Art This Way Preparation

For a while now I have wanted to take part in some sort of arts fair to sell some of my work, get myself seen and hopefully make a bit of money. I didn’t really know where to start though. This summer, the opportunity arose for me to take part in a local art trail called ‘Art This Way’ in Loughborough. The idea is that a number of houses, all within close proximity to each other, open up their houses and gardens to host an arts and crafts sale. Local artists and designers sell their work from all disciplines including textiles, painting, photography, sculpture, ceramics and various other crafts. They also sell tea, cakes and homemade pizzas to raise money for charity. It has been running for a number of years now and this year there were twenty artists taking part, spread over five houses. 

Other than what I had seen when attending this event in previous years, I felt like I was going into this a bit blind. I had my stock ready after packaging up what I had made to sell on Etsy, but I knew that compared to some of the other artists selling their work, I would have very little. The problem for me was that I didn’t know how well my things were going to sell and I didn’t to make a huge loss on this or end up with tonnes of leftover stock. Cathy, the lady whose house I would be showing my work at, was kind enough to talk me through what normally happens and she also gave some help with pricing my items in accordance with the other goods on sale. I was wary of underselling my work but at the same time, I wanted the pricing of my work to fit in with the tone of the event and the pricing of similar products to my own. 

Cathy was really helpful and while we were chatting she also gave me an insight into how she got into the job she is doing now. She is a textile designer and currently works for Bentley cars. It was really interesting to hear how she got into this industry and it was actually down to the RSA which I had not heard of before. She won a competition brief designing upholstry for Ford cars while she was studying at Loughborough University, part of her prize was a placement with Ford and she has never looked back. It really shows that it pays off to get involved with any opportunities you are given! 

I made some last minute business cards for the event, the reverse side of these all have my patterns printed of them so there are a variety of different designs. I struggled to know what to describe myself and I think this is why I keep putting off getting some business cards professionally printed. I am really looking forward to the weekend, I will be there on all day on the 2nd and 3rd of July. Hopefully it will be a positive experience and I will learn a bit more about what to expect from these kind of events. 

Making Products to Sell

I had been putting off making an Etsy shop for a little too long so after setting up an account, I finally got round to making some things to sell after all my deadlines were over. I have been using designs I have created for my college modules and other personal work I have done this year so it was just a case of getting things printed and going through the processes of making them into different products. There is also an opportunity for me to maybe sell some of my work at a local arts fair at home so I am bearing this in mind when making these products too. 

I started off making greetings cards and basic saddle stitched notebooks. I produced some digital prints of some of my designs, I made them all 7x5 inches in size so they would fit a standard sized frame. I think this size is quite small so depending on the success of these, I will consider making some larger ones in the future. I used the offcuts of leftover patterns to make gift tags and saw that this was working quite well so I printed some of my designs on a smaller scale purely for this purpose. I realise that gift tags are small and cheap and this might not be a viable product to sell online as the cost of postage may make the overall price slightly unreasonable. However, it could be something I choose to sell at the art fair instead or give away alongside online purchases. 

I tried to be quite thrifty with my making processes, using materials I had leftover from other projects and tactically arranging my designs ready to print to keep the printing costs low. Because I really didn’t know how successful this venture was going to be I wanted my overall costs to be as low as possible but still without compromising on quality. This made it hard for me to come up with an actual figure I had spent on making all of these things, and therefore there won't be a clearcut answer as to how much I make as a profit or a loss. I have spent no more than £25 making these products but I can’t put a price on the materials I already had lying around.

I really enjoyed making all of these products. As much as I love drawing, I also love making things with my hands so this was the perfect way to tie these two things together. The products I have made are better than I had imagined they would be and I have already received promising feedback from the people I have shown them too. I really hope they are successful so I can carry on making things like this!

Here are some examples of the products I have made. 

ELCAF 2016

Last weekend, Ellie and I decided to go down to London to East London Comic Arts Festival (ELCAF). An event including the term ‘comic arts’ would never have previously appealed to me as I just thought this would be about comic books which I don’t really have an interest in. However, since experiencing thoughtbubble festival last year and really enjoying it, I thought this might be a good thing to go to as well. 

ELCAF was packed full of creatives which made it a great atmosphere. Everyone was so friendly and the professionals were happy to talk to us about their work and seemed interested in what we were doing too which was really nice. We got talking to Kristyna Baczynski who was keen to talk to us about her work and how our studies were going. We also spoke to Jon Boam who had previously done a workshop at college, and Pete Fowler who we recognised from the Made You Look documentary. 

On a side note, it really struck me how many of these people are actually really shy and some conversations were a little awkward. It really highlighted to me how interpersonal and conversational skills can really work to your advantage in this industry. Thats not to say that those who are a bit quieter won’t do as well, but I think at events such as these it really stands you in good stead if you are a ‘people person’. I think I have come a long way with my confidence since being at Leeds College of Art and this is something I need to maintain and keep improving on. I was painfully quiet and shy as a child and I am so happy I forced myself to talk to people and speak up in my later school years. University is a big step in itself and moving to a city where I don’t know anyone has definitely helped me to be more confident when talking to new people. I think my job as a student ambassador is helping me to work on these skills while still remaining professional - its all good practice! 

It really was a great day, tiring but inspiring I would say! Half of me wanted to go home and make things and the other part of me just needed sleep. 

A lot of things caught my eye but I had to hold myself back from spending a small fortune. I did pick up a few bits and pieces though. 

The ‘Pages on a Theme’ book by Kristyna Baczynski reminded me that I really do need to keep drawing over summer. I love the idea of drawing around a theme and cramming a page totally full of pictures. This might be something I try over summer to keep my drawing skills going. 

The black and white postcards by Iselle Maddocks caught my eye, probably because I like working in monochrome so much. You can’t tell from the pictures but the postcards were printed on really nice stock which made the product feel so much more complete and professional. I think stock is something I need to consider in more depth next year as I want to produce products of high quality. Sometimes a poor material choice can really let an image down. 

The Freddie Mercury zine by Kim Clements really made me laugh. I think I need to be less afraid of doing something that I might think is a bit silly. I also bought Mike Medaglia’s book ‘One Year Wiser’ which has an illustrated meditation for each day of the year. I think this is a concept which would have tied in nicely with my applied illustration module but really, I’m just hoping it keeps me sane through third year!