inventory and I’ll do everything in my power to prevent that from happening. These two shows are the last two I’ve got scheduled for 2021, so I want them to be successful. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, 2021 is the year that ML Jewelry Designs will finally turn a profit — after years of investing in equipment, materials, and education and taking a big hit from Covid closures in 2020. These shows will be my last chance to make that profit big.

The Vaccine Mandate

The email message I got from Custer talked about a vaccine mandate that I was not aware of that takes effect on November 15 and how it may affect the Spokane show. It started like this:

We are sending this email today to bring you updated Covid-19 protocol information. Last Friday, Washington State Governor Jay Inslee announced a new Vaccine Mandate that is going into effect on November 15, 2021. If you are an artist in both our Pasco and Spokane Shows, this mandate only applies to the Spokane Show since it will take place four days after the mandate goes into effect.

It then went on to provide exact wording from the mandate:

Everyone over the age of 12 must show proof of Covid-19 vaccination (verified by CDC record cards, photo of the card, printed certificate or screenshot from MyIRMobile.com or other immunization records from health providers) to attend the event OR show proof of a negative Covid-19 test taken within 72 hours of the event.

It then explained how the mandate affected the show and reminded artists that if they have not been vaccinated yet, their only current option is the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, since there isn’t enough time now to get both shots of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines prior to the show. If the artist did not want to get the vaccine at all, he/she would have a very narrow window to get the Covid-19 test and prove negative results prior to the show — and testing is backed up in Spokane right now.

(Honestly, I think that anyone who makes a living participating in art shows who is not vaccinated is a total idiot — how can they risk regular exposure to so many people without protection? But hey, I believe in science and I think the “personal freedom” argument is a lot of bullshit fed to gullible people incapable of their own thought by manipulative “conservatives” in their never-ending efforts to divide Americans into Us vs. Them.)

Expected Trouble

The email includes the following, which also came to my mind:

If you are wondering how this will affect attendance, we are in the same boat. There will be people who will be frustrated and upset by the mandate who will make it political. There will also be people who will feel more comfortable attending because of the mandate. At this point, we are so happy to be having any show that we will take what we can get! Truly, it’s better than last year when there was no show at all. The people that will be there, will be ready to buy! There’s no doubt about that.

First of all, I have to admit that I will feel a lot more comfortable participating in a show with this new mandate in effect. I had the less effective J&J vaccine — which was the only one available when I went to be vaccinated at the end of March — and am not sure if I’ll be able to get a booster prior to the show. I’m terrified of becoming a breakthrough case — two of my vaccinated neighbors got it from a vaccinated employee who tested negative three times before a positive test result. That tells me that I can’t put 100% of my faith in either vaccines or tests. Despite that, I feel a lot safer knowing that everyone attending will either be vaccinated or have gotten a negative test. While this does not eliminate the risk (in my mind, anyway), it does greatly reduce it.

I should also reiterate here that I’m not worried about dying of Covid-19. I’m worried about long-term effects that could possibly reduce my quality of living for the rest of my life.

Unfortunately, both shows — Pasco (to be held pre-mandate) and Spokane — are in the red side of our blue state. That means many folks have bought into the “conservative freedoms” argument for not getting vaccinated. Never mind that vaccines for polio, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, shingles, tetanus, and flu have been either required or widely available and used with little or no side effects for decades. These people have been convinced that their personal freedoms are being threatened by Covid-19 vaccine mandates and that it’s their “God-given Constitutional right” to refuse a vaccine that has the potential to save their life or at least help them avoid a serious, contagious virus.

So I suspect there will be a lot of push back including, but not limited to arguments at the gate. Violence would not surprise me. I hope Custer hires a good security outfit.

I also suspect that folks will be using — or trying to use — fake vaccine cards. I sure hope they’re caught. I believe they should be arrested, but I suspect they’ll just be turned away. If they’re caught at all.

Will folks who, like me, are worried about Covid be more likely to attend? I sure hope so. I’d honestly prefer selling my work to like-minded folks. I’m sick and tired of listening to anti-vax whiners moaning about their freedoms while putting my health at risk.

Meanwhile, I have to admit to hoping that a few angry, idiotic artists back out of the show in some sort of protest. First of all, I don’t need two work among people like that. And second, well, less competition.

It’s Business

In the meantime, I have a lot of sympathy and respect for the folks at Jim Custer Enterprises. These people make their living producing shows and everyone I’ve spoken to about them agrees that they are good people. I can imagine how having to cancel shows for a year and a half must have affected their business. No income for that period! It’s a wonder they’ve been able to survive at all.

It’s this closing paragraph that sums up their situation to me (emphasis added):

As we wrote in our cover letter when you first applied, flexibility is the key to your successful show participation this year. We are in a global pandemic and it is not over. Yes, everyone has an opinion about it. However, as business owners of a company who brings together large numbers of people, we will continue to trust the science and comply with whatever mandates will help the shows go on.

No matter how the show turns out, it’s a real pleasure to do business with an organization that not only thinks like this, but isn’t afraid to make their thoughts on the matter public.

First Art Show of the Season

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Surprisingly successful.

This past weekend was my first art show of the season. It’s at a venue which is usually good for me, but this time, it was surprisingly good. I thought I’d blog a bit about it.

But before I go into a report of this past weekend’s art show, let me begin by explaining how I sell my work. (You know me; there’s always a back story.)

My sales channels

I sell most of the jewelry I make in three different channels:

  • My Art Show Booth
    My art show booth as it appeared this past weekend in Leavenworth. I was fortunate to have an end spot and be open on three sides.

    Art Shows. This accounts for far more than half of my sales, but it’s the hardest work I do. I (normally) pay a free up front for booth space and then, on the day of the show, arrive early with a 10×10 foot tent, tables, table covers, signage, and merchandise displays. I set everything up — it takes roughly 90 minutes — placing my work as artistically and practically as I can. Then I sit in the booth all day — sometimes for as many as five days in a row — to sell what I’ve brought, make more inventory (when possible), and take/make orders for custom items. Then, at the end of the show, I pack everything back up. The benefit: I (normally) get to keep 100% of the selling price for each item.

  • Wholesale and Consignment Sales. This accounts for maybe 15% of my sales and involves a lot less work — but at a cost. My wholesale price is 50% off the retail price; consignment fees are typically 35% to 40%. Even though it costs more, I prefer wholesale sales — once an item is sold, I can pretty much cross it off my inventory and forget about it. (The exception is the trade-in policy I offer for my wholesale clients; if something doesn’t sell in their shop in 6 to 18 months, I allow them to trade it in for another item.) Consignment is a royal pain in the ass. Not only am I letting a consignment shop hold onto my inventory (so I can’t sell it myself), but I need to keep track of all that stuff. And if an item is lost through theft at their shop, I’m pretty much screwed. Or if they go out of business while they have my stock, I have to worry about getting it back. Needless to say, I really don’t do much on consignment. What’s nice about these channels, however, is that they do often lead to a regular stream of sales with monthly income. So there’s that.
  • My Online Store. This accounts for another 10% of my sales. Right now, I’m using Etsy, but I hope to switch to a more professional solution soon. Etsy takes a small cut of each sale — it’s less than 10% (unless the sale is related to a special ad they’ve placed) — so it isn’t the cost that bothers me. It’s being in an online retail space with people selling cheap, imported junk that they’re trying to pass off as their own work. The only thing that keeps me with Etsy is their integrated shipping feature, which not only makes it easy to ship to addresses all over the world, but gives me a discount on USPS postage costs.

The rest of my sales are face-to-face to friends and acquaintances. That’s a tiny percentage of the total.

This Weekend’s Show

This past weekend I was at Leavenworth Art in the Park. This is a weekly art show in the center of town that has been fine-tuned over the past year for COVID. Right now, it’s operating with only 15 artist vendors in widely spaced outdoor booths; when restrictions ease a bit more, I suspect it’ll go back to its previous capacity which was about 20.

Art in the Park
With spacing for COVID, booths are able to be open on all sides.

Leavenworth, Washington, is a small town in the foothills to the Cascade Mountains. It’s a gorgeous location, nestled near mountains that remain snow-capped for much of the year. Its Bavarian Theme is what brings tourists in all summer long. The town also has (or had before COVID) lots of festivals, including a three week long Oktoberfest and big Christmas celebrations. The area has tons of hiking, white water rafting, camping, and other outdoor activities. It’s a nice place to visit, although admittedly a bit too touristy in town for my taste.

Leavenworth, WA
Downtown Leavenworth, WA was completely redone years ago to require Bavarian style architecture. One of the nice things about COVID — there are silver linings if you look for them — is that it got the town to close down the main street to vehicle traffic to make room for outdoor dining.

Elk horns
One of the draws to Leavenworth is entertainment, like this elk horn group. I shot this photo from my booth; it was very close to where the entertainment was.

I started showing/selling my work at Art in the Park in 2019. I attend on a limited basis because my primary work, which is cherry drying with my helicopter, requires me to be close to the helicopter in the Wenatchee area from roughly June 1 to August 15 every summer.

In a way, my limited time there is a good thing. Leavenworth is 50 miles from my home and the days there are long: 9 AM to 6 PM. Add that to my one hour (each way) commute and I’m looking at 11 hours. Spring and early autumn can be cold, summer can be hot. Parking is a pain in the ass. There are long lines at restaurants and, often, for the restrooms.

The reward of being there, however, is great sales. Folks who come to Leavenworth come to be entertained and to spend money. They shop in town and at the Art Show. They eat and drink in countless restaurants and bars. They stay in local hotels. They are in money-spending mode. And because most of them come from the Seattle side of the mountains, they have a bit more disposable income than the local folks I used to sell to at smaller venues in downtown Wenatchee. A pendant priced $59 isn’t a big expenditure for these folks, so I can actually sell and make money on my work.

This weekend was a great example. Although it was the second weekend of the show, it was my first weekend attending. I set up on Friday morning and began selling almost immediately. By 6 PM, I’d sold more than I had in an entire weekend on my last show. I did even better on Saturday and almost as well on Sunday.

Overall, it was the best weekend I’d ever had at any show anywhere.

Pendant
Here’s one of the pendants I made while I was sitting in my booth on Sunday morning. I made a total of six pendants that day.

It was so good that I spent most of Saturday and Sunday making more inventory. My wire work pendants continue to sell well in Leavenworth and I made five custom pendants for customers while I was there. I also made a bracelet and three beaded necklaces. This week I’ll be making a lot of earrings in my shop.

Now although the booth fee at Art at the Park is remarkably low, the non-profit organization that runs it does take a cut of sales: 21%. So I don’t get all of the money I brought in. But 21% is a lot less than the 35% or 40% I’m paying two galleries to show and sell my work. And I sold a lot more this past weekend than I’ve sold in my three year relationship with both galleries combined. So I’m definitely not complaining.

I’m doing two more weekends at Leavenworth this month. Then I’m stuck in Wenatchee for most of the summer. I applied to a show in Wenatchee in June and another show in Chelan in July. (I had to find a booth sitter for the July show in case rain is possible and I need to stay home.) I’m scheduled to go back to Leavenworth in August and September, but I may need to cancel that because of a conflict with another opportunity that I’m not quite ready to discuss here yet.

And if you’re a Leavenworth tourist reading this, I sure hope you’ll stop by Art in the Park while you’re in town. It’s open on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from about 9 AM to 6 PM (or 5 PM on Sundays). I believe it’s also open on Thursdays between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Support local artists and makers!